Tonight, a stupid post about nothing with a song of no substance whatsoever. Writing is hard at the moment but I’m trying. Everyone take care out there. Donate to Black Lives Matter if you can. I’m sorry I’m not up for making a more detailed or impassioned statement in regards to the matter, but y’all know how I feel about this stuff already I would hope.
Take care of yourselves.
The Tong
Data
You ever hear middling 80s rock and think, “boy these guys sure sound like…” but you can’t finish the sentence because the act is so bland, so boring, and so forgettable that you can’t even place who they sound like?
Yeah, that’s The Tong. If you’re like me and dig through crates forgotten new wave groups, you’ve heard a billion acts like The Tong, but good luck trying to remember the names of any of them. They all sound the same, Mr. Mister divided by The Cutting Crew. New Wave minus the New. They sound like a bad version of The Tubes (someone from this group was also in The Tubes, so I guess that checks out).
To be honest, this group sounds like every third-rate Canadian new wave band my Canadian friend tries to get me into, but somehow worse and less reminiscent of Corey Hart.
So why the hell am I posting any music by them? Well, while The Tong were not a good band, and their sole album, Dangerous Games, is not a good album, but they managed to put out one very good track on it. It’s a very good track because it sounds nothing like anything else on the album. “Data” is a purely instrumental space disco number built entirely on keyboards and sequencers. It’s fantastic, the kind of instrumental electronic music I always want to hear but can never find enough of. I wonder how the hell that happened.
Mingo Lewis wrote/performed this. He was the member of the group who was in The Tubes. He was also in Santana. So, dude knew his stuff. Too bad he didn’t do more electronic music, if this track was any indication he certainly has a knack for it.
BONUS TRACK
Sheena And The Rokkets – Radio Junk
This song makes me happy. It was written by Yukihiro Takahashi of YMO and features additional members of YMO performing alongside Sheena and her wonderful Rokkets. It’s my goto good time jam for bad times and I hope you dig it.
By the complexity and randomness of the patterns it seems like it’s not a sequencer but an arpeggiator used for making this track. Arpeggiator is a feature of some late 70-‘s early 80-s synths (and some electric organs since 60’s) – you press several keys and it plays them not at the same time, but one after another by itself. Rythm machine Roland CR-78 which was used on this track had a trigger output on it’s back which, when you connected it to a trigger input of a Roland synthesizer made them synchronized. Some chicago house tracks used this feature. On Mr Fingers – Mystery Of Love pattern was made just with triggering of ascending steps of an arpeggiator. On the same album there is a track by Mr Fingers – Stars which sounds a lot like Data – washes of arpeggiator. More recently Oneohtrix Point Never (Daniel Lopatin) made his style out of this feature. From the 80’s check out Jolo – Last Call, Lime – On The Grid, Lisa – Rocket To Your Heart, Lauren Grey – Putting The Night On Hold, Freddie Mercury – I Was Born To Love You, Freddie Mercury – Love Kills, Azul Y Negro – Me Estoy Volviendo Loco. Queen – Radio Ga Ga and Limahl – Never Ending Story sound like textbook examples of arpeggiator, but the results are so perfect and controlled I’m not entirely shure that it’s not a sequencer. I can go on and on (I love this feature of the synthesizer and used arp A LOT, esp when not yet got into MIDI sequencers).
Also I’d want to thank you for your wonderful blog – I love most of the music you post here and writeups are enjoyable to read too.
Hey, I’m curious — would you mind sharing the full Dangerous Games album? In any case, stay well out there.
Thanks for filling me in!