Alice Cooper - Elected

 #Alice Cooper #hard rock #heavy metal #glam rock #art rock #classic rock #glam metal #garage rock #1970s #music video

Alice Cooper’s truly hilarious promo film for Elected, features everyone’s favourite shock-rocker cruising the streets on his fictitious presidential campaign, ‘meeting’ the public (including one lady who appears to think he’s an actual candidate) and planning his next senatorial move with the aid of a suited-up chimp. It’s hard to convey in words just how expertly assembled this bit of irreverent comic nonsense is, from the moment a limo pulls up to reveal him grinning out of the window, to the madcap rally invaded by someone in a sub-Banana Splits elephant suit at the end, but if you’re familiar with Elected and know how good it is, then saying that it’s a perfectly judged visual accompaniment should get the manifesto across just fine. What’s particularly interesting is that while this may all seem like a two-fingered response to America’s political establishment in the wake of Watergate, the actual scandal was still some months away from breaking when the song was recorded and indeed released as a single, and this promo film will almost certainly have in fact been filmed while the initial attempt at covering up was taking place. Nothing ever hits quite so hard as inadvertent satire way before the event.  From: https://timworthington.org/2020/08/07/were-all-gonna-rock-to-the-rules-that-i-make/

Forget Marilyn Manson, forget the Sex Pistols; when it came to shocking the self-appointed guardians of international morality to the core, Alice Cooper pretty much wrote the handbook. Flaunting a sketchy past swathed in urban legend and cunningly fabricated falsehoods concerning witches, ouija boards, dismembered chickens, blurred genders and necrophilia, Alice Cooper succeeded in outraging the forces of decency to an unprecedented degree over the course of his casual early-70s transition from cult notoriety to mainstream ubiquity. Cooper’s infamy was such that in May 1973 Leo Abse, the incumbent Labour MP for Pontypool, spluttered in the House of Commons: “I regard his [Cooper’s] act as an incitement to infanticide for his sub-teenage audience. He is deliberately trying to involve these kids in sado-masochism. He is peddling the culture of the concentration camp. Pop is one thing, anthems of necrophilia are another.” The nation’s leading censorial nanny figure, Mary Whitehouse, head of the National Viewers’ and Listeners’ Association, offered eager support to Abse’s campaign to ban Alice Cooper from returning to the UK. But as public reaction veered in the general direction of hysteria, sales of Billion Dollar Babies (Cooper’s most provocative recording to date) soared stratospherically; then, as now, controversy sells, and in 1973 nobody was selling more than Alice Cooper. Of course, back in those days Alice Cooper were a band; five individuals who had translated a shared fascination for the mop-tops and the macabre into a million-dollar industry that had not only brought them universal vilification as depraved, corruptive pariahs, but also celebrity beyond their wildest dreams.
The quintet’s story begins innocently enough in Phoenix, Arizona, when track athlete Vincent Furnier is volunteered to organise the Cortez High School’s autumn 1964 Letterman Talent Show. Unfortunately no one seems to boast any discernible talent, so Vince encourages some friends to take the stage as The Earwigs where they mime along to Beatles records while wearing Beatles wigs. Guitarist Glen Buxton can actually play his instrument. And while drummer John Speer fumbles his way around the rudiments of percussion, bassist Dennis Dunaway hones his craft with the benefit of some valuable lessons from Glen. The Earwigs metamorphose into The Spiders; they play local Battle Of The Bands shows; and they replace their departing rhythm guitarist John Tatum with ex-Cortez High football star Michael Bruce of The Trolls. Following a move to LA in spring ’67, the fledgling Coopers, now known as The Nazz, replace John Speer with fellow Phoenix emigré Neal Smith and set about endearing themselves to the Sunset Strip in-crowd by hosting regular séances.  Soon enough – now that they’re mixing in a social circle that includes The Doors’ Jim Morrison and Love’s Arthur Lee – Miss Christine (of The GTOs) arranges for the band to audition for Frank Zappa’s Straight label. The somewhat over-eager Coopers famously turn up for their 6:30 pm appointment at 6:30 am, but find their naive tenacity amply rewarded when Zappa offers them a record deal. Two days after changing their name to Alice Cooper they are taken on as the house support band at the 20,000-capacity Cheetah Ballroom, where they gradually build a following in spite of the fact that their vocalist – having ditched the name Vince in favour of the infinitely more noteworthy Alice – had taken to wearing full make-up and a pink clown costume.
Gradually, the winning Alice Cooper formula takes shape, and after recording a brace of feet-finding collections on Zappa’s Straight imprint (1969’s Pretties For You and ’70’s Easy Action) the band sign to Warner Brothers and, with Canadian whiz-kid producer Bob Ezrin at the controls, hit the peak of their form with three set-piece collections released in rapid succession: June ’71’s Love It To Death (the album that shocked America), December ’71’s Killer (the album that conquered America) and July ’72’s School’s Out (the album that conquered the world). School’s Out, bolstered by the enormity of its anthemic title track, quickly attained the accolade of being the biggest-selling album in Warners’ history and, thanks to a frenzied tabloid press virtually foaming at the mouth with a level of hyperbolic vitriol unseen since the advent of the Rolling Stones, Alice Cooper became the most newsworthy and controversial band on the planet. But now came the difficult bit. In the face of blanket condemnation from the great, the good, the humourless, the pious and the post-pubescent, the band needed to consolidate their position. Specifically, they needed to make the greatest album of their career: an over-inflated Grand Guignol masterpiece; an ostentatiously offensive, flashy, crass and unbelievably expensive combination of Herschel Gordon Lewis and Busby Berkeley positively guaranteed to expand the generation gap to Grand Canyon proportions. In short, they needed to make Billion Dollar Babies. Following School’s Out was always going to be a daunting task, but with band morale at an all-time high no one involved harboured a shred of doubt that they could not only do it, but also do it in style.  From: https://classicrockreview.wordpress.com/2021/07/27/the-scandalous-story-of-alice-coopers-billion-dollar-babies-1973-2020/

The Move - Colour Me Pop 1969

 #The Move #Roy Wood #Jeff Lynne #psychedelic rock #blues rock #hard rock #British psychedelia #psychedelic pop rock #art rock #proto-prog #proto-metal #1960s #music video

Colour Me Pop was a BBC television series from the late 1960s that devoted itself to some of the best rock & roll acts of the period, without the usual compromises that such programs engaged in - groups would perform on camera, with their microphones live and their instruments plugged in, for as long as 30 minutes at a clip, and they wouldn't limit themselves to singles, either; Colour Me Pop was among the first television shows on either side of the Atlantic that could be used to perform and showcase album-length bodies of music.
The Move's set captures the four-man lineup behind Shazam in peak form. Whether they're playing hard electric numbers like "I Can Hear Grass Grow" or acoustic guitar driven pieces such as "Beautiful Daughter," or pieces that were otherwise unrepresented in their history, such as "The Christian Life" and "Goin' Back," they sound great - indeed, the version of "The Last Thing on My Mind" here is superior to the officially released studio recording on Shazam, and also makes good use of super-imposition and split-screen effects for its time. Oh, and the sound is excellent.
From: https://www.allmusic.com/album/colour-me-pop-the-small-faces-the-move-dvd--mw0001009492

I've seen the Moody Blues, Small Faces and The Move episodes of Colour Me Pop. Does anyone know if these performances are studio backing track with live vocals?

Somewhere in the dark part of my brain I remember seeing a web site that dealt with that very question. The interesting thing was that it varied, even within a particular episode. For instance, 'Fire Brigade' on The Move show is live, but there are other songs that aren't.

The Move January 1969
Several tracks are completely live - vocals and band - either that or the totally "live" numbers were exclusive pre-recorded backing tracks. Fascinating to see and hear Carl Wayne on bass on "The Christian Life" and interesting to compare the vocals on "I Can Hear The Grass Grow" to the 1967 "Beat Beat Beat" version with Ace Kefford. "Fire Brigade" is just magnificent. However, "Wild Tiger Woman" is a mime to the single release, as is "Something". "Beautiful Daughter" is a curious one - it's a mix of what appeared on "Shazam" - the vocal is identical but the mix is very different since it features a drum part on it and there's no strings - I think - getting a bit confuddled here myself (hence swiftly re-editing this post a couple of times). All three shows are magnificent slices of early colour British pop TV. How tragic that the vast majority of episodes of this show were wiped - editions featuring Love Sculpture, Family, David Bowie, Orange Bicycle, The Kinks, The Hollies, Manfred Mann and many more, all lost forever.

From: https://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/colour-me-pop-uk-tv.146238/

Occasionally plundered for clip shows, The Move’s Colour Me Pop appearance from 4th January 1969 saw them tearing through hits like Flowers In The Rain and Fire Brigade as well as the popular b-side Something, chaotic chart-missing single Wild Tiger Woman, a work in progress version of Beautiful Daughter, and covers of the Gerry Goffin and Carol King number Goin’ Back and bluegrass standard The Christian Life, both of which had recently also been covered by The Move’s noted favourites The Byrds. As well as an early sighting of the sort of glittery jackets that the Carnaby Street boutiques had recently started to sell – maybe inspiring David Bowie and Marc Bolan to take a trip to Alkasura the following Monday – this performance is also notable for capturing the band as they were adjusting to the recent departure of original bass player Ace Kefford. The Move had always shared out lead vocals as the ‘narrative’ of each song dictated – if you want a good trivia question to catch someone out with, ask them who the first person heard singing on BBC Radio 1 was; chances are they’ll know the first record played was Flowers In The Rain and automatically say Roy Wood, but the opening verse was actually handled by Carl Wayne – and Ace Kefford can be heard prominently on many of their best known singles. Although any fan of The Move would be able to tell that they were audibly struggling to compensate for his absence in places, their vocal interplay nonetheless caught John Lennon’s attention; while discussing how to approach The Beatles’ new songs, he mentioned the effect that The Move’s distanced stage positioning had on their vocal arrangements and began playing around with ideas inspired by that. This was an especially startling moment for me, as when I had a chat with Beatles expert Chris Shaw about the Yellow Submarine soundtrack, we got on to the subject of speculation about how The Beatles might have sounded if they had started playing live in 1968. Sceptical of some of the more fanciful ideas of string sections and elaborate stage effects, I had suggested instead that they’d have sounded more like the flashy psychedelic pop captured on the live album Something Else From The Move. It’s quite something to realise how close to the reality that very nearly was.  From: https://timworthington.org/2021/12/21/did-you-watch-the-bbc2-thing/

XTC - Dear God

 #XTC #new wave #post-punk #progressive pop #art rock #pop rock #baroque pop #art punk #power pop #psychedelic pop rock #1980s #1990s

Andy: “This was the B-side to ‘Grass’, but radio stations started to flip it over. The lyrics really got up some people's noses, and it became a big radio hit. Whoever first flipped it probably saved us.”

Andy (on the band demo): “A lot has been written and wrangled over with this song, and, you know, it hasn't deserved it. I just tried to wrestle with the paradox of God and the last dying doubts of belief that had hung, bat like, in the dark corners of my head since childhood. I'll just say one more time this song failed to crystalize all my thoughts on the subject in under 4 minutes. Human belief is too big a beast to bring to the floor in such a short time.

“This tune had a few incarnations. It started as a kind of skiffle rag with a much bluesier melody but after several blacksmith like bending and bashing sessions (oddly, in my kitchen) it gradually morphed into its well known shape.

“On the run up to the Skylarking sessions with Todd Rundgren, we congregated at Dave's tiny terraced house, in Swindon's Stanier Street, to record a few band demos on his four track reel to reel. So, awash with much tea and ginger biscuits, we tackled this and ‘Summer's Cauldron’, trying to get something presentable for Todd. Dave found a very ‘House of the Rising Sun’ arpeggio guitar figure to ornament my rather pedestrian acoustic strumming, while Colin anchored away with the Linn drum pretending to be a future Prairie Prince. The Mellotron had been living at Dave's for a few months (where he would tend lovingly its Heath Robinsonesque guts) so we decided this would supply the strings, I'd asked for something a bit Gershwin in the middle, a pinch of ‘Summertime’, a soupçon of ‘It Ain't Necessarily So’. You know, ‘Dat Ol' Debbil Be A Coming Missy’, orchestral blues bend. I remember that Dave's front room floral wallpaper seemed to gaze down at us with almost temperance meeting scorn, as we stirred up our sinful sounds that afternoon.

“Surely, for this tune, we will burn in Hull.”

Andy (on the skiffle version): “Found this a while back laying cowering in a corner of a cassette. It's pretty much me feeling-out the tune with blah blah type lyrics. Little did I know that this piece of brain blurt would be the tip of the iceberg to so much more acceptance for XTC in the U.S. Thank you God.”

From: https://xtc.fandom.com/wiki/Dear_God

Andy is a militant atheist. It's amazing how people see what they want want to, no matter how clear the message is. The idea that he must believe in god because it's addressed to god is just silly. It's a lyrical device...take a literature course. For those who refuse to see the song for what it is and how it was meant, here is a quote from Andy about the song: "it [Dear God] failed in part, because it wasn't as caustic as I would've liked it to be. It should've been a nail in throat of the public, but instead some took it as a declaration of faith when I wanted to make it clear that I don't believe in God - and that even if there is a He or a She they have nothing to do with organized religion." Just watch the video for Dear God. Andy is attacking the massive twisted tree (religion) that people are desperately clinging to, which is exactly what he is doing in the lyrics. I really don't see how he could be any clearer.  From: https://songmeanings.com/songs/view/103714/ 

Procol Harum - Simple Sister - Beat-Club 1971

 #Procol Harum #psychedelic rock #progressive rock #art rock #proto-prog #1960s #1970s #music video

Procol Harum’s ‘Broken Barricades’ album starts, like ‘Home’ before it, with Robin Trower's guitar playing an unmistakable signature phrase. This angry eruption signals the start of the song that engineer John Punter called Pimple Blister, with its cruel, some would say misogynistic lyric. Like Whisky Train, this is an enormously popular song with live audiences, specially in the USA, and since it was written all Procol's guitarists – Trower, Ball, Grabham, Renwick and Whitehorn – have played it. The five-note opening rhythm, on a repeated note, even found its way unwittingly into Mick Grabham's final bars of Beyond the Pale.
On stage the song exists in two varieties, the mere three-verse one (a mere 3 minutes 17 seconds on the Beat Club recital of 27 November 1971), and the extended 'build-up' version, over a melodic bass-line midway. The longer version is far more dramatic – the same instinct for juxtaposing opposites resulted in the insertion of the quiet Bach Prelude into Repent Walpurgis, another thundering four-chord passacaglia. Strangely there are some fans who would prefer both songs in attenuated form. It's worth dilating on the origins of the central riff, which has borrowed the first five or six notes (and the sprightly rhythm) wholesale from the opening of The Capitols' 1966 Cool Jerk. But Procol do something more interesting than the Cool Jerk composers: they modulate the motif from C major up to E flat, then again to G minor and down again … it goes somewhere, rather than being just an R&B elaboration of the basic blues progression. The Cool Jerk riff starts out with bass, then adds 'some eighty-eights' (a particularly shoddy-sounding piano), then immediately the whole band, but Brooker's ensemble builds up minutely slowly, something added every time the refrain re-starts, constantly surprising the listener with melodic and rhythmic ideas, begging the question, 'how can this end'? Musically the arrangement (by Brooker, conducted by George Martin, who is not credited on the sleeve) may be one of the big anomalies in the Procol catalogue: most of their orchestral work draws on baroque or romantic European traditions, but here the layering also seems reminiscent of modern, minimalist composers like Reich and Glass. Other famous records use heavy repetition and progressive layering – for instance Hey Jude and I Want You (She's So Heavy) – but these cases have endings faded or cut, somehow leaving the effect unconsolidated in one's ear. We do hear such a throwaway technique on the Barricades album in the final minutes of the title track. But Simple Sister, like its antecedent Whaling Stories, offers remission from the build-up, finding a closure that offers emotional relief.
This unique build-up is finely structured. Bars 1 to 32 follow the Skip Softly chords, after which the guitar plays a more-or-less fixed melody over the Cool Jerk riff, heard for the first time. Bars 41 to 64 comprise another 'unit' of Skip Softly and Cool Jerk; then the guitar lets rip for an improvisation over the Skip Softly chords, running from bars 65 to 88 (at the end of which section we hear a cross-fade between two takes, using two different guitars). Bar 89 begins a Skip Softly sequence that delays its last chord, and the brief drum break at 97 begins the Cool Jerk section in earnest. Piano, bass and drums start it at 98; bar 106 adds one of the manic chattering sounds we now know to be Gary Brooker's piano, recorded while running the tape slow, and subsequently speeded up. Chris 'The Grouts' Michie describes this process in illuminating detail here: for a long time the source of this sound was a mystery, though Geoff Whitehorn's strummed guitar does a capable job of imitating it in live performance. One more piano note is added every eight bars until 146, by which time high 'chiming' notes are heard as well, and at 154 guitar and 'celli join the chattering fray, with some quiet brass. High melodic strings are added at 170, whooping brass at 178, and heavy Wagnerian brass at 186. Just when pop precedent primes us to expect a fade, the Skip Softly motif cuts in at 194, and one more verse is sung; 210 sees the speedy coda, (including a new chord!) and the long growling C minor sustain at 213 ends the song. Gary told the NME (5 June 1972) that this was 'Music from the 23rd century'.
The reversion, from the Cool Jerk section to the opening matter again, is done with a musical brutality entirely suited to the cruelty of the words. It’s a song of vitriol and abuse, continuing the Still There'll Be More vein of writing. Perhaps it was a deliberate irony, adapting the riff of a positive, life-enhancing dance tune to offset Keith Reid’s savage libretto. This piece portrays serial vindictiveness like Poor Mohammed does: but what disease merits such cruel treatment? Despite the problems of interpretation that it poses to the record-buyer, Gary told NME that the piece was 'Lyrically quite simple, but there's something very personal about it. A quick summary of a situation Keith ran into somewhere.'  From: https://www.procolharum.com/tn+sq/bb_tr_simpl.htm

Cibo Matto - MFN

 #Cibo Matto #alternative rock #art rock #trip-hop #alternative pop rock #electronic #music video

From the start, it’s clear that Yuka Honda, one half of the New York City band Cibo Matto, doesn’t like to stay within the lines. When asked to name five albums that everyone should hear, she rattled off all of Stevie Wonder’s records, everything by Earth, Wind, and Fire, Sly Stone, all of the Beatles’ albums, John and Yoko, Talking Heads, all of Brian Eno’s stuff, and Antonio Carlos Jobin. When asked to offer up a simple description of Cibo Matto’s music, she shyly responded Oh. I don’t think I could do that.
Her unwillingness to accept boundaries is an excellent metaphor for Cibo Matto. When it comes to the group’s music, the keyword is fusion. From heavy metal to bossanova to hip-hop, Cibo Matto mixes everything to produce an eccentric recipe for sound.
Honda was born in Japan and came to the United States in 1987. She says her experience gives her a different perspective on making music. I am not only from Japan, but I lived in Europe for some time, Honda said during a phone interview. I have learned that although people have very different mind sets, they also have a lot in common. I don’t know why people like to categorize things between country and genre and like to put a border between things.
It was open-mindedness that eventually led her to form a musical union with another Japanese-born New Yorker, Miho Hatori. At first, Cibo Matto came together to play only one gig for fun. We were just really having fun, a lot of fun, and thinking we can just do whatever we want, Honda said. There was a lot more freedom to try out and be experimental for one gig.
A fan base started to form from Cibo Matto’s random performances and then led to a recording contract with Warner Brothers. Cibo Matto’s first album was released in early 1996. Entitled Viva! La Woman, the debut album conveyed what was on Honda’s and Hatori’s minds – food. Of the 11 songs on the album, 10 were about food. In fact, cibo matto is Italian for food madness. Viva! La Woman was highly innovative, built on the hip-hop loops produced by Honda’s extraordinary keyboard skills and Hatori’s vocal power.I started getting into hip-hop in 1986, Honda said. It was always very exciting, especially since I did computer music. I always try to build the song as much as I can. I look at it from different angles, but I don’t want to lose the live feel. I try to think about aspects of the music and realize as much as possible in every song.
Her openness to musical exploration paid off. Cibo Matto went on tour opening up for Beck, Luscious Jackson and other headliners. Viva! La Woman was named in Time magazine as one of the top 10 hip-hop albums of all time. As Cibo Matto grew more successful, new band mates joined to support the duo on the road. Sean Lennon was added on guitar and bass, and Timo Ellis and Duma Love on percussion. The group played at the Tibetan Freedom Concerts and opened the one in Chicago in June. Yuka thinks that the Tibetan Freedom concerts have brought together the most diverse of today’s artists. Cibo Matto is especially close with two groups that also call New York City home – the Beastie Boys and Luscious Jackson. We don’t help each other out in writing stuff, but we’re good friends, Honda said. We definitely have a sense of family in the music industry.
This past June marked the release of Cibo Matto’s second album, Stereotype A, which Honda produced. A more pop-oriented album, it shows that Cibo Matto is growing in leaps and bounds. Honda said a pop album should have something that sounds familiar, but also has to show you something new about it. Like most things, Honda had something to say about the title of the group’s latest release. People have a lot of stereotypes, she said. They are not used to women handling machines. If we have problems with the equipment, and we call a friend, they always want to talk to Sean first. Even if a producer walks in, they will always look to the man. People aren’t used to women pushing buttons and pulling strings.  From: https://www.gwhatchet.com/1999/11/18/cibo-matto-blends-variety-of-genres-to-produce-its-own-sound/

Deerhoof - Scarcity Is Manufactured

 #Deerhoof #indie rock #experimental rock #noise rock #art rock #noise punk #animated music video

At the beginning of 'Can’t Get You Out of My Head', the latest documentary by historian and filmmaker Adam Curtis, is a quote by anarchist activist David Graeber: “The ultimate hidden truth of the world is that it is something we make and could just as easily make differently.” It sets the tone for a sprawling thesis about how we’ve arrived at our current state of global affairs, reminding the viewer that there’s always another path. The film shares the same message at the heart of 'Actually, You Can', the 18th studio album by San Francisco’s Deerhoof. It’s a record of re-imagination, revolution, and reconstruction in the face of a seemingly inevitable status quo.
However, gleaning a clear message from Deerhoof’s music is like drawing water from a stone. Though singer/bassist Satomi Matsuzaki’s lyrics are playfully inscrutable, they contain moments of clarity. Chaotic opener “Be Unbarred, O Ye Gates of Hell” casts wealth disparities and labor rights into the metaphor of who benefits from a household appliance. Next, the shambling guitar-pop of “Department of Corrections” proposes that it’s time to reclaim autonomy from the powers that be: “O jailer, who’s in charge around here? And if not you then is it I? Yeah.” And the anthemic tangle that is “Ancient Mysteries, Described” switches to straight-up power chords for its ode to civil disobedience. Still, for each line that seems decipherable, twice as many are charmingly enigmatic.
The music of 'Actually, You Can' gets its message across much more effectively. With little more than two guitars, a bass, and drums, Deerhoof conjures anxious garage funk, Tejano-infused noise rock, introspective dissonance, mercurial power pop, and just about everything in between. Guitarist John Dieterich has described the record as “utility music that makes you move and motivates you,” and indeed, each of these nine songs contorts with joyous abandon. A song as chock full of dueling riffs and fleeting tangents as “Be Unbarred, O Ye Gates of Hell” could only put people on their feet. Greg Saunier’s splashy and relentless drumming turns art-rock jams “Department of Corrections” and “Plant Thief” into songs that could soundtrack an uprising. Even the dislocated, slow-burning “Our Philosophy is Fiction” still feels like a rallying cry in the hands of a seasoned and uniquely expressive band like Deerhoof. Whatever 'Actually, You Can' may lack in pointedness, it makes up for in raw energy.
Yet with all of the intensity and musical bedlam at work here, the brief sections of calm somehow resonate the longest. There’s something oddly hopeful and pure in the softly strummed verses of closer “Divine Comedy,” where Matsuzaki muses on yet to be realized possibilities for change. The tone of her delivery is flat and her cadence is hard to follow, but they are coupled with tender guitar chords, inviting the listener to dig deeper into the ideas behind this rare emotional break. Such reserved divergences are uncommon on 'Actually, You Can'. So when Deerhoof does step back from their onslaught of prismatic garage band tropes, it’s a welcome reminder that rock & roll spectacle isn’t the only way to inspire change.  From: https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/deerhoof-actually-you-can/

Patti Smith - Dancing Barefoot

 #Patti Smith #art punk #proto-punk #art rock #hard rock #new wave #alternative rock #singer-songwriter #1970s

Jeanne Hebuterne was married to a famous artist in the early 1900s. They had a child together, and she was pregnant with another. In 1920, her husband died, from either drug addiction, illness (or both). Two days later, Jeanne threw herself off a building, killing herself and her unborn child, leaving their first child orphaned. In ‘Dancing Barefoot’ Patti Smith looks at this shocking story of love, loss and grief, probably through the lens of her own relationships. She grabs the cliche "Oh God, I fell for you" with both hands, and twists it into a grotesque meditation on love and death. That last line is repeated over and over while Smith recites some cryptic poetry, probably representing the last thoughts in Jeanne's mind before she died.  From: https://songmeanings.com/songs/view/3530822107858544768/

"I had the concept to write a lyric line that would have several levels - the love of one human being for another and the love of ones creator," Patti Smith wrote on her website. "So in a sense, the song addresses both physical and spiritual love."
The lyrics didn't come with the album, but a blurb on the sleeve read, "Dedicated to the rites of the heroine," which was the only way to know for sure that Smith wasn't singing the homophone "heroin." Smith says she was asked to change the word to avoid confusion and make the song more marketable, but she refused. This certainly stymied the song commercially, but Smith wasn't going to compromise her art.
Jim Morrison of The Doors was an influence on this song. "I always imagined Jim Morrison singing it, which resulted in me singing and recording it in a lower vocal register," Smith wrote. "I wanted the verse to have a masculine appeal and the chorus to have a feminine one." At the end of the song, Smith recites some of her poetry ("The plot of our life sweats in the dark like a face..."), which is something Morrison innovated on Doors songs like "Peace Frog" and "The WASP (Texas Radio and The Big Beat)." In some live versions, Smith would start the song with this spoken intro:
    We shut our eyes, we stretch out our arms
    And whirl on a pane of glass
    An affixation
    A fix on anything
    The line of life, the limb of tree
    The hands of he
    The promise that she
    Is blessed among women
"Dancing Barefoot" is one of Smith's most popular songs, and one of her favorites, performed at most of her concerts. It was never a hit, but neither were any of her songs with the exception of the Bruce Springsteen-written "Because The Night." Considering her acclaim it's surprising how few albums she sold and how rarely she made the charts. A song like "Dancing Barefoot" certainly could have become a hit if she had made some concessions and did the standard promotion, but that wasn't her M.O. Fans, journalists, and other musicians (like Springsteen) did what they could to spread the word, but mass appeal eluded her, which seemed to be for the best. Even decades later, many listeners are pleasantly surprised to discover her music and peel back the layers of her lyrics.
On the album notes, the song is dedicated to "Jeanne Hebuterne, mistress of Amedeo Modigliani." Modigliani was an Italian painter who died from tuberculosis in 1920. The next day, Hebuterne joined him in death by jumping out of a window.
"Dancing Barefoot" is the theme song to the 2023 miniseries Daisy Jones & The Six, about a fictional band from the '70s. The series uses a lot of original music, but producers felt "Dancing Barefoot" encapsulated the story better than anything they could write. The main character, Daisy (played by Elvis Presley's granddaughter Riley Keough), makes a spiritual connection with music that eventually leads her to the band.
From: https://www.songfacts.com/facts/patti-smith/dancing-barefoot

Bent Knee - Leak Water

 #Bent Knee #progressive rock #art rock #industrial #baroque pop #avant-garde #music video

Boston’s Bent Knee proudly occupy the grey area where baroque pop, rock, and the avant-garde meet, but even they are sometimes caught off guard by their intricately woven, surrealist stylings. The element of surprise and desire to fuse disparate sounds was felt throughout their sophomore record, 2014’s well-received Shiny Eyed Babies. It shines through even brighter on follow-up album Say So, due out May 20th through new label home Cuneiform. A press release dubs the forthcoming LP a “thrilling, aural roller-coaster ride with arrangements designed to make listeners throw their arms up in wild abandon.” Surveying Say So’s heady yet meta subject matter, it’s easy to see how such a varied sort of record could come about. Along with “the emergence of personal demons,” the new full-length sees Bent Knee digging into the abstract, specifically “looking at the bigger picture and figuring out where we as individuals stand, and how we carve out meaning in this giant universe,” according to violinist Chris Baum.
While complex, contrasting compositions might be in Bent Knee’s DNA, much of the “surprise” in Say So can likely also be attributed to the unconventional space in which it was recorded. “A friend of ours pointed us to an empty, unlocked, million-square foot industrial complex in Boston,” says frontwoman/keyboardist Courtney Swain. “It felt like zombies were going to jump out anytime. It was a foreboding locale and gave the session a distinctly dark vibe.” As a first look at the album, the band has unveiled a new song called Leak Water. It’s a relatively straightforward number compared to their past releases, as Bent Knee note; still, a potent sense of urgency tingles in the air. In a statement to Consequence of Sound, guitarist Ben Levin explains the track’s backstory and how it’s captured in the corresponding official video: “‘Leak Water’ is written from the perspective of a little girl whose mother is pulling her through a painful morning beauty ritual. With this in mind, for the music video we wanted to feature a little girl singing the lyrics while being thrown around in some way. The video was directed by Greg Bowen, who also created the album art for Say So. Greg makes amazing art in just about any medium you can imagine, and we decided to take advantage of his range by stylizing this video like a collage.”  From: https://consequence.net/2016/04/bent-knee-announce-new-album-say-so-premiere-leak-water-songvideo-watch/

His Name is Alive - Can't Go Wrong Without You

 #His Name is Alive #experimental rock #dream pop #avant garde #alternative rock #indie rock #neo-psychedelia #art rock #Quay Brothers #animated music video #stop-motion

The ever-changing project of multi-instrumentalist/producer Warren Defever, His Name Is Alive have explored a veritable record store's worth of music during their decades-spanning career. In the early 1990s, they helped define the sound of the arty indie label 4AD with the experimental dream pop of albums such as 1991's Home Is in Your Head and 1993's Mouth by Mouth. As time went on, their rotating lineup mirrored their shifting sounds. Defever and company surveyed sunny, Beach Boys-tinged pop on 1996's Stars on ESP just as deftly as they channeled gospel and R&B on 2001's Someday My Blues Will Cover the Earth. A few years later, they fused their dream pop roots with African and Asian elements on 2007's Xmmer. His Name Is Alive entered a particularly creative period in the 2010s, combining the ambitious and heavy sounds of prog and metal with ethereal vocals on the concept albums Tecuciztecatl (2014) and Patterns of Light (2016). Later in the decade and into the 2020s, Defever revisited early ambient recordings on collections such as 2019's All the Mirrors in the House (Early Recordings 1979-1986) and reworked them on mixtapes including 2020's Ghost Tape EXP.  From: https://www.allmusic.com/artist/his-name-is-alive-mn0000681402/biography

Starting from the late 70s, US born/England based duo of identical twins Stephen and Timothy Quay produced a whole number of stop-motion animations and their unique style, in turn, influenced a whole number of other animators. Much of their work is based on the writings of Franz Kafka and Bruno Schulz, features little to no dialogue, and relies heavily on musical scores/soundtracks. Their connection with musical world became more pronounced as they directed music videos for His Name Is Alive, Michael Penn and 16 Horsepower. Some  incorrectly assume that they are responsible for creating videos for the band Tool (undoubtedly, very similar in style to Quay’s work, but created mostly by the band’s guitarist Adam Jones).
The two videos that the Brothers Quay directed for His Name Is Alive are “Can’t Go Wrong Without You” and “Are We Still Married.”  From: https://ihrtn.net/brothers-quay-his-name-is-alive/ 

Emerson, Lake & Palmer - The Endless Enigma

 #Emerson, Lake & Palmer #Kieth Emerson #Greg Lake #Carl Palmer #progressive rock #symphonic prog #art rock #hard rock #jazz rock #blues rock #electronic #modern classical #1970s 

The first thing you'll ever learn about Emerson, Lake & Palmer is that they were the first 'supergroup' of the progosphere. The second thing is that they made their living on hyper-fast semi-classical excursions on anything equipped with ivories, preferably connected to sci-fi modulators (courtesy of Keith Emerson), hyper-fast machine gun drumming on anything equipped with a skin (courtesy of Carl Palmer) and suspiciously mellow folk balladry about anything equipped with a vagina (courtesy of Greg Lake). Every now and then though, they got together around lengthy pieces aspiring to one-up just about any modern classical composer in existence and in the process came up with some of the finest prog epics known to man. You see, this is one band where prog initiation is all but obligatory for anyone to have a decent chance to get into them, and I don't really think that anyone with much more humble taste would have that much need for Lake's ballads alone. Not that they are bad or anything, quite the opposite, but we'll get to that in due time.
Anyhoo, they got together as a result of Keith Emerson's, freshly out of The Nice, ambition to expand the boundaries of three-piece bands in 1970. He teamed up with bass player/guitarist/singer Greg Lake, who was right in the midst of recording "In the wake of Poseidon" with King Crimson but decided ELP was a better shot, and drum ace Carl Palmer who was to be found in Atomic Rooster (which you by the way really should check out; Art metal began here) as well as being an Arthur Brown graduate. And I'm gonna take the opportunity to debunk a widespread myth here; Hendrix was not considered as a fourth member (which would have yielded the abbreviation "HELP") since Emerson was keen on preserving the trio format from the very beginning, and I've got at least one fairly recent in-depth interview with Carl Palmer in a magazine to back it up. From the very beginning they pulled out all the stops on their live performances with Emerson straddling his Hammond organ the same way that Hendrix straddled his guitar, making it scream and moan with feedback and all kinds of unholy noises, occasionally crowning it all with daggers between the keys. Trust me, you gotta see it if you haven't already! What he should be revered for though, is his classically tinged finger-flashing over the whole thing. He could pull out just about anything from his sleeve, from rag-time barroom piano to Bach fugues at the speed of light. Of course, he had already made a name for himself in The Nice, but it was in ELP that he rose to the sky really. And don't forget his toying with all those Moog synthesizers which he actually helped develop with Bob Moog himself at the time.
Obviously, Emerson was the center of attention, but do not forget that he was backed up by one of the finest rhythm sections in prog as well. Carl Palmer may not be the fastest drummer in the world, but he sure is the fastest drummer I know of that simultaneously could swing and deliver something more than just robotic noise. After all, he took his inspiration from such giants as Buddy Rich, didn't he? And then Greg Lake, a great bass player in his own rights who on occasion had to switch to guitar to fill in the gaps, and on top of that crowned the songs with one of the best voices in rock; bombastic but yet humane and delicate. Listen to what he does on tracks like "The great gates of Kiev" and compare it with "The sage" or "Living sin". Talk about versatility! And he was also responsible for the more melodic and accessible elements of ELP's output and all of their albums sport at least one stripped-down acoustic ballad courtesy of him.
So there, the scene is set. Now what? Full frontal prog that managed to write itself into the history books as one of the most bloated, self-indulgent, excessive and pretentious acts of the whole movement. That's what the critics will tell you whether they like it or not, but that's not the whole picture. They were never strangers to silly little send-ups (or the aforementioned acoustic stuff) either, to spice up the flow on their albums and those who claim that progsters took themselves much too seriously have obviously missed out on songs like "Benny the bouncer". Of course, none of the occasional detours would overshadow their main schtick which was the grandiose epics and Emerson's lengthy keyboard excesses. But that's alright with me, because they are among the greatest epics and keyboard excesses ever captured on magnetic tape. I just don't want you to forget they were much more multi-faceted than they normally get credit for.
From: https://www.musicbanter.com/album-reviews/54650-endless-enigma-emerson-lake-palmer-reviewed.html#ixzz7vud1uMYp

Roxy Music - Love Is the Drug

 #Roxy Music #Bryan Ferry #Brian Eno #art rock #glam rock #pop rock #progressive rock #1970s

Evolving from the late-'60s art-rock movement, Roxy Music had a fascination with fashion, glamour, cinema, pop art, and the avant-garde, which separated the band from their contemporaries. Dressed in bizarre, stylish costumes, the group played a defiantly experimental variation of art rock which vacillated between avant-rock and sleek pop hooks. During the early '70s, the group was driven by the creative tension between Bryan Ferry and Brian Eno, who each pulled the band in separate directions: Ferry had a fondness for American soul and Beatlesque art-pop, while Eno was intrigued by deconstructing rock with amateurish experimentalism inspired by the Velvet Underground. This incarnation of Roxy Music may have only recorded two albums, but it inspired a legion of imitators -- not only the glam-rockers of the early '70s, but art-rockers and new wave pop groups of the late '70s. Following Eno's departure, Roxy Music continued with its arty inclinations for a few albums before gradually working in elements of disco and soul. Within a few years, the group had developed a sophisticated, seductive soul-pop that relied on Ferry's stylish crooning. By the early '80s, the group had developed into a vehicle for Ferry, so it was no surprise that he disbanded the group at the height of its commercial success in the early '80s to pursue a solo career.  From: https://www.iheart.com/artist/roxy-music-27678/

Love is the Drug: The leadoff track and single from Siren, the band’s fifth album, this song made it into the bottom reaches of the U.S. top 40, but its legend and influence were much greater. This undeniable semi-novelty hit had a jittery bass beat, a canny piece of dance manqué; the taut instrumentation and the slightly mechanical tale the narrator is telling would be a marked influence on the Talking Heads albums that would appear just two years later. There’s an alluring beginning — footsteps, a car door opening, an engine starting up — together an irresistible entrée into a rhumba’d head-snapping beat that marries art rock to disco. The track and the rest of the accompanying album are Roxy at its height. The songs here start out with a bang, a whoosh, or a sweeping fanfare. The sound is mature, wild when it has to be, but restrained in a way Roxy had never been before. The Germanic conceits that marked Country Life are replaced by pastoral passages in songs like “End of the Line.” Instead, Ferry’s most powerful suite of songs contains lush inquiries into the nature of decadence, epicureanism, hedonism, and their discontents. And “Both Ends Burning” defines the mature use of synthesizers during this time.  From: https://www.vulture.com/2019/03/roxy-music-guide-bryan-ferry-brian-eno.html

The Claypool Lennon Delirium - Blood And Rockets Movement I

 #The Claypool Lennon Delirium #Les Claypool #Sean Lennon #psychedelic rock #art rock #experimental rock #progressive rock #alternative rock #neo-psychedelia #ex-Primus #ex-The Ghost of a Saber Tooth Tiger #music video

The curious tale of The Claypool Lennon Delirium
Kernel: the central or most important part of something, a homophone for colonel, and Sean Lennon’s nickname for  his creative co-conspirator, Les Claypool. “He has that colonel vibe; he’s the captain of the ship. He runs the desk on our sessions, he engineers the sessions, he’s kind of at the front of the ship. And he calls me ‘Shiner’ because it’s one syllable apart from Sean!” laughs Lennon from his snow-swept studio in upstate New York. When he speaks of Primus’ head honcho, it’s with great respect, awe and a touch of disbelief that he’s working with a musician who he’s admired for many years.
“I’d never really played in a band where someone was a legend on their instrument,” he says. “Les is on a short list of very respected bass players and I was surprised that he really wanted to start a band with me, so I did a lot of scales to get my chops up because I wanted to make sure I could hang musically with him.” When we catch up with the bespectacled multi-instrumentalist, he’s taking a break from working on a new solo album and some “exciting” top secret projects. Despite being so busy, he seems genuinely happy to finally be able to chat about The Claypool Lennon Delirium’s second full-length album, South Of Reality.
The surprise project came about in 2015, shortly after Lennon’s The Ghost Of A Saber Tooth Tiger opened for Primus. The duo’s colorful chemistry led to the release of their psychedelic debut Monolith Of Phobos the following year. A covers EP, Lime And Limpid Green, was released in 2017, just a few months ahead of Primus’ conceptual The Desaturating Seven, and hinted at some of their inspiration with renditions of The Court Of The Crimson King and Astronomy Domine. By the time they regrouped for South Of Reality, both Lennon and Claypool were brimming with ideas.
Where their debut was inspired by the soundtrack to The Monkees’ Head, album number two is a hypnotic blend of prog, psych and Sgt. Pepper's punctuated by Claypool’s complex funk-driven basslines. The pair share vocal duties and instrumentation, with Lennon further enhancing vintage elements via a Mellotron simulator and Coral electric sitar. The album’s nine satirical tracks were written and recorded over the space of two months at Claypool’s Rancho Relaxo studio in California, and are as much a journey into their eclectic musical influences as a thumb through the stranger sections of the National Enquirer. Cricket Chronicles Revisited is the thematic follow-up to Monolith’s two-part psychedelic explosion The Cricket And The Genie that explored the modern trend of over-medicating adults and children, while the lead track Blood And Rockets focuses on the strange life of occult rocket engineer Jack Parsons.
“I wanted to write a song about him and that was maybe one of the first ones I wrote for the album,” says Lennon. “He wound up helping us get to the moon but he was also part of the Ordo Templi Orientis [a religious organisation made famous by occultist Aleister Crowley]. It’s, like, this really weird story because Parsons ends up blowing himself up in an alchemical experiment. The end bit is in 5/8, which I thought was funny because a pentagram has five points. It cuts to the section when, in my mind, he’s crossing the threshold from this reality to another dimension.”
From: https://www.loudersound.com/features/the-curious-tale-of-the-claypool-lennon-delirium 

Pom Poko - Crazy Energy Night

 #Pom Poko #art rock #post-punk #noise rock #indie rock #avant-pop #pop punk #Norwegian #animated music video

Norway's freewheeling Pom Poko combine their jazz school training and experimental leanings into equally sugary and explosive music. Inspired by math rock, post-punk, West African music, and weird pop bands such as Deerhoof, the group introduced their loose-limbed, playful style on 2019's Birthday, then emphasized the contrast between their meticulous compositions and chaotic performances on 2021's bracing Cheater. Named after a film by Japanese animation powerhouse Studio Ghibli, Pom Poko consists of Ragnhild Fangel Jamtveit (vocals), Martin Miguel Almagro Tonne (guitar), Ola Djupvik (drums), and Jonas Krøvel (bass). Tonne, Djupvik, and Krøvel met while studying at the Trondheim Music Conservatory and initially aspired to be a noise punk trio. However, when they were asked to perform at a literary festival in 2016, they added Jamtveit on vocals and quickly wrote a set of sugary pop/punk songs with unexpected twists.  From: https://open.spotify.com/artist/4RkC3KmYWnr6PM1FM5Shwz

There is a sense of miraculous deconstruction in the work of Norwegian foursome Pom Poko – a drive to pull down the support structures of their influences and create something slathered in both art-punk ferocity and a welcome assortment of wickedly colorful pop impulses. It all feels so prickly and slightly out of phase with everything around it, possessing an endearingly boundless perspective on how to combine certain sounds for full impact while also knowing when all that should simply be torn down in favor of something without any recognizable parts. Similar in feel to the genre-hopping of Deerhoof or Xiu Xiu, the zigzagging branches of Pom Poko’s music are unconcerned with specific genres or the limitations they can present.
Their 2019 debut Birthday was built from outbursts of burly pop noise and lonesome lyrics, setting a stage both emotionally forceful and sweetly combustible. A product of the band’s tightly-wound instrumental expertise and singer Ragnhild Fangel’s insightful narratives, it was a taut and expressive collection of songs, filled with punk-lite eruptions of sustained energy and art-rock elasticity. This feeling of cheerful adaptation has carried over to their second record Cheater, and the band has further pushed onto the fringes of their collective inspirations. They embrace this ruptured pop chaos and expect their audience to do the same.  From: https://beatsperminute.com/album-review-pom-poko-cheater/

Jethro Tull - Kissing Willie

 #Jethro Tull #Ian Anderson #progressive rock #folk rock #hard rock #blues rock #English folk rock #art rock #classic rock #progressive folk #music video

"Willie" is British slang for the penis, and this song is about oral sex. There are other sexual references throughout the song, something that is not typical of Jethro Tull. In spite of the apparent bawdy nature of the lyrics, Jethro Tull front man Ian Anderson is no lecher. As he told us: "I'm usually rather put off by naked ladies unless the time is right. Well, indeed, unless the money's right." In fact, he turned down performing at Woodstock based on the likelihood of it being a scene involving naked women and hippies! (Check out the full Ian Anderson interview)

Jethro Tull front man Ian Anderson isn't your typical Rock Star. He's never done drugs and has no use for the trappings of fame. So what does he have in common with the boys from Led Zeppelin? More than you might think.

Carl Wiser (Songfacts): Ian, I have four different statements about you that appeared in pretty notable publications. I was wondering if you could tell me if these are true or false. The first one is: you kept a urinal you used to clean as a souvenir.

Anderson: I wish I had. I don't have it anymore. It was one of the spare and probably cracked or slightly broken urinals that was in the store room of the Ritz Cinema in Luton in late 1967. My job was to clean the theatre, including the toilets, in the mornings, which took me half the day. And I thought, well, this old urinal is probably not going to get used, because it had a chip out of the side. So I managed to take it home. And I did keep it for a while with some idea of turning into perhaps a drinking fountain. But along the way it got abandoned, and the nearest I came to reliving the urinal moment was when we used to have a urinal bolted to the side of John Evan's Hammond organ onstage, and at some point during the performance around 1972 he would pretend to relieve himself into said urinal to the amusement – and horror, indeed – of some of the audience. But it was, in fact, just playacting. Because he did in fact relieve himself into a beer can backstage, but hopefully no one was looking during the drum solo. So, yes, partly true.

Songfacts: Okay, next one. You refused to play Woodstock because you thought it wasn't a big deal.

Anderson: No, I knew it was going to be a big deal. The reason I didn't want to play Woodstock is because I asked our manager, Terry Ellis, "Well, who else is going to be there?" And he listed a large number of groups who were reputedly going to play, and that it was going to be a hippie festival, and I said, "Will there be lots of naked ladies? And will there be taking drugs and drinking lots of beer, and fooling around in the mud?" Because rain was forecast. And he said, "Oh, yeah." So I said, "Right. I don't want to go.” Because I don't like hippies, and I'm usually rather put off by naked ladies unless the time is right. Well, indeed, unless the money's right.

Songfacts: Okay. Yet you toured with Led Zeppelin.

Anderson: We did, but happily, outside the orbit of their nightly shenanigans, although Jimmy Page used to show us Polaroids involving close-up blurred parts of young ladies' anatomy, often featuring soft fruit - that seemed to be in quite a lot of these photographs. Yeah, that's about it. We kind of heard the tales, but we were on the periphery of all that, didn't really experience it.

Songfacts: Was that the way it was for many of the bands that you toured with?

Anderson: That they stayed on the periphery? No. My impression was that the majority of bands were really enjoying and living up those moments when they were temporarily famous and about to have the good fortunes of young ladies' attentions thrust upon them on a nightly basis, which I could never have possibly kept up with the pressure to fulfill. So, yeah, that's my impression, everybody was at it. I mean, out of all the bands, and all the people I've known, really, I'm probably the only person I know for sure never did what we popularly called "drugs" during all of that period. It was just something everybody did. And I didn't really enjoy being around people who were doing drugs, so I just took myself often to read a book somewhere, and waited for it all to kind of evaporate from the rock and roll lifestyle. But of course it hasn't. These days people drop as often as they did back then, like flies, sadly, before their time. One or two get lucky and manage to control it or survive it, like Keith Richards, but he's one of the small number of people who seem to have emerged – not entirely unscathed – from the heady and demanding experiences of rock and roll.

Songfacts: I read where you said that Led Zeppelin "showed you the way." So you must have learned something from them.

Anderson: I think what they showed to all their peer group as musicians, was that there was, first of all, a very powerful and dramatic way to perform simple, direct rock music and also to introduce elements of more eclectic music. Because Zeppelin, near the beginning, there were a lot of elements of folk music, and Asian music, and African music that crept into their stuff. And if Zeppelin had carried on, I imagine we would have had at least one or two Led Zeppelin "unplugged" albums, and probably some rather more esoteric offerings along the way, where they did explore more thoroughly those more eclectic musical moments that they hinted at early on. Jethro Tull and Led Zeppelin did share that same interest, even passion, for music that was not the normal stuff of rock and roll. And perhaps they, too, were influenced in some ways by what influenced me: Indian music, Mediterranean music, and British folk music. And we shared a chum, a fellow by the name of Roy Harper, who's one of the British folk musicians of the late '60s. And he was chummy with members of Pink Floyd and Zeppelin and with me. Not with the other members of Jethro Tull, who thought he was a bit weird and they didn't really like his music, I don't think. But he was someone who influenced me greatly right at the beginning, around '68 when I first came across him. And I think that rubbed off a little bit on Jimmy Page, too, as did some of the other British folkies, like Bert Jansch and Davey Graham, and I think that music must have infected the early Jimmy Page style with some of its innovative guitar work.

From: https://www.songfacts.com/blog/interviews/ian-anderson-of-jethro-tull

Descartes a Kant - Apricot Dreams

 #Descartes a Kant #art rock #avant-garde #alternative rock #experimental #noise rock #electronic #avant-garde cabaret #theatrical #Mexican #music video

Equal parts Punk, Metal, Pop, Shoegaze and Cabaret, the critically-acclaimed underground sextet, Descartes a Kant (Guadalajara, Mexico) have made a real name for themselves as an otherworldly, unpredictable, theatrical live act. So much so that even the Wall Street Journal chimed in to say that “trying to describe their music is to do it a disservice. It’s loud, racy, incredibly imaginative, sophisticated, funny and wild; it’s as if the Yeah Yeah Yeahs fronted Albert Ayler with Frank Zappa conducting”. They’re considered one of the leading lights in the vibrant, ever-evolving Mexican experimental underground and are now poised to gain greater international acceptance. Led by strong female characters, their first two releases Paper Dolls (an intense and bipolar short song hardcore ode to multiple personality) and Il Visore Lunatique (a tribute on psychiatric disorders that goes from hip-hop to a bizarre broadway style musical) led them to perform and thrill both club and festival audiences all over the world, including Mexico, USA, Russia, and Brazil, and share bills with The Melvins, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Sonic Youth, Explosions in the Sky and Slayer.  From: https://swampbooking.com/descartes-a-kant-mexico/

Descartes a Kant is a Mexican rock, noise, and avant-garde group from Guadalajara, formed in 2001. They are characterized by their fused style of different musical rhythms and their performance presentations. They adopted their name by combining two figures they admire: Descartes and Kant, whose opposing philosophical works framed the principles of the modern era.
Descartes a Kant’s style is called by the band "bipolar-schizoid sound”, alternating sweet and melodic tones with loud and strident. Their music incorporates influences from noisegrind, noise rock, surf, electronic music, bossa nova and jazz. Their live presentations are usually theatrical performances, and the members of the group usually wear specific outfits for them.  Translated from: https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Descartes_a_Kant

David Bowie - Oh! You Pretty Things

 #David Bowie #glam rock #hard rock #art rock #classic rock #electronic #singer-songwriter #pop rock #album rock #proto-punk #experimental #1970s #Old Grey Whistle Test #music video

Wake up, you sleepy head
Put on some clothes, shake up your bed
Put another log on the fire for me
I've made some breakfast and coffee
Look out my window, what do I see
A crack in the sky and a hand reaching down to me
All the nightmares came today
And it looks as though they're here to stay

What are we coming to?
No room for me, no fun for you
I think about a world to come
Where the books were found by the golden ones
Written in pain, written in awe
By a puzzled man who questioned
What we were here for
All the strangers came today
And it looks as though they're here to stay

Look out at your children
See their faces in golden rays
Don't kid yourself, they belong to you
They're the start of the coming race
The earth is a bitch
We've finished our news
Homo Sapiens have outgrown their use
All the strangers came today
And it looks as though they're here to stay

I firmly believe that to know what this song means you must be familiar with the philosophy of "Thus Spoke Zarathustra" and Nietzsche's superman. The "homo superior" is a euphemism for this superman, the most conspicuous quality of whom, according to "Thus Spoke Zarathustra," was his contempt of the common man's morality. A superman is somebody who doesn't take on society's morals as his own, but rather somebody who creates his own morality through his own inner strength and clarity of vision. An example of this clarity of vision? In Zarathustra, the seer proclaims that, though he loves peace, he is happy when he sees war. Why? Because the idiots who fight are killing themselves, which will ideally eventually result in a purified world where those who are left are peaceful and lack the destructive urge to dominate their fellow man. Now, compare this attitude to the attitude of the anti-war masses during Vietnam. Their position that all war is inexcusable was, and is, dreadfully simple-minded and untenable. Now, for Bowie, this "advancement" to being supermen might just mean sexual liberation, since this was his coming out/homosexual debut. Regardless, at least he knows his philosophy. Btw, the Nietzschean imagery is all over this album, and this is why it's one of my all time favorites.

I am nearly certain that he does mean a superior human when he speaks of "Homo Superior”. One must remember that at the time of writing Hunky Dory, Bowie was beginning to get involved in the occult, magick, brain-change etc. There are many groups out there that take the stance that we are entering a new age, and therefore a new set of humans will come about as well. He also talks in this song of "the coming race", but they are still your children, and you must see them in "golden rays" which is another bit of magickal symbolism. Even in the first verse there is a bit of a prophesy of an apocalypse. You can find a lot of Occult symbolism on Hunky Dory, actually.

To set the record "straight" - Bowie is not gay and never has been. He claimed to be "bisexual" for a time in the 60/70s when it was hip to be "sexually liberated", but it was mostly an act. Even in his interviews he admits this. Also most people get caught up in the theatrical aspect of his characters. A lot of dumb people equate makeup and women's clothing on men as homosexual, but there is quite a difference. You are only a homosexual if you exclusively have sex with only the same gender as yourself. This has never been the case with Bowie.

From: https://songmeanings.com/songs/view/42518/

XTC - Then She Appeared

 #XTC #new wave #post-punk #progressive pop #art rock #pop rock #baroque pop #art punk #power pop #psychedelic pop #1980s #1990s

XTC are one of those odd bands that defied convention and actually got better as time went on. Usually a band makes a big splash at the start of their career and continue to make continually less impressive albums as their career progresses. XTC did it the other way round: they started off as a reasonably good power-pop act and actually steadily improved over time. True, there was a slight stumble with Mummer and The Big Express, but they had reached incredible creative heights with Skylarking and by the time of Nonsuch they had reached a point where they had outlasted almost all of their peers and were still making music at least as good as what had been released before. Andy Partridge was still at his height as a songwriter, Colin Moulding was gaining confidence and penning gems like “Bungalow” and Dave Gregory’s guitar and keyboard work was giving the whole band a musical maturity which marked them as a band of rare quality.
Despite it equaling Oranges & Lemons’ chart success, Nonsuch has become increasingly overlooked as a key album in XTC’s career, as it wasn’t cited as an influence on the second wave of Brit-pop that reached its crescendo in the middle of the last decade, not was it hailed by the more heavyweight music press in the same way that Skylarking, and to a lesser extent Oranges & Lemons were. For years the only copies of Nonsuch available in the UK were as a part of a substantial remaster and reissue programme by their former record label.
While Nonsuch has never enjoyed the sycophantic praise smothered over it by lesser acts as their early albums have, or enjoyed the press recognition of being a lost classic in the same way that Skylarking has, it remains one of XTC’s most well-rounded and broad albums. Over two decades on from its original release Nonsuch finally seems to be getting the recognition it deserves for being not only a great XTC album, but one of the finest British pop albums of the 90s. Oddly enough there seems to be a major reissue of it due in the not too distant future, as apparently Steven Wilson of Porcupine Tree fame has been following his success of doing similar work for the likes of prog rock acts like King Crimson and Yes, by working on a full bells and whistles version of Nonsuch.
From: https://www.backseatmafia.com/not-forgotten-xtc-nonsuch/

Pink Floyd - Several Species Of Small Furry Animals Gathered Together In A Cave And Grooving With A Pict

 #Pink Floyd #David Gilmour #Roger Waters #psychedelic rock #British psychedelia #progressive rock #art rock #space rock #experimental rock #blues rock #1960s #1970s

Aye, an' a bit of mackerel, settler rack and down
Ran it down by the home, and I flew
Well, I slapped me and I flopped it down in the shade
And I cried, cried, cried.

The fear a fallen down had taken, never back to raise
And then cried Mary, an' took out wi' your Claymore,
Right outta a' pocket, I ran down, down the mountainside
Back on (Battlin'?) the fiery horde that was falling around the feet.

Never! He cried, never shall ye get me alive
Ye rotten hound of the burnie crew!
Well, I snatched fer the blade an' a Claymore cut and thrust,
And I fell doon before him round his feet. Aye!

A roar he cried!
Frae the bottom of his heart
That I would nay fall but as dead,
Dead as I can by a' feet, d'ya ken?

And the wind cried Mary.

Thank you.

One of the most interesting pieces Roger Waters ever produced, Several Species has been consistently underrated. While hardly melodic or even musical, the piece embodies the experimental era of the Floyd and other such bands through its imaginative uses of 'animal' sound effects (most of them done by Roger, then sped up or slowed down) to create a multi-layered chorus, functioning very effectively as a rhythm track. The animal section, lasting about three and a half minutes, supposedly contains hidden messages which are revealed when the record is played at different speeds, such as 16, 45 and 78 rpm. The 'Pict' section, lasting only a minute, is also fascinating. At first listen, Roger's rant makes no sense whatsoever. However, repeated listening reveals a discernible monologue, distorted by a heavily affected satiric Scots accent and some nonsensical words and phrases. Some sources have claimed that this monologue was improvised live in the studio, but it seems a little more coherent and linear than something that might be made up off the top of one's head. Based on the possibly incorrect assumption that the 'lyric' was written and actually means something, an analysis of its content follows.
First, a historical note: the Picts were composed of violent, raiding tribes of both Celtic and pre-Celtic peoples who held power in ancient Caledonia (now Scotland), most notably during the time period c.300-843 AD. After this point, they became united with (and in most minds, synonymous to) the Scots. This 'poem' if you will, which almost seems to parody the style of the renowned Scots poet Robert Burns (1759-1796), tells an interesting story. The transcription above converts the heavily accented words to standard English spelling in most cases (such as 'middin stain' to 'mountainside' and 'doon' to 'down'). The 'Pict' who tells the story starts by referring to the fact that his family settled down in this (apparently) coastal area, probably to fish for mackerel (a common industry in Scotland). But now, conflict and fighting has disrupted his life, all the more so because he is a coward, and has just fled from the battle that his brethren partake in, back to his home. He slaps himself for his cowardice, drops his sword in the shade, and weeps. He is afraid of the heavy blade causing him to fall down in battle — a mistake no-one survives ('never back to raise'). But then he gathers his courage, picking up what is probably his father's Claymore ('your Claymore') and rejoins the fray with a battle cry of Mary! (probably Mary, Queen of Scots, or else the Virgin Mary, a reference to his Catholicism). He sees his friends falling dead around the feet of a particularly ferocious enemy, who screams his defiance. Our young Scotsman grabs for his blade, but his worst fears are realized — it is too heavy, and the enemy's Claymore 'cut and thrust' and he falls at the enemy's feet. The enemy cries that he will not fall and live, and the young Scotsman meets his ignoble end, leaving only the wind to echo his battle cry ('and the wind cried Mary').
The poem seems to imply that it is Scotsman against Scotsman, a situation that did occur during the reign of Mary Queen of Scots in the mid-1500s, as the Catholic supporters of the Queen warred against the Protestant opposition. The above, is however, merely one interpretation of a piece which could mean any number of things — or nothing. What is particularly humorous about this section of Several Species is the elaborate poetic set-up used in order to end with a joking reference to a lyric already made popular by Jimi Hendrix a couple of years before ('the wind cried Mary') — and have it actually make sense. Someone who sounds a bit like Dave Gilmour says 'Thank you' in a normal accent at the end — perhaps Dave was in the recording booth?   From: http://floydlyrics.blogspot.com/2010/03/several-species-of-small-furry-animals.html