Archive for February, 2016

Pop Floyd and Garage Rock Disco Covers

Saturday, February 27th, 2016

The 10th anniversary of Lost Turntable is about a week away, and I do have something special planned. Not only that, but in a rare example of me planning out this blog in advance, most of it is already written and ready to go. I’m trying to go for something that focuses a lot on what I feel makes this blog great (in my humble opinion) and will really run the gamut in terms of content and tone. I think there will be something for everyone. I hope you all enjoy it, because I’ve really put a lot of time into it.

David Gilmour
Blue Light (Vocal Remix)
Blue Light (Instrumental Remix)
Is there a name for the genre of music that most 70s rock stars saw themselves falling into during the early 80s? You know what I’m talking about. Steve Winwood, Phil Collins, Pete Townshend, Robert Plant, just to name a few, at the dawn of the Reagan-era they all stripped away damn near everything that made each of them unique and all drifted towards the same incredibly generic, synthesizer-based dance/pop/rock sound. Nebulous-yet-catchy, and utterly dated not five years after the fact. Does anyone still listen to Robert Plant’s “Tall Cool One” in 2016?

That song is better than this track, however, a failed single off of Gilmour’s 1984 album About Face, which was not a good record in 1984; not a good record when I discovered it in the late-90s, and remains not a good record to this day. This is probably one of the better songs off of it, and I can say that it at least works moderately well as an upbeat rock track. Gilmour’s vocals are decent, and he manages to work in his trademark echoey guitar effects into what would be a rather bland pop track otherwise. It’s still strange to hear Gilmour perform music like this though. His more recent solo efforts, while also far from perfect, are much improved, and I think play more to his strengths, those being spacey guitar solos and much looser song structures.

While I’m not a fan of Gilmour’s solo work, I would still say that his solo output is better than his bandmate Roger Waters’, which has served to prove that Waters is a lyricist first, bass player second, and a musician eighth (positions three through seven are “professional asshole” if anyone was wondering). Gilmour’s solo records are boring, but at least the guitar solos are good. Waters couldn’t catch a melody if his life depended on it. He is tone deaf after all.

If you’re interested in checking out good 80s Gilmour that doesn’t involve Pink Floyd, I strongly recommend you give a listen to Berlin’s “Pink And Velvet,” a lost masterpiece that probably features Gilmour’s second-best guitar solo behind the one for “Comfortably Numb.” A jaw-droppingly stunning lost classic.

Thelma Houston
96 Tears (12″ Remix)
File under “Covers I Never Thought I’d Hear,” right next to KMFDM’s take on “These Boots Are Made For Walking” and Eagles Of Death Metal’s “Save A Prayer.”

The album version of this cover can be found on Thelma’s 1981 album Never Gonna Be Another One, however, this epic seven and a half minute version is 12″ exclusive and out-of-print entirely. It’s not as epic as I hoped it would be, but I’m still enjoying it.

Posted in David Gilmour, remixes, Thelma Houston | 5 Comments »

Let’s Get Ill With Rappin’

Tuesday, February 16th, 2016

rappin

Rappin’ is the poor man’s Breakin’. No, strike that – it’s the poor man’s Breakin’ 2: Electric Bugaloo.

An all-but-forgotten 1985 hip-hop musical drama, it’s mostly known today for featuring an early starring role for Mario Van Peebles, as well as an early vehicle for Ice-T, whose featured more prominently in the film’s amazing trailer than the film itself. I’ve never seen the movie, but from what I’ve skimmed on YouTube I don’t think I’m worse for it. The soundtrack certainly is…something else.

I’ll be honest…this is one of those nights where I’m not sharing music that I would call good. I’m more…exposing you all to some musical history, artifacts if you will, from a bygone era that time has largely forgotten, rap’s first foray into the pop landscape.

It has not aged well. But let’s take a listen!

Lovebug Starski
Rappin’
The Fight Rap
A honest-to-goodness old-school hip-hop pioneer, Lovebug Starski started as a DJ in the late-70s before moving to rapping in the early 80s. He released several singles and one album, but he apparently went to prison sometime in the mid-80s, which put a serious dent in his music career. Dude still seems to be kicking it though, I found a video of him performing in 2008. I wonder how many other old-school pioneers have been lost to the ages?

Starski has two tracks on Rappin’. The first is the title track. It’s okay, although like most of the tracks on the album, his delivery seems rather stilted and simplistic when compared to what followed. I much prefer “The Rap Fight,” which is a dope electro tune with a sick beat and some totally ill synth lines. I would totally pop-and-lock to this one if my bones didn’t already pop-and-lock on their own throughout the day.

Melvin Plowden, Mario Van Peebles, Eriq La Salle, Kadeem Hardison & Richie Abanes
Snack Attack
This is a rap by the stars of the film, Mario Van Peebles, Dwayne Wayne from A Different World, the asshole doctor from ER and…two other dudes (more on the them in a minute).

In case you were wondering. Neither Mario Van Peebles, Dwayne Wayne nor Dr. Peter Benton from ER can rap. Not only can they not rap, they really can’t rap. And don’t forget, the standards for “good rapping” were pretty low in the early 80s. That’s not to say that the rappers of the era were bad, on the contrary, many are some of the best who ever lived, but the artform was new at the time. People were still figuring it out, the rules were still being made, so a lot of rap from the era is pretty simple.

With those limitations and expectations established, this is some bad rap that sounds horrible. Firstly, it’s a rap song about snacking. And, like I said before, this was the early-80s, but rapping about how much you like food? That was already well-trodden ground by The Fat Boys (who were amazing rappers FYI), so in addition to being a stupid topic for a rap track, it’s an unoriginal topic that’s been done better. I don’t know who’s rapping what line, but they’re all doing a horrible job. They got no flow, no rhythm, no meter. They’re just spouting out lines about food that rhyme. Well, they usually rhyme, at one point they do try to rhyme sardines with cheese and beans.

It’s even bad musically. Most great rap of the era was built off of solid samples or original electronic beats. This has neither, and is instead built off of a generic guitar lick and what sounds like a preset drum beat. Not to mention the piano outro that tries to give the track a jazzy feel, for some reason.

Peebles, Hardison and La Salle were all wise for not pursuing rapping further, but what of the other two on the track? Well, Richard Abanes is an experienced actor and singer, but he’s mostly known for his books. You may have seen them in the religious section, with titles like Harry Potter and The Bible, The Truth Behind the Da Vinci Code and What Every Parent Needs To Know About Video Games. I really wish he would take up rapping again, but only about these topics. Who would want to see a middle-aged Mormon rap about the evils of pop culture, “Yo now listen to what I have to say, Harry Potter is evil and he’ll make you gay!”

I couldn’t find anything as humorous about the mysterious Melvin Plowden, aside from the fact that he produced some forgotten rap tracks, including one called “You Ain’t Right Eddie Murphy.” If he was referring to Murphy’s then incredibly homophobic stand-up routine, yo Melvin, I agree with you.

Mario Van Peebles
Neighborhood Walk
“Rock Box” but bad.

The Force M.D.’s
Itchin’ For a Scratch
Now here’s an example of an old-school rap song that’s obviously dated but still great. A simple but catchy beat, some great synthesizer and, of course, some totally over-the-top scratching effects. The Force M.D.’s were a legit rap outfit with a long carer that produced a few minor hits, and it shows here. These guys got the rhythm down, and their lines are simple-yet-clever. The Force M.D.’s were mostly known for their ballads and love songs, but this track shows they had some solid old-school hip-hop skills too. An album highlight and a lot of fun.

Warren Mills
Flame In The Fire
The first of two pre-teen performers on this album. Mills is by far the better of the two because he can actually sing, but that’s faint praise. The production is about as generically 80s as you can get, it sounds like the bastard love-child of “Rhythm Of the Night” and a Pretty Poison song. And while Mills has pretty good vocal chops for a kid, he still sounds like a little kid. And there’s nothing I want to hear less than a little kid try to serenade someone.

The sax solo is pretty ill though.

D. Terrell
Call Me
Who is D. Terrell?

No, seriously, who is he? I can’t find anything on this dude. Can’t find anything on him online, I think this is the only song he ever wrote that made it to any release at all. It’s not all that bad. Not all that memorable either.  I feel like it belongs on the soundtrack to D.C. Cab for some reason.

Lajuan Carter
If You Want To (FU12)
I could be mistaken, I’m a little drunk and it’s been a long week. But I’m fairly certain that this is a song about wanting to fuck a robot. Literally. She says “I don’t need nothing but robot love.” Someone call Brent Spiner.

Lajuan Carter never released a full album proper but she’s had a decent career as a backup singer, appearing on the Set It Off soundtrack and on albums by Vanessa Williams and Darryl Hall. I don’t feel like this song really takes advantage of her voice, she kind of has a Vanity thing going on with a trying-to-be-sexy whisper voice. But she occasionally does let that soprano of hers rip and it’s pretty impressive.

Tuff, Inc.
Golly Gee
This album has too many shitty love songs by little boys who are all too fucking young to know what love is. This is the third one, and it is by far the fucking worst. Abysmal garbage. I don’t want to hear the lovelorn woes of little shits whose balls haven’t even dropped yet. You fucks. You don’t know what love is. You think love is holding hands after homeroom.

“What didn’t you know why he claimed to be true. He’s running around making a fool of you.”

What the fuck is that? What is this song suggesting? That the girl this kid is falling for has a boyfriend who is fooling around with other girls? What the fuck? YOU’RE TWELVE! When I was that age I didn’t know any kids who were prowling homeroom for pussy. Ick.

Eugene Wilde and Joanna Garnder
First Love Never Dies
The soundrack to the film Rappin’ ends with a quiet storm love duet, because…fuck if I know. This song is pretty awful, but I think that largely has to do with it being incredibly dated than anything else. In an alternate reality I could totally see this song being a top ten hit single and making an appearance on Solid Gold.

Joanna Garnder never really had much of a career, but Eugene seemed to have a few hit singles in the 80s. A quick search on YouTube turns up quite a few tracks, including the incredibly dope “Gotta Get You Home Tonight” which I can only assume was the early-8os equivalent of Boyz II Men’s “I’ll Make Love To You.” I totally bet that song would work on my boyfriend.

Posted in Complete Albums, soundtrack | No Comments »

Dungeons & Dragons on Vinyl

Monday, February 8th, 2016

I’ve never been into Dungeons & Dragons and I’m never going to be into Dungeons & Dragons, or any form of table-top gaming for that matter. Video games got me at a young age, and the idea of setting up a board and rolling dice while some dude tells me a story about wizards just never appealed to me in the least. I guess I just don’t get the appeal. I’ve tried several times too. I had friends in junior high, college and in my adult life who were way into D&D. Many of them tried to suck me in, all to no avail. But if they would’ve came at me with their 20-sided dice in one hand, and this rad 2LP set of instrumental electronic music in the other, they might have fared a little bit better.

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First Quest (Complete Album Download)
I didn’t know what I was expecting when I first dropped the needle on this record after finding it in a record store on the outskirts of Tokyo last week, but it certainly wasn’t a surprisingly above-average collection of minimal, John Carpenter-inspired instrumental electronic music. Considering the inspiration material, I guess I imagined something a little more classically-minded. Perhaps I was expecting a full-on symphonic score or some sort of symphonic metal. Although I guess the latter would’ve been impossible, as this album came out in 1985 and symphonic metal didn’t really exist as a genre at that time.

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Save for the final track, First Quest is entirely electronic, and while it features original music by a variety of musicians (of whom I’ll get to in a bit), the album has a fairly consistent creepy, vaguely dark, vibe that carries itself across all of the songs, regardless of composer. The previously mentioned Carpenter influence is strong with this one, echoes of Halloween are all over this record. But while the Carpenter comparison is the obvious one, when I listen to this I much more pick up the ambient stylings of Tangerine Dream, with a menacing hint reminiscent of Goblin’s work with Dario Argento.

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With pedigree like that I’m probably overselling it a bit. No, this album isn’t a lost classic that’s ripe for recognition, but it’s certainly worth a listen, and way better than you’d probably expect a cheap collection of instrumental electronica inspired by a table-top board game to be. It’s catchy, fits the inspiration material damn near perfectly, and it’s a lot of fun. If some asshole in a jean jacket and retro-style shades put this out in 2016 ironically, it would probably be an indie-hit. Pitchfork would give it a 7.6.

A total of seven different artists are credited as composers on First Quest. Of them, the most prominent is probably Denis Haines, who was a member of Gary Numan’s backing band for the recording of Telekon. That group went onto form Dramatis, who released one album in the mid-80s before breaking up. He also played on albums by Fischer-Z, The Skids and, strangely enough, Marianne Faithfull. Haines’ work on the record runs the gamut, with some being rather upbeat, and others a tad more dreary and ambient. A standout of his selections is “Gnomes,” an poppy yet dark number that I could easily imagine Gary Numan singing over.

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Click for hi-res.

Two other names that pop up a lot on First Quest are Phil Thornton and Dave Miller, who compose about half of the record. Together they were part of an early-80s synth-pop group called Expandis, who continue to release new music, and Thornton has a fairly prolific career as a solo musician putting out new age and ambient music (much of it sci-fi or fantasy themed). Based on their work here and from what I could find of Expandis online, Thornton and Miller probably dug the darker edge of early-80s synthpop and post-punk quite a bit. I bet they totally saw Echo & The Bunnymen live at least once. Their stuff here is good mood music that sets the tone for the album, but sometimes it falls a bit too far into new age territory for my tastes. “The Return Of Light” is a damn fine closer though.

Then there’s Steve Parsons, in addition to the handful of tracks he donated to this record, he also worked a bit as a film composer in the 80s, contributing songs to the superb Empire State soundtrack, and composing the horrifically bad score the the hideously awful Howling II. His tracks here aren’t that great, but I’ve read that the solo stuff he released under the name Snips is much better.

There’s also Barrie Guard, whose one contribution to First Quest, “The Heroes Ride Out” is an easy highlight. If his Discogs is any indication, Guard got a lot of work in the 70s and 80s, working for musicians as diverse as Bonnie Tyler, Dusty Springfield and Cliff Richard. He was also the orchestra conductor for the score to one of my boyfriend’s favorite films, A Room With A View, so the next time you want to connect Merchant And Ivory to D&D in just one step, there you go. Too bad he never stuck with the minimal electronic score thing, he was pretty good at it.

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The only group credited on First Quest is a band called The Device, who only show up for one track. Their tune isn’t bad, and is definitely one of the more Carpenter-inspired joints on the album. They didn’t seem to do anything outside of the album though, and I can’t find much about them. Finally, there’s guitarist G.P. Hall, who concludes the album with an entirely out-of-place guitar track. He has a fairly expansive Wiki entry that he probably wrote and should probably be deleted.

The album also features some brief snippets of narration by Valentine Dyall, who geeks will probably recognize as The Black Guardian from Doctor Who. He also starred in a shitload of British movies throughout the 40s and into the 80s before he passed away in 1985, shortly before the release of this album, hence his credit as “The Late Valentine Dyall.”

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The packaging for First Quest is rather elaborate, featuring a gatefold sleeve and two custom inner sleeves which feature printed instructions for a Dungeons & Dragons campaign that follows the (rather loose) story outlined in the album’s music. Not knowing much about D&D, I couldn’t tell you if the campaign is well thought-out or worthwhile in anyway, I’d love to hear insight from anyone who might know.

Not a great album, but definitely a fascinating one, and a wonderfully dated product of its time that I think is ripe for rediscovery by a more accepting audience. I hope you find it as fun as I do.

Posted in Complete Albums | 5 Comments »