Nick Cave—From Her to Eternity

Nick Cave—From Her to Eternity (1984)

From Her to Eternity—No band had as many meaningless name changes as Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds. Nick Cave's original band was called "The Boys Next Door," which ran from 1973–78 when they mostly played covers. That name stuck up through the release of Door, Door (1979)–The Birthday Party (1980), after which they adopted "The Birthday Party" as their new name. In late 1983, the Birthday Party apparently broke up, though that's not true to what really happened. The only effective change in the band was the departure of guitarist Rowland S. Howard; core members Nick Cave and Mick Harvey remained, and the rest of the band went through no more dramatic changes than they did as the Birthday Party. At this time, they began going by the names "Nick Cave—Man or Myth?" (technically a solo act) and "Nick Cave and the Cavemen" before finally settling on "Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds." However, the resulting album from this period, From Her to Eternity, would be billed on the cover simply as the work of "Nick Cave."

In fairness, the name changes came with pointed shifts in style. Cave's raving, drug-fueled persona was toned down in favor of a more literary bent, signaled by a doomful cover of Leonard Cohen's poetic "Avalanche." The disquieting "Cabin Fever!" is a mad excursion through the mind of a tattooed, mutilated ship's captain. The dark threnody "Well of Misery" plays almost like a slave song. "From Her to Eternity," co-written by Anita Lane, is a claustrophobic account of a misguided tryst. Side B contains three songs recorded earlier in the band's formation: "Saint Huck" is a Delta blues gutted and turned inside-out, "Wings off Flies" is a blackly humorous soliloquy of twisted yearning, and the dirge "A Box for Black Paul" tells the tale of a man scorned upon his death with racial implications.

One might assume from their descriptions that From Her to Eternity is not much different than the work of the Birthday Party. The best way to describe it, really, is that there was logical evolution going on from Junkyard (1982) to Mutiny/The Bad Seed (1983) to From Her to Eternity. Junkyard still featured an erratic, outrageous edition of Cave and the Birthday Party; the Mutiny and Bad Seed EPs retained that surface style, but with tighter arrangements and less screaming, perhaps in part due to Rowland S. Howard—who was principal songwriter along with Cave—being forced out in favor of Blixa Bargeld of Einstürzende Neubauten. From Her to Eternity is equally steeped in lunacy, but with a greater emphasis on Cave's piano playing, suggestions of the American South (which would be further explored more explicitly by the band in coming years), and an overall roomier, live sound. As for its quality, Eternity is not the sort of record to listen to for blind pleasure. It's moody and psychologically oblique, and the arrangements and sound affects are almost wholly subordinate to the feelings associated with the lyrics. Coming from a different band, this set-up might be a recipe for overindulgence, but Eternity is just modest enough to carry weight.

More Nick Cave reviews by The Old Noise:

as The Boys Next Door/The Birthday Party:

Door, Door (1979)
The Birthday Party (1980)
Prayers on Fire (1981)

Junkyard (1982)

as Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds:

From Her to Eternity (1984)
The Firstborn Is Dead (1985)
Kicking Against the Pricks (1986)
Your Funeral... My Trial (1986)
Tender Prey (1988)
The Good Son (1990)
Henry's Dream (1992)
Live Seeds (1993)
Let Love In (1994)
Murder Ballads (1996)
The Boatman's Call (1997)
No More Shall We Part (2001)
Nocturama (2003)
Abattoir Blues/The Lyre of Orpheus (2004)
Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!! (2008)
Push the Sky Away (2013)
Skeleton Tree (2016)

as Grinderman:

Grinderman (2007)
Grinderman 2 (2010)

David Bowie—The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars

TO BE PLAYED AT MAXIMUM VOLUME

David Bowie—The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars (1972)

The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars—The 1960s were when rock and roll started to get weird. With the advent of psychedelia, songs like "Hound Dog" and "Roll over Beethoven" were eclipsed by ones like "Burning of the Midnight Lamp" and "2000 Light Years from Home." As with the latter, outer space, space travel, and the notion of extraterrestrial life became hugely influential on popular music. Songs were written before, during, and after the Apollo 11 moon landing on July 20th, 1969, but none are more inextricably tied to it than David Bowie's "Space Oddity" released nine days prior. The worldwide hit, which remains one of his most enduring and beloved songs, put him on the map, but the album that followed had little to do with "Space Oddity" or space themes in general.

That album, David Bowie (1969), is sometimes referred to simply as Space Oddity both because of that song's notoriety and because Bowie's debut was also called David Bowie. Its themes were hazy, grotesque, and introspective. When focused, such as on "Memory of a Free Festival," they were often quite pastoral, seeming the opposite of spacey. On his following albums, Bowie would refine these sensibilities, first with the good The Man Who Sold the World (1970) and then the great Hunky Dory (1971). At this time, Bowie was producing new music at a an increasingly rapid pace. Most of The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars was already written or recorded (ca. November 1971) before Hunky Dory was even out the door. That album, while not a monster seller initially, was met with immediate warmth, which likely provided a boost to Bowie's ego. Thus, his iconic Ziggy Stardust persona was born.

Bowie had personality from the beginning, but he nearly always presented vague androgyny and outsider qualities rather than a concrete character. In January 1972, the Ziggy Stardust tour began in England (later moving to the U.S., Japan, and other parts of the U.K), when Bowie began to dress up in elaborate costumes designed by Kansai Yamamoto, red hair, and extensive, glamorous makeup. It is, of course, during this time that glam rock hit its zenith, with Ziggy being arguably its most exemplary character, album, and song. While the movement produced many memorable albums by T. Rex, Roxy Music, and Bowie himself, among others, Ziggy was special—it had a story.

It begins with the apocalyptic love song "Five Years," in which humanity finds out it has "five years left to cry in." The T. Rex-esque rock spiritual "Soul Love" pontificates on love and God. "Moonage Daydream" was repurposed from Bowie's Arnold Corns side project, which was essentially a '71 incarnation of backing band Spiders from Mars (Mick Ronson, Trevor Bolder, Mick Woodmansey) plus fashion designer Freddie Burretti. It was released as a single that year, but failed; the Ziggy version rocks harder (especially on Mick Ronson's legendary solo), and features altered, more absurd lyrics as well as more varied reverb, echo treatments, and horn parts.

The wondrous "Starman," which was recorded last and almost didn't even make the album (a cover of Chuck Berry's "Around and Around" was in its place in the initial running order), became Bowie's biggest hit (#10 U.K.) since "Space Oddity" (#5) and even hit an unprecedented #41 in the United States. In the context of the album, its lyrics present the mindsets of young people hearing Ziggy on the radio, who until that point had forsaken rock and roll. Interestingly, the song they are hearing can actually be inferred to be "All the Young Dudes," which was written by Bowie specifically for Mott the Hoople in a move to save their career. In that song, Ziggy sings about the decadence of youth; in "Starman," he continues his exposition in which he reveals that the "infinites" (the starmen) are coming to Earth and may save it. Musically, the song fittingly borrows from gay icon Judy Garland's "Over the Rainbow" for its memorable chorus, which becomes increasingly variegated with each iteration before swelling into a warm, symphonic cheer. A warped cover of Ron Davies' honky-tonk "It Ain't Easy," a holdover from Hunky Dory, closes the side, providing some post hoc thematic cohesion (also being another last-minute replacement of a cover: Jacques Brel's "Amsterdam").

Swelling Marc Bolan tribute "Lady Stardust" is quietly one of the album's best songs. The transient "Star," by contrast, is one of the least essential. "Hang on to Yourself," the B-side of the Arnold Corns single, is heavier than the original, which was more of a frenzied folk-inspired tune. Incomparable theme song "Ziggy Stardust" summarizes the story promised by the album's title; bits of it can be seen or heard in virtually every type of media and social phenomenon. Spirited, raunchy blues "Suffragette City" (initially offered to Mott the Hoople just prior to "All the Young Dudes"), is well-known for its build-ups and false stop. On the bittersweet, acoustic-symphonic "Rock 'n' Roll Suicide," Ziggy dies as he is consumed by the infinites to make themselves corporeal. It also, of course, served as the showstopper during the tour, including at the conclusion of the final show, documented in the Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars film (1973) and its accompanying album, Ziggy Stardust: The Motion Picture (1983).

There's no question that Ziggy Stardust is a classic album, but it's always been less clear where it stands in Bowie's oeuvre. It's probably not his masterpiece, compared with more careful works like Hunky Dory, Low (1977), "Heroes" (1977), or Scary Monsters (1980)—the songs "Star" and the cover "It Ain't Easy" disrupt the album's flow in a minor way, but only because the rest of the songs are of such high quality by contrast. Produced during a hectic period in Bowie's life, Ziggy has a certain unpolished, naive energy to it that's often as off-putting as it is endearing. Of course, that was part of the point; Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars were supposed to be a basic rock and roll band, and on that level, it succeeds. It's greater than the sum of its parts, and it's charming. No matter how you cut it, "Starman, "Ziggy Stardust," and "Suffragette City" are some of the best songs Bowie ever produced, and the entire package is a star that won't burn out for a long time.

More David Bowie reviews by The Old Noise:

David Bowie (1967)
David Bowie (1969)
The Man Who Sold the World (1970)
Hunky Dory (1971)
The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars (1972)
Aladdin Sane (1973)
Pin Ups (1973)
Diamond Dogs (1974)
David Live (1974)
Young Americans (1975)
Station to Station (1976)
Low (1977)
"Heroes" (1977)
Stage (1978)
Lodger (1979)
Scary Monsters (1980)
Let's Dance (1983)
Ziggy Stardust: The Motion Picture (1983)
Tonight (1984)
Never Let Me Down (1987)
Black Tie White Noise (1993)
The Buddha of Suburbia (1993)
Outside (1995)
Earthling (1997)
'Hours...' (1999)
Heathen (2002)
Reality (2003)
The Next Day (2013)
Blackstar (2016)

Joni Mitchell—Court and Spark

Joni Mitchell—Court and Spark (1974)

Court and Spark—Coming off the pensive, adventurous For the Roses (1972), Joni Mitchell had the world at her fingertips. That album was the fourth in a series of increasingly huge hits, and critics and even other major musicians worshiped her. Roses, while not exactly orchestral, was her most carefully produced album yet. For the follow-up, she sought out an even wider range of musicians who could play even more intricate parts. Court and Spark was teased with the "Raised on Robbery"/"Court and Spark" single, a rock-and-roll A-side that charted respectably (#51 in Canada, #65 in the United States) but failed to make the same impact as Roses' "You Turn Me on, I'm a Radio." This proved to be insignificant, as Court and Spark went on to hit #1 in Canada, #2 in the U.S., and Top 40 in several other countries following its January 1974 release.

The keynote address, "Court and Spark," details the wariness that comes with seeking romance. A street performer has an epiphany that leads him to throw it all away in pursuit of love. Mitchell (or Mitchell as the singer) notes her instant connection with him, but also her apprehension, seemingly both in general and in waiting for the other shoe to drop. "I cleared myself/I sacrificed my blues/And you could complete me/I'd complete you," he promises; Mitchell concludes, "The more he talked to me /The more he reached me /But I couldn't let go of L.A./City of the fallen angels" (with the slick addition of bells in the background), indicating she is not willing to give up her lifestyle fully as her subject has. The smooth, self-deprecating "Help Me," her biggest hit, similarly notes the difficulties of commitment ("We love our lovin'/But not like we love our freedom"). The liberative "Free Man in Paris" is a cheeky tribute to her friend David Geffen (head of her label, Asylum), poking fun at his complaints about working in the industry. "People's Parties" is a short statement on social anxiety and struggling to fit in. It medleys into "The Same Situation," another commitment song that sees would-be lovers striving to reconcile the failings of one another.

"Car on a Hill," in which the singer waits for their lover to come pick her up, suggests the fear and disconnected feelings that come with having a more outgoing partner. The contemplative, symphonic "Down to You" is the album's musical capstone, and is more lyrically broad, examining personal transformation and loneliness. "Just Like This Train" is comparatively less weighty, even contented: "Lately I don't count on nothing/I just let things slide." Its wisdom ("Jealous lovin'll make you crazy/If you can't find your goodness/'Cause you lost your heart") stands in opposition to the uncertainty of the rest of the album; Mitchell confidently relaxes and observes those around her against the semi-metaphorical backdrop of a train ride. The brash "Raised on Robbery," the album's finest moment, is a witty raid on the daily grind in which Mitchell identifies with a prostitute. The sax-twinged "Trouble Child" is about being stuck in life, unable to connect to anyone, romantically or otherwise, and not yet having the strength to move past yourself or listen to advice. Of the rare cover, "Twisted" (featuring Cheech & Chong), Mitchell once explained, "I hope you enjoy your craziness, 'cause it can be a lot of fun" (stage banter from August 22nd, 1974 performance).

Widely regarded as a triumphant success, Court and Spark's only substantive criticism is that Joni Mitchell sold out on it. While it was indeed loaded with more radio-ready songs than its predecessors, Spark is also more heterogeneous in nature and takes more risks than For the Roses, which is arguably her most difficult album to crack. Her previous albums had all ultimately been arranged uniformly as folk albums, even if the instrumentation varied from time to time; on Spark, she ventured fully into jazz for the first time and made a Dylan-esque move by fully embracing rock, if only for a moment. In the process, she made an album with universal appeal that didn't sacrifice her songwriting, which remained cerebral, droll, and piercing.

More Joni Mitchell reviews by The Old Noise:

Song to a Seagull (1968)
Clouds (1969)
Ladies of the Canyon (1970)
Blue (1971)
For the Roses (1972)
Court and Spark (1974)
Miles of Aisles (1974)
The Hissing of Summer Lawns (1975)
Hejira (1976)
Don Juan's Reckless Daughter (1977)
Mingus (1979)
Shadows and Light (1980)
Wild Things Run Fast (1982)
Dog Eat Dog (1985)
Chalk Mark in a Rain Storm (1988)
Night Ride Home (1991)
Turbulent Indigo (1994)
Taming the Tiger (1998)
Both Sides Now (2000)
Travelogue (2002)
Shine (2007)

The Move—Shazam

The Move—Shazam (1970)

Shazam—"Band for hire" could probably have been the Move's slogan from 1968–70. Upon the release of Move (1968), bassist-vocalist Ace Kefford left, and guitarist-vocalist Trevor Burton soon followed after an injury and in-fighting. Three singles followed—"Wild Tiger Woman," which flopped, "Blackberry Way," which hit #1 and saved their career, and "Curly," a respectable hit. However, the sweeter tones of the latter two were not wholly representative of the Move's essence; they were still a rock-and-roll band with some weirdness and a penchant for the occasional classical or R&B crossover. In the middle of this, enterprising lead vocalist Carl Wayne took it upon himself to sell the Move to Starlite Entertainments, who amusingly began to book them in cabaret clubs, which proved lucrative. Cabaret was conducive to Wayne's style, but not so much to the rest of the band; they continued playing regular gigs, and also tried to crack the U.S. market with little success thanks to almost no support from their U.S. label, A&M.

When they returned to the studio to finish Shazam—which had been announced soon after the release of Move—it had become a far different record than was originally intended. Keyboardist Richard Tandy had joined the band after Kefford's departure, but quickly moved to bass after Burton's injury, and when Burton recovered, Tandy simply left the band. Tandy and Dave Morgan were meant to help write parts of a double-LP Shazam, but Morgan only ended up contributing the non-album songs "This Time Tomorrow" and "A Certain Something" (sometimes rendered "Something" or "That Certain Something"). Instead, the single LP ended up being half Roy Wood originals and half Carl Wayne-chosen covers (Mark Paytress, liner notes to 2007 Fly/Salvo CD reissue of Shazam).

By this time, Wood's personality had begun to take over the once-democratic Move. His stage act became more elaborate, much like his more wildly successful contemporary, David Bowie. Where once it was fairly uncommon for he, the Move's primary songwriter, to sing his own songs, Shazam opened with Wood belting out the lumbering "Hello Susie." It had recently been a pop-blues hit for Amen Corner; Wood reclaimed it in his own obscure style. The ironically elegant "I-just-got-laid" "Beautiful Daughter," sung by Wayne, is the album's only straightforward cut, and would have been its single (it ended up having none) had Wayne not left the band. It is preceded and followed by bizarre bouts of chatter, the second of which leads into a reworked "Cherry Blossom Clinic Revisited," which extends into a Looney Tunes-esque, classical music-quoting jam. On their rendition of Ars Nova's sanctimonious "Fields of People," they demonstrate more expertise than on the original before moving on to a five-minute tantric, interpretive passage that simulates Indian music. An emboldened version of the Mann/Weill "Don't Make My Baby Blue" is probably the album's most banal moment, but Tom Paxton's "The Last Thing on My Mind" as a rolling, psychedelic epic is somehow effective.

Usually regarded as the Move's best album, Shazam is probably better described as their best-played album. They were rarely in better form than they were on Shazam's jams, but there are downsides. Carl Wayne, while serviceable, didn't flourish in such a dominant performing role; he wasn't a varied or terribly interesting singer, and his cover choices were not strong. Roy Wood's songs weren't by and large new material, even if they are refined and generally improved, and they're not exactly his best songs—they simply appear to be because of the strength of the overall package. That's where Shazam succeeds, if it does anywhere: it's a good album to have playing in the background and not examine too closely.

David Bowie—Scary Monsters

David Bowie—Scary Monsters (1980)

Scary Monsters—Among David Bowie's most celebrated albums—Ziggy Stardust (1972), Low (1977), et al.—Scary Monsters is the most commonly forgotten. It's considered to be roughly on the same plane as the others, but possibly due to its more extreme nature, it's often left off such lists. Unlike the more moderate persona of its predecessor Lodger (1979), Scary Monsters is painted with Bowie as a sinister Pierrot; likewise, the songs and Bowie's vocals are confrontational and disquieting compared to Lodger's impartial croon, sometimes drone.

Although it follows mostly logically from his previous three albums, and foreshadows the electronic direction of his later albums, Scary Monsters is something of an anomaly. Bowie is unusually direct throughout much of the album, with some pointed criticisms of his peers surfacing here and there, and it's one of his most overwhelmingly guitar-oriented albums. In the hair-raising opener, "It's No Game (No. 1)," Bowie's verses are preceded by singer Michi Hirota's (of Stomu Yamashta's Red Buddha Theatre) Japanese variations. Bowie explained, "I wanted to break down a particular type of sexist attitude about women. I thought the [idea of] the 'Japanese girl' typifies it, where everyone pictures them as a geisha girl, very sweet, demure and non-thinking, when in fact that's the absolute opposite of what women are like. They think an awful lot, with quite as much strength as any man. I wanted to caricature that attitude by having a very forceful Japanese voice on it. So I had [Hirota] come out with a very samurai kind of thing" (Strange Fascination—David Bowie: The Definitive Story, David Buckley, 1999). At the time, Bowie also had recently appeared in a Japanese commercial for Crystal Jun Rock sake for which he recorded the instrumental "Crystal Japan." That later became the B-side to "Up the Hill Backwards," his acoustic-electric tribute to Marcel Duchamp—"Sneakers fall apart"—who sculpted Not a Shoe and was once quoted as saying, "If it is shoes that you want, I'll give you shoes that you will admire to such an extent that you will lame yourselves trying to walk in them" (Surrealism, Julien Levy, 1995).

"Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps)" is predictably the most overtly insane cut, with Bowie's chorus descending further into voltaic madness as the song wears on. "Space Oddity" sequel "Ashes to Ashes" is a candidate for Bowie's best song ever, an extraordinary self-referential journey that sounds like nothing else before or since—a swirling revelation of multi-tracked vocals, otherworldly synthesizer, and a jaw-dropping, deceptively simple refrain to close it out. "Fashion" is an apocalyptic funk ride that recalls Young Americans (1975) and Station to Station (1976). Centerpiece "Teenage Wildlife" attacks "new wave boys"; seeing as Bowie drew heavy inspiration from Krautrock for his late '70s work, he probably saw new wave artists like Gary Numan as less imaginative and driving than they should have been. "Scream Like a Baby," a holdover from aborted project People from Bad Homes (itself a line that was reused for "Fashion") that was originally called "I Am a Laser" and featured entirely different lyrics, is a carnivalesque song about unfairly-persecuted Sam of vague origins. "Kingdom Come," from Tom Verlaine's solo career, is well-produced but ultimately inferior to the original. "Because You're Young," with guest guitarist Pete Townshend, is a less prominent but satisfying offering coated with Halloween-evoking synthesizer. Flip-side reprise "It's No Game (No. 2)" ramps down the album steeply with a resigned tone, with Bowie inserting a couple new jarring lines into the mix ("Children 'round the world/Put camel shit on the walls").

Scary Monsters is pretty much universally considered the end of Bowie's classic period. In retrospect, he still had good, even great albums ahead of him, such as his final three (Reality [2003], The Next Day [2013], and Blackstar [2016]), but Bowie never assembled quite as good of a band as he did on Scary Monsters. It's an album that's hard to pull into its discrete parts in discussions, and at times it almost feels like a Greatest Hits album because of its career-to-date-encompassing subject matter. Taken on its own, however, it's one of Bowie's most original, galvanizing, and uniformly excellent albums, and it can go toe-to-toe with anything in his canon.

More David Bowie reviews by The Old Noise:

David Bowie (1967)
David Bowie (1969)
The Man Who Sold the World (1970)
Hunky Dory (1971)
The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars (1972)
Aladdin Sane (1973)
Pin Ups (1973)
Diamond Dogs (1974)
Young Americans (1975)
Station to Station (1976)
Low (1977)
"Heroes" (1977)
Lodger (1979)
Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps) (1980)
Let's Dance (1983)
Tonight (1984)
Never Let Me Down (1987)
Black Tie White Noise (1993)
The Buddha of Suburbia (1993)
Outside (1995)
Earthling (1997)
'Hours...' (1999)
Heathen (2002)
Reality (2003)
The Next Day (2013)
Blackstar (2016)

Robyn Hitchcock and the Egyptians—Fegmania!

Robyn Hitchcock and the Egyptians—Fegmania! (1985)

Fegmania!—The Soft Boys broke up sometime in early 1981, leaving Robyn Hitchcock to pursue an equally odd solo career and Kimberley Rew to move toward the mainstream with Katrina and the Waves. It's peculiar that Rew went on to write most of that band's material, including the hit "Walking on Sunshine," considering Hitchcock wrote almost everything for the Soft Boys. Rew was hardly disposable as a Soft Boy; the dynamics of his and Hitchcock's guitar playing had a quality that neither party ever quite replicated. Still, the Soft Boys were definitely Hitchcock's band, as evidenced by the split, and his Black Snake Dîamond Röle (1981), Groovy Decay (1982), and I Often Dream of Trains (1984) were natural extensions of the Soft Boys' run. Upon hearing a re-released version of the EP Give It to the Soft Boys, Hitchcock decided to get back with that rhythm section (drummer Morris Windsor and bassist/keyboardist Andy Metcalfe, plus newcomer Roger Jackson, also on keyboards), and thus the Soft Boys were reborn as the Egyptians.

"What is Fegmania? It has come for your sister. Also for your husband, that kindly man with something poking out of his head. It has come for your arms, and it will change your concept of hygiene. It may be the sound of a plane crash-landing in a ploughed field, or salad cream being tipped out of an attic window. There are stars, minds and judges—people in scarlet rags that pull frogs out of each other's mouths. FEGMANIA RISES! Light pulsing from a bruised sun that eats into tired rugs. Light coursing from a swarming moon that careens in frozen ecstasy across the sky—naked people oozing on warm mud with the radio tuned to Venus. Here is music to implode by. Here is FEGMANIA! A turnip in a sliver box. A dromedary lurching through the House of Commons. A bank manager shooting himself in the navel with a water-pistol. A Royal baby with permanent amnesia. A vampire at the Cenotaph. Respectable people with uncontrollable urges, freed only by the disconnection of their hands. A nun writing her name in marmalade on a soldier's leg. One word." —Liner notes to Fegmania!

Fegmania! sounds like an anomaly, but it was actually Hitchcock's most straightforward music to date, less introspective, all arranged the same way. It is led by "Egyptian Cream," the new band's de facto theme song, a surrealistic, almost Biblical tale of hormone-altering topical cream. "Another Bubble" expresses feelings of isolation in relationships that ultimately lead to rifts. The psychedelic "I'm Only You" is a paradoxical ego-fantasy reminiscent of Revolver. The funny, sad, hypnagogic "My Wife and My Dead Wife," cleverly backed with theremin and percussion idiophones, is an emotionally mixed account of not being able or willing to chase the ghost of a loved one. "Goodnight I Say" is a characteristic stream-of-consciousness Hitchcock composition.

"The Man with the Lightbulb Head," which is something like the title cut (the album cover is taken from the song's video, a home movie directed by Hitchcock), is heavy-handed and silly ("I'm the man with the light-bulb head/I turn myself on in the dark"), but delivered earnestly enough to succeed. "Insect Mother," an I Often Dream of Trains holdover, is a Tim Burton-esque love nightmare. The bright, infectious "Strawberry Mind" was a sign that the Egyptians were ready for college radio prime-time. "Glass" is a sort of vague statement on transparency, and "The Fly" is some quasi-progressive mood piece. The uplifting "Heaven," one of his greatest songs ever, is based around a classic half-real, half-imaginary Hitchcock story he once spun thus:

"This is the floating Cathedral [of the] Prairie's song... it used to be sung by the old prospectors when they were waiting for the Cathedral to arrive. Back in the '20s when the Bechtel Corporation used to take cheap labor out into the desert to complete its massive projects—big dams and so forth—the men weren't paid very much, and they couldn't get any liquor, so they used to sit outside in groups in circles, and they'd wait for the Cathedral to come by: big, floating, transparent glass cathedral lit by columns of light from underneath. And when it came by, they'd all stiffen and howl: 'You've got heaven...'" —Intro to "Heaven," live, date unknown, as heard on the CD reissue of Fegmania!

Fegmania! kick-started a new part of Robyn Hitchcock's career that resulted in five more albums with the Egyptians, which ran concurrently with his solo albums. Although there is a sense that Hitchcock was just settling back into the groove of things, with some of its songs being a tad slight, Fegmania! is nonetheless a career highlight and a record of inspiration.

Rockpile—Live at Montreux 1980

Rockpile—Live at Montreux 1980

Live at Montreux 1980—Rockpile was a band that was legendarily heralded for its live performances. It's difficult to find a review on Nick Lowe, Dave Edmunds, or Rockpile itself without the author mentioning something like that "I Knew the Bride" was butchered on record, but there was rarely any commercial recourse for the average fan to know the difference. Rockpile almost didn't have an album of its own, period—due to contract trifles, Rockpile (Lowe, Edmunds, Billy Bremner, Terry Williams) were forbidden from recording as they were. Instead, the band put out material on the individual albums of Lowe, the principal songwriter, and Edmunds, who favored rock and roll covers. However, this meant the two could not sing on each other's albums, and Bremner, the band's tertiary singer, rarely sung at all. This changed with Seconds of Pleasure (1980), which was a fine effort, but some complained that it ineffectively bottled the Rockpile sound.

As late as the 2000s, there were still few attainable Rockpile discs; the CD reissue of Seconds added the whole of the Nick Lowe & Dave Edmunds Sing the Everly Brothers EP and three live cuts, and at least five notable bootlegs appeared from 1979–1991. There also existed an Elvis cover performed with Robert Plant, oddly (see Concerts for the People of Kampuchea [1981]). Finally, in 2011, Eagle Records mercifully released Live at Montreux 1980—a full concert.

This particular show features a plurality of eight Edmunds selections (insofar that he sings them): Hank DeVito's "Sweet Little Lisa" and "Queen of Hearts" (later popularized by Juice Newton), friend Elvis Costello's "Girls Talk," Don Covay's "Three Time Loser," Graham Parker's "Crawlin' from the Wreckage," Chuck Berry's "Let It Rock," Dave Bartholomew's "I Hear You Knocking," and Otis Blackwell's "Let's Talk about Us," most of which take off in the live setting and are benefited by Bremner's friendly snarl. Bremner himself sings his own "Trouble Boys" and the Louisiana jaunt "You Ain't Nothing but Fine" (Semien/Soileau), and Lowe sings the remainder: his own "So It Goes," "I Knew the Bride," and "They Called It Rock," Pickett/Phillips' "Teacher Teacher," and Mickey Jupp's "Switchboard Susan." All three sing a great rendition of Jim Ford's "Ju Ju Man."

Unfortunately for Lowe fans, his moments are largely lackluster, though this is often because of poor sound recording; Lowe seems not to have been mic'd up correctly at times, mostly at the beginning of "So It Goes" and parts of "Teacher Teacher." The former also doesn't benefit from Edmunds' refrain, which highlights the somewhat perplexing nature of Lowe's difficult-to-replicate studio tricks. The saving grace is that "Switchboard Susan" is presented in probably its best incarnation anywhere—where Jupp's original and Lowe's Labour of Lust (1979) recording lacked a certain facility, it soars here. In truth, however, it's probably fortunate that the band left out lighter numbers like "(I Love the Sound of) Breaking Glass," "Heart," "When I Write the Book," and "Cruel to Be Kind," which didn't always flourish on stage.

Predictably, Live at Montreux 1980 feels slightly excessive, especially during long sections of Edmunds' vestigial rock-around-the-clock fantasies, but taken for what it is, it's a mostly great show. The set might have been better with "Born Fighter," "Heart of the City," or "Love So Fine" in the places of others, but as it is, it's a package that was worth the wait.

David Bowie—Hunky Dory

David Bowie—Hunky Dory

Hunky Dory—Usually regarded as David Bowie's first bona fide classic LP, Hunky Dory bears the overlooked quality of being a summation of the first segment of his career. David Bowie (1967) was a classicist excursion in early British Invasion and baroque pop, with a touch of the strangeness that would always be present in his work—the Beatles with a more archaic touch, essentially—David Bowie (1969), the second album to bear that title, often referred to as Space Oddity or Man of Words/Man of Music, mixed in progressive elements in the same manner as Syd Barrett's Pink Floyd, and The Man Who Sold the World (1970) furthered layered his sound with hard rock elements and obscure, dark, often maniacal lyrics. Hunky Dory is a step back from the last iteration, possibly a sign that producer Tony Visconti was responsible for the compression in sound—Visconti does not return in that role nor as Bowie's bassist as he had been on the previous two albums—but it does continue Bowie's move into more personal territory as well as observations on the latest in space fare.

"Changes," iconic for its stuttering chorus among all else, is also one of Bowie's best chord progressions, with some credit to Yes piano player Rick Wakeman. However, Bowie quickly tops himself in this respect with with "Oh! You Pretty Things," which esoterically honors outsiders. The pair of songs is interesting in the sense that both seem to embrace campy arrangements that are slyly undercut with hints of real meaning and true vision in melody that separate it from the novelty music that no doubt influenced them. The amusing but slight vignette "Eight Line Poem" was probably a real observance from Bowie. "Life on Mars?" has transcended its origins as a "My Way" parody to become one of Bowie's most rightly beloved space songs, mostly due to Mick Ronson's string arrangements. The idyllic "Kooks," written for Bowie's recently born son Duncan, is one of Bowie's most unmysterious songs ever; if it sounds vaguely like "Sugar Mountain," the Neil Young connection was deliberate. The abasing "Quicksand," which switches from mono to stereo near the end of the first passage, references the occult, Heinrich Himmler, Greta Garbo, and Winston Churchill in its apocalyptic vision, concluding, "Don't believe in yourself, don't deceive with belief/Knowledge comes with death's release."

"Fill Your Heart," the Biff Rose/Paul Williams composition, the first in a long series of once-per-album covers, fits right along with "Kooks," but it is interesting to note that the outtake "Bombers" was initially supposed to lead off the second side, which arguably better fits with the themes throughout the rest of the album. "Andy Warhol," a funny tribute to Bowie's friend with a killer acoustic arpeggio, was initially written to be performed by Dana Gillespie, just as "Oh! You Pretty Things" had been for Peter Noone (combined with the fact that Bowie had intended to write his own version of "Comme d'habitude" for Frank Sinatra, one must wonder if Bowie fantasized being a professional songwriter). The languid "Song for Bob Dylan," which came during Dylan's lean period in '71-'73 that saw very little progress from the artist, uses Dylan's own words against him ("Hey, hey, Woody Guthrie, I wrote you a song") in criticizing him for abdicating his lofty position in popular music. "Queen Bitch," the only indication that Bowie would get heavier in the years to come, ennobles Lou Reed. "The Bewlay Brothers" is a characteristic Bowie closer: complete nonsense (Bewlay being a brand of tobacco pipe) that nonetheless conveys his message effectively in texture.

By trimming the excesses from all aspects of his music (with help from new producer Ken Scott), David Bowie was able to make his most effective record to date with Hunky Dory. With the basic elements of his songs—that is to say, his singing and principal melodies—mixed in front, the world got to see just how inspired a songwriter he was, and it resulted in the first of many masterstrokes.

More David Bowie reviews by The Old Noise:

David Bowie (1967)
David Bowie (1969)
The Man Who Sold the World (1970)
Hunky Dory (1971)
The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars (1972)
Aladdin Sane (1973)
Pin Ups (1973)
Diamond Dogs (1974)
Young Americans (1975)
Station to Station (1976)
Low (1977)
"Heroes" (1977)
Lodger (1979)
Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps) (1980)
Let's Dance (1983)
Tonight (1984)
Never Let Me Down (1987)
Black Tie White Noise (1993)
The Buddha of Suburbia (1993)
Outside (1995)
Earthling (1997)
'Hours...' (1999)
Heathen (2002)
Reality (2003)
The Next Day (2013)
Blackstar (2016)

Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds—Tender Prey

Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds—Tender Prey

Tender Prey—The late 1980s were a busy time for Nick Cave. He and the Bad Seeds appeared in Der Himmel über Berlin as themselves, playing "The Carny" from their latest album, Your Funeral... My Trial (1986), he co-wrote the script and music of and starred in Ghosts... of the Civil Dead, and published both a book of collected works (King Ink, named for the Birthday Party song) and a novel (And the Ass Saw the Angel). The stress from all of it plus steady recording and touring took its toll on Cave and the band. Interviews from that time period paint Cave as paranoid, drug-addled, and nasty, and while some of it was certainly editorialization, Cave's long affair with heroin has been documented. Thus, Tender Prey came out messy, but ironically, it produced some of the band's most iconic songs.

Cave played a prison inmate in Ghosts... of the Civil Dead, and so being in that mindset wrote a number of prison songs for Tender Prey, though the subject was not entirely new for the band, whose prior album The Firstborn Is Dead (1985) was influenced by outlaw country. One of these songs is Cave's signature song, "The Mercy Seat," which is presented here in its original extended format, played at nearly every Bad Seeds concert since its creation. It's almost impossible to distinguish the instruments from one another at first—the ongoing march of Thomas Wydler's drums is surrounded by the weeping strings and Blixa Bargeld's barely audible slide guitar, occasionally flooded by Mick Harvey's and new member Roland Wolf's murderous guitar leads—to say nothing of Cave's lyrics, which make at least one offhanded reference to And the Ass Saw the Angel (or perhaps vice-versa) and depict a Christ-like figure who is set to die in the electric chair. The creepily sultry "Up Jumped the Devil" is quintessential Cave ("My blood was blacker than the chambers of a dead nun's heart") that takes its name either from Robert Johnson's "Preachin' Blues (Up Jumped the Devil)" or the lyrics to "The Devil Went down to Georgia" (likely the former, considering Tender Prey's heavy blues context).

Bad Seeds standard "Deanna" is a reworking of "Oh Happy Day," which is better exemplified by the acoustic version that was later appended as a bonus 7" to The Good Son (1990). Its unclear story combines crass sex with crass murder; in live shows, Cave sings with more venom: "She was my fuckin' friend/She was my fuckin' partner," making it sound scornful rather than jaunty. "Watching Alice" is something of a murky failure, whose languid arrangement is even less interesting than the banal lyrics. The toiling "Mercy" is one of the better forgotten Bad Seeds songs, as is "City of Refuge," based on Blind Willie Johnson's "(I'm Gonna Run to) the City of Refuge" (itself based on the traditional "You Better Run"). "Slowly Goes the Night" is a quiet highlight, sending up schlock balladry Bad Seeds-style while retaining a certain charm in spite of itself. The clopping "Sunday's Slave" and onrush of "Sugar Sugar Sugar" are two of the album's more understated moments, although the former is stronger than that suggests. The waning drunkenness of "New Morning" bids farewell to the hellish themes of the album and foreshadows the direction of The Good Son.

The first phase of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds' career (pre-The Boatman's Call [1997]) is often referred to as Cave's Old Testament period; never was that more fitting than with Tender Prey (Birthday Party albums aside). Although it's a messy record, and many of the songs were not performed or arranged optimally, as a sort of blueprint, it's rather solid. Some of the group's (and the Birthday Party's) earlier work was unfavorably circumspect, and the relative straightforwardness of Tender Prey was refreshing. It's not the best LP of that aforementioned period, but it's close, and it was the most rock and roll the band ever got during the Blixa Bargeld era.

More Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds reviews by The Old Noise:

From Her to Eternity (1984)
The Firstborn Is Dead (1985)
Kicking Against the Pricks (1986)
Your Funeral... My Trial (1986)
Tender Prey (1988)
The Good Son (1990)
Henry's Dream (1992)
Live Seeds (1993)
Let Love In (1994)
Murder Ballads (1996)
The Boatman's Call (1997)
No More Shall We Part (2001)
Nocturama (2003)
Abattoir Blues/The Lyre of Orpheus (2004)
Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!! (2008)
Push the Sky Away (2013)

R.E.M.—Chronic Town

R.E.M.—Chronic Town

Chronic Town—Oft-forgotten in the wake of Murmur (1983), R.E.M.'s American classic, is their actual debut record, Chronic Town. Technically, their first recorded and distributed item was "Radio Free Europe"/"Sitting Still" (one of only eight recordings released on independent label Hib-Tone), featuring a frenzied version of the former; both songs would later appear on Murmur, rerecorded. Before the single, even, R.E.M. was turning heads in their native Athens, Georgia. A concert review by William Barnes dated May 7th, 1980 for The Red & Black, University of Georgia's student newspaper, stated that in the band's third-ever concert, the set list included Johnny Kidd & the Pirates' "Shakin' All Over," "Secret Agent Man" (theme from Danger Man), and Paul Revere & the Raiders or the Monkees' "I'm Not Your Steppin' Stone," while their "original material was even more amazing ... They switched tracks from funky R&B to pulsating reggae with an ease and speed that belied their short history."

R.E.M.'s members, both individually and collectively, have been known to have wide-ranging influences. Their B-sides (collected later for Dead Letter Office [1987], the CD release of which includes Chronic Town) showed eclectic stylistic origins: the Velvet Underground, Aerosmith, Roger Miller, and fellow Athens natives Pylon. Rather than put this sort of originals-plus-covers mix to their EP, however, they submitted five idiosyncratic pieces that did not sound quite like anything that came before it. At the same time, it all has an archetypal familiarity that's hard to pin down. "Wolves, Lower," which was also the band's first music video, is typical of this. Lead singer Michael Stipe inverts and plays with idioms ("put wolves out the door" rather than "wolf at the door") in an interpretive manner that would become his hallmark for the rest of the band's career. "Gardening at Night," the EP's only major-key song, as explained by drummer Bill Berry (liner notes of And I Feel Fine... The Best of the I.R.S Years 1982–1987) was written for this reason: "We were driving at night after a show ... One of my three passengers aimed a directive at me. Rather than inform me of his desire to evacuate his bladder, he instead suggested that I pull over so that he might engage in the task of roadside 'night gardening.'"

"Carnival of Sorts (Box Cars)," a strange, vestigial yarn, repeats the line, "don't get caught," from "Wolves, Lower," which establishes a theme of secrecy, combined with fragments of rural imagery. That song also originates the names of the album and its sides ("Chronic Town" and "Poster Torn"); the "Poster Torn" side begins with "1,000,000," conjuring near-Lovecraft visions of ancientness and esoteric threats ("Secluded in a marker stone/Not only deadlier, but smarter too ... All along the tomb, secret in the ruin ... I could live a million years"). "Stumble" reads like a journal pastiche, evoking small-town sensibilities and the confusion of youth.

Although it was not quite at the level of the records to follow, Chronic Town showcased four musicians with an uncanny sense of what it takes to make music as a band. Its songs are marginally too slight to be considered classics, but it was leagues ahead of what most bands of the time were doing, even established ones. Its force of personality and inspiration make it a fresh listen even years after the band's retirement.

Big Star—Radio City

Big Star—Radio City

Radio City—When people speak of Big Star's legacy, they generally have #1 Record (1972) in mind. They like Radio City, of course, but Radio City didn't have "The Ballad of El Goodo," "Thirteen," or "In the Street." The biggest difference between the two is Radio City's lack of Chris Bell, who was the band's founder, ironically, and the main reason for #1 Record's overall sound. Despite this, Radio City surpassed it; Bell's harmonies and arrangements glossed Alex Chilton's jaggedness with a bright, optimistic sheen, but the shared credits on the songs of #1 Record obscured an important detail: "The Ballad of El Goodo," "Thirteen," and "In the Street" were all written by Chilton.

After #1 Record's absolute failure commercially, tensions ran high, and Bell left the group, which effectively disbanded it. Drummer Jody Stephens recalled (Perfect Sound, December 1996) that some time after, "We got back together at the request ... rock writers ... It was a low pressure sort of thing because we were all doing it for the fun of it. We weren't promoting anything. So we got to get back together and play for the critics who were basically our only audience. We had a great time so the band got back together and immediately started working on Radio City." Bassist Andy Hummel explained (Perfect Sound, July 2001), "We started Radio City when we were still a foursome. We had four songs, a couple that we all three [Chilton, Hummel, Stephens] co-wrote at Alex's house one night ... We were looking for new, different things to do so we decided to record in mono ... It was the tightest, hottest music we'd ever done. Unfortunately those tapes were subsequently lost or stolen so we had to rerecord the ones we used later as a threesome. And of course we didn't use much of Chris's stuff because he subsequently left the group."

Soon after, Bell left the band for good, leaving Chilton in complete control of the group. The result was an indurated affair: guitars were the new spokesmen for the band, the characteristic irresolution of Chilton's lyrics serving only to give focus to the music as they had done before, but now without the pretense of optimism. The chord changes of "O My Soul" are protracted, allowing for Chilton's miniature yet rife hard-blues solos to take the forefront. On "Life Is White," he slows to a crawl, letting the screeching harmonica give chroma to the broken sentiments of the words. Andy Hummel's "Way Out West," unlike "The India Song" from the previous LP, fits seamlessly, with Hummel's melodic bass lines riding coolly beneath it all. "What's Going Ahn," a masterpiece, features multiple guitar tracks from Chilton—some acoustic and some electric—that somehow form a coherent whole and perfectly harmonize his vocal. The cautionary dirge "You Get What You Deserve" is hauntingly beautiful, while the heavy "Mod Lang" tributes white R&B.

"Back of a Car" is one of the few remaining stylistic ties to #1 Record: an imagined dialogue set to a harbinger's tune. The bipolar "Daisy Glaze" details the paranoia stemming from cheating, devolving from "I'm drivin' alone/Sad about you," to  "Who is this whore? ... You're gonna die/Yes, you're gonna die." The Todd Rundgren-cum-Mick Taylor "She's a Mover" details "Marsha the name" who "look like a dove" and "smile like crocodile." "September Gurls," a heavenly, elastic pop masterwork, works off an irresistibly sunny chord progression to deliver an immortal Chilton lyric: "I loved you, well, never mind." "Morpha Too," featuring Chilton solo with piano and a single overdubbed vocal of himself, is wonderful and hazy; it is not clear what or who "morpha" is. "I'm in Love with a Girl" amazes with its simplicity that at the same time sounds like nothing that came before.

Though Big Star's final 1974 recordings were compiled for 3rd (1978) and Chilton and Stephens reunited with members of the Posies for In Space (2005), Radio City was effectively the final Big Star album. The paltry amount of original material has given Big Star a certain mystique, which is something that often unfairly elevates the legacy of a work. In the case of Radio City, it is no hyperbole. The songs are singular, the sound is tight, and Chilton is on a whole other planet with his guitar playing.

Big Star—#1 Record

Big Star—#1 Record

#1 Record—Big Star was a band that was simultaneously behind and ahead of the times. Modeled largely after bands from the British Invasion, they arrived a year after the breakup of the Beatles and well after the Rolling Stones had abandoned any pretense of being a pop band. Big Star came to be formed when Alex Chilton, formerly of the Box Tops, joined Chris Bell's band Icewater. Chilton could be seen as analogous to John Lennon, bringing a dissonant edge to the music of the more McCartney-esque Bell. As with many good songwriting partnerships, however, each brought something to the other's music that improved it.

#1 Record captures on tape something rare as it pertains to human experience: the moment just before the point of collapse. Big Star, despite rave reviews, was destined to crash and burn. The debut album was released on John Fry's Ardent label, based in Memphis, Tennessee (the hometown of every band member aside from bass player Andy Hummel) and was to be distributed by Stax, but Stax hit a wall trying to sell it. The reason why is unclear—perhaps emerging soul, funk, and hard rock trends rendered #1 Record outmoded, and drummer Jody Stephens quipped, "it's not a good idea to release a new act in the Christmas season" (interview with Perfect Sound, December 1996)—but its commercial failure led to the effective demise of the band not long afterward.

It's easy to say now that #1 Record is a great album, which mixed pop sensibilities with the kind of angst uncommon to that which it embodies. "Feel" mixes brittle, anxious guitar with horns to create a sound that was unique for the time. What really captures the listener, though, is Chris Bell's profoundly affected vocal; Bell, who would be killed in a single-car accident in 1978, had a truly singular voice. He would only record a handful of other songs in his time, most of which were compiled for I Am the Cosmos. He sings, "Feel like I'm dyin'/Never gonna live again," over a tumultuous relationship. Chilton answers with the existential "The Ballad of El Goodo," treated to harmonic backing by Bell, and the simplistic "In the Street." Sung by Bell, the ode to youth would become the theme song to That '70s Show, and could be seen as a spiritual precursor to the Smashing Pumpkins' "1979."

"I don't know if the general population even knows that Big Star had anything to do with it. As a matter of fact, it's funny, [Wilco and I] played "In the Street" together ... my wife was in the audience and she said, when we started playing "In the Street," somebody sitting in back of her said, 'Why are they playing That '70s Show song?'" —Jody Stephens for Songfacts, "What Made Big Star Shine" (June 17, 2013)

"Thirteen" looks back on childhood romance, referencing the Rolling Stones' 1966 single "Paint It Black"; the song suggests a relationship between two people of different ages, which has been the subject of discussion; its arrangement is slight as to suggest innocence, and includes the line, "Would you be an outlaw for my love," but otherwise does not harbor ill intent, and seems to imply a somewhat minor age gap. Bell's cathartic "Don't Lie to Me" is augmented by Chilton's blues licks, and Hummel's middling "The India Song" sounds like it belongs on a lesser Nick Drake album. "When My Baby's Beside Me" rollicks with great pleasure, unwittingly showing up all of Chilton's predecessors in both performance and craft. "My Life Is Right" is one of the few Bell compositions that remained relatively free from Chilton's crookedness, but this also renders it unremarkable. "Give Me Another Chance" at first appears unremarkable until the fourth or fifth listen, when the unique instrumental backing and Bell's vocal overdubs catch the ear. "Try Again" pleases with its country-inflected solo, giving the album's flow the effect of sunset; ironically, this leads to the resplendent "Watch the Sunrise" and its bright strumming, the ringing chords and arpeggios no doubt the precursor to many an indie rock song. The esoterically titled closer "ST 100/6" is an attractive, minor song that serves a role similar to the Beatles' "Her Majesty" from Abbey Road.

#1 Record is often lumped in with Big Star's second record, Radio City (mainly because they have generally been reissued together), but it's important to keep the two separate in discussion, as they are wildly different. In the case of the former, its naivety is the only thing that detracts from its legend; some of its songs are sad in how vulnerably they depict the young group, and conceptually some of them are thin, mainly on the second side. Of course, it makes sense that the album would be frontloaded: Big Star expected to live up to the name, and the foundation began to crumble immediately the following year. But the flaws are minor, and #1 Record deserved what its titled attempted to prophesy.