16 August 2018, Aretha Franklin
I stopped doing obituary-type things here after Omar died, and since then many notables have passed un-noted by me, but Aretha Franklin? I can't let her shuffle off without mention. Respect.
24 January 2018, Soup Dragons, 'Divine Thing'
Soup Dragons, “Divine Thing,” was on my mind. I knew a soup dragon was a character from a kids’ show, but I never bothered to look for a clip from that show. Now I have, and I’m glad. Thanks, Clangers. You speak synthesizer, and that's fun.
WGRS Mixtape 7 on Soundcloud
That's it, really. Now you can listen to Warm Glow Record Show 7: Mind the Psyche, 105-107 bpm on Soundcloud.
WGRS Mixtape 4 on SoundCloud
I've been on a summer break of sorts, and I still am, but in the spirit of gearing back up for something like more regular posting, here's the re-release of Warm Glow Record Show 4: Dance It Out, 99-101 bpm on SoundCloud.
8 June 2017, Oh my, Omar
Omar has died. Long live Omar!
West Philadelphia will never be the same, but it was all illusion and conspiracy to begin with. From Disney World to Dahlak, his trip wasn't long enough. He called me Jesse James Christ Born Pilot, and I miss him already.
West Philadelphia will never be the same, but it was all illusion and conspiracy to begin with. From Disney World to Dahlak, his trip wasn't long enough. He called me Jesse James Christ Born Pilot, and I miss him already.
4 June 2017, Deb Talan, "Bring Water (JJC's F-Word Re-Drum)"
SoundCloud has been unaccountably kind to my Asaf Avidan edit, but the copyright protection filters simply wouldn't let this one through. Guess not everyone likes a promotional leak. We'll see how long it stays on Mixcloud. [Edit: It stayed on Mixcloud for about two minutes. Zippyshare it is. Bonus? Download it!]
Here's my re-drum for the F-Word of Deb Talan's "Bring Water" from her record Lucky Girl.
Here's my re-drum for the F-Word of Deb Talan's "Bring Water" from her record Lucky Girl.
WGRS Mixtape 3 on SoundCloud
The third mixtape in the Warm Glow Record Show series is now available on SoundCloud, so give a listen there if SoundCloud is your app of choice.
29 May 2017, The Allman Brothers Band, Eat a Peach 2xLP
The Eat a Peach double LP from the Allman Brothers is hot. Too hot
for the unattenuable preamplified analog signal going into my turntable’s
built-in analog-to-digital converter and out via USB. This is no good. I
can’t have my archival recordings clipping. I even tried a quieter stylus,
but that only brought the level down a little, and it was still clipping in
Audacity and Ableton. Now I’m bypassing the turntable’s ADC and sending the
analog signal from the turntable into my Tascam audio interface, but this
brings me back to the several problems I was trying to avoid when I decided
on the turntable with the built-in ADC with USB output. I won’t go into
those problems now, but the upshot is that unless Eat a Peach is an
anomaly gainwise, I may be back on the market for a turntable and/or an
audio interface better suited for both attenuating and boosting a stereo
signal.
Eat a Peach is among a selection of Allman stuff I keep around because my dad likes it. Or liked it. Or owned it, anyway. As a kid the artwork inside the gatefold sleeve was more interesting to me than the music, and I don’t have distinct memories of the record playing, only pulling it off the shelf to look at the fantastically sized fruit in the flatbed and the naked lady in the sky. My dad was playing mostly classical on vinyl by the time I was old enough to dig through the stacks, since most of the new stuff was coming into the house on tapes and later CDs. By that time maybe The Allman Brothers seemed to my dad like a throwback to a more freewheeling time in his life. Even though it’s lyric-less, I bet he played “Little Martha” when he was courting my mom.
When I put the record on today, I expected more blues than country, but even more than either of those influences I heard a jam band like the ones I avoided in the 1990s. I should have known since the second side of each disc is taken up by what is presumably an excerpt of a much longer “Mountain Jam.” The jam is bluesy, but it’s also prog-y and fusion-y and not very country. Dicky Betts gets his down-home licks in elsewhere on the first sides of the discs, and that’s something to look forward to when you’re jammed halfway up the mountain on one of the flipsides. If you’re like me, during the 19- and 15-minute mountain jams, you look over at the turntable to see how far from the runout grooves the stylus still lies.
The C side (Side III on my copy) is where the blues really come to the fore. “One Way Out” is a cover of a Sonny Boy Williamson tune and is particularly good. “Blue Sky” meanders back into jam band territory with a strong country feeling, but it also features some impressive soloing from composer Betts. As is typical of the genre (these are the archetypes, after all), the soloing goes on far too long before the vocals kick back in and the song wraps up. Then the pleasant little aforementioned instrumental interlude bearing my mother’s name, and then Side IV is the also aforementioned long-form “Mountain Jam (Cont’d).” This one starts out with some cool bass solo work and has Betts playing some dissonant notes that give his guitar solos an atonal feel in places, which I respect for making me feel uncomfortable when I wasn’t expecting anything unusual.
Author Denis Johnson died a few days ago, and I probably should have written about him instead of Allman, but Johnson’s best known book’s title is an allusion to a line from a song by Lou Reed, the subject of my first rock ’n’ roll eulogy, so I’m taking that as a sign to stay in this lane. Gregg Allman died a couple days ago, and now he and Brother Duane play songs on another plane. Eat a Peach. Play it again.
Eat a Peach is among a selection of Allman stuff I keep around because my dad likes it. Or liked it. Or owned it, anyway. As a kid the artwork inside the gatefold sleeve was more interesting to me than the music, and I don’t have distinct memories of the record playing, only pulling it off the shelf to look at the fantastically sized fruit in the flatbed and the naked lady in the sky. My dad was playing mostly classical on vinyl by the time I was old enough to dig through the stacks, since most of the new stuff was coming into the house on tapes and later CDs. By that time maybe The Allman Brothers seemed to my dad like a throwback to a more freewheeling time in his life. Even though it’s lyric-less, I bet he played “Little Martha” when he was courting my mom.
When I put the record on today, I expected more blues than country, but even more than either of those influences I heard a jam band like the ones I avoided in the 1990s. I should have known since the second side of each disc is taken up by what is presumably an excerpt of a much longer “Mountain Jam.” The jam is bluesy, but it’s also prog-y and fusion-y and not very country. Dicky Betts gets his down-home licks in elsewhere on the first sides of the discs, and that’s something to look forward to when you’re jammed halfway up the mountain on one of the flipsides. If you’re like me, during the 19- and 15-minute mountain jams, you look over at the turntable to see how far from the runout grooves the stylus still lies.
The C side (Side III on my copy) is where the blues really come to the fore. “One Way Out” is a cover of a Sonny Boy Williamson tune and is particularly good. “Blue Sky” meanders back into jam band territory with a strong country feeling, but it also features some impressive soloing from composer Betts. As is typical of the genre (these are the archetypes, after all), the soloing goes on far too long before the vocals kick back in and the song wraps up. Then the pleasant little aforementioned instrumental interlude bearing my mother’s name, and then Side IV is the also aforementioned long-form “Mountain Jam (Cont’d).” This one starts out with some cool bass solo work and has Betts playing some dissonant notes that give his guitar solos an atonal feel in places, which I respect for making me feel uncomfortable when I wasn’t expecting anything unusual.
Author Denis Johnson died a few days ago, and I probably should have written about him instead of Allman, but Johnson’s best known book’s title is an allusion to a line from a song by Lou Reed, the subject of my first rock ’n’ roll eulogy, so I’m taking that as a sign to stay in this lane. Gregg Allman died a couple days ago, and now he and Brother Duane play songs on another plane. Eat a Peach. Play it again.
WGRS Mixtape 2 on SoundCloud
That's all, really. You can now listen to the second Warm Glow Record Show mixtape on SoundCloud. Stay tuned for the rest of them!
WGRS Mixtape 1 on SoundCloud
I'm moving it all over to SoundCloud, and that's a good excuse to recycle stuff, right? Plus I'm cooking up something interesting, and I need a little time away from writing little pieces of music appreciation to do it. For now, click play and relive WGRS's early days.
7 May 2017, No. 250, Commodores, “The Assembly Line”
Without such subversive lyrics, No. 250 wouldn’t have made the list.
Usually my ears perk up at the sound of ill synths and slick grooves, but “The Assembly Line” from
Commodores has only big horns to recommend it musically—unless you like
churchy music. Gloria Jones of “Tainted Love” fame takes co-writing credits
for “The Assembly Line,” and she got her start singing in church, so that
feeling makes sense here. Pam Sawyer is the songwriter credited first on
this tune, and she co-wrote a bunch of songs for Motown in the late 1960s
and all through the ’70s—“If I Were Your Woman” (Gladys Knight and the
Pips), “Love Child” (Diana Ross and the Supremes), and “Love Hangover” (The
5th Dimension, though Diana Ross’s version is the one).
Sawyer and Jones want us to know culture is a factory. Clearly it was a fresher metaphor forty years ago, and a more relevant one, given the decline in manufacturing in the U.S. in the intervening years. Especially relevant for a Detroit-based record label whose very name is an allusion to the motors that made the town famous, rolling off the assembly lines gleaming, identical, and ready to combust.
The first verse is a pat second-wave feminist interrogation of binary gender stereotypes: Why can’t boys cry? Why can’t girls play football? We’ve made plenty of progress in challenging those kinds of assumptions, but there are still pockets of the country that could stand to hear this message. Maybe the churchlike delivery makes it more palatable.
If you need your palate cleansed of that organ-laden liturgical sound but you’re still feeling the dystopian, mechanized-homogeneity vibe, give another “Assembly Line” a listen. This one is from Hilly Michaels, has synthesizers and vocoding, and is probably the only good song from his Lumia LP. Aside from the title, the Michaels tune has very little in common with the Commodores cut. Its only lyric aside from the titular line is “What are we working for?” No subversive gender politics, but also no hackneyed and obvious second verse about corrupt lawyers, so it has that going for it as well. Still, the Commodores song is better, in case you decide to listen to just one. From the moment you’re born, you’re on the assembly line. Keeps on messing with your mind.
Sawyer and Jones want us to know culture is a factory. Clearly it was a fresher metaphor forty years ago, and a more relevant one, given the decline in manufacturing in the U.S. in the intervening years. Especially relevant for a Detroit-based record label whose very name is an allusion to the motors that made the town famous, rolling off the assembly lines gleaming, identical, and ready to combust.
The first verse is a pat second-wave feminist interrogation of binary gender stereotypes: Why can’t boys cry? Why can’t girls play football? We’ve made plenty of progress in challenging those kinds of assumptions, but there are still pockets of the country that could stand to hear this message. Maybe the churchlike delivery makes it more palatable.
If you need your palate cleansed of that organ-laden liturgical sound but you’re still feeling the dystopian, mechanized-homogeneity vibe, give another “Assembly Line” a listen. This one is from Hilly Michaels, has synthesizers and vocoding, and is probably the only good song from his Lumia LP. Aside from the title, the Michaels tune has very little in common with the Commodores cut. Its only lyric aside from the titular line is “What are we working for?” No subversive gender politics, but also no hackneyed and obvious second verse about corrupt lawyers, so it has that going for it as well. Still, the Commodores song is better, in case you decide to listen to just one. From the moment you’re born, you’re on the assembly line. Keeps on messing with your mind.
29 April 2017, No. 249, Bar-Kays, ‘Let’s Have Some Fun’
Yow. The Wiccans are all like, “An’ it harm none” do what you want to, but
I think “Let’s Have Some Fun” is
a far better guiding principle, and it’s No. 249 in the record show. The
free vocals at the end are just dying to be sampled, and every bar starts
with that characteristic Bar-Kays farting synth sound. Minimoog, I assume,
though the Yamaha CS-15 I once had could make bubbly, zipper-coming-down
sounds like that. Winston Stewart keeps it on the one for the entire tune,
even when he’s using his right hand (I assume) to solo on the organ.
Stewart is credited on Rick Dees’ Disco Duck LP as “Moog-Winston
Stewart,” so the Moog guess is strong, even though Stewart’s credit on that
quacking novelty record is for ARP programming. In “Let’s Have Some
Fun” the Bar-Kays could have used a tape loop or a sequencer to make each
bar go byow, but having a human depress a key to make the noise every time
is part of what gives this song something people call soul. Or, at
least, the substitution of computers for human button depressors is part of
why people say much contemporary music is soulless. That, and the lack of
horn sections.
Two years after this cut came out, the band put out “Holy Ghost,” which we’ve already covered (if lightly) and which employs the same bass synth strategy with a very similar sound. No wonder both tunes made the list. The thing I should have mentioned about “Holy Ghost” but didn’t is the distinctive double taps on the cowbell, and while “Let’s Have Some Fun” doesn’t have any cool cowbell happening, it does have a really long break like “Holy Ghost,” from 3:30ish to 5:30ish, replete with chants and horn licks. Get funky with it.
Two years after this cut came out, the band put out “Holy Ghost,” which we’ve already covered (if lightly) and which employs the same bass synth strategy with a very similar sound. No wonder both tunes made the list. The thing I should have mentioned about “Holy Ghost” but didn’t is the distinctive double taps on the cowbell, and while “Let’s Have Some Fun” doesn’t have any cool cowbell happening, it does have a really long break like “Holy Ghost,” from 3:30ish to 5:30ish, replete with chants and horn licks. Get funky with it.
20 April 2017, WGRS Book 7, Mind the Psyche
Warm Glow Record Show 7: Mind the Psyche
invites listeners to greet the mind while the mixtape itself is thinking of
you (and perhaps of Paris). If you need somebody to love tonight, you can
go out looking, but you might just find out heaven and hell is on Earth. As
Earth has plenty of theme songs already, I hope the future will bring us
themes from the exoplanets. Maybe we meet some aliens. That’s the kind of
change that should make you want to hustle toward the UFO, you sexy thing.
Don’t believe in miracles, but do get down with the Philly jump, woo-ooh,
while “T” plays it cool. If you’re wondering how to get on down with the
aqua boogie, just know that it’s a psychoalphadiscobetabioaquadoloop, and a
flash light can illuminate it further, as can giving up the funk and
tearing the roof off the sucker so everyone gets a little light under the
sun.
Señoras y señores, hombres y mujeres, damas y caballeros, I’m an all-day sucker hurtling through hyperspace, doing different strokes and dropping the bomb seemingly indiscriminately, but there’s a method to the madness, please believe. Please believe also that Prisencolinensinainciusol wants to back it on up, dance dance dance a tangoterje, and do it in a Kalimba tree. If nothing else, that should inspire listeners to get up and dance until their psyches rock fatboys from here to Malpaso Creek. Mind the psyche when entering or exiting the groove.
Señoras y señores, hombres y mujeres, damas y caballeros, I’m an all-day sucker hurtling through hyperspace, doing different strokes and dropping the bomb seemingly indiscriminately, but there’s a method to the madness, please believe. Please believe also that Prisencolinensinainciusol wants to back it on up, dance dance dance a tangoterje, and do it in a Kalimba tree. If nothing else, that should inspire listeners to get up and dance until their psyches rock fatboys from here to Malpaso Creek. Mind the psyche when entering or exiting the groove.
16 April 2017, No. 248, Skyy, ‘First Time Around’
Your first time around you would have stopped to finish your cigarette on
the sidewalk before ascending five steps and parting the crowds to get
through the front door. The bass drums that started as a dull thud around
Locust Street reached the peak of their streetside crescendo there outside
the basement window. Like the one you’re visiting, the row home next door
has couches on its porch draped with revelers drinking. Up five steps and
through the front door you’d have found a DJ in the front room playing
through a sound system just loud enough to overcome the noise seeping up
through the floorboards, which floorboards vibrated in time to the basement
bass drums alone.
Through an adjoining and couch-lined living room you’d find a butler’s pantry with two doors to your left and the kitchen at the other end, and then a door to a mud room before the true back door; in case you were passing through only to look for your friends, you could slip out the back and down a narrow path that after two turns emptied onto the same street from which you’d entered. (Turn the other way down the path and you’d hit nothing but unkempt thicket, though I’ve heard in the last few years it’s been trimmed back and both directions are navigable). If you’d have taken the door in the butler’s pantry immediately before the kitchen, you’d have been in a well-used half bath. The other door led to the source of the loudest music, and the unlit stairway turned ninety degrees before emptying into the loudest laundry room on the block, and another 180-degree turn brought you into the big room with ten-foot ceilings, Christmas lights, and a drunken, sweating crowd. Ooh, what a groove. And such a big room underground.
Those who bothered to push, stumble, or dance fluidly through the crowd and past the furnace found a long, sturdy workbench with a desk lamp suspended over Technics 1200s, more like a wash than a spotlight, and on this night there was me hunched over the “ First Time Around” twelve (No. 248 on our list) from which pew pew toms emanated along with the bass heard down the street. One of the first lessons I learned in digging was to buy every LP whose cover featured people dressed in weird costumes, especially space-themed weird costumes, and this tune is from one of the LPs that taught me the lesson. I think I pulled it out of a thrift shop called The Second Mile. But while the self-titled Skyy LP taught me to watch for space costumes, by the time I started playing basement parties at Haus 409, I’d learned the value of wide grooves and extended remixes and so I played more twelves. Which didn’t mean I stopped playing LPs altogether. I started avoiding them, but sometimes the album has the only version available, and if you’ve gotta hear that song, you’ve gotta play the LP.
Randy Muller, probably better known for his project Brass Construction, is also behind Skyy, with production, arrangement, flute, keyboard, and percussion credits, as well as writing credits for a number of the cuts on the self-titled album, including “First Time Around.” Muller also did most of the arrangements for the B.T. Express LP Do It (’Til You’re Satisfied), from which we’ll hear a cut in the late 400s with “Give Up the Funk.” I recommend the long-form Wax Poetics piece on Muller from Andrew Mason, so much so that I won’t bore you with extracts here. Muller is still around, too, as of this writing, in case you want to check him out on Facebook.
Before I checked, I would have predicted there to be at least one tune from Chicago-based Captain Sky on this list, but there isn’t. This is something I’ll have to rectify in the compilation of the second list. Regardless, Captain Sky is unrelated to the New York-based Skyy of No. 248, so who cares? I like the way you do it when you do it. I like the way you do it; wanna do it one more time? That free bass intro will make you feel like your whole world’s on fire.
Through an adjoining and couch-lined living room you’d find a butler’s pantry with two doors to your left and the kitchen at the other end, and then a door to a mud room before the true back door; in case you were passing through only to look for your friends, you could slip out the back and down a narrow path that after two turns emptied onto the same street from which you’d entered. (Turn the other way down the path and you’d hit nothing but unkempt thicket, though I’ve heard in the last few years it’s been trimmed back and both directions are navigable). If you’d have taken the door in the butler’s pantry immediately before the kitchen, you’d have been in a well-used half bath. The other door led to the source of the loudest music, and the unlit stairway turned ninety degrees before emptying into the loudest laundry room on the block, and another 180-degree turn brought you into the big room with ten-foot ceilings, Christmas lights, and a drunken, sweating crowd. Ooh, what a groove. And such a big room underground.
Those who bothered to push, stumble, or dance fluidly through the crowd and past the furnace found a long, sturdy workbench with a desk lamp suspended over Technics 1200s, more like a wash than a spotlight, and on this night there was me hunched over the “ First Time Around” twelve (No. 248 on our list) from which pew pew toms emanated along with the bass heard down the street. One of the first lessons I learned in digging was to buy every LP whose cover featured people dressed in weird costumes, especially space-themed weird costumes, and this tune is from one of the LPs that taught me the lesson. I think I pulled it out of a thrift shop called The Second Mile. But while the self-titled Skyy LP taught me to watch for space costumes, by the time I started playing basement parties at Haus 409, I’d learned the value of wide grooves and extended remixes and so I played more twelves. Which didn’t mean I stopped playing LPs altogether. I started avoiding them, but sometimes the album has the only version available, and if you’ve gotta hear that song, you’ve gotta play the LP.
Randy Muller, probably better known for his project Brass Construction, is also behind Skyy, with production, arrangement, flute, keyboard, and percussion credits, as well as writing credits for a number of the cuts on the self-titled album, including “First Time Around.” Muller also did most of the arrangements for the B.T. Express LP Do It (’Til You’re Satisfied), from which we’ll hear a cut in the late 400s with “Give Up the Funk.” I recommend the long-form Wax Poetics piece on Muller from Andrew Mason, so much so that I won’t bore you with extracts here. Muller is still around, too, as of this writing, in case you want to check him out on Facebook.
Before I checked, I would have predicted there to be at least one tune from Chicago-based Captain Sky on this list, but there isn’t. This is something I’ll have to rectify in the compilation of the second list. Regardless, Captain Sky is unrelated to the New York-based Skyy of No. 248, so who cares? I like the way you do it when you do it. I like the way you do it; wanna do it one more time? That free bass intro will make you feel like your whole world’s on fire.
5 April 2017, No. 247, Sharon Redd, ‘Can You Handle It’
Sharon Redd’s first appearance here in the record show is directly
attributable to some hot, muted agogo bells that aren’t even in No. 247, “Can You Handle It.” We covered
the most iconic agogo bells in
No. 227 from Bob James
, and the Sharon Redd bells will come in right at the end of the 300s. In
this report we’re concerned with a song that has no similarly defining
feature. The hook has a nice feel, and the horn stabs are sharp and well
timed, but I could do without the smooth sax solo, and there are no
distinctive synths to be found here. The break, which puts the bassline out
front, is the funky element that lands this tune on the list. And the
effected guitar plinking in the break almost makes up for the dearth of
synthesizers. Almost.
A couple entries after Bob James’ Mardi Gras bells, we covered an Eddie Bo tune (No. 231) with the same title as today’s. Bo’s “Can You Handle It” lyrics focus on the lead-up to the acquisition of a thing, whereas Redd’s are concerned with the reasons one might not be able to handle a thing. “’Cause you ain’t had nothin’ like it,” Redd begins to answer her own question. Or, well, songwriters Willie Lester and Rodney Brown’s question. Aside from the hook, there are no other lyrics in common with the Eddie Bo tune. Mr. Bocage wrote his lyrics ten or eleven years before this Sharon Redd joint hit the clubs, but the Redd joint is not a cover.
Redd—who got her start in the late 1960s, appeared in the Sydney production of Hair, and served as one of Bette Midler’s “Harlettes” backup singers—was by the early 1980s the Prelude label’s most successful artist. “Can You Handle It” enjoyed a brief resurgence of popularity in 1992 when the group DNA remixed it (yes, that DNA, who reworked Suzanne Vega’s “Tom’s Diner” into a downtempo dawn-of-the-’90s jam), but the same year they resurrected “Can You Handle It,” Redd died of AIDS-related pneumonia, stopping short her efforts to revitalize her career. Redd is survived by her half sister Penny(e) Ford. I have Ford’s “Change Your Wicked Ways” single, but it’s not on this list. It’s kinda cheesy, and I think I purged it in the last move. Ford is more recognizable (and easier to appreciate) as the voice of Snap!, singing the indelible hook in “The Power.”
If you’ve been a reader of these record show reports (and, more importantly, if you’ve listened to the songs), No. 247’s claim that “you ain’t had nothin’ like it” is pretty far off the mark. We’ve had songs similar to this one, and we’ll have many more before we reach the end of the show. Some of the songs, as I mentioned, even come from elsewhere in the Sharon Redd catalog. Can you handle it?
A couple entries after Bob James’ Mardi Gras bells, we covered an Eddie Bo tune (No. 231) with the same title as today’s. Bo’s “Can You Handle It” lyrics focus on the lead-up to the acquisition of a thing, whereas Redd’s are concerned with the reasons one might not be able to handle a thing. “’Cause you ain’t had nothin’ like it,” Redd begins to answer her own question. Or, well, songwriters Willie Lester and Rodney Brown’s question. Aside from the hook, there are no other lyrics in common with the Eddie Bo tune. Mr. Bocage wrote his lyrics ten or eleven years before this Sharon Redd joint hit the clubs, but the Redd joint is not a cover.
Redd—who got her start in the late 1960s, appeared in the Sydney production of Hair, and served as one of Bette Midler’s “Harlettes” backup singers—was by the early 1980s the Prelude label’s most successful artist. “Can You Handle It” enjoyed a brief resurgence of popularity in 1992 when the group DNA remixed it (yes, that DNA, who reworked Suzanne Vega’s “Tom’s Diner” into a downtempo dawn-of-the-’90s jam), but the same year they resurrected “Can You Handle It,” Redd died of AIDS-related pneumonia, stopping short her efforts to revitalize her career. Redd is survived by her half sister Penny(e) Ford. I have Ford’s “Change Your Wicked Ways” single, but it’s not on this list. It’s kinda cheesy, and I think I purged it in the last move. Ford is more recognizable (and easier to appreciate) as the voice of Snap!, singing the indelible hook in “The Power.”
If you’ve been a reader of these record show reports (and, more importantly, if you’ve listened to the songs), No. 247’s claim that “you ain’t had nothin’ like it” is pretty far off the mark. We’ve had songs similar to this one, and we’ll have many more before we reach the end of the show. Some of the songs, as I mentioned, even come from elsewhere in the Sharon Redd catalog. Can you handle it?
1 April 2017, No. 247, Lawrence Welk, ‘Pennsylvania Polka’
Coming in at No. 247 we have a cover of the Frankie Yankovic tune “Pennsylvania Polka” from the
eminently funky Lawrence Welk. You may already know it was Philadelphia
where I discovered the joy of being a disco DJ, and I’m always on the
lookout for tunes that bring that origin story to mind. Plus the horn riffs
here are huge and provide a lovely contrast to the chorale sections, which
are as good as or better than any Ray Conniff or Esquivel record by virtue
of being steeped in Welk’s Bohemian oompah groove. The bassline is bouncy
too, the bells of the tubas surely bobbing in the studio when this was
recorded.
Welk’s accent (and penchant for polka) always made think he was European (Swedish, specifically, for whatever reason), but I guess the maestro of champagne music is U.S. American through and through, as Welk is from a German-speaking community in North Dakota. I don’t think he ever lived in Pennsylvania, but the term champagne music is derived from something someone said to him at a concert he gave once in Pittsburgh. Stick with the tune until Welk starts soloing, and you’ll see he rocks that squeezebox as hard as any West Philly block party, and then there are those tubas again with that bump-bump-bumping bassline. It started in Scranton; it’s now No. 1. Go and get you some.
Welk’s accent (and penchant for polka) always made think he was European (Swedish, specifically, for whatever reason), but I guess the maestro of champagne music is U.S. American through and through, as Welk is from a German-speaking community in North Dakota. I don’t think he ever lived in Pennsylvania, but the term champagne music is derived from something someone said to him at a concert he gave once in Pittsburgh. Stick with the tune until Welk starts soloing, and you’ll see he rocks that squeezebox as hard as any West Philly block party, and then there are those tubas again with that bump-bump-bumping bassline. It started in Scranton; it’s now No. 1. Go and get you some.
30 March 2017, No. 246, People’s Choice, ‘Do It Any Way You Wanna (Keep Schtum Re-Edit)’
There are two songs in the record show that share No. 246’s title, “Do It Any Way You Wanna,” and each of those songs has an edit in the record show
too. This one, No. 246, is from People’s Choice and is the edited version:
“Do It Any Way You Wanna (Keep Schtum Re-Edit).” There is a slight
variation in the title of the song by Cashmere, anyway in place of any way, though unfortunately I didn’t do all my double checking
before I published the last book, whose report on No. 184 incorrectly
labels the non-edited version of the People’s Choice tune at No. 333 with anyway not any way. Sincerest apologies.
The groove here is remarkably consistent, the bassline rarely changing. At No. 333 we’ll find out if that was the original intention or something the editor decided to do. Something of an outlier on this list, this is a disco song without any remarkable synthesizers—maybe no synths at all, come to think of it. Just organ. The Cashmere song by basically the same name is bursting with synths. Being from 1982 helps Cashmere’s tune in that regard. It’s slicker and less funky, but I like it better.
As mentioned in No. 184, the group Escort stole the People’s Choice groove for a song about cocaine, but we’ll hear more about that (and hear the song itself) shortly at No. 260. For now, do it any way you wanna. Do it.
The groove here is remarkably consistent, the bassline rarely changing. At No. 333 we’ll find out if that was the original intention or something the editor decided to do. Something of an outlier on this list, this is a disco song without any remarkable synthesizers—maybe no synths at all, come to think of it. Just organ. The Cashmere song by basically the same name is bursting with synths. Being from 1982 helps Cashmere’s tune in that regard. It’s slicker and less funky, but I like it better.
As mentioned in No. 184, the group Escort stole the People’s Choice groove for a song about cocaine, but we’ll hear more about that (and hear the song itself) shortly at No. 260. For now, do it any way you wanna. Do it.
22 March 2017, No. 245, The Walter Murphy Band, ‘A Fifth of Beethoven’
For as much as I complain about disco tunes being ruined by too many
strings, the inclusion of The Walter Murphy Band’s “A Fifth of Beethoven”
in the list may seem odd. But it’s Beethoven with big drums, and I find
little to complain about here. I also have nothing but good things to say
about Mr. Murphy, who appears again later on this list and whose name I’m
always happy to see in the credits of Family Guy, for which series
he does the music. Anytime Family Guy sends up something from the
1970s, Murphy is back in his wheelhouse and the music is even better than
usual. In fact, “A Fifth of Beethoven” itself is used in a roller boogie
scene in one episode, a direct nod to Murphy’s disco past.
“A Fifth of Beethoven” achieved hit status when it was included on the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack. In every way it’s also more successful than another classically derived inclusion therefrom: David Shire’s take on Mussorgsky, “Night on Disco Mountain,” is too fast for its mood and tries to be far too big—like, epic, bro—both of which traits are hallmarks of the disco demise basically guaranteed by the appropriative popularity of Saturday Night Fever. Even the synths in the Shire tune are lame. Pity.
For the most part the instruments in “A Fifth of Beethoven” are doing what’s expected: The strings are playing Symphony No. 5, albeit a weird arrangement that’s locked to a click track and wanders away from Beethoven in the middle. The guitar, keys, and drums are playing a pretty standard funk groove, and the horns stab here and there and join the strings later. Nothing shocking. In the first section the bass doesn’t get to establish a groove, instead following the strings a little more closely until the strings reduce the Symphony No. 5 components down to just buh-buh-buh-bum as a vamp and then, as I said, wander off to play some non-canonical licks. All that happens around the 1:00 mark, and it’s where the bass finds a funkier pattern to fall into, and then maintains the groove for another 45 seconds or so until the bridge.
The only thing left to say is that I wish the organ solo were a synth solo. It might not fit the feel of the song as well as the organ does, but a synth is what I want to hear. Maybe by the time the LP A Fifth of Beethoven came out in 1976, Wendy Carlos’s 1968 Switched-On Bach LP and her Beethoven-laden work on A Clockwork Orange were considered played out or too campy for Murphy to revisit similar turf. At any rate, “A Fifth of Beethoven” is my favorite disco piece adapted from classical music. Buh-buh-buh-bum!
“A Fifth of Beethoven” achieved hit status when it was included on the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack. In every way it’s also more successful than another classically derived inclusion therefrom: David Shire’s take on Mussorgsky, “Night on Disco Mountain,” is too fast for its mood and tries to be far too big—like, epic, bro—both of which traits are hallmarks of the disco demise basically guaranteed by the appropriative popularity of Saturday Night Fever. Even the synths in the Shire tune are lame. Pity.
For the most part the instruments in “A Fifth of Beethoven” are doing what’s expected: The strings are playing Symphony No. 5, albeit a weird arrangement that’s locked to a click track and wanders away from Beethoven in the middle. The guitar, keys, and drums are playing a pretty standard funk groove, and the horns stab here and there and join the strings later. Nothing shocking. In the first section the bass doesn’t get to establish a groove, instead following the strings a little more closely until the strings reduce the Symphony No. 5 components down to just buh-buh-buh-bum as a vamp and then, as I said, wander off to play some non-canonical licks. All that happens around the 1:00 mark, and it’s where the bass finds a funkier pattern to fall into, and then maintains the groove for another 45 seconds or so until the bridge.
The only thing left to say is that I wish the organ solo were a synth solo. It might not fit the feel of the song as well as the organ does, but a synth is what I want to hear. Maybe by the time the LP A Fifth of Beethoven came out in 1976, Wendy Carlos’s 1968 Switched-On Bach LP and her Beethoven-laden work on A Clockwork Orange were considered played out or too campy for Murphy to revisit similar turf. At any rate, “A Fifth of Beethoven” is my favorite disco piece adapted from classical music. Buh-buh-buh-bum!
19 March 2017, Chuck Berry Is Duck-Walking in Space
In high school I played stand-up drums à la Slim Jim Phantom in a
rockabilly band called Trailer Hog, and we covered Chuck Berry’s “Johnny B. Goode,” which also happens to be one of the few songs I can strum somewhat
recognizably on the guitar. Just the rhythm parts. Not that flashy intro
stuff that was Berry’s signature, at least in the minds of a generation who
saw ’80s Michael J. Fox shred it in 1955, thereby inspiring Berry cover his
own song before he’d actually written it and creating a causal loop that
the film then totally ignores, which is fine; the fading photograph covers
time travel paradoxes well enough.
These days when a Chuck Berry song come to my mind, it’s “Maybellene,” maybe because its hook is the most fun to sing. Berry’s discography contains the seeds of so much pop music to come, this essay should be longer, but it’s all been covered elsewhere as well. “Sweet Little Sixteen” is the explicit basis for “Surfin’ USA” by The Beach Boys, and Brian Wilson’s dad handed over all the rights to Berry’s publisher, Arc Music Group—even the rights to Wilson’s lyrics listing iconic surf spots. Berry’s publisher also sued John Lennon over the line “Here come old Flattop” and the melody generally in “Come Together,” as they are gaffled from Berry’s “You Can’t Catch Me.” I won’t even mention the countless covers, except to say go look at the number and quality of artists who have done versions of “Rock and Roll Music.”
Chuck Berry died yesterday at age 90, but as journalist Chuck Klosterman has pointed out, “Johnny B. Goode” will still be out there duck-walking the grooves of Carl Sagan’s Golden Voyager Record long after—well, Klosterman envisions an Earth-swallowing Sun, but clearly we’ll boil our own oceans with a cold frame of carbonic acid gas before that other solar cataclysm comes. But never mind that. I’ve got a copy of The Great Twenty-Eight, and today I intend to play it loud.
These days when a Chuck Berry song come to my mind, it’s “Maybellene,” maybe because its hook is the most fun to sing. Berry’s discography contains the seeds of so much pop music to come, this essay should be longer, but it’s all been covered elsewhere as well. “Sweet Little Sixteen” is the explicit basis for “Surfin’ USA” by The Beach Boys, and Brian Wilson’s dad handed over all the rights to Berry’s publisher, Arc Music Group—even the rights to Wilson’s lyrics listing iconic surf spots. Berry’s publisher also sued John Lennon over the line “Here come old Flattop” and the melody generally in “Come Together,” as they are gaffled from Berry’s “You Can’t Catch Me.” I won’t even mention the countless covers, except to say go look at the number and quality of artists who have done versions of “Rock and Roll Music.”
Chuck Berry died yesterday at age 90, but as journalist Chuck Klosterman has pointed out, “Johnny B. Goode” will still be out there duck-walking the grooves of Carl Sagan’s Golden Voyager Record long after—well, Klosterman envisions an Earth-swallowing Sun, but clearly we’ll boil our own oceans with a cold frame of carbonic acid gas before that other solar cataclysm comes. But never mind that. I’ve got a copy of The Great Twenty-Eight, and today I intend to play it loud.