Archive for January, 2020

Terri Nunn’s Lost Berlin Song

Friday, January 31st, 2020

Just a single song this week, sorry. I have some good posts ready to go but I want to work on cleaning up the recordings a bit more, so hopefully you’ll be hearing stupid video game remixes and a bizarre version of “Telstar” soon.

Berlin
Overload (Terri Nunn Version)
I’m apparently a reputable source of information regarding the synth-pop band Berlin. I’m listed as a source on the band’s surprisingly in-depth Wikipedia page, which is hilarious to me.

Anyways, as a reputable source of information regarding the synth-pop band Berlin, I’m qualified to discuss this song in great detail. “Overload” is the B-side to Berlin’s very first single “Matter Of Time,” which was released on Renegade Records as a 7-inch single in 1979. Shortly thereafter, Berlin’s lead singer Terri Nunn would quit the group to pursue a career in acting. She would return to the group a short time later, but while she was gone the group recruited Virginia Macolino to replace her as the lead singer. With Macolino behind the mic, the band would re-record their first single, which was re-released by I.R.S. Records in 1980. The group also recorded a sole album with Macolino, the fabulous 1980 synth-punk classic Information. That album also included “Overload” and “Matter of Time,” of course with their current lead singer Virginia Macolino performing the vocals.

Nunn rejoined the band shortly after all of this and the group seemingly forgot their time with Macolino entirely, Information hasn’t been in print since it’s first release in 1980. When the time came for Berlin to release a greatest hits compilation in 1988, they included the then-rarity of “Matter Of Time” with Nunn’s vocals. But this B-side didn’t make the cut. To date, its only release has been on that very first pressing of the “Matter Of Time” single before they re-recorded it with Macolino (and the Macolino version is only on the second pressing of the single and the Information album, so it isn’t that much more common).

Synthpop in the late-70s was still wearing its punk/new wave influences on its sleeve and “Overload” is no exception thanks to its propulsive beat and sense of urgency. It’s must less polished than how Berlin would sound just a few years later on Pleasure Victim, and light years away from “Take My Breath Away.” Dope track for sure, and I’m surprised that it still hasn’t seen a proper re-release some 41 (holy shit) years later. 2020 is a garbage fire world, Berlin, please re-release Information sometime soon and make me feel happiness again.

 

Posted in B-sides, Berlin | 1 Comment »

Koto Bach by a hot koto man

Sunday, January 19th, 2020

Tadao Sawai & Hozan Yamamoto
Koto Sebastian Bach (complete album download)

Fuck new wave, Berlin school, post-punk, electronica, avant-garde, and early-moog albums. Let’s listen to interpretations of classical music on traditional Japanese instruments.

This is the second “classical music but on koto” album that I’ve shared here. The first  was an album featuring Vivaldi’s Four Seasons performed on koto and shakukachi (Japanese bamboo flute). This, as the title suggests, is comprised entirely of koto-centric reworkings of Bach compositions, again with shakukachi (and some light jazz instrumentation) serving as accompaniment.

Like the Vivaldi album before it, this record is the work of Tadao Sawai and Hozan Yamamoto. This is actually their first album of classical covers, released a year prior to their 1969  Vivaldi album. Unlike their Vivaldi album, this actually got a release in America, coming out in the states in 1973 under the name J.S. Bach Is Alive And Well And Doing His Thing On The Koto. A ridiculous cover accompanied that ridiculous title change.

Yikes.

Sawai and Yamamoto would go on to collaborate on one more koto classical hybrid, Koto Amadeus Mozart, which was also released in 1969. From there, it looks like Sawai got more interested in koto reworkings of other genres, including some movie themes and Latin music. He apparently performed the theme to The Godfather on koto. I got to hear that shit.

I would also like to mention at this time that I think that Tadao Sawai was hot as hell. I mean, damn, look at this man.

He’s got them hungry eyes. Looking like he wants to take off those finger picks and show you what he can really do with those hands. Looking like he wants you to wait patiently while he properly disrobes from his traditional kimono before he can ravage you Edo style.  He’s got that big bad koto daddy look. He could…um…*desperately tries to think of a sexual koto double-entendre*….pluck me all night long if you know what I mean…and I think you do because that wasn’t very subtle at all was it?

I apologize for the sudden horny turn this post took. Enjoy the koto music.

Posted in Complete Albums | 2 Comments »

Happy belated New Year – here’s Moby remixing Aerosmith

Sunday, January 12th, 2020

Around New Year’s I was showing a friend some other MP3 blog that shares remixes and b-sides. You know the one.

He agreed with me that it was totally lame that said MP3 blog not only shared tracks that are easily commercially available (sometimes on new vinyl even), but that the person behind the blog couldn’t even be bothered to do their own write-up about said tracks. I mean, it’s one thing to hook up a turntable to a PC, go through the sometimes arduous process of ripping a record to a digital format, cleaning it up, and then sharing it on the internet. It’s another to, let’s say, grab a rightfully forgotten piece of 90s electronica, rip it to a digital format, clean it up, properly tag it, upload it to a server that you paid for, and then write about said rightfully forgotten song.

That shit takes gumption.

Aerosmith
Falling In Love (Is Hard On The Knees) (Butcher Mix)
Falling In Love (Is Hard On The Knees) (Butcher Mix Edit)
Falling In Love (Is Hard On The Knees) (Moby Flawed Mix)
Falling In Love (Is Hard On The Knees) (Moby Fucked Mix)
Whhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhy.

Okay, first things first, there are four remixes here. The first two are by Joe “The Butcher’ Nicolo, the founder of Ruffhouse Records. They’re good examples of your standard remix. They take the basic structure of the song, mix it up a bit, throw in a few more beats, and add some other dance elements. They’re fine. I mean, they’re as fine as remixes to very sub-standard late-90s Aerosmith track can get, but whatever. They are what they are and they accomplish what they set out to accomplish.

Then, there’s the Moby remixes.

What the fuck.

I’m not surprised that Moby remixed these songs. This isn’t an 808 State/Yes situation. He was doing a lot of remix work for rock artists in the mid-to-late 90s. This was around the same time he did remix work for The Smashing Pumpkins, Soundgarden, Blur, and even Metallica. I’m more surprised with how he remixed them. I don’t think it’s really fair to even call these tracks remixes. I think the only thing he saves from the original versions in his remixes are Tyler’s vocals, and he even cuts and screws them to an (even more) unintelligible mess. These are less remixes and more like entirely new productions that just happen feature vocals by Steven Tyler with some short snippets of Perry’s guitar. They remind me Moby’s “Next To The E” or some of the more hardcore remixes of “Go.”

To be perfectly honest, I really don’t know what to think of them. I respect that they’re just so far out there and removed from the source material. He basically took an Aerosmith song (and not a very good one at that) and turned it into a hardcore techno track. I got to give props where props is due, that’s ballsy. But this is just grating on the ears. I thought for a second that maybe I was just getting too old for this shit, but I took a minute to listen to some other hardcore techno from the era and I still dug it. This is just too much. It’s too noisy, too much is going on, and the ballistic Tyler vocals snippets layered over it (especially over the “Fucked” mix) are just too intense.

But I still find myself respecting the tracks. He took a bad rock song and, through sheer force, determination and drum samples, turned it into a…less-than-average-but-not-entirely-horrible techno track. A techno track that, had I heard it in a club in 1997, I probably wouldn’t have thought twice about it and danced right through it. Good on him. Shit, it’s still better than anything on Aerosmith’s Just Push Play, and definitely superior to anything on the last few Moby records.

Sorry to start the new year off with Moby remixes of Aerosmith songs. I had something much better planned but my recordings still sound a bit too scratchy for my tastes. I’m going to run the record through the record cleaner one more time and hope for better results before I share them. I also have just, a near-literal ton of weird Japanese electronic and/or moog albums that I want to share, so you all have that to hopefully look forward too in the coming weeks and months.

 

 

Posted in Aerosmith, Moby, remixes | 2 Comments »

Osamu Shoji’s Star Wars – May the synths be with you

Wednesday, January 1st, 2020

I got to see Rise of the Skywalker this past Monday and thought it was just absolutely wonderful. It had some pacing and structure issues (so does Empire Strikes Back) but I loved how the movie blended the old with the new. I know it’s not the critical darling that The Last Jedi was, but I don’t care. It had a great story, fantastic character moments, and a terrific final scene. It was the first piece of any Star Wars media since Return of the Jedi that left me wanting immediately MORE Star Wars content. I’m back full-on Star Wars geek. If I had the room, I’d be buying stupid figures again. It inspired me to finally go through all the hurdles and download the “de-specialized” editions of the original trilogy so I can watch them again. It made me want to go back and watch the prequels even (well, maybe I’ll watch Attack of the Clones while doing some chores around the house). It pulled me back in.

There’s been a lot of negativity around this film and I’m still struggling to figure out why. It touched me in a way that no other film in the series had. I feel that a lot of the people who say they hate it can’t even express why. So much nitpicking tiny details, so many people demanding literally every single thing be answered and resolved in a way that matches their own head cannon. I don’t care about those things. I don’t overthink every tiny logistical and scientific detail of a Star Wars film (that’s what Star Trek is for). Yes, the movie is far from perfect, but most of its problems, pacing issues, seemingly random plot twists that don’t entirely hold up under scrutiny, deus ex machina force powers, sudden changes in character motivations, are in the other films too. I didn’t mind them then, I don’t understand why so many people mind them now.

I could keep going, but I already sound like a whiny defensive fanboy so I’ll finish by saying this; the movie made me happy. It hit all the nostalgic beats I wanted. It gave me new things to love. It reminded me why I love this franchise so much. I hope that it’s the sign of more greatness in future installments.

And if you want to comment about how much I’m wrong don’t fucking bother because this is my blog and I won’t approve them. If you have legitimate, interesting criticism of the film, I probably agree with you so there’s no need for you to share it here. If you want to whine about how “Ben Solo deserved better” or some other wanky bullshit, take your negativity to Twitter. That’s what everyone else does these days anyways.

Osamu Shoji’s Star Wars (Complete Album Download)
Buy hey, Twitter isn’t all bad! Today Twitter user @keepingitpeel sent me a link to a blog post about an all-synthesizer Star Wars album, and he asked if I had it.

Of course I do. And I’m just fucking shocked and disappointed with myself that I somehow never got around to sharing it here. Starting off the new year by fixing that mistake right now.

Star Wars by Osamu Shoji was released in Japan only in 1978. It’s not the only synthesizer arrangement of music from Star Wars (hell, it’s not the only one from Japan that came out that year) but it’s my favorite by leaps and bounds, thanks to the wonderful work of Mr. Shoji.

I have probably written more about Osamu Shoji more than anyone else has in English. When he sadly passed away in 2018, I put up a obituary of sorts on my other blog. He was an utterly amazing talent that took the synthesizer sound to places that others simply hadn’t before. Wendy Carlos proved that synthesizer music could sound like actual music, she made it commercially viable. Shoji built on her work to show that synthesizers could be fun, exploiting sounds and styles that were impossible on traditional instruments. It’s electronic music fused with 70s funk and jazz sensibilities. His best stuff just has an indefinable bounce. It’s just groovy, man.

His sense of goofy fun definitely comes across in his renditions of music from Star Wars. Like I said, there were many electronic takes on the Star Wars theme in the years immediately following the release of the film. A lot of the lesser-known ones failed to catch on because they just didn’t do all that much with the source material. They tried too hard to recreate the sound and feel of the original without adding anything to it.

In America, the most famous reworking of the Star Wars theme has to be by Meco, whose disco version of the main theme was actually a number-one hit single when it first came out. But I feel that had a lot more to do with the combined crazes of disco and Star Wars than it did with the actual quality of Meco’s work. I like Meco (really) but his Star Wars theme is little more than the regular Star Wars theme with a disco beat and some added instrumentation layered upon it.

Shoji takes the Star Wars theme and just fucking goes, man. Robot laughter sounds? Sure why not. A wah-wah bass back-beat? Damn straight. A funky breakdown? You better believe it. Like a good jazz musician, Shoji throws in his own flourishes and touches to the theme, all while not deviating from it too much. It always sounds like the theme. He doesn’t let his ego get the best of him. He knows why people are here and delivers what they want. He diverges a bit more on “Throne Room” but the key moments are still there, weaving them in and out with his own elements. And that funky beat keeps the groove constant.

Shoji really lets himself go wild when he gets to the Cantina Band music though. First he plays it through in a relatively standard way, again he gives you what you want. Then, he breaks that motherfucker down and builds it back up again with a series of jams where he finally gives himself the chance to show-off. He’s pushing sounds of out his synthesizer that I just haven’t heard before. Total Emerson vibes here.

Side A of the album continues with two more pieces from Star Wars “Princess Leia’s Theme” and “The Robot Auction” that are also good. However, side B takes things in a different direction. Just like Meco did on his album, the second side of Shoji’s Star Wars album features original work by Shoji, not interpretations of music from the film. Of course, it doesn’t hold the attention like the Star Wars stuff does, but it’s still great. Shoji wasn’t just a musician, he was an extremely talented composer. He worked on countless anime during his lifetime. He also released several albums of original work (that are all super-fun).

The majority of Side B is dedicated to just one piece, the 20-minute “Space Odyssey.” As the title suggests, it’s an odyssey. It starts as a quiet, simple instrumental melody. From there, the synth strings segue in and things get downright sexy before a more eerie sound takes itself to the forefront for a pulsing, sci-fi influenced second half. The album concludes with “The Desert,” a brief coda that features Shoji at his most experimental, mixing ambient soundscapes, some elements of Williams’ score, and odd atonal bursts of noise. (It’s also the only part of the record where the surface noise is noticeable so I apologize about that).

I’m glad to see that this record is getting a bit more attention now. I hope that anyone interested in it checks out other work by Shoji. Like I said in my blog post about him, I highly recommend his album Night Flight, which also came out in 1978. It’s a fun, bright and upbeat record that isn’t afraid to get a little silly at times.  It’s groovy as hell too.

Happy New Year’s everyone! May this be the year that we finally realize that we’re not alone and that we can make a different when we all come together against a common enemy.

Yeah, I really liked the ending to Rise of the Skywalker, is it that obvious?

Posted in Complete Albums, Osamu Shoji, Star Wars | 5 Comments »