Archive for the ‘The Alarm’ Category

The Alarm: The Power of Positive Thinking and Power Mullets

Friday, October 7th, 2011

All this talk about Nirvana and the butchering of modern music has made me a bit down, let’s fix that.

Alarm – Electric Folklore Live
Rescue Me
Strength
Rain In The Summertime
Spirit of ’76
Permanence In Change
Blaze of Glory
The last time I posted tracks by The Alarm I described them as one of the most earnest bands in history. After listening to this incredibly emotional and spirited live album, I think a better word to describe The Alarm would be “idealistic.” What are they idealistic for? Well, I don’t think that really matters all that much. They believe in something, dammit and they want you to as well!

And hey, there’s nothing wrong with a little vague idealism and positivity.  For years bands have been making a fortune by tapping into teens’ vague defeatism and negativity, so I think the Alarm did a good job at hitting an underrepresented market. They basically took the attitude of 70s UK punk and inverted it.

Some would say that U2 has made a career doing the same thing, but those people forget that U2 sucks (and yes, I’m aware that The Alarm opened for u2).

But I think the best way to describe The Alarm’s sound, what they believe in, and what they try to achieve is this quote by Woody Guthrie, which lead singer Mark Peters quotes on this live album during “Rescue Me”:

“I hate a song that makes you think that you’re not any good. I hate a song that makes you think that you are just born to lose. Bound to lose. No good to nobody. No good for nothing. Because you are either too old or too young or too fat or too slim or too ugly or too this or too that….songs that run you down or songs that poke fun of you on account of your bad luck or your hard traveling. I am out to fight those kinds of songs to my very last breath of air and my last drop of blood.”

Now that is a man who wants to inspire and motivate people to be positive and hopeful! No wonder the dude beat cancer twice!

Electric Folklore was the only live album The Alarm released during their original run, and I’m fairly certain it’s the only live album by the band that features the original line-up, although I could be wrong about that. The entire album was recorded at the Boston Wang Centre in 1988. It’s been re-issued a few times, but never in an expanded format that includes the whole concert, and that’s a damn shame. The Alarm is a great live band.

This recording was taken from a promo cassette that was still sealed when I bought it, so it sounds pretty damn good. Enjoy, and I’ll see you all next week.

Posted in Complete Albums, live, The Alarm | 6 Comments »

A is for Awesome

Wednesday, January 19th, 2011

Tonight’s post is brought to you by the letter “A” because I’m too lazy sometimes to shift through my massive queue of future blog tracks.

The Alarm
Strength (Power Mix)
Absolute Reality ( Inpromptu Acoustic Version)
People have called The Alarm pretentious in the past, and I think that label is total bullshit. A pretentious band thinks highly of themselves while thinking less of those around them. The Alarm probably think very highly of themselves, but if the lyrics to songs like “Strength” are any indication at all, they also think very highly of their audience as well as the general population.

A better word to describe The Alarm would be “earnest.” Songs like “Strength” convey an overwhelming feeling of earnestness; they really want you to believe what they are saying because it’s some important shit! I get the feeling that The Alarm thought that songs like these were Incredibly Important and could change Things. And there’s a certain level of respect that should be given to them because of that.

“Strength” is one bad-ass song. Its the kind of song you listen to help get yourself out of a post-breakup doldrum, or possibly as the soundtrack to a really rough cardio workout. I’m sure it was a contender for a montage song in a Rocky movie at one point. The acoustic version of “Absolute Reality” is less blood-pumpingly good, but it’s still a really great tune. Both of these are from a 12″ single.

Art Of Noise
Dragnet (Arthur Baker Mix)
Acton Art
Dragnet (Art of Noise 12” Mix)
Dragnet (Art of Noise 7” Mix)
The Art of Noise have nothing in common with The Alarm, aside from the fact that both play music and start with the letter “A.” If The Alarm is earnest then these remixes of the Dragnet Theme are most certainly not. What’s the opposite of earnest? Goofy? Yeah, that sums these tracks up pretty damn well. I love the wacky lo-tech sampling of The Art Of Noise, taking a note, sampling it, and then adjusting the pitch to create different “notes” of that sound. There’s something so perfectly 80s about it, like headbands and Alf. So what I’m saying is that The Art of Noise are the Alf of music. Yeah, that makes sense. These are remixes of the theme of the 1980s Dragnet movie, meaning they are the probably the only tracks I will ever feature on this blog that will feature the vocal stylings of Tom Hanks and Dan Aykroyd.

Oh and that’s not a typo, that one track is called “Acton Art” not “Action Art.”

Posted in B-sides, remixes, The Alarm, The Art Of Noise | 1 Comment »