6 posts tagged “eighties”

With St. Patrick’s Day approaching, I thought we could turn our gaze round towards, well not Ireland, but the UK and our watches back to 1986 when our favorite socialist songwriter Billy Bragg [allmusic.com] released the single “Greetings to the New Brunette.” This is the lead song of the excellently titled album “Talking With the Taxman About Poetry.” If you look at who appears on “Greetings,” the level of magnitude on the Britpop scale is no less that than when Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin met in Yalta.

Firstly, we have the fiercely driven Bragg, whose DIY approach, with electric guitar and sleeping bag in hang, took him into workman’s circles, concert halls and the Billboard charts. Not just a folkie politico, he proved in his records that he has great depth and a wide reach; like the football he so dearly loves, he can play many positions. His ballads can be tender and romantic, his rockers articulate and funny. All the while, the melodies are hummable and his storytelling rich and detailed. This single was the first I’d heard of him and was years ahead of his fantastic and popular album “Don’t Try This at Home” – a personal favorite.

Though, I admit, I'm not fully grasping what's in this song, it’s got an immediacy that puts you within eavesdropping-length of the song’s narrator and his beloved.

Politics and pregnancy are divided as we empty our glasses
How I loved those evening classes

Secondly, we have none other than Johnny Marr, who at this time was at the controls of a cultural phenomenon known as the Smiths. In late 1986, just after the release of “The Queen is Dead,” he was quite busy being the musical half of the Morrissey-Marr songwriting machine, and to my knowledge, “Greetings” is the first time he snuck out of the madhouse and suddenly appeared on someone else’s records. (Not too soon afterwards, he took the role of journeyman to its extreme, guesting on so many other artists’ albums after the Smiths broke up.) Also of note here, Marr – who took great pains not to take any solos – went against his own grain and lays a tasty and purposely un-flashy solo just before the bridge. And all throughout, there’s that shiny, brimming acoustic Johnny sound.

Thirdly, we have the goddess of Kirsty MacColl [allmusic.com]. An awesomely talented singer and songwriter herself, she at the time was – again to my limited knowledge – many years into her musical career, with some chart successes as solo artist (to date, “They Don’t Know” and a cover of Bragg’s “A New England”) and as a session musician (she is the wonderfully refreshing and siren-like backup voice on the Smiths’ “Ask.”) And on “Greetings,” she is no less refreshing, adding that angelic touch on the high end.

If you haven’t heard her records and you love Britpop, you must must must go and get one of her albums. “Kite” is another personal favorite and the melodies, arrangements, complexities and lyrics are staggering. Why she didn’t become a bigger name in music in the US is a great swipe of unfairness. Friends with many famous musicians, she has lots of interesting guests on her records. A frequent collaborator is Marr himself, but that’s not to take anything away from MacColl. She had so much natural talent, creativity and wit, she couldn’t even be contained in one language – she even sang in French and Spanish.

The deep tragedy is that she died in a freak and controversial boating accident in 2000 while vacationing with her children in Mexico. When I heard this, I was depressed for days, just like I was upon hearing that Jaco Pastorius had died.

So, in honor of this Big Three, let’s give a listen and raise a pint to all the Brunettes and non-Brunettes of the world and enjoy the resulting intoxication.

// I only have electric version of the song in MP3. What’s lost is Kirsty, to my chagrin. And Marr's guitar solo is replaced by a harmonica.

Let's pretend for a second there is no "Wrapped Around Your Finger" or even "Every Little Thing She Does is Magic." No allusions to Jung. No Luke Skywalker outfits. Let's go back to when it was more obvious who the Police were (three sex-seeking, fame-starved, ego-driven blonds...) and what made them great (...who could play really fast, really catchy pop songs really freakin' well). I'm taking "Fall Out" and "Next to You" at 120 bpm circa 1979. And not just that.

From years of touring, the Police had the chops and the bluster of natural performers to deftly take their 3-minute melodic masterpieces and stretch them out, break them down, improvise, add bits of other songs, get the audience to sing along, whip them into a frenzy, take it back up and crack it open with a big crashing finish. We all don't remember when the three of them toured America in a VW bus, rocking the bars and divey clubs because none of us were there. But from there they came.

If you watch Sting in his heyday, working the crowd, gesturing with his free hand, somehow holding down his bass line, nearing sweating through his parachute pants... if you watch Andy Summer, the Buzz Aldrin of the band, who should be given credit for making them sound larger than they were, adding textures and complex chords... if you watch Stewart Copeland, who could never play 8 bars the same way twice, improvising like Mitch Mitchell or Art Blakey, wildly going at it, almost to the point of loosing the beat but never quiet doing so... you can see their steely muscle and flexible ligaments. You can watch and listen with wonder how this awful mash-up of super A-type personalities somehow held it together to become one of the best trios ever to tear it up onstage.

OK, I'll leave you now to delicately reminisce about the time you wooed your girlfriend to second base with "Every Breath You Take."

Back in 2001, when I first heard John Mayer's "No such thing" on the radio, I thought, "Hey, is this a new Go West song? Are they back?" Am I the only one who hears the similarity?

Has anyone noticed that Keane's singer Tom Chaplin sounds like Freddy Mercury? At first, this was unbearably distracting to me. But after the first 25 times through "Hopes and Fears," I got over it. When I finally did see a Keane video, I was disappointed that the Chaplin didn't have a moustache.

Here are five things about me, since being tagged by onegirl.

1. The first album I purchased with my own money was Rush's "Signals." But the first albums that really mattered to me, pop wise, were my brother's copies of Devo's "Are we not men?", Joe Jackson's "Look Sharp" and Earth Wind & Fire's "All 'N All."

2. I was very quiet as a child. Once, I went out with my older brothers' friends to a restaurant. Everyone was talking loud and laughing. The waitress came, and when it was my turn to order, she took one look at me, then turned to my brother and asked, "What does he want?" She thought I was mute.

3. I was a vegetarian for over 10 years. When I went back to meat, I lost weight instead of gaining it.

4. Up until a couple of years ago, I used to have frequent déjà vu's, like I was living my life over again. Now, I don't have them. Maybe I've I veered off the path.

5. When I was a kid, my eldest brother told me, "If you want to be tall, think tall." I did everyday, and I became the tallest in my family by about 4 inches.

Tag, you're it.

I’ve owned The Smiths’s “The Queen is Dead” since the week it came out in June 1986. But on vinyl.

After finally scoring a digital copy recently (oh how very modern of me), I was astounded to hear just how many guitar parts there are on “Cemetry Gates.” I know this may seem ho-hum to the millions of modernized Smiths fans. But to me, this is like seeing Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel after it was given its careful scrubbing – so many details, so much color. It just adds more guilding to Johnny Marr’s golden guitar-playing.

The clinchers:

• The country-slide lick at the top-right of the aural spectrum at 1:02 and 1:42, just as Morrissey deftly alternates “…you claim these words as your own…” with “…words which could only be your own…”
• The multiple layers of acoustic guitar that together sound like a mandolin, all throughout
• The accordion drifting in at the tail end of the song (1:56), adding another Italian influence.

By the way, does Moz really say “Sure” at the end of the song, like many internet search results state? For the longest time, I thought he said “Shut up.”

The Fremont High School class of 1986 20-year reunion took place at the Hilton hotel in Santa Clara, California last night. Judging from the group picture, about 60 of the total 400+ students showed up.

Although the pool was small, our predictions fell in line:

• About 70% of the people looked pretty much the same, given the years
• About 25% looked very different, and
• About 5% looked like total strangers.

And of course there was a few ka-ciao moments when I laid my eyes on a girl, and thought, "Oh my lord, that's her!"

Before coming, I was nervous about my inability to recognize people. Turns out, we all did a little of the: look at the person's face, half-recognize it, half-smile, look at the name tag, complete the smile, and go "Hey!!"

And the catch-up questions kind of ran together: What're you up to? Where are you living? Where are you working? Husband/wife/kids? Keep in touch with anyone? But thankfully I think I've kept all the answers straight and aligned with the right person.

The evening officially began with the group photo (do it before we all get trashed), then dinner, then hanging out. Our Emcee - who resembled M.C. Hammer, down to the high-top fade and gold accessories - spun some uninspired music, which kept people off the dancefloor and in the bar. ("Another Stoli and soda with lime, please.")

All throughout, we were all extra nice to each other. Though one guy, after socializing, quipped with bitterness, "Me and [So-and-so] are best buds now. Back in high school, he wouldn't have given me the time of day."

Some of my friends were nice enough to say that I look pretty much the same and firmly took the runner-up to the "Who has changed the least" award.

Relatedly, there was one exceptionally funny moment. A gorgeous classmate of mine [T] married an equally gorgeous guy [M] from a different school, and at the beginning of the evening, there were multiple people pointing at [M], saying, "Hey, there's [BossaNova]! And look, he married [T]!" Even my ex-girlfriend thought this.

I had a lot of fun embarrassing the people who made the mistake. Plus, I didn't mind in the least because [M] was the best-looking guy in the room (which says something about our class), and a lucky one to boot.

With great fortune, I was able to meet up with some very old friends and came to realize just how beautiful, inside and out, these people are. I haven't seen them in nearly 20 years, and the tie between us was something invisible yet tangible and somehow in tact.

And equally important, I got to satisfy my secret agendas for the evening, which were: 1) make one overdue apology for flaking on a friendship, and 2) express gratitude for a small social gesture that today still means the world to me.

On a music note, M.C. Hammer did spin some Eighties classics, including the English Beat's "Ackee 1-2-3," which fulfills the Grosse Point Blank moment.

All in all, even after mentioning all these good points, I'm still left feeling a little disappointed. Maybe it's from the low turnout. There were a few surprises, but there certainly could have been 10 times that. But maybe my feeling is just of let down. For what, I don't know. I'm just left wanting more.

And there are a couple of regrets: There are some people that I neglected to say hello to for no good reason. There were a few social gaffes. And I may be thought of as the one who made an inappropriate joke (wrong place, wrong time, wrong facial expression).

Things to correct for next time. But hopefully sooner.

Oh, and first things last. The suit, the shirt and the shoes played together like a symphony. And the hair held up. What a little lacquer and black paint will do.