Singles/Video Reviews: February 2021 Note that
these reviews are alphabetical, not listed in a “ratings” order.
Anya Marina
“Notice Me
(Live from Rockwood, NYC)” www.anyamarina.com This is off
her sixth album, Alive and Alone in New York, which was recorded at the
great Rockwood Music Hall on the Lower East Side, which has sort of become the
CBGBs of singer-songwriters (with cleaner bathrooms). “Notice Me” is one of her
signature songs, and on the original album, it is produced with a wall of sound
that accentuates the mood with overdubs, and a much larger group behind her.
For this recording, it’s just her and her guitar, and feels way more personal.
With a chantable “do-do-do” chorus, it can easily be a pleasurable ear worm as
she feels neglected by her lover. It’s a bit of an upbeat song and doesn’t actually
feel as desperate as the topic sounds. It’s coyer and sexier, with a hint of
frustration, with Anya’s lovely falsetto voice playfully calling out. The album
has 17 tracks covering her career, and this is the first single. You can find
the original version on YouTube if you’d like to compare. Can be heard HERE
Ben Howard “What a
Day”
Republic Records From the
upcoming album, Collections from the Whiteout, Ben’s fourth full release
is a “pastoral” sound as the singer reminisces about where the time goes. It’s
a nice, light sounding ballad that has some deep thoughts imbued with a mild,
melody backed up by what sounds like a drum machine (though I could be wrong).
The production is high, but it doesn’t necessarily overwhelm here. It’s also
pretty catchy, which is always a good thing. His British inflection is also
endearing. The video seems almost straight out of a Monty Python sketch, with a
bit more seriousness. I might actually go listen to the album, at some point. Can be heard HERE
Carla Geneve “Dog Eared” Dot Dash; Remote
Control Records Australian
22-year-old music teacher hits the pop rock trail on her solo album, Learn
to Like It. Filled with encouraging girl power – as one can see in the
song’s video – Carla has a strong voice and belts out on choruses, hovering the
line between alt pop and rock. Dealing with finding self-worth because she
“always feel so useless,” but acknowledges she “still has something to lose,”
meaning there is some possibility of positivity. It’s a really good song, the
production is tight without being overbearing, and it’s lyrically smart. The
road trip video filled with her friends is cheerful, as is, on some level, the
song, as she pulls herself up. Liked this one a lot. Can be heard HERE
The Cavemen “Am I a
Monster” Pig Baby Records Thematically,
what if the early Cramps had been a hardcore band instead of voodoobilly? That
is one way to look at New Zealand “ghoul punks,” The Cavemen. The song is a three-chord
mosh fest with a horror motif. While I heard the recording rather than seeing a
video, I have seen picture of them, and they seem quite energetic, which is
definitely present in their music that seems highly influenced by the early 1980s
H/C and garage scenes. The melody of the song is certainly catchy, though it’s
hard to tell what they’re saying much beyond the chorus, which is the song’s
title, and a few snippets here and there about loneliness, due to a garage-rock
level of vocal fuzz. This definitely harkens back to a minimalist period, pre-extended
guitar solos by the likes of Ginn and Mascis, but that’s okay with me; there is
a brief and raucous burst, though. A Ramones-ish slagging of basic chords and
speed is just what I like. These guys sound like they’re a lot of fun, and this
one will get some more listens by me over time. Can be heard HERE
Elise Davis “Yellow
Bed” Tone Tree Nashville
singer-songwriter Davis released her single, “Yellow Bed,” from her third album
Anxious, Happy, Chill. I have seen a few of her videos performing live
in her bedroom or on stage, and she is really amazing. Her songs are poignant,
such as this one about relishing time with her husband. That being said, I had
a bit of trouble with this song, recorded in a studio. The sound is very flat
and electronic, including the processing of her voice via reverb, which makes
it lose its beautiful tone, giving it a kind of impersonal feel when the song
should be emotional. I hate saying this since I like her and I enjoy her voice,
but it is the production here that squashes her sound. I believe if I saw her
do this live, I would enjoy it a lot more. I say go seek her out, find her videos
and enjoy. This is the only song off the album I have heard and I’m hoping the
rest of it is more loyal to what she has to offer. Can be heard HERE
Half Waif “Orange
Blossoms” Anti- Records The first single
by Half Waif – aka Nandi Rose – is quite lovely, albeit sad. As described by
her press, it is “a desperate plea to be rescued from wrestling with
everything.” In a voice perfectly suited for the song, the protagonist is in
urgent need for help kick-starting her life at the moment, asking repeatedly
for “someone” to do things like answer an email, or “make me think I’m worth
something.” Thematically, it reminds me of The Allen-Ward Trio’s “I Need a
Friend,” but rather than folk, this is more modern singer-songwriter. Yes,
she’s listed as alt pop, but I would not personally put this song in this
category. There is some lovely harmonies snuck in, backed by an electric piano
in the forefront. It’s a powerful, lovely tune and is both bleak and, at the end,
hopeful. It’s a keeper. Can be heard HERE
Lost Horizons, featuring Marissa Nadler “Marie” www.bellaunion.com
www.losthorizonsmusic.com Lost
Horizons is the collaboration, among others, of Simon Raymonde (Cocteau Twins)
and Richie Thomas (Dif Juz), and this single is included in their new album, In
Quiet Moments, Part 2. They are joined by Marissa Nadler to front it (other
songs on the double album are voiced by different singers). As one might expect
from Raymonde and Thomas, the song is strongly studio-enhanced, moody and I
might add gothic. The shadowy reverb is ramped up and it almost sounds like a
ghost is singing it. Nadler has a good voice, somewhere in there, and I would
have liked to have actually heard it clearer through the production. The song
itself is a quiet, slow, and soft footed ballad, reminiscent of XTC’s “Somnambulist.”
After a couple of listens, it is starting to grow on me, more for Nadler,
honestly. Because of the production, I couldn’t make out much of the lyrics;
however, it sounds melancholic. Can be heard HERE
Thee Sacred Souls “It’s Our
Love”
Daptone Records; Penrose Records
Hailing from the San Diego area, this soul trio (perhaps they could have called
themselves “Three” Sacred Souls?) fit somewhere in the post-Motown category
with the likes of the Ohio Players (sans horns) and Al Green. Vocalist and
lyricist Josh Lane uses his falsetto voice to lull the listener about his love
in a Barry White ballad speed. Soul is not my forte, honestly, but I was
charmed by the sound here, as Sal Samano and Alex Garcia skillfully back him up
with their rhythms (guitar and drums). The video is quite simple, as is the
tune, mostly shot with the band in the studio. Can be heard HERE
Yonaka “Seize the Power” https://www.facebook.com/weareYONAKA/ This track
is listed as “Dark Alt Pop with Heavy Riffs” on their Facebook page. That feels
accurate. It’s definitely modern, with heavy production and added with some pop
fusion. It’s like if Lady Gaga’s style was thrown in a blender with some
electronica and white rap, fed through some anger and entitlement. It’s decent,
as even the rappish parts aren’t too stereotypically done. The positive behind
it is its power, as Theresa Jarvis forcefully infuses her lyrics with drive,
almost yelling above the British band’s studio-infused minimalist melody. Can be heard HERE
Zadar “Upstairs
Room” https://zadars.bandcamp.com/ Not to be
confused with the Yiddish “Zaydeh,” nor the city in Croatia, their publicity
calls them “scathing post punk [sic] from Philadelphia,” sounding like
Sisters of Mercy. Really? This song is essentially based on a dissonant B-52s-type
rhythm played electronically over an over, with Fred Schneider-style vocals without
the charm. Even the lyrics are repetitive and kind of monotonously mundane. I’m
not a fan. But then again, I was bored by Sisters of Mercy, as well. Can be heard HERE
Live photo by Jim Downs; other images from the Internet
This interview was originally published in FFanzeen 12, dated 1984, by Julia
Masi.
Julie “Jigsaw” Ashcraft was very sweet when I met her at the same time
and place as Julia, during the taping of the Cable Access show “Videowave.” I
have never been a fan of hip-hop, but I do find her video and song to be…
charming in an absurdist kind of way. A link to Julie’s blog is HERE, though
the last time I check it had not been updated since 2013. – RBF, 2019
Julie Jigsaw on "Videowave" (photo by Jim Downs)
Julia Jigsaw is the personification
of a kaleidoscope. Her words tumble together with the acceleration and
enthusiasm of a game show contestant trying to slip in every last syllable
before the buzzer sounds, or more likely before her infectious laughter brings
her latest idea to a screeching halt. Decked out in a florescent Day-Glo
graffiti dress that she painted especially for an appearance on Cable-TV’s
“Videowave,” she flutters around backstage, fidgeting with a collection of
plastic dinosaurs that have come to symbolize her band, Ja Ja Ja, and inspired
the first cut of their four song EP, “I Am An Animal,” on Cachalot Records.
She appears in their video dressed up
as a pale blue money, singing amidst breakdancing dinosaurs and leprechauns.
Visually, this song is as adorable as a window display at FAO Schwarz. But
through the soft focus you can hear the nard-edge of horror, masked like a penitent.
If the analogy is to be recognized, then Julie, as a singer, and Ja Ja Ja as “a
real band with real drums and a real bass,” are in danger of extinction in an
era when so much of our popular music is created with computers and machines.
“The song is a social statement. It’s
important ‘cause in Germany (where the band is based), it’s a lot. And they
control each other. They have a way of controlling their behavior that’s very
robotic.” She remembers a feeling of alienation as she walked down the streets
of Dusseldorf. “The people there act like robots when they’re walking down the
street. And they get angry ‘cause I’m not. So I used to say, ‘I am an animal.’
I like to jump and play with dinosaurs and things.”
The small plastic dinosaurs that
Julie pins to the shoulders of her shirt and ties, along with plastic food wrap
in her hair, were consciously ignored in Germany. In New York, her plastic pets
elicit stares or ignite a conversation. “If you show someone your dinosaurs
they either act real bored or they get real excited. You can really tell what kind
of a person they are just by the way they react to your dinosaurs.
“We don’t want to be too analytical,”
she confesses, but she’s always willing to talk at length about the parallels
between the extinction of her favorite prehistoric animals and the possible
demise of human musicians. She sees dinosaurs as a powerful animal that, in
modern times, can only be compared to a machine. And she sees music as a
powerful force which is also being replaced by machines. Therefore, one of the
goals of Ja Ja Ja is not to be primitive, but to bring a very human touch of
emotion to the music.
“The music we do is influenced by the
New York street culture. Our new bass player (Billy Grant) is from the Bronx.
Our original bass player was really from the New York streets. He slept in
Central Park and took showers at the Hare Krishna Center.” Julie was raised in
Texas, but now lives on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. Which leaves drummer Frank
Sanden as the only member of the band who is actually a German resident.
The band was formed in Dusseldorf,
Germany, while Julie was visiting some friends who had a band. Her friends also
had a small demo studio and, to amuse themselves, they would make tapes. After
a while, Julie began to enjoy singing and recording. “I didn’t have the idea
for sure, that I’d make a band,” she recalls. “I had an idea, but these people were
jazz-oriented.”
Even though she’s a jazz fan, she
also approaches other styles of music, and she wanted her band to reflect a variety
of tastes. Her friends introduced her to Frank and a bass player. “It happened
by destiny. We started to play gigs and we liked it. We just did it because we
liked doing it, and we kept at it. “They’ve built a following in Germany, and
recently they’ve begun to book dates in Manhattan. New York audiences are a
tough sell, but so far the band hasn’t had any problems. “In New York,
everything is tied together, (dance) breaking music, graffiti, rap. A lot of
people who do it, do it all. I do, too. I don’t know how to break, yet.”
Julie is particularly interested in
graffiti, as the song, “Graffiti Artists International,” off her EP suggests. Given
a spray can and a blank wall or clean sweatshirt, she’s been known to exhibit a
colorful talent that as stimulating as her songs. “I’ve like graffiti for a
long time. I remember I read this book on graffiti by Norman Mailer [The Faith of Graffiti, 1974 – RBF, 2019] when I was 17. I did
my first piece of graffiti in Texas in 1979. And I did graffiti in Dusseldorf, too.
I did it all on the trains and things. I did it with markers. But now, I’m starting
to take cans out. I want to go back and do a train.”
While in Manhattan, Julie’s art work
is mostly restricted to clothing, like the jackets she sprayed for the Alan
Boys, who hang out on Alan Street, and the sweatshirts she decorates for friends.
But her time in New York is a hiatus in which she is gathering strength for
when she goes back to Europe. On the band’s next trip abroad, she plans to
flood the airwaves with songs from their EP, and give the German subways a
vibrant new look.
* * *
Please note that the editors of FFanzeen do not condone
the use of graffiti on public transportation or monuments unless under certain conditions,
such as commission permission by the City, or with the use of washable paint.
Graffiti style is an art form, but it is not when its use is abused. – RBF [1984].
Introduction by Robert Barry Francos / FFanzeen, 2020
Images from the Internet
This article was originally published in FFanzeen, issue 4, dated May/June 1980. It was written by Daryl Licht, whose name
was a pseudonym, but for the life of me I can’t remember for certain whose it
was (though I have an idea by the references that are made throughout).
The Flying Lizard’s big song was a cover of the first Motown hit,
“Money.” Personally, I thought it annoying, but I will totally admit I sold out
for printing this extremely long piece since I had met David Cunningham at a
cable access show “Videowave” taping, and was sucked into agreeing to it
because I believed at that time (being a relative-kid) that it may lead me to
getting bigger interviews with bands with whom I was more interested. While in hindsight I guess I don’t mind it being there,
afterwards I was a bit more firm (though I did get tricked into putting in a
band or two I thought went against the direction of the ‘zine), and turned down
a few big names, such as an interview with Duran Duran (I’m still not sorry
about that one), rather than go against my focus for the ‘zine.
What I really like about this interview is that while it’s obvious the
interviewer knew his stuff and did his homework about Cunningham, he also
doesn’t pander to him and asks some really smart and pointed questions. This is
hardly a shallow discussion.
David Cunningham went on to be a record producer and has a sporadic solo
career. – RBF, 2020
David Cunningham is a 25-year-old
record producer and conceptual artist. He is also the man behind the Flying
Lizards, a mysterious aggregation that, last year, provided us with two strange
minimalist singles in their covers of Eddie Cochran’s “Summertime Blues” and Berry Gordy’s “Money.” The
Lizards (actually Cunningham and some friends having fun in the studio) have
recently released an album of songs that are every bit as weird as the previous
singles.
The following interview took place in
a secluded room in the New York offices of Virgin Records on a rainy Tuesday in
February. As the interview was quite long, it was necessary to exclude some of
it, but all of the good parts (with the exception of Cunningham physically
imitating Thin Lizzy, which the tape missed) are here.
* * *
FFanzeen: First of all, General, Strike and Goldman get writing credits
on the Lizards album. Who are these people in relation to the instruments, the
album and things in general?
David Cunningham: The structure is
one of working with friends. I don’t have a group; don’t have a lot to do with
groups as such. I’m not really interested in the idea of having a permanent
group. And it seems interesting that the situation can be generated by
different people and them involved in something, or a combination of different
people together; one uses those people and I have a few friends who are, some
of them, excellent musicians, and some, maybe not so excellent, but certainly
interesting musicians, and I tend to use them in that way, as a group, writing
together and performing together in the studio. Vivian Goldman is a journalist
in Melody Maker and also a close
friend since before Melody Maker.
FFanzeen: Does she do some of the vocals, like some of the vocals that are
sung as opposed to Deborah Evans’ (“Money”) vocals?
David: Yes; she sings on “Her Story”
and on “The Window,” the latter of which she wrote, as well.
FFanzeen: “The Window” seems so ominous to me. Is there any particularly
interesting story behind that song, or is it something that you just came up
with and thought would be interesting to do?
David: No, it was written on the
spot. It was in reaction to the situation. We started off with a rhythm tape,
then added background voices which, at the time, were the foreground voices.
And it was this Joni Mitchell-type thing, just a little tape going on with
these voices harmonizing against it. And gradually, we added more and more instruments,
and it took the shape it does as a song. It’s just what was obsessing Vivian at
the time.
FFanzeen: What do you actually play, instrument-wise? I know you were in
a band called Les Cochons Chic. [There is no mention of that band on David’s
Wikipedia page. – RBF, 2020.]
David: Yeah, that was a joke group.
Well, it wasn’t a joke group; it was a systems group that, very roughly, turned
into a joke group as more and more people used to join. The first public
performance was a 13-piece group and the whole idea was that there were two musicians’
roles: you were either one of the rhythm people or you created the surface over
the rhythm, and everyone who was a surface musician went through a delay thing
whereby the music was built up into a very dense texture. At the first gig, the
machines broke down and everything went wrong. There were far too many people
there.
FFanzeen: Were they musicians and non-musicians?
David: Very much so. It was a
horrible, sporadic mess of people and the concert was great; it was a
competition and there were all these rock groups who took themselves too
seriously coming on and doing two numbers and going off again, and we came on
and made this horrible noise for 10 minutes and we went off, and everyone was
so pissed off after hearing these horrible groups doing their horrible songs
that they cheered us enough to get an encore.
FFanzeen: I got the feeling listening to the Lizards’ album that there
was an attitude of contempt for basic rock’n’roll and basic song structure,
similar to the feeling I get when listening to some of the Residents’ material.
David: I don’t think it’s facetious
like the Residents. I don’t think it’s even conscious, like they obviously are,
because if you look at the contents of their first few records, I think there
is a facetiousness or self-consciousness there. We were – I was – primarily
dealing with the vocabulary of that music. I was using that vocabulary when I
needed to. When it seemed I didn’t need to employ that vocabulary to make the
thing sound good, then I didn’t use it, so the thing was somewhat stripped
down. The joke element perhaps came out of not being able to play very well.
But that’s a different matter.
FFanzeen: I felt it was half-and-half. On the one hand, you were using
what you could take from it and in a way saying, “I acknowledge that this
existed.” For instance, on “TV,” you’re using the I-IV-V progression and the
reverb guitars, and it’s really like a late ‘50s girl group type thing where
she’s talking about cars…
David: What’s a I-IV-V progression?
Is that a musical term? [For example D-A-E-D-A
– RBF, 2020.]
FFanzeen: Yes [grinning]. Well, the basic structure of the song reminds
me of any early ‘60s kind of rock’n’roll, complete with the lyrical content of
cars, sex…
David: [Begins to laugh] Well, that was different; this is most embarrassing.
FFanzeen: Why?
David: Because of what a friend of
mine suggested to me before “Money.” He said, “If you cut a record about money,
cars or sex, it would be a hit,” so we made “Money” as much to prove him wrong
as to have a good time. I like the song. I’ve got the Barrett Strong record and I think it’s great.
FFanzeen: But it even carries over to that; you take “Summertime Blues”
and “Money,” two standard rock numbers that so many people have covered.
David: Yeah, the important key words
like money, TV, cars, sex are our key words. “Pop Muzik” was a key word; that was a hit song.
“Summertime Blues” wasn’t so much a key word; it was a statement of a sort. It
struck me as being some sort of political statement. It still is in many ways,
depending on what country you’re in of courses, and are 18. You’re nothing until
you’re about 21 in some places… I’ve gone through that having summer jobs in
factories, the traumas of adolescence. I love the song and the actual mechanism
in the song; the words, the statement appeals to me. We were talking about key
words. “TV” was actually a conscious attempt to use the “Key Word Theory.” We
put as many key word references in it and thought it would be an enormous hit.
I can’t quite honestly see why it won’t be some kind of terrific hit.
FFanzeen: Do you think that the sound has just as much to do with it
being a hit as far as attracting people’s attention is concerned? The first two
singles were minimalistic. You seem to state the barest parts of the melody
enough to let people know what the song is.
David: That’s what I said about using
as much of the vocabulary as one feels one needs. I think “TV” uses a lot more
of that vocabulary. I think you’re probably right. The only thing about “TV” is
that I haven’t heard a record that sounded like that in years, and really,
there isn’t a record that’s like that. You can look at a few things. I mean,
what we stole it from was –
FFanzeen: What you borrowed it from…
David: We didn’t borrow it, we stole
it. I won’t say it through. We stole it off a Ska record actually, and changed
the rhythm and everything, and it ended up going from one thing to another. I’m
not terribly concerned about creating something that is completely new and
certainly not creating anything avant-garde. I think it’s being perverse to get
out and say I want to make a sound that nobody has ever dreamed of before.
You’ll end up with some kind of atonal rubbish.
FFanzeen: But don’t you create new sounds on the album by electronic
sound manipulation and alteration?
David: One can alter sound in two
ways: by technology and by content. I do it in both ways.
FFanzeen: I actually took this to relate more to the songs on the second
side, where you have a sound going on and then another sound is laid on top of
it, and then another sound, and then the first sound is removed, leaving the
second and third sound, which seems totally different than they did when the
first sound was underneath them.
David: I don’t do it very much. Most
of it is simple layering. I can’t remember being in a position where I actually
needed to take away the original sound and replace it. I’ve always known that
the option was there to do that and I’ve tried it out, but there is the thing
of just doing something and getting a buzz off that. And what I like is the idea
that every time you hear a sound in the studio, putting it on tape you should
be excited by that sound on its own. If there’s a particularly strange guitar
solo, it supposedly should sound great without the backing track. Not great,
but interesting anyway.
FFanzeen: With the backing track, the sound of the guitar – even though
it’s the same sound – is altered in the way you hear it.
David: Certainly. It’s a much more
complex sort of mixture, but if the song is originally exciting, I think that
helps. It probably turns an experimental attitude like that. You talked about imperceptible
change, it’s very sudden change. I think that’s what is avant-garde music, and
why the Flying Lizards are presumably pop music – not that I think there’s any
value judgment going on there.
FFanzeen: As far as pop music is concerned, don’t you think that the
music on the album tends to polarize towards one point or another? People who
would listen to experimental music should get something out of listening to
parts of the album while people who are into more conventional rock’n’roll, or
who heard one of the singles and liked it, can’t relate to the other type of
music. The album is almost divided up side by side, which may or may not be
conscious, or maybe it’s the way I’m hearing it. Some may feel Side One has
more of a novelty aspect.
David: This is probably because I
listen to both. That’s simply it. I can hear differences, of course. I tend to
think they’re all part of the same thing. If you’re not used to listening to
rock music at all, it sounds the same anyway. It’s all 4-4.
FFanzeen: Oh, is that a musical term?
David: Yeah, ha-ha. I just think it’s an extension of that way of thinking; that
to a Balinese person, all rock music must sound the same. I’m not worried if
people do think this is rubbishy music or this is horribly serious music,
because if they’re going to think that, there’s very little I can do.
FFanzeen: You put out a song like “TV” as the third single, which has the
sound which people associate with the Flying Lizards – her voice – when you
could have put out “Russia” as the single – and if that came on the radio, I
don’t think people would say, “That’s the Flying Lizards.” There definitely is
a breakdown in terms of what’s to be released next.
David: I simply put “TV” out as a
single. I didn’t even decide. I asked Virgin (Records) what they wanted and
they said “TV,” and the same goes for other things. I don’t want to give them
something they don’t want to sell. It did strike me as the commercial track on
the album and I wasn’t going to argue with it. The only other thing was “Mandelay
Song” [“De Song von Mandelay” – Daryl
Licht, 1980]. I would have liked to see that as a single, but probably not
in an English-speaking territory.
FFanzeen: “Mandelay” ties in with what I asked before about contempt. I
felt that it was in tradition, where you’re taking a song and you’re saying you
acknowledge it, but at the same time doing this treatment as if to say you’re
not taking it seriously.
David: How can you take a song like
that seriously? It’s about this brothel in Mandelay [sic] and sailors are lined up along this pier waiting to get in.
They’re all banging on the door and shouting, ‘cause someone’s taking a long
time in there and the song goes on to say that love isn’t made in hours and
minutes, love is where you find it. I chose it because it’s one of the fastest
songs (Bertolt) Brecht wrote, and the words struck me as sort of a little game
‘cause people have trouble with the BBC in Britain. The Gang of Four said
“Packets” on one of their albumsand
it got banned immediately. I think it was “packets,” or it could have been
“rubbers” [on the song “At Home He’s a
Tourist” – RBF, 2020].
FFanzeen: On “Her Song,” the lyrics say, “But you can still make money
singing sweet songs,” and it seems that‘s being said on the album when,
ironically, you’ve made money putting out anything but sweet songs. I mean,
“Money” is very abrasive.
David: “Sweet songs of love” is the
full quote.
FFanzeen: And they then start singing this love song and it seems that if
it really was a long song, it wouldn’t have to be stated like that. It’s kind
of an order.
David: Well, that song’s about the
concept of courtly love as devised in the 11th Century.
FFanzeen: “You Are My Territory”?
David: That’s it, yeah. In a way it’s
an anti-love song; it’s kind of a feminist statement. I don’t disagree with the
lyrics.
FFanzeen: In “Russia,” you said, “I must explain / I’m not complaining /
I’m just having fun.” It seemed to tie in the whole theory for me that while
you were setting up something that said, you were not taking everything too
seriously – but on the other hand, you didn’t want people to say that. You just
wanted to state that you were having a good time also, and not really worry
about what was going on.
David: I’m not having a good time
when I’m singing. I hate singing.
FFanzeen: But you’re sitting back and saying, “Well.” This is assuming
you’re using “TV” to poke fun at those conventions.
David: The song doesn’t refer outside
itself. I don’t think any of the songs I’ve dealt with do. I’m very bad with lyrics,
as you can tell with the lyrics to “Russia” – they’re mostly the kind of
treatment of some (John) Cage work and ended up with bits of lyrics to “Russia”;
the part from the phone line. Originally, “Russia” was a song with lots of
verses which I wrote years ago in a pub and find them so embarrassing to look
at now. I love the tune.
FFanzeen: “Russia” reminds me of “Burning Airlines” on Eno’s Taking Tiger Mountain. That guitar…
David: That’s strange, ha-ha. The way
I play it is more like Thin Lizzy.
FFanzeen: How much of a hand did you have in designing what appears on
the record covers; the art movements and the dates, that nap and the thing that
says, “There’s performing music and music you listen to.” Did you choose those
images?
David: I chose all the images. The
juxtapositions are a system. The Flying Lizard sleeves, the stripes, the stars,
struck me as visual symbols that one could use in that kind of shape.
FFanzeen: On the single sleeves, the images seem ambiguous, which seemed
to tie in with the music – like on the end of “TV,” where there’s a voice that
goes “wah-wah-wah” and sounds like a trombone. It seems that even though it’s a
human voice, as to what it really is can be kind of ambiguous, if you listen to
it in a certain light.
David: Yeah, its porpoises… in a way
it could be porpoises mating or something like that. Well, if ambiguity is
there, I won’t attempt to make it literate, to make it plain. I can do that on
the other music that I do. As far as I’m concerned, the Flying Lizards present
the ambiguity – but explains it later. And then you find out talking to people
that it was something else. Like the sleeve of “Money”: Deborah is lying on
this dark lawn at night – it looks like a dead body in a canal or something.
FFanzeen: It has that wet feeling.
David: She was soaking wet. We had a
hose pipe on her. That was a similar one to the first sleeve where there’s a
glass of milk flying up into someone’s face. I had the system with lots and
lots of flashes around her; we go up in the balcony and we had a sprinkler. So
we were going to get the sprinkler going and freeze the sprinkle with all the
flashes so it would look like streamers from rockets, and we had no idea what
would happen with it about color or image. The flash blew up. Rich, the
photographer, was so drunk that he just messed it all up. So that was that.
FFanzeen: You were talking about systems before and I mentioned Eno. I’d
like to know if you can draw up any parallels between you and him, since he’s
so interested in systems as well.
David: Same sources: English art
college. I think we like the same artist’s work. I don’t know about Eno, but I
like Kenneth Tom Phillips, Sol Lewitt, Philip Glass; the systems people
generally – Steve Reich. There’s a lot of writing on the theory of that work,
and the theory of cybernetics and visual art.
FFanzeen: Before, you were talking about taping a sound and a month later
listening to it and it would sound very different. It seems that’s the approach
This Heat took to their album [that Cunningham produced – RBF, 2020].
David: Yeah, they did that a long
time before they made the album. Most of that stuff was released in 1977. It’s
a great pity they were delayed.
FFanzeen: Are you going to work with them in the future?
David: I’m setting them up in such a
way that they will be able to make records at their own discretion on a self-generating
mechanism.
FFanzeen: Is your power to do that a direct result of your success with
your own records?
David: It’s a result of that, and I
put their record on my label [Piano
Records – Daryl Licht, 1980]. It was a last-gasp desperate bid to recoup
some money off the incredibly high studio bill they ran up. The fact that the
record sold out in Britain has, to some extent, vindicated me as a person who
can float records. And it was that, combined with the Lizards’ “Money” that can
put This Heat in a slightly stronger position this time around. I tend to think
that each project I’m involved in should be self-subsidising; that I’m not
going to make an expensive, silly, avant-garde album simply because I have lots
of money. I think if I make one, it will be done under the economic conditions
which pertain to that music. A reflection of what it is, it shouldn’t be a
self-indulgent exercise, but something quite solid and serious.
FFanzeen: Do you have any other recorded work besides the Flying Lizard’s
things?
David: There’s the album Grey Scale, which is an album of system
pieces. I put it out on my label in 1977. It was meant to be an album of
sketchbook pieces. I’ve done one piece five times on the first side with
different groupings and different arrangements – different inputs to the
system. The reason behind that was to show a work in progress. I was very
interested in having that on record. In fact, that’s what a lot of dub reggae
suggests: a work in progress – people actually finding things in the studio and
playing with them on the mixing deck. If you’re in the studio with a group and
you hear them doing that, it’s quite an interesting process. Dub reggae, to
some extent, found that.
FFanzeen: Reggae pops up in “Money B” where the vocals end and this fat
bass comes in.
David: Yeah, that’s the result of working
on the 4-track. When we ran out of words, there was a track free and I put a
bass track on it. I took great enjoyment in doing that really, even though it’s
a pretty gross aberration of dub music.
FFanzeen: Where does the name Flying Lizards come from? Is there anything
in particular, or was that kind of a name people would remember? It’s a bit
absurd.
David: It was absurd in the ‘70s. I think
it’s cute in the ‘80s. If you want to be silly about things, if anyone thinks
the ‘80s should be any different from the ‘70s, I think cute is the word, and I
think things will get pretty or cute for a little while. Pop music will become
increasingly trivial.
FFanzeen: Some would say it’s always been trivial.
David: Oh, it really has, yes, but it
won’t be as pretentious anymore. I don’t know if that’s a good or bad thing.
You know, because the people… like, for instance, the Sex Pistols and the
Clash, to some extent, took themselves too seriously. That whole movement was a
very profound influence on me and a lot of other people. Here were people
coming along and subverting the technology to their own uses. Maybe not in the
most distinct and lucid way possible, but it was a very exciting time, and you
know that was fashion – and yet again, it wasn’t fashion, it was a real human
feeling… and a business.
Alan Vega • Martin Rev • Suicide:
Five Films by Marc Hurtado
Written and directed (etc.) by Marc
Hurtado La Huit / MVD Visual 113
minutes, various years / 2018 www.mvdvisual.com
When the
term Transgressive (capital “T”) is used for art, most are going to think of it
in relation to cinema, with films created by the likes of Richard Kern, Scott
and Beth B., and Lydia Lunch. When it comes to other forms, such as music, at
best it tends to be considered transgressive (small “t”). This is not fair,
especially for a period of the mid-to-late 1970s and early 1980s, when there
were combative bands like Red Transistor (led by Von LMO, who would chase
patrons out of bars with a chainsaw) and especially Suicide. It makes sense to
combine art forms of film and music, perhaps to make something new:
TRANSGRESSIVE (all caps).
Suicide in concert
I had the…
pleasure to see Suicide play once at CBGBs in the early 1980s. Knowing their
reputation for confrontation with the audience, I sat near the bar, but that
didn’t help. As singer/provocateur Alan Vega (d. 2016) roamed the club while
keyboardist Martin Rev stuck to the stage sending out punkabilly pulse waves.
I’d been a fan of the band since their first eponymous album in 1977 on Red
Star Records. “Cheree” caught my attention first, but one listen to the
10-miniute plus “Frankie Teardrop” was what reeled me in.
Suicide should
have been everything I hated back in 1977: it was pure electronica, and to this
day I mostly find that to be, well, musical suicide. But there was an artistic
intensity that Vega and Rev brought to the minimalism that was different than,
say, Teenage Jesus and the Jerks’ factory-like clunky and metallic rhythms.
They were not just musical terrorists, they also were seducing the audience at
the same time, like a snake charmer coaxing a cobra, except if the reptile was
the safer choice.
Morocco-born
director Marc Hurtado filmed a bunch of mostly shorts with Suicide before Vega’s
death, and these are collected onto this dual DVD set. Both discs contain the
same films, but one is in the original French, and the other in English. I’ll
let you guess which one I chose.
First up
is the 16 minute-long The Infinite Mercy
Film (2009). Here is a mixture of an artist’s muse and its outcome. The locus
is on Vega’s use of light and lighting as a paradigm in his paintings, as the
camera focuses in and out of various mixed-media, while Rev’s rhythms wind
their way around the image in a reflexive way to match Vegas’s use of cords,
twine and light bulbs. Interspersed is Vega himself, as he describes the origin
of his use of light and what feeds his influences. The level of avant-garde artistry
used to mix the music, the artist, the filmmaker and the synergy they create
together should come as no surprise.
Alan Vega posing oddly
At 6
minutes, we are given Saturn Drive Duplex
(2011), which is essentially a music video for a collaboration of Vega’s speak-sing
voice and Hurtado’s music. Where the first film was focused on light, this one
is on motion. We follow the clips as they zoom along traffic in Manhattan
(often on the side of the East River), close-ups of boxers sparring, and Vega
posing oddly in his studio. Hurtado also uses shadows and, yes, light, to highlight
his focus both in high contrast and subtle ways.
Saturn Drive Duplex Redux (2014) is
4 minutes and artfully combines and condenses the three previous films, using
light, travel, and art into a different Vega/Hurtado music video for a remix.
We also get to see b-roll images of Vega on stage added to the recipe. Perhaps it’s
the shorter length, but this feels like the most rewatchable of all I’ve seen
so far, and this material is the kind you really need multiple viewings to let
the whole Zen of it wash over the experience.
One could
refer to Infinite Dreamers (2016) as the main feature, due to its 82 minutes’
length. Essentially, this is Martin Rev’s film: a stream of consciousness from
the mostly silent member of the duo with a mixture of clips of Suicide playing
in various venues, such as Frioul Islands, France, and of course lots of
B-rolls. This makes total sense, as they are considered cult heroes in that
part of the world, and Vega even had a solo hit in the area with “Jukebox Babe”
in the day. It’s quite obvious that the sound is camera-oriented, rather than
through the mixing board, so it is kind of rough, with lots of echo and reverb,
even beyond the band’s normal tone. It’s also way less confrontational, with
Vega looking very frail as it was close to his end; he stays on stage rather
than rampaging through the crowd.
Martin Rev
But like I
said, this is Rev’s turn to step into the spotlight. Despite his talking, I
would never use the word “narrative” to describe the whole thing, but it is as
close to a storyline as we have seen so far. It is, rather, various clips of
Rev speaking – both on camera and off – and discussing the history of the
group, and Suicide’s role in the artistic world; especially their philosophy as
far as art is concerned. It’s deep
and meaningful, and while these monologs doesn’t seem to follow a particular path,
it still all falls together into a transgressive (small “t”) pattern that can
be put together as a whole in the end in the mind for the viewer.
The fifth
film is Saturn Drive (2016), at 5
minutes, which was released posthumously after Vega’s passing. Essentially, it’s
a one-camera shot of Vega in the Hospital after a bad fall where he did serious
harm to his hip. He looks drugged out of his mind on pain meds. He talks about
being in “Saturn Drive” (heaven? hospital? stoned?), his religious affiliation,
and seeing 9/11. I’m willing to assume this is the last footage of Vega before
he went over the rainbow bridge, and it’s touching.
So,
overall, Hurtado seems to model himself a bit on filmmaker Stan Brakhage, who
used the media form as his easel to let the film itself tell the story (a true “Medium
is the Message” kind of mindset that would have made Marshall McLuhan proud). For
Hurtado, the visual scape is as important as to what he is trying to convey to
the audience, that art is multi-layered, and should be addressed as so. While I
have always preferred the narrative framework over the stream of consciousness kind
of art in various modes, I enjoyed the films and getting to see some of Vega
and Rev at work is always enlightening.
Currently living in Saskatoon (email at RBF55@msn.com for address). From 1977-88, I used to publish a print version of a music magazine in New York called FFanzeen, which dealt with the wide-ranging independent music scene. I also photographed many bands from the period (and since). Now I write this blog. And the beat goes on.
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