Monthly Archives: February 2017

830. directly from my heart to you

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By 1970 (and probably all along), the Mothers of Invention were whatever and whoever Frank Zappa said they were. In the case of Directly From My Heart To You, that meant that Sugarcane Harris‘s straight ahead blues and violin take on a Little Richard original belonged on 1970’s Weasels Ripped My Flesh, which was that kind of album anyway – odds and sods and outtakes from various live gigs and studio sessions all jammed together and, strangely (or perhaps not) making for a very much essential Mothers excursion, the only limits being Mr. Zappa’s abilities (staggering) and taste (expansive to say the least). And then there’s that album cover, which Philip Random admits is the reason he bought it in the first place.

sugarcaneharris-1970

831. Alabama Song

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In which Ralph Schuckett, Richard Butler, Bob Dorough, Ellen Shipley and John Petersen take on a Kurt Weill song made famous by the Doors, sort of. But it really ought to be the other way around, Kurt Weill being one of the greatest songwriters of the 20th Century (oft working with Bertolt Brecht), and the degree to which so many are ignorant of this is the degree to which we continue to be ignorant of what makes this f***ed up world continue to spin and wobble and crash and burn. Fortunately, producer, arranger, lover-of-cool-stuff Hal Willner set a bunch of us straight in the mid-80s sometime with Lost In The Stars an all-star tribute if ever there was one. Beyond the five names already listed, it had Todd Rundgren, Van Dyke Parks, Dagmar Krause, Tom Waits, Marianne Faithfull, even Sting (not sucking) all throwing in, paying homage, telling the truth.

kurtweilllottalenye

1983. money talks

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“JJ Cale speaks the truth. JJ Cale who’s cooler than I’ll ever be, or Eric Clapton for that matter. In fact, I’m cooler than Eric Clapton, because no one ever confused with me God, except myself, of course, but that didn’t survive my twenty-seventh birthday. But enough about me. How cool was JJ Cale? He was mucking around with drum machines as early as 1971, yet so deep into his dirt poor sort of lazy rolling boogie, blues, country stylings that nobody bothered to take note. But Money Talks came twelve years later, sounding like it may have been thirty years earlier. Nothing cooler than fooling time.” (Philip Random)

jjcale-1983

833. Rage in Eden

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Ultravox started out as sort of glam infused new wavers, but after three cool but not particularly successful albums, their label dumped them, front man John Foxx went solo, and the other members wandered off in various directions. Which would have been the end of things if keyboardist-violinist Billy Currie hadn’t run into Midge Ure (his first name was actually Jim) while working with original New Romantics, Visage. The rebooted Ultravox took the New Romantic thing and ran with it, first with Vienna, then 1981’s Rage In Eden, with the title track a study in contained, cinematic noir. Like peering out a window at the new decade as a thick fog rolled in – interesting times whether you wanted them or not.

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834. Lion of Symmetry

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“Tony Banks (keyboard guy and founding member of Genesis) partners with Toyah Willcox (actress, proto punk, emergent pop songstress, and in 1986, only recently married to Robert Fripp) to deliver the definitive Genesis track of 1980s. Sort of. Because it was definitely the track that made me realize it wasn’t my former favourite band that I’d become allergic to, but their front man. Because given a big, ambitious Banks composition to work with, she sent things out of the stratosphere. At least that’s how it hit me late one night, alone, a little high, headphones on, listening to a mixtape a friend had left in my car. Suddenly I was that lion, free and savage and symmetrical (whatever that was supposed to mean). Epic stuff.” (Philip Random)

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835. the tower

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NoMeansNo finally got it right on Wrong: the ferocious musicality of their live thunder captured in the studio, pressed to vinyl, unleashed upon the world. The whole album tends to flow together as one prolonged eruption of ugly-beautiful wrongness, but The Tower gets it singled out because it f***ing towers.

nomeansno-1989