Category: No Bastard Left Behind

Posted on // 7 Comments

“Here Comes the Night … Oh! Oh!”

I consider myself a hopeless sucker for vocal pop.  But even I have my limits.  This was produced by the once-great master of sunshine pop, Curt Boettcher.  For more on him, listen to Andrew Hickey’s excellent episode on “My World Fell Down” by Sagittarius.

Disco was an odd phenomenon.  For a year or two people couldn’t get enough, then a massive “disco sucks” reaction set in.  I struggle to think of another popular genre that lost so many of its fans so quickly and vehemently.  I also struggle to think of a genre where so many artists from other genres so spectacularly made asses of themselves trying to cash in.

There’s also an extended club mix of “Here Comes the Night” posted on YouTube, if you really must.

Fun fact (just learned from Hickey): that’s Glen Campbell singing the lead on the verses of “My World Fell Down.”

Posted on // 3 Comments

Pop-Punk Candy

Mrs. Renfield put me on to this sugar rush of an album (really more like a longish EP).  Many tracks are one-idea songs, but who cares when the hook’s good and they don’t belabor the idea: all but one are under two minutes.  It so happens this band/person/whatever played Gonerfest last week, although it was an afternoon slot on a 90-degree-plus day, so can’t say I’m sorry I missed them.  But this stuff hits my sweet spot.  Good hooks throughout.  Here’s another:

Posted on // 5 Comments

The Smoke

The Smoke seemed destined to be the greatest British band of the 60’s.  Read on for their sad tale of record industry greed, radio station indifference, distribution mishaps, managerial exploitation, personal tragedy, substance abuse, mental instability, and an apathetic, capricious and philistine public…

Just kidding!  They seem to be a classic 60’s case of one-hit wonders.  I’d never heard this song until it popped up in my YouTube feed the other day.  It became a big hit in Germany in ’67 (the year I moved, so I never heard it), but in England its progress up the charts was knee-capped by the BBC for drug references (the BBC did such a great job keeping young Brits off drugs).  The most remarkable thing about this band is that not one of them did anything noteworthy before or after this song.  Usually when you look into British bands with a hit during this period, you’ll find that at least one or two of them before or after played with someone you’ve heard of.  But not these guys.  Anyway, it’s a pretty good song and worth hearing.

Posted on // 6 Comments

Faster, Pussycat! Flee! Flee!

Maria Alyokhina (above left), a member of Pussy Riot, has managed to escape Russia. She posed as a food carrier to get into Belarus, and then an Icelandic performance artist convinced a European country to issue her a travel document, which got her safely into Lithuania.

Great recap of the entire cloak-and-dagger operation here. After multiple instances of being jailed for proclaiming Russia’s suckitude over the past decade, she got out. The picture of relative incompetence of the authorities that she paints matches the extensive coverage on Renfield’s website.

“I don’t think Russia has a right to exist anymore,” she said. “Even before, there were questions about how it is united, by what values it is united, and where it is going. But now I don’t think that is a question anymore.”

The Icelandic performance artist was not Bjork, but being Icelandic, he is of course related to Bjork.

Posted on // 4 Comments

Well-Wishery

Join me, won’t you, with the musical community in wishing Makerbot – by many estimates the world’s oldest living blogger –  a happy 68th!

Friends of the Blog Jethro Tull dropped a new album in his honor.

The Ergs offered their inimitable dorkrock cover of Odessey & Oracle.

And Leo Sayer released these unwatchable Beatles covers!

Enjoy, Macré Beau!