Siouxsie & The Banshees "Through the Looking Glass" 1987****

I've been away from my laptop for some time, hence my absence of late - traveling to Greece where I have family, and taking care of some business there. Coincidentally, after missing a lot of crucial elections during the years of the "debt crisis" and subsequent punishment of the country by EU and IMF, I got to vote in the national elections - twice in the space of 5 weeks! For all the good it did - worst election results of my lifetime, maybe I'll elaborate on another post. But there was a silver lining for this trip, and that was that I got to see some concerts which I'll comment on in the following weeks. One of them was the long awaited return of a favorite of my teen years, Siouxsie Sioux. Siouxsie headlined that day's Release Festival. It was the 5th time I saw her perform in 30-something years: twice with The Banshees, once with Creatures, and once before solo, 15 years ago. Which is about the same amount of time she had stayed inactive. Why? Who knows? Maybe she felt like a 15-year vacation. I know that I sometimes do. Anyway, last week she reaffirmed her status as Goth Ice Queen. Her stage presence, at least, was impeccable - even though at 66 she was more restrained in her moves, famously copied by Jenny Ortega on her iconic Wednesday dance in the Tim Burton series. Sure, her vocal performance fluctuated between strained and sublime; but that's almost always the case with music legends past their prime. It is, in any case, a rare privilege to see artists of Siouxsie's caliber perform; not to be missed, at least this is how I see it. After my return to the Netherlands I'll write more about the acts I saw live, and tie each of them with an album presentation. For today, I'm re-posting an earlier review of an older LP by Siouxsie & The Banshees.

I bought this LP around the time it came out, then couldn't resist getting it again when it was remastered and released as a digipack CD. These remasters are so good (in terms of sound, aesthetic and bonus tracks) that I ended up buying almost all of them despite already having their complete discography on vinyl. Back at the time, many goths and punks perceived this album as somewhat of a betrayal. It is at times unusually light and melodic, with intricate arrangements by Martin McCarrick who would soon permanently join the band on keyboards and cello. And, of course, cries of betrayal would multiply in the future with the release of the even poppier "Peepshow" and "Superstition". But the Banshees were always a band apart from the other punk pioneers. They may have hit the scene as Sex Pistols hanger-ons (they accompanied the Pistols on their infamous Bill Grundy interview and had Sid Vicious as a drummer in the early days) but they came from a very different place: while the Pistols were street hooligans, the Banshees were glam fans drawn towards punk which they saw as an original and extreme fashion statement. So when it came to recording a tribute to the artists that influenced them, it wasn't surprising that most of their choices came from the early 70's, the golden age of glam rock. Supposedly they got the idea of a covers album from Bowie's "Pin Ups". Remember, at the time it wasn't as common as it is now - Nick Cave beat them by a few months by releasing "Kicking Against the Pricks" but I can't think of any other band releasing an all-covers LP in the early 80's. 

(my) vinyl front and back covers

They display their impeccable taste right from the start by covering The Sparks' "This Town Ain't Big Enough for the Both of Us", an intensive song that fit their style perfectly. Kraftwerk's "Hall of Mirrors" is sped-up with exotic touches that remind us of Banshees side project The Creatures, and while no one would be surprised by the inclusion of those German electronic music pioneers, who could have predicted they'd tackle Disney next? Yet, their version of "Trust In Me" from the Jungle Book movie is curiously seductive and sexual but nothing short of sublime. "This Wheel's on Fire" was chosen as lead single and rost to #14 on the UK singles chart. Apparently The Banshees were unaware of Dylan & the Band's country rock original and modeled their own version after the Julie Driscoll cover. Billie Holiday's "Strange Fruit" is probably one of the saddest songs ever, Siouxsie's performance doesn't send shivers up the spine the way Billie's does but it makes great use of cinematic strings and funereal New Orleans horns. The Doors' "You're Lost Little Girl" is given a more psychedelic twist, featuring a sped-up chorus, carnival sounds and strings borrowed from The Four Tops' "Reach Out". It's followed by the album's highlight, a cover of Iggy Pop's "Passenger". Siouxsie's laid-back delivery and the addition of horns improve on the original arrangement (in Iggy's words: "I wish I had thought of it. It kind of improves it"). I listen to it every day - its my wake-up ringtone! Their version of John Cale's "Gun" sticks close to the original, but I daresay is slightly superior as Siouxsie is a better vocalist than Cale... which I can't say about "Sea Breezes". The Banshees started out as huge Roxy Music fans and they give their all, but somehow they don't own the tune as they did with other covers here.

CD insert

My old vinyl LP ends with Television's "Little Johnny Jewel" saving this fine track from obscurity. The original used to be only available as a rare 7' single, until it was appended as a bonus track on the "Marquee Moon" CD. The CD version of Through the Looking Glass also adds some bonus tracks: Extended "dance" mixes of "Wheel on Fire" and "Passenger", a punk rock cover of Jonathan Richman's "She Cracked" and single-only "Song from the Edge of the World". The latter is the only original composition on the CD, a very good upbeat song featuring a new incarnation of the band with John Klein on guitar and McCarrick as a full time member on keyboards.  Overall I can say that Through the Looking Glass (named after the Lewis Carroll book) is one of the best cover albums ever: Revealing as to the band's influences and, despite the variety of its source material, consistent and recognizably Banshees-like. To end the review with a piece of interesting trivia, the album title is only one of Siouxsie's many references to Alice in Wonderland, e.g. naming their record company "Wonderland" and including Alice sketches in the weirdest kids' TV show ever, in which they starred alongside The Cure's Robert Smith. Not surprising, really, for those who've delved into their cryptical and surrealistic lyrics.

***** for Trust in Me (The Jungle Book), This Wheel's on Fire (Bob Dylan & The Band), Strange Fruit (Billie Holiday), The Passenger (Iggy Pop)

**** for This Town Ain't Big Enough for the Both of Us (Sparks), Hall of Mirrors (Kraftwerk),Song from the Edge of the World, The Passenger Locomotion Mix

*** for You're Lost Little Girl (The Doors), Gun (John Cale), Sea Breezes (Roxy Music), Little Johnny Jewel (Television), She Cracked (Jonathan Richman/Modern Lovers

Various Artists "Festival Of The South Seas" 1961***

OK, so that's an album I bought purely for the cover. Well, not completely true, I was also curious as to what I would listen, I mean I hadn't heard any music from Fiji or Tahiti before, but mostly for the cover. I have these frames I hang on my wall where I put vinyl covers on display, different ones every month, usually with a theme. So I thought I'd buy this cheap LP (it only cost me €2,5) and frame it alongside some other exotic themed cover e.g. Les Baxter. I was surprised to find it was a collectible item, mostly because it was among other worthless pseudo-world albums from the 60s e.g. anything from mambo to balalaikas. Usually these were supposed to make local traditions palatable to Western audiences rather than portray folk music as it is. But some of this stuff sounds quite authentic to my ears. Apparently this LP was recorded live "in The Town Hall" (not sure of which town, but somewhere in New Zealand) on June 6, 1961 at a concert sponsored by, among others, TAEL (Tasmanian Empire Airways Ltd). Different Polynesian nations are represented. None of the artists was familiar to me, but after some searching I found out that things aren't exactly as represented. Daphne Walker, for example, the one here who sounds most like a professional entertainer, was born and raised in New Zealand, but she's included as a representative of Hawaii. Her three entries ("Sophisticated Hula", "Little Brown Gal", "Ukulele Lady") are among my favorites, English-language 50's swing with a Hawaiian theme and great Hawaiian-style steel guitar. Possibly the guitarist is Bill Sevesi, the other "Hawaiian" act here, but in reality another New Zealander. A steel guitar virtuoso, he adds two great swing instrumentals "Tiger Shark" and "Twelfth Street Rag" - the latter's highlight is a Django-on-ukulele-style solo. As for the Samoan Surf Riders, they are Samoan (although some of them are of German descent), but, again, based in New Zealand. "Malie E" features mostly percussion and choral vocals, while "Minoi" has a country swing flavor - I suspect the guitarist is again Bill Sevesi. Eddie Lund And The Tahiti Nui Club, on the other hand, are real Tahitians. They play on 3 tracks: "Introduction/Orea Dance" and "Drums Of Tahiti" are percussion-dominated, while "Te Manu Pukarua" is a catchy little dance number. Last -but not least, as they say- country represented here is Fiji. The Pacific Teenagers' "Bulu Makau = The Bull Cow Song" is a charming song with female harmonies that sounds to me similar to Hawaiian hula music; very different from the Fujian group doing their "War Chant" with the accompaniment of some castanet or maracas-like percussions. On the whole, I'd say the more Polynesian-sounding tracks were more interesting/authentic sounding, but the Hawaiian ones (even though played by New Zealanders, they sound very similar to real Hawaiian music in my collection) sound more pleasant to my ears. Listening to this LP made me want to travel to Polynesia, which is literally half the world away, and the cost of travelling is prohibitive to me. But never say never... One thing's for sure: if I ever get there, I'll try to pick up some records by local artists, and share my impressions with you. Also: I'm enclosing a spotify link here for those who want to listen to the album, but be aware that the tracklist on spotify is wrong: if you want to know who performs each song, you should read the title of the one directly above it. 

*** for Sophisticated Hula (Daphne Walker), Tiger Shark (Bill Sevesi), Little Brown Gal (Daphne Walker), Bulu Makau=The Bull Cow Song (Pacific Teenagers), Minoi (Samoan Surf Riders), Kaahi (Daphne Walker), Twelfth Street Rag (Bill Sevesi), Te Manu Pukarua (The Tahiti Nui Club), Ukulele Lady (Daphne Walker)

** for Introducing Eddie Lund and Otea Dance, Dance Song (The Tahiti Nui Club), Malie E (Samoan Surf Riders), Drums Of Tahiti (Eddie Lund And The Tahiti Nui Club), War Chant (Fijian choir)

Roger Waters "Radio K.A.O.S." 1987***

As I read in last week's Guardian, "Police in Germany have launched a criminal investigation into the Pink Floyd co-founder Roger Waters over a Nazi-style uniform he wore at a recent concert in Berlin. According to a police spokesman “An investigation has been opened over the costume displayed at the concerts on 17 and 18 May... The context of the clothing worn is deemed capable of approving, glorifying or justifying the violent and arbitrary rule of the Nazi regime in a manner that violates the dignity of the victims and thereby disrupts public peace”. Berlin police will continue to gather evidence and then hand over their findings to the state prosecutor, who will assess whether Waters’s act can be considered as incitement to hatred". Now doesn't that sound like a bad joke? Waters' work is deeply humanist, pacifist and anti-fascist in nature; could the German police really believe that Waters was actually "glorifying" the Nazis (who, incidentally, his father died fighting against)? Are they really unaware of Pink Floyd's The Wall album and movie? After all, the same work was presented with lots of fanfare and high profile guests in what was formerly no man's land between East and West Germany, only a few months after the fall of the Berlin Wall. In every performance, during the song "In The Flesh", he impersonates onstage (as actor Bob Geldof did in the film) a demented and hateful character, don't they know that? Of course they do! It's just that Waters has always been very vocal in his support for the Palestinian cause, openly condemning the state of Israel for human rights violations and for the occupation of Palestinian lands. So they apply political pressure on other governments to try and shut him up! How very not fascist of them!

Coincidentally, this is the same week I bought a vinyl copy of Waters' 1987 Radio K.A.O.S. LP. It's not a work that's aged well, I must say. Like most of his work, solo or with Pink Floyd, it's a concept album. I'm now going to to do something lazy and paraphrase wikipedia to give you a synopsis of the story: Our hero Billy is a paraplegic youngster with severe motoric and speech disabilities, but his brain is somehow able to receive and manipulate radio waves. His twin brother Benny is a miner who lost his job due to the "market forces". One night, drunken Benny inadvertently kills a passerby by dropping a concrete block from a bridge. He is taken to prison, while Billy is sent to live with his uncle David in California. Using a cordless phone and his radio wave manipulation abilities, Billy learns to access computers and speech synthesisers, and starts having conversations with a DJ on L.A.'s Radio K.A.O.S. Exasperated by the political and social world situation, he eventually hacks into a military satellite, simulating a worldwide nuclear attack while deactivating the military's power to retaliate. The album concludes with a song about how, faced with imminent death, people realize that the struggle for more money and power has led the world astray, and start to give attention to the things that really matter, like their friends, family, and solidarity to fellow humans. The story nowadays is supposedly rather outdated - and I say supposedly, because neither the poverty caused by neoliberal politics nor the nuclear threat is as distant as we would like it to be - certainly not with the NATO vs. Russia hostilities materializing into an actual war in Ukraine. Specific references, such as jabs at Reagan and Thatcher, are nevertheless too grounded in the 80's, and the story is needlessly convoluted. Musical production is likeways very old-fashioned, and clean to the point of sterility in a way that only 80's productions can be. Overproduced too, but that I don't mind, because which Floyd album isn't? The songs are full of female backing vocals, synthesizers, and saxophone solos (by Mel Collins, formerly of King Crimson/Camel). I'm often reminded of Robert Palmer, sans the soul vocals. There's also some very good guitar by Andy Fairweather-Low, albeit discreetly low in the mix. Most of the songs are 4 or 5 minutes long, with the whole thing sounding more like contemporary (for the 80's) pop rock than like Floyd's prog rock heyday. The unity of the project is achieved by the interspersed effects (such as Morse-code) and radio snippets, mostly by Radio K.A.O.S.'s fictional DJ. Upbeat opener "Radio Waves" is the lead single, commercial AOR with a nice guitar solo. Mid-tempo follower "Who Needs Information" is better, sounding somewhat like mid 80's David Bowie. "Me Or Him" is slower and quieter, the use of flute instead of the more bombastic synths giving it an understated feel. "The Powers That Be" reminds me of Floyd's "Dogs"; there's a sense of menace in the guitar riff and urgency and "you better run" chorus, but that's disarmed by the pleasant synths and upbeat horns. Likewise, side 2 opener "Sunset Strip" is as bright as befits a song about L.A.; never mind that the protagonist feels out of place and nostalgic for his UK home. "Home" and "Four Minutes" propel the story forward. As compositions, they are rather generic 80's pop rock whose saving grace is guest vocalist Clare Torry. Sure you know who she is; even if the name may not sound familiar there's no way you don't remember the wordless wailing in "Great Gig In The Sky" on Dark Side Of The Moon. Well, that was Clare! The album closes with a hopeful note on "The Tide Is Turning". It's a melodic ballad with the surprising addition of a male choir. Nice of Waters to add a bit of light to his usually bleak world vision. Now, I'm old enough to remember when this album got out in '87 and how everyone pitted it against his former bandmates' A Momentary Lapse Of Reason to decide who is the true heir to the Pink Floyd legacy. In most aspects, Radio K.A.O.S. seems to take up where Floyd left off with The Final Cut, which in turn was a (weaker) retread of The Wall. Which means there's a direct line linking it to one of Floyd's greatest artistic achievements. But, while Waters' hired band are impeccable professionals, there's something missing: Gilmour's distinctive guitar and vocal, Wright's keyboard magic, and whatever Mason does on drums - sorry Nick, I can't tell the difference between you and any other drummer, but the fault is all mine. On the other hand, A Momentary Lapse Of Reason (to be presented some other time) may lack a unifying theme, but sounds more like classic Floyd by virtue of the musicians involved. The production, incidentally, lets both albums down, being very sterile and rooted in the 80's. I personally think that they're equally good (or bad, as some would have it), and that each represents different aspects of Pink Floyd. The audience voted for Gilmour's version; possibly because it had more radio/MTV exposure, or because of the impressive spectacle of the gigantic stadium tours, or simply because he won the court case and got to keep the band name. Listening to Radio K.A.O.S. now, and production notwithstanding, it obviously doesn't deserve the bad rap it gets by critics and fans. P.S. It just dawned on me that many of you may not realize what the album cover is depicting: it is supposed to be an 80's computer screen; don't you go on thinking of a flat screen either, these were heavy cubic monitors usually displaying a black background with monochromatic green letters/characters. In this case, the green dots and dashes are nothing more than the album's tracklist rendered in Morse code - or so I'm told; next thing you know they might accuse Waters of adorning his record covers with coded anti-semitic propaganda, and no-one but a few ancient sailors/radio operators could tell the difference! 

**** for Who Needs Information,The Tide Is Turning [After Live Aid]  

*** for Radio Waves, Me Or Him, The Powers That Be, Sunset Strip, Home, Four Minutes

Skafish "Skafish" 1980***

The first time I came across Skafish it was with their live contribution on soundtrack LP URGH! A Music War The Album, which I reviewed for this blog 8 years ago (wow, time flies when you're having fun - and even when you're not!). This is what I wrote about them back then: "Sign of the Cross*** The only band I hadn't heard before. Based on their name I would have guessed they played ska music, but they surprised me with their hardcore punk, almost metal, attack and anti-religious lyrics. They obviously weren't trying to make any friends. Gotta respect them for that!". When I recently found a whole album by them in the bargain bin, I decided to delve further into this band. What did I learn? First off they have indeed no connection to ska music: the band's frontman/singer/songwriter is called Jim Skafish, hence the name. They come from Chicago, and their 1976 stage debut is considered to be the Windy City's introduction to punk. This album, though, is hardly recognizable as punk. If you want to know how they sound, you have to imagine an equal mix of Frank Zappa, The Ramones, Devo, and The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Jim himself was a real character: tall and weird looking, if not outright ugly, often wearing old ladies' clothes, he impersonated all those outcasts he was singing about. This LP doesn't contain "Sign of the Cross"; it starts off with a spoken "introduction" by backing vocalist Barbie Goodrich in the guise of a former cheerleader wasting her life waiting for Mr. Right. "Joan Fan Club" is another high school story, a realistic depiction of the hellish daily life of a girl constantly picked on by bullies. The theatrical, darkly comic, delivery and fast tempo reminds me of certain tracks by the Dead Kennedys. Next up, there's a surprisingly moving ballad called "Maybe One Time". New wavey "Obsessions Of You" features a "big" chorus and multitracked vocals reminiscent of a musical revue number. "We’ll See A Psychiatrist" is a noisy piece with heavy guitar, "Romantic Lessons" an old timey 60's pop ballad, and "Guardian Angel" a semi-ironic Doo Wop pastiche similar to certain Frank Zappa songs. "No Liberation Here" is a heavy grunge-rocker, while the noisy closer "Take It Out On You", Buzzcocks-like "Work Song" and -especially- album highlight "Disgracing The Family Name" are the probably the only numbers that justify the punk rock label; the latter also reminds me of Danny Elfman's contemporary band, Oingo Boingo. This is, in my opinion, a great -albeit very unconventional- album: you have, above all, the theatrical aspect, punky rage, and dark comedy, vocals ranging from operatic to angry rants, you get some nice melodies and catchy choruses punctuated by moments of cacophony exacerbated by heavy guitar and Jerry-Lee-like clanging piano in the least appropriate moments. Now that I think of it, maybe "great" isn't the right word. But "interesting" and "original", most definitely are. According to discogs, the album was recently reissued on CD and LP, though original vinyl copies may be easier to come by.

**** for Joan Fan Club, Maybe One Time, Obsessions Of You, No Liberation Here, Disgracing The Family Name

*** for Romantic Lessons, Work Song, Guardian Angel, Take It Out On You

** for Introduction, We’ll See A Psychiatrist