Archive for February, 2014

Breakathaon

Thursday, February 27th, 2014

As I’ve mentioned numerous times over, before I packed up my shit and headed for Japan, I made sure that I had high-quality recordings of as many vinyl-only releases as possible. Because I needed to be ready to listen to an obscure Depeche Mode remix at a moment’s notice no matter what continent I happened to be on! To me this was as high a priority task as “selling my house” and “getting my work visa in order.”

The first step of this process was to manually go through all of my records and make two piles. One was “I hope I can record this again if I have time” pile, while the other was the “I NEED HIGH QUALITY VERSIONS OF THESE SONGS NOW” pile.

On top of that pile where the soundracks to both Breakin‘ films. Because…look, if I need to explain to you WHY I need high-quality vinyl rips of the soundtracks to both Breakin‘ films then I don’t know why the fuck you’re reading my blog.

The following tracks are all the tracks from both Breakin‘ films that AREN’T available on CD or digitally. So sorry, no “Ain’t Nobody.” Plenty of choice cuts though!

Ollie & Jerry
Breakin’…There’s No Stopping Us
Showdown
Electric Boogaloo
When I.C.U
Ollie & Jerry are Ollie E. Brown and Jerry Knight. In addition to performing several tracks on the soundtracks to each Breakin‘ film (including the title tracks), they also produced and wrote many of the other songs on both albums. Jerry released a few solo albums in the 80s, and was also in Raydio with Ray Parker Jr., but both he and Ollie found much of their success as producers and songwriters, working with artists such as The Jets, Gloria Gaynor and Howard Johnson. These tracks are all pretty fantastic, but my fav of the bunch has to be “Showdown,” which is pure old-school electro at its finest.

Hot Streak
Body Work
I can’t find much on Hot Streak. From what I can tell, the group never released a proper album. In fact, I’m fairly certain that this was the only song they ever released. It’s a fun tune, but  forgettable, and I’m sure no one in the group ever did anything of note, but let me check to be sure…

Holy shit. Hot Streak wrote “Holiday.”

Yeah, “Holiday.” As in Madonna’s first hit single “Holiday.”

Okay, that was random.

Carol Lynn Thomas
99 1/2
Believe In The Beat
Carol Lynn Thomas found her first success thanks to the Breakin‘ soundtrack with “99 1/2,” which was a hit dance and R&B single when it came out. Makes sense too – because the song is fucking DOPE. It’s a great combination of pop and electro , complete with a Stacy Q “Two Of Hearts” vocals-turning-into-synth-track bit that’s totally rad. And if that wasn’t enough, it features a completely metal Van Halenesque guitar solo that’s seemingly thrown in for no reason other than that “Beat It” did it first.

DOPE.

“Believe In The Beat” is good too, although it kind of sounds like something the Pointer Sisters would have rejected.

3-V
Heart Of The Beat
The second mind-blowing revelation of the Breakin’ soundtracks – 3-V is Charlie Midnight and Dan Hartman – two people whose names you may not recognize but music you surely do. Charlie Midnight is a songwriter and producer who worked with acts like Joe Cocker and James Brown. His biggest hit is probably Brown’s tune from Rocky IV, “Living In America.” He also worked on the one song that you probably know Dan Hartman for,  “I Can Dream About You”  from the Streets Of Fire soundtrack.

Relevant side-note: Streets Of Fire is the third-greatest movie about music ever made.

Firefox
Street People
Radiotron
Stylin’ Profilin’
Okay, I take back what I said about “Believe In The Beat”- these tracks sound like Pointer Sisters rejects. Firefox was a soul/pop duo who only released one album – which was produced by Ollie of Ollie & Jerry. They really didn’t take off and it’s pretty obvious why. The songs are catchy enough and fun, but their forgettable nature really isn’t helped by the completely flat vocals by the two lead singers, neither of which did much after the group called it quits.

Re-Flex
Cut It
Synth-pop also-ran whose one hit, “The Politics Of Dancing” has sadly fallen through the cracks of time. I thought they were a one-and-done group but apparently there is a six CD Re-Flex box set out there. Pretty impressive for a band that only released one album.

“Cut It” is no “The Politics Of Dancing” but it’s okay.

Chris “The Glove” Taylor and David Storrs (Featuring Ice-T)
Reckless
Wikipedia calls Chris “The Glove” Taylor a “West Coast DJ pioneer” and I don’t see a reason to argue with that. David Storrs was apparently a semi-prolific name in the early rap/electro scene, and contributed to a few albums and singles under the alias The Alien Wizard, which is a totally awesome stage name.

And, oh yeah, Ice-T, you probably heard of him. He’s on Law & Order. He apparently loves cops.

Steve Donn
Gotta Have The Money
This is a bad song. Very bad. Not good. Steve Donn can’t sing. Sorry Steve.

Midway
Set It Out
Above-average electro by session guitarist Bruce Nazarian and DJ Duane Bradley. Nazarian played guitar on Was (Not Was)’s debut LP, so he’s all right with me.

Mark Scott
I Don’t Wanna Come Down
This is the best not Michael Jackson song of 1984! Seriously, I don’t know who Mark Scott is, but he really wants to be MJ with this track, complete with a pseudo MJ falsetto and faux MJ ‘oohs!’ It’s a blatant rip-off.

And I totally love it! This song is great! If they would have actually gotten Michael Jackson to record this it would have been a hit single, no question. Great track.

Rags & Riches
Oye Mamacita
Spanish-flavored electro? Sure, why not. I have no idea who Rags & Riches are though. According to Discogs they only released a handful of singles, one of which was a 22-minute medley based on “Land Of 1,000 Dances.”

I can’t decide if I never ever want to hear that or if I want to hear that right now.

Posted in soundtrack | 5 Comments »

Japan In Vogue

Wednesday, February 12th, 2014

I have a ton of Japanese music that I want to blog about, but I think I’d mix things up a bit with some Madonna. Besides, I went through the hassle of re-recording almost all of my Madonna singles before I left the states, so it would be silly not to share at least some of them now.

Before I do that though, I want to remind all of you, once again, of my other site, Mostly-Retro. If you want to read my ramblings about living in Tokyo (and buying records/occasional descents into OCD insanity) I’d bookmark it.

Enough talk, now let’s get up on the dance floor.

Madonna
Vogue [12″ Version]
Vogue [Bette Davis Dub]
Vogue [Strike-A-Pose Dub]
Frozen (Stereo MC’s Mix)
Frozen (Meltdown Mix – Long Version)
Frozen (Extended Club Mix)
Frozen (Widescreen Mix)
I own both of these singles on vinyl. In fact, they’re two of my most prized 12″ records. However, they sound like total garbage. The “Vogue” single is scratched to high heaven, and the “Frozen” single just sounds like shit, like someone mastered it underwater. I spent probably two hours total trying to fix my rips so they’d sound better before I just said fuck it and bought he damn CD maxi-singles online. Because my sanity is worth more than the $10 I ended up paying for both of these combined. 

So yeah, these sound great. CD quality…as they are both from CDs. Look, sometimes the Turntable in “Lost Turntable” is metaphorical. In fact, it’s probably going to be for a while, as my turntable hasn’t even been shipped to Japan yet.

Posted in Madonna, remixes | 3 Comments »

My irresponsible spending, your gain.

Thursday, February 6th, 2014

Japanese synth-pop band Yellow Magic Orchestra were a pretty big deal in Japan throughout much of the 80s. They were such a big deal that they were able to form their own vanity label called Yen records in the early 80s, one they kept going well into the 90s (I actually talk about Yen a bit on the episode of Retronauts that I guested on last year, if you’re interested).

Many of the best albums that Yen put out remain out of print, making them sought after collectibles on both sides of the Pacific. Of those, none are more in demand than the Yen Boxes, two massive CD box sets that collected many of the rarest and hardest-to-find albums in the Yen catalog, as well as several tracks that were never released commercially at all. When one shows up in a used record store, it can go for insane prices.

I would know. I bought one last week.

Sigh, okay…I’m not going to tell you all how much I paid for it. Let’s just say I paid a lot, okay?

Look, don’t you fucking judge me.

Besides, if I hand’t have bought it, then you wouldn’t get a chance to hear these awesome and awesomely-rare Japanese synthpop cuts tonight, now would you?

Hajime Tachibana
Theme From Barricade (Another Version)
Replicant J.B. (Remix Edit Version)
Hajime Tachibana was the guitarist for a Japanese new wave act called The Plastics. They only put out three records during their short lifespan in the late-70s/early-80s, but they were pretty interesting. I might do something on them some other time. Right now though I want to focus on Tachibana though, because this motherfucker is goddamn crazy.

Even before The Plastics broke up, Tachibana was branching out. In 1980 he guested on YMO vocalist Yukihiro Takahashi’s excellent 1980 album Murdered By The Music, playing guitar on one track. I assume its from there that he got in with the YMO crew, who signed him to Yen Records in 1982 for the release of his first album, H.

H…is a jazz record. I mean, yeah, it’s a jazz record with some interesting electronic elements and some experimental diversions here and there, but from what I can tell it’s a jazz record. And as I don’t like jazz, I’m not a fan.

The following year Tachibana followed up H with Hm, which largely abandons jazz for insane avant-garde minimalist experimentalism ala Philip Glass. It’s CRAZY, but damn if it isn’t some complicated listening. This is not one I take with me for my morning commute.

The year after that Tachibana returned with yet another solo record, the amazingly titled Mr. Techie and Miss Kipple.

THIS. SHIT. IS. DOPE.

My guess is that sometime in 1983 someone gave Tachibana an Art of Noise album, because that’s exactly what this LP sounds like. It’s crazy. It’s insane. It’s awesome.

The Art of Noise’s largely instrumental new wave/post-punk/ambient/industrial sound was very rarely imitated during the 80s, so to hear anyone give it a go  shocks the hell out of me. And to hear anyone do it as great as Tachibana pulled it off is blowing my fucking mind. This is literally all I’m listening to right now. It’s kicking my ass in so many ways. This is my new shit.

These remixes are taken from the “Male” bonus disc of the Yen Box. I’ll be posting more of his stuff in the future though, don’t worry.

Sandii
Idol Era
Drip Dry Eyes
Alive
Sandii is a Japanese/American singer who released a couple of albums in the 70s to little fanfare in both the states and Japan. But apparently YMO were fans, as they recruited her for the Yen label in the early 80s. Her 1980 record Eating Pleasure is pretty much a YMO record. She sings on it, but more than half the songs were written by either Hosono or Takahashi from YMO, and almost all of the lyrics were written by YMO’s English songwriter Chris Mosdell. And all three members of YMO, including Sakamoto, play on every song on the album. She even covers Takahashi’s hit “Drip Dry Eyes.” Great shit. Once again, I’ll be posting more of her stuff in the future.

I only have two of her albums, but they’re both fucking fantastic and I desperately want more. Goddamn, Japan is going to be expensive.

 

Posted in Hajime Tachibana, Sandii, YMO | 4 Comments »