LEFTOVERS: IT'S ELEMENTAL (continued........)

(Heh, heh, heh, esteemed buddy, KK, you can't throw a gauntlet of that size down and expect me to walk away........)

Now, where were we?

Uranium: Uranium Fever by Elton Britt.
Wow, what find! A sassy 50s rap eulogising the joys of this most famous of the radioactive particles, just the sort of song aching to have been revived in the 70s heyday of Commander Cody's gloriously louche Lost Planet Airmen. Hell, I can see 'em playing it right now in my head. Smoke smoke smoke THAT cigarette!! Britt was a fairly successful country singer of his day, famous more for his yodelling than his singing, I learn, oft-covering the King of the Yodel, Jimmie Rodgers.

Lanthanum: Lanthanum by Vain Velocity.
'Haunting tune' speaks a comment on the youtube, and for a moment I bought that too, before it nosedived through the ground into a throat singing implosion of grunge-plated metal. So this is greek heavy metal? I always confuse lanthanum with laudanum, wondering if they did too. Hell, it's the sort of haunting nightmare that might strike if laudanum had been taken.

Dubnium: Haze by Dubnium.
I rather like this. I only searched because of the name, never having heard of the substance, but hoping it may have been similarly noted. Reassuringly heavily dubby, this is the work of a Plymouth, U.K., DJ, Sean, um, Dubnium, possibly not his birth name, mentioned to distinguish from U.S. based Dubnium Soundsystem, whom I didn't investigate. I could easily come down from a Laudanum hit on this.

Iridium: Iridium by Dark Tranquillity.
Shucks, I should have known better, lulled in again by a tasteful intro ahead of stentorian grunting dragging me down out of my demographic. Could be the same fella as the greek above, but they are swedish death metal stalwarts of the Gothenburg scene, it says here. I'd love to sound less grudging of their art but when I say it is nauseous, it's only because I would be if tried to sing like that. But then, what do I know?

Lead: Weights Made of Lead by the Sensational Alex Harvey Band.
Well I never, mere weeks after this and I discover this little nugget somehow earlier having passed me by. Could it be the repetitive nature of the tune or the plodding rhythm, but it certainly seems apt for the subject. 'I've got weights made of lead' sings Harvey but we never learn why. Is it a paean to fishing?

Tin: Tin Soldier by the Small Faces.
At last, cries my reader, at last one I know. A 1967 single that was perhaps their best, blending a pop sensitivity with something instrumentally a bit more inventive. The stop at 1.30, with then repeated keyboard motif predates that later stylisation, common across house music, by decades. Terrible to think that, with the death earlier this year of keyboard player, Ian McLagan, that drummer, Kenney Jones, is last man standing. R.I.P. Mac, along with Ronnie 'Plonk' Lane and Steve Marriott.

Krypton: Kryptonite by 3 Doors Down.
Is kryptonite the same as krypton? Do we know or care? Always and irrespectively associated with Superman, this was a massive hit in 2000 for Escatawpa, Mississippee band, whose singer and, for the first 4 years, drummer, Brad Arnold, seems to be the only permanent. Struggling to say much more as it is so inoffensive.

Mercury: Mercury Poisoning by Graham Parker & the Rumour.
All at once I'm dragged back to the early 70s with this righteous blast. Jeez, I loved this band, GP a much more vitriolic character than the benign old dude revived in Judd Apatow's 'This is 40'. I saw them then and saw them again, last year, touring again on the back of the films exposure, marvelling at the still smoking embers of pre-punk. The song, a thinly disguised jibe at his record label, Mercury, was and is typical of his lyrical spikiness. Wonderful.

Bismuth: Bismuth by Michael Johnson
I know nothing of this new age instrumental beyond a link to this, from where which it comes. And all the tracks are inspired by different elements. Quite how the pastoral tone of this example fits with the active ingredient of 'Pepto-Bismol', a proprietary anti-diarrhoeal, I don't know, apart from perhaps the calm it's apparent efficacy might provoke. The whole album is a free download, if you forgive the use of that term apropos to a discussion around diarrhoea.

Tungsten: Insomnia (Dark Dubstep) by Tungsten
More instrumental gobbledegook cooked up in someone's bedroom, but I like it. As I get older I seem strangely drawn to this sort of stuff, certainly enjoying it way more than the hideous elemental metal cliches the elements seem to bring forth. OK, neither clever, nor art but hey, it made me smile. and who Tungsten? Not a clue.

So, another 10, and like radioactivity, it's nearly killed me.
Part 4? Only when they make polony out of polonium.
Can you buy 'em? Probably. Go search, as the usual might not have then all.

Leftovers: It's Elemental/Once In A Lifetime

purchase [Once In A Lifetime]

The Element: Water redux

I really thought Retropath was headed down the right path when he started out to list the entire table of elements. I was seriously looking forward to the full 118.

Then again, considering the amount of time and energy involved in his somewhat quixotic endeavor, I was more inclined to simply complete the table of medieval elements along the lines of what J. David referred to.

Back at the time of the “It's Elemental” theme, I posted Hot Tuna's "Water Song" (Which I have since learned to play!). Without making distinction on the theme of the element of water - since the two songs are in rather different musical categories, I now realize I might well have posted Talking Heads' “Once In a Lifetime”.

For almost a decade, back in the 90s, I collected and re-re-listened to David Byrne and the band. I later relished Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, and Arcade Fire (although I haven’t seen anyone else group them with Talking Heads, I think so) as re-incarnations of the Talking Heads’ genre.

Still, Talking Heads would still take my category prize as the elemental band of its style. And critical to that catalogue would be “Once In a Lifetime” – not least for its relevance to “Plato and Aristotle’s” Elements: there's water running all the way through in its original MTV version here:

It’s Elemental --> Big Bands: The Main Event: Tornado Special/Waterfalls/Ooh Nah Nay/Rebirth on Fire

Rebirth Brass Band: The Main Event: Tornado Special/Waterfalls/Ooh Nah Nay/Rebirth on Fire
[purchase]

I’ve often, and probably annoyingly, stated that, in music, everything is better with a horn section. That may well be true in life, too, I mean wouldn’t it be great to go to work, but always have a horn section around?

Starting probably with watching the great HBO series Tremé, I began to learn about New Orleans brass band music, and realized that it was, pretty much, all horn section (and drums, which are also great). What is incredible about this music is that it starts with a base of traditional marching band songs and layers on funk, soul, rock, R&B and rap into an incredible, infectious mix. So, when I went to New Orleans in June, one of my goals was to hear some brass band music in its native environment.

This plan paid off almost immediately, because our first day in the Crescent City included a walking tour of the French Quarter, and while we waited for the guide in Jackson Square, we got to hear a great band playing for tips outside the park. I linked to a video of them in my last New Orleans piece, but here’s a different one. And, as I also previously wrote, as part of the wedding that was the excuse for the trip, we second lined behind the Kinfolk Brass Band, who then played during the cocktail hour at the reception. Then, we went to hear Musical Expression, a group of seven college-age musicians featuring mostly horns, at the Maison on Frenchmen Street, and on the way back to the hotel after their show, in a cab, we passed a large band of young kids, maybe high schoolers or even younger, playing brass band music on the street.

Which brings me to the featured song, or songs, from a live album released in 1999 by the Rebirth Brass Band. Formed in 1983 by brothers Philip (tuba/sousaphone) and Keith Frazier (bass drum), along with trumpeter Kermit Ruffins and other members of the marching band from the Joseph S. Clark Senior High School in the Tremé neighborhood, I’m willing to bet that they started playing on the streets, too. Along with their predecessors, The Dirty Dozen Brass Band, and other like-minded musicians, Rebirth helped to revitalize the brass band genre by updating the sound, and by putting on intense, powerful live performances.

This live album was recorded in 1999 at the Maple Leaf Bar, a venerable New Orleans institution (where Rebirth currently appears to play regularly on Tuesdays), and you can almost feel the heat in the room. Settle in for almost a half hour of continuous music, starting with an original piece, “Tornado Special,” (an Air reference) which then segues into a cover of TLC’s “Waterfalls” (Water), which turns into the Mardi Gras Indian chant “Ooh Nah Nay,” and ends with a revised version of the 1984 Rock Master Scott & the Dynamic Three song, “The Roof Is On Fire” (Fire) You pretty much have all of the “elements” of the style, all in one medley. Playing that night was a pretty big band-- Phil Frazier (sousaphone), Keith Frazier (bass drum), Derek Tabb (snare drum), Shamarr Allan (trumpet), Glen Andrews (trumpet), James Durant (saxophone), and Tyrus Chapman (trombone).

Rebirth’s music was featured in a number of Tremé episodes, including the season 2 finale, which was named after their song, “Do What You Wanna.” In fact, late in the episode, a band of high school students plays the song on Frenchmen Street, maybe right where my wife and I saw the kids playing that night, and a few scenes later in the episode, Rebirth is shown playing at the Maple Leaf. Unfortunately, HBO is very good at taking down illegal videos of the episode, so I can’t link to it, but if you haven’t watched Tremé, you should.

IT'S ELEMENTAL: Part 2

What fun! Against sense or justification I find myself with time to continue a trawl through some more of the elements. I am intrigued by still how potent a source of lyrical stimulation the periodic table is proving, even as we leave the everyday names behind. Naturally the temptation to use some of the more arcane names of elements for band names, especially if ‘heavy metals’, is too much to resist, for example the well-known(?) bands Nobium, Cobalt, Xenon, C(a)esium 137 and even Barium, hoping the latter haven’t made too much of a meal of it. Sorry to any of them, hoping for a tag to their latest, but I am sticking to the words in songs.

Buy Titanium
First off is dancemaster David Guetta, who, in 2011, produced this little number, featuring go-to girl in this genre, Sia. I find it fascinating that the video seems to display a girl with supernatural forces running from the Police, not least as the opening bars of the tune seem a lift from Sting’s finest? All a bit generic and by numbers for me. Understandably not in the Greatest Hits that crept onto my shelves last year.

Buy Vanadium, but you will need i-tunes
Unbelievable! Vanadium I had never even heard of, yet clearly a part of the essentials for this gloomy and never more industrial gothic sounding outfit, from their 1983 album "Zeichnungen des Patienten O.T.", or Drawing of Patient O.T., which isn’t a huge help. The name of the group I knew, but this was my very first earburst of them, reading that their thing is the use of non-musical machinery as part of their instrumentation. Resisting the obvious cynical riposte, I am minded of the more recent Fuck Buttons, who similarly invoke noise as music. Oddly I can see an appeal, but maybe I have had too many MRI scans. Erstwhile member Blixa Bargold, guitar/vocals, later became a member of Nick Cave band The Birthday Party and then a Bad Seed.

Buy Chromium (electric)

The Church are, of course, world famous in Australia, with a lineage stretching back decades up into the present day: they have recently performed a few bijou gigs in the U.K. I think they should and could have been better known, tending towards a tuneful jangliness, reminiscent of Teenage Fanclub.This is the 2^nd version of the song, appearing on a 2005 acoustic rehash of back-catalogue, ‘El Momento Descuidado, an LP I picked up cheap in Melbourne, whilst visiting my daughter, a couple of years back. I prefer it to the electric version here.

Buy Iron
Who could resist and who does not know this song? An astonishing 45 years old, or will be in a month, astonishingly simple and astonishingly effective. I forgive them for the successive waves of noisy tosh produced within their invented genre, if only for the joy of air-guitar aged 13. And all still alive and squabbling. Wonderful.

Buy Nickel
So, as stated, no room for Nickelback, thank the Lord, or Nickel Creek, mores the pity, here, so it’s the marmite man himself, Tom Waits. Fabulous songwriter, of which I have no doubt, it’s just his unusual corncrake grate of a voice. Sometimes, just sometimes, it works for me, and, by jingo, this is one of those times, the contrast with the strings imparting a pathos I didn’t know he had in him. OK the odd guttural hawk as it continues, making me wince and the front row of any audience duck. Nearly as good as Over the Rainbow.

Buy Copper
Confess I only know the W.O.L.D.(ee ee ee) song for this lauded writer, deceased many a long year. Not my proverbial, I fear, being too M.O.R. (ah ah ah). Cheap gag, move on.

Buy Zinc
I wanted, I really wanted to give this a chance, trying to forget the years of horror when T. Rex were a fixture on UK TV chartshow 'Top of the Pops', my mother unfailingly asking me who he, Bolan,  was, with my stock answer being that I didn’t know. In case she though it indicative of my taste. Best thing, as ever, is the Taylor/Volman backing vocals, fresh from their stint with the Mothers of Invention, with me never understanding quite why. Shame the Turtles never sang a song about, o, I don’t know, Tungsten. (Is tungsten even an element?)

Buy Arsenic
Unfamiliar with these guys, and, at my first wiki I was pleasantly surprised, preparing to give this formulaic pop-punk a second chance, mistaking the noughties Philadephia “punks”, the Loved Ones, with the Australian garage band of the same name, 40 years earlier. What is yawn now would be somewhatground-breaking in ’65. But it wasn’t to be. File under old lace.

Buy Molybdenum, sorry, Nobelium
Mindful of 3 spiteful comments in a row, I really need one to like, and this, I thought, was definitely the one. The sheer unlikeliness of a song called Molybdenum automatically excused any need to consider its value. But, frustratingly, not on the youtube……. But, they did do one called Nobelium, which is, even if straying from the order I had been seeking. In fact they have more, with songs Iodine, Uranium, two Oxygens, another Titanium, Selenium and Nitrogen, all on a 2000 LP called, with little surprise, elements. Who they? Noxious Emotion is the name. I applaud the idea more than its fruition, but it’s OK. Clearly a leader in what amazon call EBM. (No, me neither, so back to wiki….) Whatever. It's OK. Really.

Buy Iodine
Now I can imagine Leonard Cohen stumbling down a track on some obscure greek island, knees smeared with iodine, having fallen from a scooter after a liason with his latest olive hued muse. Which seems actually to fit the gist of the lyric. Maybe not his pinnacle. Produced, doncha know, by Phil Spector, giving some down time fun imagining the same song sung by the Ronettes. (Works for me!)

I think we are both tiring……

It’s Elemental: King’s Lead Hat

Brian Eno: King’s Lead Hat
[purchase]

If you only think of Brian Eno as the guy who does those long, ambient pieces, let me introduce you to the rocking “King’s Lead Hat.” During the mid-1970s, Eno first entered the world of popular music as the synthesizer player for Roxy Music, quit the band, and then released four remarkable solo albums that mixed rock, electronic music, jazz and experimental sounds in a way that was, if not groundbreaking, was pretty damn cool. At the same time, he began to experiment with various techniques that led to the release of his ambient music, and released a series of such albums, including the legendary Music For Airports.

Before and After Science was the last of the rock-oriented albums from this period, released in 1977, and it includes ambient pieces, silly ditties, and a few rockers, none more aggressively so than “King’s Lead Hat.” Reportedly recorded, but lacking lyrics and a title, before Eno and John Cale saw an up and coming band, Talking Heads, at CBGB in New York, Eno gave the song a title that was an anagram for Talking Heads and wrote a bunch of lyrics around the title which either make no sense or are brilliant. Or both. Many Eno lyrics seem to use words more for their sound than as a vehicle for imparting meaning (like, say, this one), or to create vivid imagery. There may well be some sexual references in the lyrics of “King’s Lead Hat.” Or not.

What is clear, though, is that the music was way ahead of its time. You can certainly hear some Talking Heads in the jittery, New-Wavy sound, but you can also hear precursors of what the Talking Heads would sound like a few years later, when Eno began to produce them. And you can hear the roots of the synthesizer based pop music, that would become popular in the late 1970s and early 1980s, starting with Gary Numan and exploding from there.

Not surprisingly, I had never heard Eno on the radio before working at WPRB starting in 1979, and his music was treated there with incredible reverence. We even had a show one evening, named in honor of his earlier, somewhat more experimental album, Another Green World, for music that fit into that genre of experimental, electronic, OK, I’ll say it—weird--music. One night, my friend Bill and I took over the show for a “performance” that you can read about in more detail here, along with a bunch more of my college radio reminiscences. Considering Eno’s involvement with the Portsmouth Sinfonia, an orchestra that admitted only players who were either non-musicians, or were playing an unfamiliar instrument (Eno played clarinet), I suspect he would have been fine with my “performance.”

With the perspective of years, there are times that I think that some of the Eno worship is a bit over the top, but you can’t deny that he has produced some of the best and most popular albums ever, has made music that has influenced generations of musicians in numerous genres. And, I still enjoy his music.

IT'S ELEMENTAL

At first I had a silly and somewhat vainglorious notion of posting a song relating to each and every element. That would get the posts up, I thought, failing to recall quite how many of the buggers there were. After a quick chat with my friend wiki I realised/remembered  there were 118 of them, meaning a minimum of 14 posts a day, given I have already left this so late. And then, as I perused the list, I saw that few are exactly household names, sufficiently known as to be stimulating the pens of even the most scholarly lyricist. But these ideas are hard to shake off, and so, like a grass seed in the ear of a dog, here’s a germinated selection of some of the less likely. (None of your oxygens or lithiums, mind, that would be too easy.)

So, here’s to part 1, hoping I won’t be stepping on the shoes of too many colleagues, themselves eagerly pursuing these very titles for more complete discussion and discourse.

HELIUM: The Plain White Ts are what I would call inoffensive. Easily digestible, processed and slightly punky pop, with melodies and purpose to satisfy the easily pleased. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t dislike them, I just don’t sort of need them. This track, written by their main songwriter, Tom Higgenson, comes from 2013’s ‘Should’ve Gone to Bed’, and is typically catchy, tho’ I fear I may have forgotten it by tomorrow.

Buy Helium

NITROGEN PINK: Polly Scattergood sounds as if she ought to be good, if not better than this song, her debut single in 2007. Sadly, the vocals are too knowingly off-kilter. The construction behind it is OK, but, tellingly, 2009 was her last release. And WTF is Nitrogen Pink anyway? (Possibly something Bjork inhales?)

Buy Nitrogen

NEON MOON: At last, one for the old folks, it’s that nice Brooks and Dunn, mega-sellers from Linedancing Land. Can you take it away now? Please.

Buy Neon

SODIUM LIGHT BABY: Matt Johnson, aka The The, produced a flurry of dance influenced records from the mid 80s until, after a gap, 2000, this song coming from his 6^th, ‘Dusk’, in 1993. With the move towards a more guitar based sound, courtesy Johnny Marr, I hear a tinge, appropriately perhaps, of the ‘Mad’chester Happy Mondays sound, but with better vocals.

Buy Sodium

MAGNESIUM NIGHT LIGHT: Actually this is a pair of tracks, being a composite of Infrared Roses and the aforementioned. I’d tell you where the join is, but, to be fair, despite listening, I have no way of knowing. It’s an instrumental and I’m guessing it’s live. No doubt, because it is the Grateful Dead, you had to be there, but I never thought I would be missing Jerry’s vocal ‘strengths’. Can I be the first to go on record and say I prefer their studio stuff.

Don't buy Magnesium; you can't. (But it does have a touch of grey about it.)

ALUMINUM: Or Aluminium, as we charmingly call it over here. The White Stripes or, massively overated as, likewise, we call them over here. I like the Jack White/Brendan Benson ‘Raconteurs’ stuff, largely, I suspect, as Benson has the discipline to rein in White’s more, um, experimental side. Pleasantly short.

Buy Aluminum

SILICON JESUS: I had never heard this or of Psykosonik, making my aimless wittering of worth, if only to me, ‘cos I rather like it’s somewhat generic and derivative take on techno. If Plain White Ts went electronic with a few sequencers I think they would sound like this.  (How many different Jesus’s can you think of in popular music?)

Buy Silicon

SULFUR: The temptation to belittle and deride Slipknot with more ribtickling mirth around the spelling of Sulphur is actually dissipated by a gallingly shocking fact. This is quite good. OK, get rid of the vocals and it’s very good. Who knew? Having never knowingly allowed myself to listen to them, should I now be exploring their back catalogue? This is from 2008s ‘All Hope is Gone’ and it is almost fusion in its frantic pace. Mind you, I’m not that keen on fusion either.

Buy Sulfur

CHLORINE: From 2014, a group called Title Fight about whom I know next to nothing. The youtube metacritics argue about how or not hardcore they are, and AMG says nothing. ‘Pitchfork’ told me more, without, true to form, actually telling me anything. It’s their second LP, if that helps.

Buy Chlorine

POTASSIUM: Bones, another new-to-me, in a broadly electronica beats tonepoem, with a glorious harmonium like intro. Given LastFM tell me there are 5 different groups/individuals called by this name,  it was intriguing as to whether this was/is the same Bones who has an earlier song called, intriguingly for this piece, ‘Calcium’? If so, Bones is a ridiculously prolific individual called Elmo Kennedy O’Connor, and is described as a rapper. (Well, if this is rap, like Slipknot above, or nearly like Slipknot above, count me in for more.)

Download Potassium (for free!)

11 down, including the 2 from Elmo Bones.

To be continued?

It's Elemental: Earth Angel

The Penguins: Earth Angel
[purchase]

Change is one of the few things that we can count on. Marriage equality, which not so long ago seemed first impossible, then unlikely, is now the law of the land. Donald Trump has changed from a bufoonish businessman to a bufoonish politician. In my lifetime, we have gone from a world with a handful of TV stations, a music industry dominated by large companies issuing vinyl and computers that filled rooms to virtually unlimited access to all media, including on powerful computers we carry in our pockets.

When Plato and Aristotle passed for scientists, they understood that there were four elements—earth, air, fire and water, and maybe a fifth, “aether.” A similar five element system was posited in Hindu writings, and the Buddha taught about the first four. The Chinese philosophers had five—Fire, Earth, Metal, Water and Wood, while Japanese tradition followed the Hindu system. Or at least, that’s what Wikipedia says. Modern science, however, considers elements to be substances defined by their atomic numbers, with 118 of them currently identified. If anything, the classical elements are now loosely identified with the states of matter—solid, gas, liquid and plasma.

The song, “Earth Angel,” refers to one of the classical elements directly, and even, to some degree, to the aether, because that’s where angels dwell. It was the one and only hit song by the Penguins (penguins, of course, live where Water is often a solid, although the group was from Los Angeles, where Water is now at a premium, the Earth quakes, Fire ravages the countryside and the Air is almost solid). The Penguins, a doo-wop group that morphed from an earlier group, the Hollywood Flames (Fire!!), literally recorded the demo version of the song in a garage in 1954, often having to stop recording when a neighbor’s dog barked.

The music business was so different in those days that the demo, physically carried to a record store as an acetate by producer/label owner Dootsie Williams (who also recorded comedy records by Redd Foxx and violinist Johnny Creach, who years later, as Papa John Creach, played with the Jefferson Airplane/Starship and Hot Tuna), was played on a radio show, requests came in, Williams decided to release it without dubbing any more instrumentation, and a hit was born (despite the fact that Williams insisted on releasing it as the b-side of the now forgotten "Hey Señorita"). The success of the song created a demand that apparently almost bankrupted Williams, who ran out of label paper. Its timelessness and beauty has resulted in sales of millions of copies over the years, numerous cover versions and soundtrack appearances. And not surprisingly, it resulted in years of litigation among Williams, members of the group, putative song writers and Mercury (an Element!) Records, which later signed the Penguins and released a more produced and less successful version of the song.  One of the songwriter claimants, Jesse Belvin, actually was required by the judge to stand up and sing his version, which led to his being awarded a portion of the credit.  The Penguins later released a nostalgia novelty song called "Memories of El Monte," based on the "Earth Angel" chord changes, and containing bits of other doo-wop songs, including "Earth Angel," which was written by Frank Zappa and Ray Collins, pre-Mothers of Invention.

I was introduced to this song years ago by my parents, who are high school sweethearts and remembered dancing to the song during their courtship during the 1954-55 era. My parents married in 1959 and are still together. And while that hasn’t changed, like all relationships, theirs has changed over the years, from being young marrieds with small kids, to successful adults who put those kids through college, to amazing grandparents. I’ve seen my parents dance over the years, usually at weddings and bar mitzvahs, and while I’m sure that they dance differently now than they did back when “Earth Angel” was a hit, I know that their love and respect for each other hasn’t changed, and, if anything, has grown stronger.