[MP3s] From Shogun Kunitoki's Tasankokaiku CD

Listen to full length audio samples (mp3/96kbps) from Shogun Kunitoki's brand new album Tasankokaiku ("Plains Echo") on Finland's Fonal Records:

'Montezuma'

'Tropiikin kuuma huuma' ("The Hot Heat of Tropic")

Soundwise this instrumental album with its droney organ-heavy sound makes me think of Terry Riley (especially his 1968 minimal drone masterpiece A Rainbow in Curved Air) , The United States of America (a great experimental 60s band) and The Doors!

---

Listen to more Fonal Records material at Fonal Jukebox

Lukas of WFMU on YouTube et al.

Lukas of WFMU has also checked out YouTube and other free video hosts such as http://video.google.com/, and compares them to the early Napster.

Right now these sites seem like a video version of early Napster, combined with lots of vanity stuff. There are many gems among tons of garbage, and I suggest you start downloading the good stuff now before it is too late. Earlier this month, NBC forced YouTube to take down a Saturday Night Live video, and I bet that this is only the beginning of legal battles to come.

If you found anything you like from my 1960s and 70s-80s listings, I also recommend you in the real anarcho spirit to download it to your own collection before the megacorp lawyers cut in. If my instincts serve me right, it won't be long before that happens...

Inhokkilistat (sorry, in Finnish only)

ooooo-postituslistalla on nyt ollut thread ihmisten henk.kohtaisista musiikki-inhokeista, joten koska olen laiska mies, enkä keksi tänään muuta kirjoitettavaa blögiin, niin kopioin oman kontribuutioni keskusteluun tähän:

Nyt kun sitten on kollektiivisesti päästetty katit pöydälle ja avattu matopurkit...

- kaikki tylsät, statukseltaan lähinnä seinäpaperin kiinnostustasolla olevat ja tapahtumarikkaudeltaan kuivuvaa maalia muistuttavat, Velvet Undergroundia kopioivat indieorkesterit, joiden ohuella äänellä lauletuista biiseistä ei jää mitään päähän.(Originaali-VU, jumalatarmaisella Nicolla tai ilman, taas kuuluu pHinninkin kotialttarille Barrettin ja Scott Walkerin viereen... no niin, siinähän teille jo artisteja mollattavaksi, kun massiivinen retaliaatio pHinn-setää kohtaan alkaa tämän viestin jälkeen. Ja eiköhän ole taas aika avata teknopaskahomo-threadi uudestaan... [vuoden 2000 keskustelu em. listalla, joka sai pHinnin tuohtumaan pahanpäiväisesti ja häipymään ovet paukkuen ooooo:sta reiluksi vuodeksi kunnes ooooo:laiset ottivat kollektiivisesti hatun kouraan ja rukoilivat pHinniä palaamaan kyseiselle postituslistalle, mikä ele sai (anti)sankarimme liikuttumaan ja heltymään.]

- Tigerbombsia en nyt varsinaisesti inhoa, ja ne ovat varmaan mukavia ihmisiä ja hyviä tyyppejä jne., mutta en oikein osaa innostua näistä "vuoden 1979 parhaista bändeistä" vuonna 2006... Musiikilliset pastissit eivät muutenkaan innosta, kun voi kuunnella niitä alkuperäisiä (puhun nyt tässä itseni pussiin ja ammun itseäni jalkaan ja nivusiin, kun juuri teimme Kompleksin kanssa M.A. Nummisen 'Kirkko, rakkaani' -raidasta vanhan koulun elektro -tyyppisen remixin) -- toisaalta taas eri retrotyylejä kiinnostavalla ja luovalla tavalla sekoittavat uusartistit toimivat pHinnWeb-bunkkerissakin, joten en voi olla tässä asiassa paavia paavillisempi.

- Sunn O))) (vai miten *itussa se kirjoitetaan): olin keikalla, ja kerrassaan kammottavaa pörinää ja örinää hupullisiin kylpytakkeihin sonnustautuneilta äijiltä. Kiinalainen vesikidutuskin olisi ollut viihdyttävämpää. En ymmärrä.

- kaikki metsäetnomusiikkiopiskelijavillapaitainkapipofolkki, jossa mou'utaan naukuvalla äänellä keijuista aamukasteessa ja vingutetaan pirunviulua yms. aiheuttaa lähinnä narkoleptisen nukahtamiskohtauksen (nerokkaita Kemiallisia Ystäviä en laske em. joukkoon). Sortsit vaan kaikille alan ihmisille.

- improvisoitu musiikkikaan ei ole juuri hirveästi auennut toistaiseksi. Pidän sit kai enemmän epäspontaanimmasta, epäluonnollisemmasta ja laskelmoidummasta lähestymistavasta; enemmän kylmästä kuin "lämpimästä" musiikista. "Aitous" ja "luonnollisuus" ovat konstruktioita muiden joukossa. Suosittelen lukemaan J.K. Huysmansin teoksen Vastahankaan ("À Rebours", 1884), joka tuli hiljattain suomeksi. Vive l'artificialité!

t: pHreplicunt, epäihmisen ääni

I Am A Camera

The idea that one should be a camera/microphone recording everything around oneself and saving it for the posterity of future generations. For this purpose listening carefully to people's vernacular and generally observing: how they talk, behave, drink, love, hate; how they dress, what records they listen, what they watch on TV and at cinema, what books they read (if they read at all), and so on and so on. Being an outside observer there; maintaining an illusion of being impartial, of not participating, just watching. Even though this is not exactly true -- probably Bohr and Heisenberg were right with their Copenhagen Interpretation: that even an observer of a scientific test will inevitably have an effect on how the test will turn out, even though having a fallacious illusion of not being a participant there. You see, people tend to act when a camera is present; it's hard to act "natural" when one is aware of being watched. There is no reality-TV.

"Esse est percipi" ("Being is being perceived") - George Berkeley (1685-1753)

The Buggles: 'I Am A Camera' (7" single, 1981)

John Van Druten: I Am A Camera (a 1951 play based on Christopher's Isherwood's Goodbye to Berlin; filmed 1972 as Cabaret, starring Liza Minnelli)

Indiavision: The Weird and Wonderful Sound of Bollywood

I'm well aware that Bollywood (India's extremely proficient counterpart to Hollywood) was in vogue among hipsters (or the people who think they are those) already a couple of years ago, but I only got really into Bollywood's amazing soundtrack music, when I found from local library Metso this 16-track compilation of Indian film music from the period of 1966-1984.



Indiavision (2005) is a French-compiled selection of those weird and wonderful Bollywood film composers and singers. What fascinates me in these songs is how they take influences from Western film and popular music (rock, pop, psychedelia, disco...), mix them with their own musical heritage and instrumentation, and turn them into something that is simultaneously innovative, strange (at least to our Western ears), funny and beautiful.



Among sitars, tablas and Western-type of film orchestras with strings and brass you can hear spiky 60s and early 70s type of wah-wah pedal guitars and even some analogue synthesizer sounds. The songs are in Hindi but every now and then include some suitable catch phrases in English. Most bizarre this is in 'I Love You' by Usha Iyer and Asha Bhosle, where the lyrics "I really love you / I really do" are combined together with a cheery "Hare rama, hare Krishna" mantra; then at the end of the song one of the singers asks in hipster English: "Can we go a little faster, man?", receives an affirmative "Yeah!", and the tempo of the track duly speeds up.



Strange tempo changes are not the only things making this not too similar to Western pop; the songs often consist of various parts of different styles which follow each other in a surreal, even dream-like logic (just like the plots of most Bollywood films). These songs in their style, making one think of late-60s psychedelia, go somewhere beyond cheap exotica or "world music" styles. Like Brazilian Tropicália, this is truly a sound of international fusion of taking Western styles and mutating them with home-grown influences into something new and amazing. Since this compilation stops already to the year 1984, I can't tell how Indian film music today is, but if they keep following the tradition at display here, it really must be something to check out.



See also:

Indian Psych



Bollywood clips @ YouTube

YouTube: 1970s-1980s

As promised, here's more personal favourites from YouTube. I decided to lump 1970s and 1980s together, so this is a mixed bag, to say the least. 70s has been called the decade taste forgot and 80s was an age of blatant yuppie overkill. All in all, an era of bad haircuts, anyway.

Gladly there's more to this period of circa 20 years than just platform shoes and mullets. This was after all when music video emerged as an independent artform, so alongside my own musical favourites, I've also tried to include some videos that historians consider exemplary milestones in the evolution of this format. (Check A Guide to 1980s Music Video Directors if you want to do more searches on your own.) Thanks to Mr. Jani Hellén for some extra tips.

(And I've made some additions to the 1960s entries -- you might like to check out.)

Also, I'll keep updating this list, so keep hitting that "Reload" button!

***

ABBA. I guess these days it's OK to say you like Abba, but there's still a silliness factor in their external outlook.

ABC: 'Look of Love'

Adam and the Ants were at the forefront of the early 80s "New Romantic" style.

Baltimora: 'Tarzan Boy'. Authentic Italo trash from the 80s!

Afrika Bambaataa: Planet Rock

Marc Almond

Alphaville:

'Big Japan'

'Forever Young'

'Sounds Like Melody'

Amon Düul II

Art of Noise

The Au-Pairs: 'Come Again'

Tony Basil: 'Mickey'

The B-52's: 'Rock Lobster'

Billy Idol:

Johnny Rotten of Sex Pistols called Billy Idol the "Perry Como of punk", so this vocalist of the band Generation X who made it big with his solo career in America may not have been the most "street credible" names to emerge out of punk, but I was a big fan of his early-to-mid-80s Rebel Yell/Vital Idol era, and the guy was definitely one of the 80s pop icons like Madonna.

'Rebel Yell'

'Eyes Without a Face'

'Dancing With Myself' (a video directed by Tobe "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" Hooper, with a glimpse of Octobriana too!)

Black Sabbath

Blancmange: 'Blind Vision'

Blondie

Bootsy's Rubber Band: DC live, 1978

David Bowie ruled the 1970s almost single-handedly. As far as my own memories go, his 'Ashes To Ashes' (1981) was for me the first example representing the new style of music video art (looking quite strange and scary for a young kid). It's too bad music video declined pretty quickly as a bona fide artform, and became (in most cases) just glossy and shallow promotion for hit singles (just witness any bling-bling R&B videos on today's MTV).

Sarah Brightman: 'I Lost My Heart to a Starship Trooper' (feat. Hot Gossip. The appearance of Hot Gossip dance troupe (familiar from Kenny Everett Show) is what makes this one interesting.

Bronski Beat: 'Smalltown Boy'

The Buggles:

'I Am A Camera'

'Video Killed The Radio Star': the first-ever video shown on MTV, on the 1st of August, 1981!

Kate Bush

Butthole Surfers

Cabaret Voltaire

Cameo: 'Word Up' (1986)

Can: 'Paperhouse' (live on Beat Club)

Nick Cave

Neneh Cherry

Chrome:

'Meet You In The Subway' [2]

'New Age'

Classix Nouveaux: 'It's A Dream'

Alice Cooper

Julian Cope: Trampoline

The Cult: 'She Sells Sanctuary' (1985). The guilty pleasures dept...! The Cult was a band that started as a gothrock band called Southern Death Cult, then had a total makeover to pompous 60s/70s retro-style (stadium) rock. A must for the fans of unintentional humour, but I still think there's something endearing in their pseudo-mystical, quasi-psychedelic mid-80s stuff.

The Cure, who had some classic music videos in the 80s.

DAF: Liebe auf den ersten Blick'

The Damned: 'New Rose'

Danielle Dax: 'Big Hollow Man' (1988)

Dead Kennedys

Hazell Dean. UK Hi-NRG disco...

Deep Purple

Dire Straits: 'Money For Nothing'. Not my own favourite bands, but this 1985 video with its now amusing-looking early computer animation is considered a classic.

Depeche Mode.

Devo: those magnificent men in their red flowerpot hats...

Dinosaur Jr.: 'Freak Scene'

Divine:

'I'm So Beautiful'

'Love Reaction'

Dominatrix: 'The Dominatrix Sleeps Tonight'. A cult dance hit from 1984. This video was banned on MTV.

Duran Duran:

'The Chauffeur' (their infamous black & white video with girls in lingerie, somehow reminiscing Helmut Newton -- and a great song!)

Echo & The Bunnymen: 'People Are Strange'

Einstürzende Neubauten: 'Sand'

Erasure

Roky Erickson, the legendary madcap front man of the 13th Floor Elevators.

Eurythmics

Fad Gadget: 'Collapsing New People'

Falco:

'Der Kommissar'

'Rock Me Amadeus'

'Vienna Calling'

The Fall:

'Cab It Up'

live on The Tube (1983)

'Totally Wired'

John Foxx

Frankie Goes To Hollywood

Front 242

Funkadelic / Parliament

Peter Gabriel: 'Sledgehammer'. A classic music video with stop-motion animation.

Gloria Gaynor: 'I Will Survive'

Grandmaster Flash:

'The Message'

'White Lines'

Nina Hagen

Herbie Hancock: 'Rockit' (1983). Classic electro track and a classic video! + 'Rockit' - live at Grammy Awards 1984

Hawkwind

Paul Hardcastle:

'Don't Waste My Time'

'19'. This mid-80s UK hit about the Vietnam War introduced the technique of sampling to the audience at large.

Heaven 17:

'Let Me Go'

'This Is Mine'

Human League:

especially their pioneering 'Being Boiled' from 1978.

Hüsker Dü

Iggy Pop / The Stooges

Michael Jackson: 'Thriller'. I'm not a Jacko fan myself, but this 13:33 clip (or rather, a short film) is certainly a milestone in music video history. "Due to my strong personal convictions, I wish to stress that this film in no way endorses a belief in the occult", he points out in its beginning.

The Jam: 'Going Underground'

Japan:

'Cantonese Boy' (on Old Grey Whistle Test)

'Gentlemen Take Polaroids'

'Ghosts' (on Old Grey Whistle Test)

'Visions of China'

Grace Jones: some awesome classic music videos!

Howard Jones. Another 80s synthpop star who seems to have been forgotten now.

Kajagoogoo: 'Too Shy' (1983)

King Crimson

Kraftwerk

Landscape:

'Einstein a Go-Go'. They gave the name to a "New Romantic" disco in Helsinki!

'European Man'

Led Zeppelin

John Lennon

Liaisons Dangereuses: 'Los Niños Del Parque'

Lou Reed

Malaria!: 'Geld - Money'

Malcolm McLaren:

'Madame Butterfly (Un bel di vedremo)'. Opera meets disco.

My Life With The Thrill Kill Kult: 'Kooler Than Jesus'

Mötley Crüe. Yes, more guilty pleasures...

Newcleus: 'Jam On It'. A New York electro classic from the early 80s.

New York Dolls

Nine Inch Nails: 'Head Like A Hole' (1989)

999: 'Emergency'

Nitzer Ebb

The Normal: 'TV OD' (1978). The Normal was the electronic one-man project of Daniel Miller who founded Mute record label.

Gary Numan

Philip Oakey: 'Together In Electric Dreams'

OMD:

'Telegraph'

Robert Palmer: 'Addicted To Love'. Robert Palmer and his "band" of supermodels.

Pet Shop Boys

Pink Floyd:

'Another Brick In The Wall'

'Any Colour You Like'

'Careful With That Axe, Eugene'

'Empty Spaces/What Shall We Do Now?' (animation from The Wall movie)

'Grandchester Meadows'

Live at Pompeii

Plastic Bertrand: 'Ca Plane Pour Moi'

Prince:

I am a huge fan of Prince's "Golden Age" (ca. 1979-88) music; a big early influence on me and my musical education, which was to open up for me whole worlds of rock, pop, soul, funk and psychedelia. Here was an artist who was a combination of Jimi Hendrix, James Brown, Sly Stone, Curtis Mayfield, et al., and also played all instruments on many of his records and produced it all himself. It's a pity he couldn't keep up the promise of those days. Here are some videos and live performances from that era:

'Automatic'

'Bambi'

'Darling Nikki' (live, early 90s)

'Glam Slam'

'If I Was Your Girlfriend'

'I Wanna Be Your Lover' (on American Bandstand, 1980)

'I Wish U Heaven'

'Let's Go Crazy

'Little Red Corvette'

'Mountains'

'1999'

'Paisley Park'

'Party Up': "You gonna have to fight your own damn war 'cos we ain't gonna fight no more!"

'Purple Rain' (film version)

'Purple Rain' (on American Music Awards, 1985)

'Raspberry Beret'

'When Doves Cry'

'Why You Wanna Treat Me So Bad' (on American Bandstand, 1980)

+

Live in 1983:

[1] [2] [3] [4] [5]

VJ Jazz vs Prince A-U-T-O-Matic Edit. A video megamix!

(See also some Prince collaborators such as Sheila E, Morris Day & The Time, Vanity 6 & Apollonia 6 (girl groups which Prince dressed up in lingerie). Sinead O'Connor's 'Nothing Compares 2 U' was originally penned by Prince.)

Public Enemy: my all-time favourite hip-hop act.

Public Image Limited / PiL

The Ramones

The Residents:

'Medicine'

'Moisture'

(see also: Snakefinger: 'The Man In the Dark Sedan')

Run DMC

Queen -- I know there are some people who hate this band with a passion but some consider their 'Bohemian Rhapsody' (1976) one of the first modern-style music videos.

Rezillos

Roxy Music

Ryuichi Sakamoto

Ryuichi Sakamoto + Kiyoshiro Imawano: 'IKENAI Rouge Magic' (1982)

The Screamers:

'122 Hours of Fear'

'Vertigo'

Scritti Politti

Sid Vicious: 'My Way'

Sigue Sigue Sputnik:

'Love Missile F1-11' (1986). SSS were basically a "cyberpunk meets glamrock" one-hit wonder who kept repeating the same simplistic song formula throughout their career, but I loved them as a sort of proto-techno, and especially their ultra-pop visual side, well represented on this video; referencing the sci-fi fantasies of Blade Runner, Clockwork Orange and Mad Max films with sex, (ultra-)violence and war.

Silicon Teens: 'Memphis Tennessee'

Siouxsie and the Banshees

The Sisters of Mercy

Skinny Puppy:

'Assimilate' (1988)

'The Choke' (live 1987)

'Worlock' (the original banned video from 1989)

The Slits

Patti Smith: 'Gloria'

The Smiths

Soft Cell:

'Sex Dwarf' (the banned version) (sorry, bad image quality)

(See also
Coil's version of 'Tainted Love')

Jimmy Somerville & Marc Almond: 'I Feel Love'/'Johnny Remember Me'

Sonic Youth with Lydia Lunch: 'Death Valley '69'

SPK: 'Metal Dance'. Industrial from 1984.

Bruce Springsteen. It may come as a surprise to some people that I'm a bit of a Springsteen fan (though my own knowledge of his albums ends somewhere in the mid-80s), but what appeals to me in his songs is the way he tells stories there.

Suicide: 'Ghost Rider'. The seminal electronic duo of Alan Vega and Martin Rev.

Donna Summer

Swell Maps

Tears For Fears

Television Personalities

Television: 'Foxhole'

Throbbing Gristle: 'Discipline'. The real pioneers of industrial. See also: Psychic TV.

Talking Heads

The Timelords: 'Doctorin' The Tardis'. A project of The KLF combining Dr Who theme to Gary Glitter's Rock'n'Roll.

Toyah. She may be forgotten now but the minuscule Toyah Willcox was one of the biggest stars of the late 70s/early 80s "New Romantic" UK scene.

T-Rex.

Ultravox

Van Der Graaf Generator

Visage:

I think with this "New Romantic" synthpop band headed by the costumeplay-loving Steve Strange there was a lot of "image over content", but they were combined together of some of the finest new wave era musicians such as Midge Ure and John McGeogh, so musically there were many memorable moments, 'Fade To Grey' perhaps the biggest classic of those. And this band was just made for music videos.

'Beat Boy'

'The Damned Don't Cry'

'Fade To Grey': their finest moment from 1981, and my all-time favourite in the whole synthpop genre.

'Mind of a Toy'

'Night Train'

'Pleasure Boys'

'Visage'

Tom Waits

Walker Brothers:

'No Regrets'

Scott Walker: 'Track 3'. "After a brief 'The Sun Ain't Gonna Shine Any More" retro clip, Scott is subjected to a painfully brainless Scottish VJ's inane questions. Then, the "Lynchian" video for 'Track 3' off Climate of Hunter."

W.A.S.P. (yes, every little boy must go through a heavy metal period!):

'Animal (F**k Like A Beast)'

'I Wanna Be Somebody'

'L.O.V.E. Machine'

We've Got A Fuzzbox and We're Going To Use It: 'Love Is The Slug'. 80s girl power!

XTC

Yazoo. A short-lived synthpop duo of Vince (Depeche Mode/Erasure) Clarke and Alison Moyet.

Yellow Magic Orchestra / YMO

Zolar X. A glam rock era "house band" at Rodney Bingenheimer's English Disco in LA, who were dressed as aliens.

ZZ Top

Films and TV:

(As you can see, I'm especially a fan of bad retro sci-fi...)

The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across The 8th Dimension (1984)

All In The Family: opening credits. This TV comedy about a conservative redneck Archie Bunker having to face more liberal times of the post-hippie era was a big hit in the 70s.

Apple Computers: a Ridley Scott-directed commercial from 1984.

Atari 80s TV commercial + Yar's Revenge + Atari Turmoil + Atari E.T. Christmas Ad (1982)

BBC Hip Hop Documentary (1984)

Beat Street: battle scene from the hip-hop movie.

The Bird With the Crystal Plumage by Dario Argento: trailer.

Blade Runner +
"Director's Cut" trailer + Roy Batty

Brazil (1985) by Terry Gilliam: trailer.

The Brood (1979) by David Cronenberg: trailer.

Buck Rogers: the TV series opening credits

Cannibal Holocaust: opening scene + more

Coca Cola ad of the Hilltop Campaign: (1971) "I'd Like to Buy the World a Coke". A TV commercial.

Commodore 64 - More computer for less money. A TV commercial from the 80s.

Die Hard (1988) by John McTiernan: trailer.

The Equalizer. Opening credits to the 80s TV series starring Edward Woodward. Great title music too!

Fast Times At Ridgemont High (1983): trailer.

Flashdance (1983): dance intro.

Flash Gordon (1980): trailer

Exorcist. William Friedkin's 1973 horror flick which spawned a series of inferior sequels.

Fantastic Planet (1973) Rene Laloux's bizarre animation film adaptation of Stefan Wul's allegorical science-fiction novel, here in its entirety.

Bill Gates: "Macs are cool" (1983)

The Godfather: opening titles

"I Want My MTV!": an 80s commercial with Billy Idol, Cindy Lauper, David Bowie and Boy George.

Jaws: the trailer.

Juicy Fruit commercial from the 80s.

Knight Rider: opening credits. David Hasselhoff and his talking car: aargh...!

Liquid Sky: a short clip from the 1982 cult film by Slava Tsukerman.

Little House on the Prairie opening credits: OK, I confess -- I used to watch this when I was a kid.

Maniac (1980): trailer for a slasher film.

McDonald's training film, 1972

Miami Vice: opening credits + 'In The Air Tonight' pilot scene + more

Milk, It Does a Body Good. A TV commercial from the 80s.

Monty Python & Monty Python's Flying Circus. "Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!" Masters of absurdist comedy.

Muppet Show

Phenomena by Dario Argento: trailer.

RCA Selectavision Videodisc Player (1983).

Robocop (1988): trailer.

Return of the Jedi (1983): trailer.

Scarface - the finale scene: "Say hello to my little friend!"

Space: 1999:

First season opening credits, Eagle crash, Explosion from 'Breakaway' and Second season opening credits.

Spiderman Toei: introduction to Japanese Spiderman show, 1978!

Starsky & Hutch: a beach buggy chase.

The Terminator: trailer.

THX 1138: a mash-up of George Lucas's early dystopian sci-fi film with Björk's music!

Two Evil Eyes by Dario Argento & George Romero: trailer.

UFO (1970): opening credits. Gerry Anderson's first live-action TV series he made before Space: 1999. Gotta love those purple wigs!

Vincent: Tim Burton's dark animated short-film from 1982 narrated by Vincent Price.

+

more 1970s/80s TV show credentials

more 1980s movie trailers

more 1980s TV commercials

Coming up next: 1990s to the present...

Record Collection Rock: There Is No "New" Or "Now"

The acclaimed British music critic Simon Reynolds (who also came up with the term post-rock") has coined the term "record collection rock":

"And then came the deluge of retro culture and 'record collection rock' that holds sway to this day, and which propagated the cancers of irony, referentiality, a knowingness that unavoidably belittles everything."

[-from "Independents Day: Post-Punk 1979-81"]

And:

"'Record collection rock' in my usage has a much more specific application than just 'the group has precedents' or 'they work within a tradition' or 'sounds familiar'. R-C-R is music where the listener's knowledge of prior rock music is integral to the full aesthetic appreciation of the record ('full' because the creator put the allusions there for you to spot with a smile). Prime exponents include Jesus & Mary Chain, Spacemen 3, Primal Scream, and -- to a lesser degree but still part of the sensibility I think -- Stereolab; there's many many more. Oasis are the paradigm case: you get Beatles deja vu flashbacks from the melodies, the title 'Wonderwall' is sampled from a George Harrison album [...] Is it even 'retro'? Not in the sense of intentionally flashing us back to a specific era or lost golden age (e.g. The Cult circa 'Love Removal Machine,' any number of nouveau garage punk bands you care to list, et al), or being taggable to a single illustrious ancestor band."

[-from Blissout, Simon Reynolds's blog, 13 February 2006]

I think not so long ago this sort of approach was called... gulp... "postmodern", but I guess these days even this once-more-popular-than-Jesus word has become helplessly dated and unfashionable.

I can well think some off-hand examples of "record collection rock", such as The High Llamas, who base their musical expression on what Brian Wilson and The Beach Boys did during the "Good Vibrations"/Pet Sounds/Smile era. Japanese wah wah-loving and heavy-jamming neo-psychedelia bands such as Acid Mothers Temple seem to be founded in the late 60s and early 70s rock, such as Jimi Hendrix, Frank Zappa, Black Sabbath, Krautrock... Now fashionable "forest folk" people seem intent to go back to these same hirsute "glory days" of acoustic guitars, improvisation (yawn), campfires, being "down-to-earth", barefooted and bare-arsed in the nature, tree-hugging, the "good old ways" of our ancestors living in the woods, etc. Ever since he started in the late 70s, the "Modfather" Paul Weller has built the whole of his career on going back to the styles of the past. Lenny Kravitz thinks he's a combination of Jimi Hendrix, Smokey Robinson, Sly Stone and John Lennon. It's obviously more fun to create around oneself a sort of stylistic retro virtual reality fantasy of the world of legend and myth than to live in "now", in one's own environment and reality.

Modern rock in general is built on revivals (and revivals of revivals) and retro nostalgia styles of every imaginable sort. These days the ever-trendsetting British music media, especially magazines like NME, which rule the fashion-hungry fans of independent rock and pop world-wide, seem to be on an ongoing quest about finding another "Best New Band of 1979"; that is, for another "hot" act of good-looking young turks with their moppy hair hanging over their eyes, skinny ties and plural "s"-suffix in their names, who play spiky guitars in the late-70s/early 80s new wave/punk-funk styles.

History has already shown these NME-favoured bands are lucky if they can record three albums before they finally succumb slowly but guaranteedly into the oblivion created by the gargantuan consumption of champagne, cocaine, groupies, music industry bloodsuckers and their bullshit and six-month tours extending to Butthole, Arizona. Then it's time for drug rehab clinics, divorce lawyers, potbellies, bald patches and that dreaded "has-been" status. I doubt today's indie-pop generation even remembers such relatively recent yesteryear NME heroes as Menswear (always my favourite example about how swiftly glory will pass in the world of indie) or Shed Seven.

Then, there is nothing really peculiar about "record collection rock", since isn't this how our culture in general has always worked: by references, associations and tributes to earlier works, and recycling the old. I wonder if anything really "new" can be created in music; only at its best innovative variations of what once was. One can always hope to come up with "new" artist and genres, seemingly more hip, sexy and fresh (or harder, faster and more shocking) than anything created ever before but there must always be a precedent for everything in history. I have to admit I'm a fan of Stereolab.

YouTubes: 1960s

As promised, some personal pHavourites of pHinn found from the amazing YouTube video archives. We'll start from the 1960s... Enjoy!


Music (promo clips -- which were still relatively rare in the 60s -- and live cuts):

Amboy Dukes: 'Journey to the Center of the Mind'

The Animals: We Gotta Get Out of This Place

Brigitte Bardot: 'Harley Davidson' (1968). Hmmm... And here's more BB.

Syd Barrett / early Pink Floyd:

'Astronomy Domine' (live at Beat Club)

'Arnold Layne'

'Flaming'

'Jugband Blues'

'Scarecrow'

Syd Barrett/The Pink Floyd: London '66-'67. A 31:30 clip taken from Peter Whitehead's film Tonight Let's All Make Love In London: Syd and Floyd in studio, performing 'Interstellar Overdrive', some peeks into the Swinging London with mod/hippie underground action....

The Beatles:

'Strawberry Fields Forever'

'Penny Lane'

'A Day in the Life'

'Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds'

clips from Yellow Submarine

Jane Birkin & Serge Gainsbourg: 'Je t'aime... moi non plus'. Gainsbourg was the enfant terrible of French pop (a pity this promo clip is quite not as hot as the often-banned song on it).

Blue Cheer: 'Summertime Blues' (live on Beat Club, 1968)

James Brown

Buffalo Springfield: 'For What It's Worth'

The Byrds

Johnny Cash

Count Five: Psychotic Reaction

The Creation: live 1966

Deep Purple: 'Hush' (live on Playboy After Dark, 1969, hosted by Hugh Hefner!)

The Doors:

'Not To Touch The Earth'

'Unknown Soldier'

Bob Dylan: 'Like A Rolling Stone'. A 1966 live rendition of the classic tune from Dylan's "Judas" period. Plus John Lennon & Bob Dylan in a taxi in '66

The Electric Prunes

Funkadelic

Jimi Hendrix

Jefferson Airplane: 'White Rabbit' ("Go ask Alice)

The Kinks:

'Dead End Street'

'Sunny Afternoon'

Love live on American Bandstand, 1967, featuring the songs 'Message To Pretty' and 'My Little Black Book'.

MC5: 'Kick Out The Jams' (live 1969).

The Monks:

'Cuckoo' and
'Boys Are Boys'. Live on Beat Club, 1966.

Motown

Nico: 'I'm Not Saying'

The Pretty Things: 'Midnight To Six Man' (on BBC, featuring a funny teen advice segment + 'Midnight To Six Man' @ Beat Club

Procol Harum: 'A Whiter Shade of Pale'

Question Mark & The Mysterians: '96 Tears' (live on Where The Action Is, 1965).

Otis Redding

The Rolling Stones:

'Jumping Jack Flash' (1968 promo clip)

Os Mutantes. The Brazilian "Tropicalia" band.

Nancy Sinatra: 'These Boots Are Made For Walking'

Sly and the Family Stone

The Small Faces:

'Green Circles' (Beat Club)

'Tin Soldier' (Beat Club)

'Whatcha Gonna Do About It'

The Smoke: 'My Friend Jack'. A notorious freakbeat song ("My friend Jack eats sugarlumps") on West German Beat Club TV show.

Soft Machine: 'We Know What You Mean'

Dusty Springfield

The Temptations:

'Ain't Too Proud To Beg'

'Cloud Nine'

'My Girl'

'Psychedelic Shack'

The 13th Floor Elevators: 'You're Gonna Miss Me'. Live on American Bandstand, 1966.

Velvet Underground: 'Sunday Morning'

The Who:

'Substitute'

The Yardbirds:

'I'm A Man'

'Train' Kept A-Rollin''. A version of a Johnny Burnette song.

'Stroll On'. This clip is taken from Michelangelo Antonioni's seminal "Swinging London" film Blow-Up (1966), with a rare line-up of Yardbirds featuring both Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page. 'Stroll On' was basically a version 'Train Kept A-Rollin' with new lyrics. Note how bar the lonely dancing couple, the crowd is strangely apathetic here (as if they are all stoned), only getting active when Jeff Beck wrecks his guitar, and throws its neck to the audience. Michelangelo Antonioni originally wanted to have The Who here, but they weren't available.

On French TV, 1967: setlist includes 'Train Kept A Rollin'', 'Dazed And Confused' (which Jimmy Page's later band Led Zeppelin would make their own), and 'Goodnight Sweet Josephine'.

'Happenings Ten Years Time Ago'. My favourite Yardbirds song.

Walker Brothers / Scott Walker. One of my all-time favourites.

Finally, some film and TV stuff from the 60s:

Barbarella trailer

Band of Outsiders by Jean-Luc Godard: a clip.

Batman: The Movie (1966). A clip from the movie made simultaneously with the popular TV show.

Breathless by Jean-Luc Godard. Scenes from the film accompanied by Stereolab's 'Miss Modular'.

Bullitt: the famous car chase scene.

Carnival of Souls by Herk Harvey: outtakes.

Ciao! Manhattan. Lost footage of Andy Warhol muse Edie Sedgwick.

Jan Svankmajer: The Flat. A 1968 short film from the Czech master of surreal animation.

J.S. Bach, Fantasia In G Minor. More Svankmajer from 1965.

Easy Rider (1969): a clip.

Fahrenheit 451. A short clip from Francois Truffaut's 1966 film version of Ray Bradbury's sci-fi novel.

Faster Pussycat Kill Kill, a trailer of Russ Meyer's 1966 cult flick.

Get Smart: the agent parody show; some episodes in their entirety.

Green Hornet: opening credits from the TV series featuring Bruce Lee.

Hammer Horror: the famous British studio specialising in horror flicks.

Journey to the Far Side of The Sun trailer, from Gerry Anderson-produced 1969 film.

Lampa. A diversion to the 1950s, with this 1959 short film by Roman Polanski.

Man From U.N.C.L.E.: a clip and opening credits.

The Monkees. Thought this was more appropriate in the TV category than in music... (The Monkees were a "manufactured" band created for the TV show, who were supposed to be hated by any "serious" rock fan, but I have to confess I've got a soft spot for them and their slapstick antics.)

Morderstwo. Another Roman Polanski short, from 1957.

Outer Limits: TV promo for the pilot episode "The Galaxy Being" of the horror/sci-fi anthology series.

Perversion For Profit. A classic 1964 anti-porn rant, starring George Putnam and financially backed by Charles Keating. Featuring some juicy magazine covers of the era.

The Planet of the Apes (1968): a clip.

Thunderbirds Are Go. Trailer from the 1966 Thunderbirds film produced by Gerry Anderson who later made Space: 1999.

Towers Open Fire. The 1963 short film by William S. Burroughs and Anthony Balch.

Twilight Zone - "Nightmare At 20,000 Feet": one of the best-known episodes (1963) of Rod Serling's classic horror anthology TV series in its entirety, starring pre-Captain Kirk William Shatner!

Twilight Zone - "Eye of the Beholder". Another classic episode from 1960.

Vivre sa vie by Jean-Luc Godard: a clip of Nana's dance.

And some psychedelic history for you:

Getting High: a documentary on LSD, a bit about Timothy Leary, and an LSD test on British soldiers (shiny happy fellows). See also Drug Abuse: The Chemical Tomb (1969) (a hilarious education film) and Sex, Drugs and the Cold War (1959-1972). And you must also see Pink Panther: "Psychedelic Pink" (1968), where everyone's favourite feline enters a psychedelic bookstore...

And another bit from 1950s: the infamous pin-up queen Betty Page!

Next: 1970s to 1980s

Parnasso and Blooks

The latest issue of Finnish literature magazine Parnasso has on its cover a photograph of the late Arto Salminen, with an obituary/feature story by Harri Haanpää, so I had to buy the mag for my archives. Haanpää's story was quite interesting and would shed some light to Salminen's correspondence with his literary editor and how his books were born. I'm sure we'll see more texts and studies on Salminen's work in the future, and I for one hope to do my best to keep this writer's name alive and in good memory.

It's funny because I've never considered myself as one fitting to the reader profile of a "high-brow" magazine like Parnasso, but to my surprise I found it interesting read from cover to cover. Now of course, in Finland Parnasso has the status of an established cultural institution, which means it is easy to put the magazine down in certain circles, but since I'm an outsider to literature circles myself (I used to study Comparative Literature at Tampere University, but because I liked books too much, I thought it was better to drop out, before the murky and dust-covered world of academia would make me hate and loathe them...), I can stay away from these little cultural wars, their backstabbing, etc., and judge it all with my little innocent (tee hee) eyes.

There was also Karri Kokko's story on poetry blogs (which you can read in Finnish here), and it's great talented writers will increasingly present their output on this electronic medium too. "Blooks" (blogs serialising books) are now on everyone's lips, and even people like The Who's (one of my all-time favourite bands) Pete Townshend (known as one of the most verbal and outspoken commentators working in the area of popular music) publish their own fictional texts on those. Perhaps "blook" is a good point of reference for my own dilettantish efforts here too...

Feb' 06 Dream III

[Mr. Sandman - a dangerous lunatic?]

If there ever was a dream to make one to demand refund, and to cast serious doubts on Mr. Sandman's sanity, this was definitely it.

This time my trip to Slumberland featured an imminent court case against me, and they had gathered together all my alter egos by subpoena as material and character witnesses. One after another they testified as to how ruthlessly I had brought them into existence, only to gratify and justify my narcissistic and petty ego. With a growing sense of anxiety I listened to these harrowing statements which could not but lead into one inevitable conclusion: that my character was totally false and rotten to the core, that I was no good: a Public Enemy Number One to all that was proper and decent in this society. Most of all I was accused that I had demanded the right to define my identity (or more accurately: identities) always according to the present situation. Nobody knew if I was animal, vegetable or mineral. I was more slippery than an eel on vaseline, more evasive than mercury on a slide.

The court adjourned; my sentence being the harshest and cruellest of them all: that my own conscience was to act as my jury, judge, bailiff and warden, and I was to pass my own judgment on myself. The sentence was to be carried out on lonely, sleepless nights; in the impenetrable gazes of people, meaningful silences and the conspicuous absentness. I already started to suspect that even my shadow was more real than me; my suspicions grimly confirmed when I was given a restraint order to stay not nearer than four blocks, three parked Japanese cars and one menopausal (and therefore constantly irascible) metermaid away from my shadow; for whom, additionally, I was to pay monthly maintenance (that is, to my shadow, not the metermaid).

YouTube Is Fantastic!

I sent some time a post about Bowie's 'Space Oddity' promo clip to this blog -- now check out the rest of YouTube, a home for tons and tons of music videos and clips! Click "search" for your favourites (I'm soon going to have a post of some of my own faves that I found there).

Feb '06 Dream II

It's funny how some of the most deep-seated realisations sometimes come to us only in dreams. During this dream I painfully understood that all my life I had been only myself and no-one else. Imagine the horror of finding yourself trapped in one and same body, day after day, year after year, decade after decade. No wonder if one starts to feel claustrophobic. To be able to see oneself one needs a mirror (which does only show one's reverse image, not what one really is) or having oneself photographed or filmed. Unless one being some sort of yogi, there is no chance to leave one's body behind, that clumsy prison of weak, crumbling flesh; one's eyes a 3-D TV camera inside one's skull, one's nose protruding between those; one's ears stereophonic microphones. Why not seeing through someone else's eyes, someone else's point of view, in someone else's body; with someone else's consciousness, experiences and memories? It was not fair. Only by absorbing oneself to a book, movie, music, alcohol, drugs, sex or physical exercise, one could have some sort of hope of forgetting oneself, if only momentarily. Or without a body entirely, only as some sort of uncorporeal mind observing. -- It felt like I was on the verge of being enlightened, or, finally losing my mind. Anything to forget one's solipsism.

I also saw you in my dream. You wanted to switch off your brain for a while by watching bad TV shows, any Hollywood blockbuster movies produced by Jerry Bruckheimer and political debates between presidential candidates, but my problem was that I felt I was never thinking enough.

There in my dream those with under-140 IQs were officially frowned upon by the mental hygiene eugenists. Demagogues and finger-pointers had a field day at the opportunists' sandbox called politics. Government held exhaustive recruitment campaigns to get more cops to the force, who would keep the suburban poor at bay. But no worry, they were kept pacified as long as the tax for alcohol was low. Sexual paranoia was tangible in the air (you've browsed through your Freud, so you are aware of what those snakes and spiders stand for).

So it was only suitable that there was also a poll in this dream of mine: "Under which category of these sexual deviants you fall: a) a fat schizophrenic cyberstalker who spreads his masturbation videos in the Net, b) a 65-year old photographer whose fetish are women's high heel shoes, c) an extreme right-wing nationalist bigot who fantasizes of saliromantic sodomy between different races and those who don't share his crypto-fascist political beliefs, d) a poor melancholic bastard believing in the dated notions of romantic relationships and eternal love."
I decided not to answer, but dastardly jumped into another era (as you know, transitions defying all logic are possible in dreams).

Now I was standing at Tampere's Keskustori square in 1905 where the cigarette-smoking working class President in his rollerskates gave the Red Declaration, and the advertising agency Bob Helsinki sang Marseillaise. Then the President shot Governor-General Bobrikoff with a waterpistol, while Lenin was strutting around wearing ladies' lingerie and Manolo Blahniks, handing out daffodils to the Imperial Guard. Mata Hari made a daring escape from SMERSH with her jetpak, only to be strangled to death when her scarf caught in the open-spoked wheel of Isadora Duncan's automobile. Affectations can be dangerous, indeed.

After this a spider hatched her eggs in my nostrils. I didn't suspect anything until baby spiders started crawling out of my nose and thought I was their mommy. At this moment I was shaken enough to open my eyes.

[previous dream]

Quote of the Day

"Finns have understood correctly the basics of Karl Marx's dialectical materialism: they have turned thesis and antithesis into prosthesis."

- Roman Schatz: Rakasta minut

Another Dream (In Four Parts)

1) She was power-dressed for the presidential erection and betatesting nuclear weapons: she said that whenever surrounded by her fellow conservatives, it would look good on her CV. Her horde came dressed for their party convention in expensive suit costumes, having haircuts that cost more than what a single mother from the suburbs made in a month; they flashed their predatory carnivore teeth between their wide and hungry blood-coloured lips.

2) Either having a low self-esteem or delusions of grandeur (which are both basically the same thing), we pursued our wild, haunting daydreams.

3) Fear was oozing from the walls of the school building as I walked down its deserted corridors. In this area the children were taught from the beginning by their teachers that they were nothing, would become nothing, and the biggest hope they could ever have in their lives would be as the slaves for the power-dressed carnivores. They were taught to lie but in such a way that they would not get caught, otherwise they would be in a for a harsh and humiliating punishment. A teacher would burst suddenly into unexplainable bursts of rage and without a warning attack the nearest unsuspecting child.

4) In the near future corporate executives would organise hunting expeditions in their Land Rovers, armed with laser-targeted night vision rifles, to the slum areas to prey on and kill the poor and unemployed.

[previous dream]

In Memoriam: Nam June Paik (1932-2006)

Nam June Paik, a pioneer of video art, has passed away.

Associated Press writes:

"The Korean-born Paik, who also coined the term "Electronic Super Highway" years before the information superhighway was invented, died Sunday night of natural causes at his Miami apartment. (...) Paik made his artistic debut in Wiesbaden, West Germany, in 1963 with a solo art exhibition titled "Exposition of Music-Electronic Television." He scattered 12 television sets throughout the exhibit space and used them to create unexpected effects in the images being received. Later exhibits included the use of magnets to manipulate or alter the image on TV sets and create patterns of light."

DAT Politics. Now.

A brand new promo pic of DAT Politics.

Joe Meek: Sounds From Beyond

Joe Meek was one strange cat. A pioneering record producer in the early 1960s, whose biggest hit was 'Telstar' by The Tornados in 1962 (allegedly Margaret Thatcher's favourite song!), and who developed studio techniques such as compressing, echo and reverb which he turned into outlandish sound effects for his productions for various solo artists and bands. Joe Meek's work was not all the less revolutionary considering he worked low-budget in his own home studio, a converted livingroom and bathroom combination in London.

Meek was heavily into the occult and a believer in extraterrestrial life (he is said to have seen a UFO once, which became an inspiration for 'Sky Men' single he produced for Geoff Goddard). Such Meek-produced songs as Joe Leyton's 'Johnny Remember Me' have an eerie air of supernatural, and he explored horror themes on The Moontrekkers' 'Night of the Vampire' and Screaming Lord Sutch's 'Jack The Ripper'. In 1960 he produced an outer space-themed concept album I Hear The New World with a band called The Blue Men. Meek's strange new worlds were populated by such races as Globbots, Saroos and Bribcots, whose Smurf-like weird chants -- along with tons of sci-fi sound effects and sounds oddly predating future's ambient music -- were heard on the album. This sort of audio quirkiness is not anything odd for the fans of Aphex Twin (who has namechecked Joe Meek as one of his influences), but apparently Meek's vision was too far ahead of its time, since bar some tracks published as an EP, this album was shelved for decades.

Joe Meek was a troubled soul, being a closet gay in a time when this was still considered a crime, and with a general paranoid mindset on the verge of schizophrenia, which his experiments with LSD probably did not make any easier.

Despite such later successes as the freakbeat classic 'Crawdaddy Simone' by The Syndicats (which can be found on Nuggets II 4-CD box), Meek's career was on the wane by the mid-1960s. Under circumstances still not totally clear, Joe Meek (who had become obsessed with black magic and Aleister Crowley) committed suicide on 3 February 1967 after having shot his landlady first.

Listen to Joe Meek's demo tracks

pHinnWeb Chart February 2006

[large]

pHinnWeb's February 2006 Chart can be found here.

There is admittedly something worryingly indicative of obsessive-compulsive personality in this constant need to display one's monthly listening lists in public. (Then, everyone who has a need to maintain a personal blog must possess at least some of the traits of exhibitionist personality too.) These sort of transpotterish or even otaku-like behavioural patterns are something one gets so easily accustomed to among music fans (or computer/comics/sci-fi or any other nerd-sort of activity circles). Of course, this is just one (pathetic) way to define one's identity. -- But what is this obsession of (male) music aficionados with lists? High Fidelity, anyone? -- Anyway, for one who shuns all cliques favouring in-bred mentalities, keeping oneself constantly beyond other people's need for definitions and classifications must be a viable strategy -- though inevitably bound for a role conflict of one sort or another. Esoteric? Eclectic? Whimsical? Irritatingly chameleon-like? Conceited? Self-indulgent? Keep 'em guessing.

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Today's bonus: "Raw As Sushi", or the instructions to how to visit a Japanese sushi restaurant in an orthodox way.

Copy this link:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-892542405730558424

Paste it here: http://javimoya.com/blog/youtube_en.php

Or, simply download it as .mov here:
http://blogfiles.wfmu.org/BK/05/1211/japanese_tradition_sushi.mov
-- quality's a bit better then.