Life Without Buildings "Any Other City" 2001*****

This one took me a while to get. When it first came out, a couple of songs were often playing on Athens rock radio stations, and I had made a mental note to get the CD as soon as it dropped in price. That is what I did then: always having a long buying list and being short of money, I'd wait a year or so by which time albums either fell into the "nice price" category or started appearing in 2nd hand stores. That approach worked - just not always. While I kept appreciating the music more with every listen and became convinced I really must add it to my collection, this album became rarer and rarer until it disappeared from shops completely. It finally became the record that's been sitting in my wishlist (well, the wishlist in my head - not an actual amazon/discogs one) longer than any other. Until it got re-released by a U.S. indie as a record store day special. It then took a fair amount of time to bring myself to buy it on import: In the past, I have had bad experiences with purchases from the U.S.: high postage, unreliable delivery dates, and -worst of all- unexpected customs problems. In the end, though, it all worked fine and I found myself the owner of a shiny, brand new, black vinyl copy.
I just love dropping the needle and watch it spin until "PS Exclusive" comes busting in, first these propulsive staccato riffs, and then one of the most original female rock vocalists of the decade: Sue Tompkins may spit the words in a manner reminiscent of The Fall's Mark E. Smith, but she puts way more passion and conviction in her vocals - here she keeps monomaniacally repeating the phrase "The Right Stuff" (some reviewer counted her - she says it 44 times) as if she wants to hammer it in your head. And, as much as I love the neo-post-punk sound of the band, it's how you feel about the over-the-top shouty vocals that will define whether you'll like this record. For example, here's what what NME's John Mulvey wrote about her: "only mad people and immediate family could warm to Tompkins. Hers is the sound of a performance artist having a self-conscious breakdown, all freestyle poetics and an incalculably avant-garde approach to singing in tune". He hated it. I love it, yet we can agree on a lot: no, she's not singing in tune, she's arguably not singing at all. While he dismisses her as a "performance artist" (as opposed to "singer"), that's hardly offensive. Sure, technically she's not up there with, say, the contestants in The Voice, but that's because she literally is a performance artist: A graduate of the Glasgow School of Art, she is currently doing paintings as well as installations and performances mostly focusing on language and expression through the written/spoken word. This LP is her only foray into the world of pop music. Thankfully, there's also nothing pretentious about it.
It holds remarkable well as indie rock music: the complex rhythms and jangly guitars are never derivative but are nevertheless familiar: fans of Patti Smith, The Talking Heads, X-ray Spex, Breeders, Pavement or Sonic Youth will recognize a kindred spirit. At the same time they have this interesting arty thing going on with the lyrics, which seem to be either stream-of-consciousness or word collages, and with the singing/shouting/scatting of repetitive mantras which is uncontrollable, childlike, emotional, and exciting. The faster, punkier, songs are the ones that stick out at first listening: "PS Exclusive", "Let's Get Out", "Young Offenders", "14 Days". Arguably the best is "New Town", employing that slow-fast-slow trick perfected by The Pixies and sold in millions by Nirvana. It's the one that gained the most radio play back in the time. On the closer "Sorrow" they prove they can successfully adapt their style into Mazzy Star-like ballads. Most of the rest sound quite similar, and continuous listening (as I do while writing this review) tends to emphasize the formula repetition. I guess the band is an one-trick-pony: we'll never know if or how they could evolve, since they never made another album. Despite getting (mostly) good reviews and being touted as the next-big-thing in a double bill with The Strokes (at the latter band's UK debut) the idea of professional music careers didn't seem to appeal to them, so they dissolved the band and returned to the art world. This way they remained utterly unfamiliar and evasive and their sound retained its freshness and remained undiluted by repetition. The album fell out of print very quickly, deservedly gaining cult status - when MOJO Magazine presented this album on their page-long Buried Treasure feature, I immediately thought "hell yeah! this is the very definition of the term". This limited Record Store Day reissue has made it available again, but it won't be out there for long, so if you like what you here don't make the same mistake I did, and grab it while you can!

***** for PS Exclusive, Let's Get Out, Young Offenders, 14 Days, New Town

**** for Juno, Envoys, Sorrow

*** for The Leanover, Philip

Double Naught Spys "Teen Trash Vol.5" AKA "Goin' Nowhere With..." 1992***

We garage rock fans are easy to please: sounding like a bunch of hyperactive, loud and snotty mid-60's teenagers from Hicksville USA isn't something serious rock musicians should aspire to, yet it's all we expect from garage rock revival bands: if you want to make us happy, a love of all 60's retro things and a bit of fire in your belly will suffice. For all intents and purposes, then, the Double Naught Spys (apparently a different group from the correctly spelled Double Naught Spies) are a quintessential neo-garage band: their 60's schtick is authentic as shit, production is suitably raw and snappy, and new compositions sound like they belong to those Pebbles and Back From The Grave compilations that collected the wildest and most untamed 60's garage rock bands. Everything was recorded live on-the-fly and with no overdubs or studio effects. It all sounds authentic, from the primitive pounding of "You Better Tell Me Now", "I Hate Love" and "I Can't Understand" to the wild yelps and frantic guitar of "Right Where I Wanna Be" and "Tryin' My Best", surf guitars of "Side-Swiped", harmonica-driven R&B of "Mad At Me" and "2-Timin' Baby" or the melodic choruses of (still rocking quite hard) "Tears From My Eyes" and "Won't Be The One". The covers (The Benders' "You Can't Tame Me", Rockin' Ramroads "She Lied", and surf instrumental "Outer Limits '66") rival the originals' power, and fit seamlessly among the new songs, a testament to their dedication in bringing the 60's spirit back. It's strange to think that we are now further removed from the time of this garage revival band than they were from the time they were actually trying to revive. Or, more probably, I'm just old: I've filed both the 1990's and 2020's under "modern times", and the 60's under "mythic past", but is it really so? Think about it: can any time before the internet (let alone smartphones) really be considered modern? Yet the world wide web only went online on August 1991, a few months before the Double Naught Spys released Goin' Nowhere With... on the Texan label Rockadelic Records in a limited edition of 500 copies. It was later picked up by German indie label Music Maniac, to be re-released with the addition of 2 bonus tracks/outtakes ("Slow Down" from the Hamburg-era Beatles and Cramps-like "And She Said Yes") as part of their Teen Trash series. This series sported artwork by Rudi "Action" Protrudi of The Fuzztones, and was comprised by 14 volumes by garage revival bands throughout the world - the DNS, incidentally, come from Connecticut, USA. Most, but not all, of the bands were as faithful 60's copyists as the DNS were. I own the (almost complete) series, so expect to read about more volumes in this blog. 

**** for Tryin' My Best, Won't Be The One

*** for You Better Tell Me Now, Right Where I Wanna Be, Tears From My Eyes, Mad At Me, Can't Tame Me, Now She's Cryin', Outer Limits '66, And She Said Yes, 2-Timin' Baby, Side-Swiped, I Hate Love, I Can't Understand, She Lied, Slow Down

Doctor Explosion ‎"El Loco Mundo De Los Jovenes" 1994***

I don't know much about Doctor Explosion other than that they come from Gijón, a small coastal city of northern Spain, and that they've been playing 60's influenced Surf and Garage Rock since 1989. This is their 2nd LP and you shouldn't judge them from the nice-little-schoolgirls pose they strike on the album's cover. They are three really bad boys intend on making as much noise as possible. The singer really screams his lungs out every chance he gets, and the mono recording is really raw and primitive - although they do include a song in "estereo": it's the closing acoustic number "Come Back", which could pass for a second-rate Rolling Stones track circa '64. Which reminds me, did you know that in Spain the Rolling Stones are not called for short "Stones" but "Los Rolling"? Anyway, most of the album is much wilder than that, starting off with the Spanish-language dynamites "Basura!" and "Rompi La Television". Other Spanish songs include "Eres Feo, Chaval" (a psychobilly cover of The Downliners Sect's "One Ugly Child") and "Vivir Sin Ti" a garage-soul romp originally recorded in 1967 by Los Salvajes. Other covers include Mickey Finn's "Garden Of My Mind" and The Music Explosion's bubblegum "Let Yourself Go", both louder and more out of control than their 60's counterparts. The band's original compositions like "Hey, Little Girl", "Free Your Troubled Mind", "Someday" and "I Really Don't Care" sound like they could have been written in the U.S. circa 1966, though only the latter (and relatively more restrained) would have been a minor classic of the era. "Breakin' The Wave!" and "Surf'n'Shake" are Trashmen/Cramps-like surf punk. They're not exactly instrumentals since they include a lot of shrieks and shouts. The latter features British punkettes The Headcoatees on backing vocals - they also pop up in a couple other numbers. All in all this is a pretty standard 60's-style garage LP with an aggressive punk twist, reminiscent of Gravedigger V, Stomach Mouths etc. Recommended if you like that sound, but not among the top LP's of the genre.

**** for I Really Don't Care, Vivir Sin Ti

*** for Basura!, Eres Feo Chaval, Rompi La Television, Garden Of My Mind, Free Your Troubled Mind, Breakin' The Wave!, Hey Little Girl, Surf'n'Shake, Let Yourself Go

** for Someday, Peep Show Baby, Come Back

Purple Overdose "Exit #4" 1988****

There is something anachronistic to the Greek rock scene. Although it started out normally in the early-to-mid 60's with garage bands emulating The Beatles, Stones, Animals etc. it suffered a setback during the years of the colonels' dictatorship (1967-1974). Despite seizing power with U.S. help (ostensibly to ward off the "red scare"), the dictators were mistrustful of American culture. Elvis was OK, The Beatles were too big to ignore, but all other rock was kept out of the airwaves after '67. If I remember correctly, the Woodstock movie was also hurriedly pulled off cinemas in 1970 when deemed too dangerous to the morals of Greek youth. A few rock bands did exist, and they catered to a small informed audience, but only those with contacts abroad or those who lived inside the radius of the U.S. Army Base radio would get to listen to the likes of Hendrix, Cream, Doors etc. Flower-power was something to ridicule in popular musical comedies, not a movement. Then, in 1974, the regime fell and a little rock music crept in through official and (mainly) pirate stations. Greek teenagers of the late 70's were thus simultaneously exposed to psychedelia, prog, metal, punk and new wave. There's not much of a time gap between first generation psych rockers like PLJ Band, who released their debut LP in 1982, and the first neo-psychedelic bands like No Man's Land (formed in '85) and Purple Overdose (formed in '87). Also, a lot of psychedelic rock LP's were issued for the first time in Greece in the mid-80's: I have records by The Human Beinz, H.P. Lovecraft, Electric Prunes etc. from that era, all released 15 years after their original circulation. Imagine, at the time these LP's were only available as new items in record shops in Greece, when in the U.S. and Europe you could only find them at garage sales and the like. Vinyl collectors, take note!

CD cover

The belated influx of all these psychedelic records was one of the reasons that neo-psychedelia and garage rock took roots in Greek underground culture of the 80's, probably more than any other European country. Purple Overdose leader Costas Constantinou mentions Jefferson Airplane as his introduction to psychedelic rock, then Electric Prunes and 13th Floor Elevators. He wrote some songs in that vein during the early 80's but had to wait until 1987 to find a band to play them. That was the early form of Purple Overdose, which also included Zaharias whom Athens music lovers will probably recognize from his famous records shop in Monastiraki (Athens), rather than from his stint in various Greek rock bands. Early P.O. also shared a couple of members with No Man's Land: Bassist  "Sugar" George Papageorgiades stayed on, while drummer George Nikas returned to N.M.L. and was replaced by Chris Triantafilopoulos halfway through the recording of this album. The fourth member of the band for this recording is organist Michalis Vassiliou, whose keyboards are the most dominant sound on this LP. If  I had to use one word to describe this album that may have been "groovy", and that is the result of Vassiliou's keyboards as much as Constantinou's compositions. The album opens and closes with the 2 halves of "Exit#4", a surf/psych instrumental that reminds me of Chocolate Watch Band's "Dark Side Of The Mushroom". Then the first voice we hear belongs not to the lead singer, but bassist George who takes lead vocal on "Are You There?". It's a nice melodic piece that falls between typical West Coast psychedelia and early Syd Barret-fronted Pink Floyd. It's one of their older songs, featuring Nikas as a drummer. Other songs by the same line-up include "When You Talk About Me" which starts off as a waltzy, Country Joe & The Fish-style tune and gets more intense/loud later, as well as a 13th Floor Elevators pastiche called "Elevation". "Holes" is a loud 6-minute garage rocker, the best of the early batch, and the only one of that early batch often played live.

The Vinyl Issue

The newer songs show a marked improvement in the space of a few months: "Yellow Mole" sports a catchy tune, the organ is more to the fore, and the vocals are better realized, especially the combination of lead and backing vocals. "Blue Torture" is a bluesy song reminiscent of Love's "Signed D.C.", and "Orange Journey" (they had a color theme going, an allusion to acid trips and synesthesia maybe?) a mid-tempo piece with Doors-y keyboards. Last but not least -actually one of their most popular songs and perennial live favorite- is the ultra-catchy "Rooby Go Round", a perfect synthesis of Jefferson Airplane (the male/female vocal harmonies with guest singer Evie Hassapidou, then still a member of No Man's Land) and The Doors (the Ray-Manzarek-Goes-To-The-Carnival organ). This album was a pretty accomplished one by the standards of the Greek Alternative scene of the 80's, but with hindsight it's just a taste of greater things to come. The production and arrangements are relatively basic, and the overall sound rawer and closer to the garage side of psychedelia rather than the prog side they would later favor. On the other hand, it's the easiest of their albums to get a hold of thanks to Pop+Rock magazine, a mainstream music monthly that gave it away on CD as premium, sometime in the late 90's. A lot of that batch are still available 2nd hand pretty cheap, while both the original first pressing and 1993 limited re-release on yellow vinyl are rather costly. Albums 2, 3, and 4 (all great) were only ever released on vinyl and are now even more rare. Some more recent compilations of demos and live tracks are easier to get, but of less interest - so, while Exit#4 is not the best or most typical P.O. album out there, it could still make for a good introduction to the band. 

***** for Rooby Go Round 

**** for Yellow Mole, Holes, Orange Journey

*** for Exit #4 (Intro), Are You There?, When You Talk About Me, Elevation, Blue Torture, Exit #4 (Outro)

Purple Overdose "Indigo" 1990*****

Of all the musicians that we lost this year, the one that affected me the most is someone most of you probably haven't heard of. Costas Constantinou, singer, guitarist and main songwriter of Greek neo-psychedelic band Purple Overdose apparently died in his house a few days ago during the Corona lockout, though there are no indications that he was infected. He can't have been more than 60 years old. I first saw P.O. live around 1990. I was a big fan of garage and psychedelia at the time, blindly buying any record that came out between 1966-1970. Can't say I regret it either, the late 60's were a wonderful time for music. But in my mind that kind of music sadly belonged to the past - until, that is, I saw Purple Overdose play, they could transport you right back to psychedelic London circa 1968. It wasn't just the music, but the fact that the band had immersed themselves in that period in every way: music, lyrics, clothes, attitude, probably even the relevant drugs. I became an instant fan of and started hyping them to my friends. Infuriatingly, it was a year or two before they appeared again; I think some members were unavailable because of compulsory army duty. But for the following decade they gigged often and I rarely missed a chance to see them. They also became the only band, along with The Fuzztones, whose albums I'd buy immediately after release, because I couldn't wait to listen to them - no youtube or streaming services at the time, that meant you'd have to wait for an album to get radio play or find someone to lend it or tape it for you. Or wait for the reviews to decide on buying. But of course I needn't read the reviews when it came to P.O. - I'd snatch their albums as soon as they came out. Great investment it was too, seeing as the original LPs (they released almost exclusively vinyls) now cost in the neighborhood of €80. Constantinou was also a dedicated collector of vinyl - we must have had the same buying habits and record store routes, because I'd catch him hanging around at record shops every other week or so. It never told him what I thought of his music or even that I recognize him, we just spoke a few times as fellow music enthusiasts about a record that was playing on the store, or that one of us was holding. He was something of an authority on everything regarding psychedelia, garage and prog but also very well informed on other styles of music.

When I first saw Purple Overdose for the first time, I couldn't believe there was a band playing this kind of music at the dawn of the 90's, let alone a Greek band from my neighborhood. It was at the AN Club in Exarchia, slightly before or after the release of this album, 1990. During that concert they introduced us to a guest musician, a flutist called Tolis Labouris who also played in the album and who would soon become a full-time member. I believe they played the whole of this (with the possible exception of the instrumental) plus a few songs from their debut Exit#4, closing with "Rooby Go Round", one of the most upbeat tracks of the aforementioned album. Indigo was their sophomore effort, and constituted a big leap forward from the previous LP. They'd evolve further with every album, usually incorporating more progressive elements. I'd be hard pressed to choose my favorite P.O. album, but I think it'd be a tie between this and their next, eponymous, LP. While their playing would improve still and compositions would became more ambitious, there's something winsome about Indigo's relatively simpler, yet finely arranged, melodies: A song like opener "Moonlight Sunshine" has an instantly catchy melody that hints at the possibility of a successful career writing radio jingles - thankfully Constantinou chose not to pursue that direction. The song's melodic lead and backing vocals, swirling organ, gong, and psychedelic guitar solo are pure UK popsike circa 1968. "Cosmic Ladder" is more relaxed, with Doors-like keyboards and another spacey solo. It's followed by a fantastic instrumental called "Suite For A Sunshine Day". This is a more complex composition featuring martial drumming, classical-style organ and jazzy passages of the Canterbury school. Most impressive.
"Rain Without Storm" which closes side 1 (remember, it was only released on vinyl) has a baroque intro with harpsichord and flute and a pretty melody that may remind you of a big hit called "Rain and Tears" by another, older, Greek band. Side 2 starts with the playful melody of "White Colours". Keyboards and flute dominate the first half, then mellow overdubbed vocals and jazzy solos in the middle, with the electric guitar only raising its head 3,5 minutes into the song. The next song is called "Golden Eyes". The longest and probably the most psychedelic track on the album, it opens with a somewhat oriental melody and continues with dark and spacey keyboards, slow psychedelic solos, trippy vocals and romantic lyrics. All very reminiscent of early Pink Floyd, circa Saucerful Of Secrets. The album then closes with another romantic baroque piece "(Shady Reflections At The) Magic Forest". A pretty melody played on harpsichord and violin, and a vocal duet with Vicki Variti of Jack Of All Trades (un)fame. It picks up pace around two thirds of the way, culminating with an electric guitar/organ duel. Like all the songs here, it features quasi-mystical poetic lyrics including flowers, enchanted gardens, and strange and magical creatures. Like the albums that followed it, Indigo got great reviews by the specialized music press but never reached a wider audience - we're talking, after all, about a vinyl-only LP on a small Greek independent label, and a band that never played outside of the country. Even if you did read the reviews, you'd have to go to the trouble of mail-ordering the album from Greece without ever having heard a single note. Thankfully we now have youtube, so you can get a taste. Start with the clips below, and then search for a vinyl copy for the full experience: there's the original pressing on black vinyl, and a later reissue on colored one, both very collectible. Last but not least, this LP also has a gorgeous cover depicting Salvador Dali's painting "Hallucinogenic Toreador" - very aptly named, as well as visually analogous to the sounds contained in the grooves.

***** for Moonlight Sunshine, Cosmic Ladder, Golden Eyes, (Shady Reflections At The) Magic Forest

**** for Suite For A Sunshine Day, Rain Without Storm, White Colours

The Stranglers "La Folie" 1981*** (2001 reissue****)

It has now been more than 2 months that the COVID-19 pandemic is sweeping Europe, and we seem to be past its high point. The numbers of those dying and getting hospitalized are falling and the lockdown is gradually being lifted, though it'll be many months before concerts start again, which is -given the circumstances- a minor problem, but a problem nonetheless. I had tickets for a number of concerts this summer and spring, and most of them are postponed for next year. But who knows if Aerosmith, Eric Clapton or Deep Purple -to name some of the older ones in my agenda- will still be gigging then. The focus is now on the financial implications, with many criticizing the lockdowns as a panicked and disproportional response to a disease that mostly kills the old, sick and overweight. And it's not only Trump-like idiots who share that view; I'm thinking of a French philosopher who wrote that we should accept death by corona as inevitable because "while we're trying to save the lives of those over 65, it is our children who will have to pay those debts" - which is what everyone would have us believe: there's going to be a crisis and we'll all have to abolish some of our rights and work harder for less because "everyone has to make sacrifices". Well, obviously not every one. There's such a thing as sacred, holy, and untouchable - and that's the profits of Jeff Bezos and the rest of the billionaire class, whom every crisis finds hoarding an even bigger percentage of the world's wealth. Heaven forbid we should spread the wealth more equally to get out of the crisis together, much better to let the old 'uns die. Saves money on pensions and health care, and cuts down state expenditure - just what Milton Freedman ordered. But let's cut it short here because it looks wrong to politicize in a piece about The Stranglers, one of the least political groups to come out of the punk movement. I only got into the pandemic discussion because of Dave Greenfield, who died recently with Covid-19.

The band's former singer Hugh Cornwell twitted about Greenfield that "he was the difference between The Stranglers and every other punk band", which is spot on - at least concerning their early albums: he injected their aggression with a dose of melody and complexity, sparking comparisons to The Doors when all other punks were influenced by the raw power of early rockabilly, The Who and Stones. Obituaries also invariably stressed that he composed The Stranglers' big hit "Golden Brown", which drove me to pull the album containing that song out of the shelf and give it a few listens. This probably is where they leave their punk beginnings completely behind, employing Bowie producer Tony Visconti to give them a more commercial sound. "Golden Brown" is head and shoulders above the rest of the songs, a waltzy tune with nostalgic vocals and beautiful harpsichord arpeggios. According to Cornwell the lyrics "work on two levels. It's about heroin and also about a girl" - because when The Stranglers decided they'd dedicate their album to "love" it couldn't be just about romantic love like with other bands. So every song is dedicated to another facet of love as a form of madness, hence the title La Folie. Opener "Non Stop" is about a nun's love for God, a sunny pop tune dominated by 60's-style organ, "Pin Up" is another upbeat poppy number, while the irony of bouncy first single "Let Me Introduce You to the Family" is made more explicit by a cover depicting a Mafia family scene. "Tramp" is another of the album's highlights, a bright tale about the love of freedom with nice bass licks and keyboard licks. "Everybody Loves You When You're Dead" is a rhythmic song with (typically for The Stranglers) cynical lyrics. "How to Find True Love and Happiness in the Present Day" and third single "La Folie" are spoken rather than sung - the latter is a slow piece reminiscent of Serge Gainsbourg. The melody is pretty and the French vocal -by bassist Jean Jacques Burnel- almost sensual, so you could be forgiven to think they've actually written a bona fide love song. In reality it's inspired by the then-recent criminal case of Japanese Paris resident Issei Sagawane who murdered, fucked, and ate (literally, and in that order) a female fellow student. "La Folie" indeed! The 2001 CD release adds a number of interesting bonus tracks. This is the one I have, albeit mine came in a cheap cardboard digipack with badly-printed booklet, a giveaway by the Greek yellow press daily Espresso newspaper - no, I don't buy that paper, I got it 2nd hand from a stack of press freebie CD's sold at the market for €1 each. Bonus tracks include the Django swing of "Cruel Garden", rocker "You Hold The Key To My Love", mid-tempo "Vietnamerica", and excellent Doors-y ballad "Strange Little Girl". Its inclusion here is worth an extra *, so I'll give the reissue 4*. 

***** for Golden Brown, Strange Little Girl

**** for Tramp, La Folie, Cruel Garden

*** for Non Stop, Everybody Loves You When You're Dead, Let Me Introduce You To The Family, Pin Up, How To Find True Love And Happiness In The Present Day, Vietnamerica, Love 30, You Hold The Key To My Love In Your Hands

** for Ain't Nothin' To It, The Men They Love To Hate, It Only Takes Two To Tango,

* for Cocktail Nubiles

Oingo Boingo "Good for Your Soul" 1983****

Nowadays that Danny Elfman has found his niche as a reknowned film soundtrack composer, it's difficult to think of him as the former singer/leader of new wave group Oingo Bongo. Did he have ambitions of pop stardom? It's difficult to tell. From one point of view, Oingo Boingo seem to be playing the game: danceable rhythm, catchy melodies, latest production tricks and the obligatory videos make them look like a typical new wave group of the era. I was in my teens during the mid-80's and, while I don't remember them from that time, they sound like a lot of other bands one could hear on the radio or see on MTV. On the other hand, there's a certain quirkiness that sets them apart from the mainstream: the dance numbers are more frantic and less melodic than usual, the world music elements more pronounced - only the Talking Heads and probably Peter Gabriel were utilizing them in such an extent in pop. The lyrics are likewise darker and more bookish than the average pop band, with references to Orwell's 1984 and H.G.Wells' Island Of Dr. Moreau. Opener "Who Do You Want to Be" is a super-charged ska-punk number while "Good for Your Soul" is more melodic ska-pop with softer vocals (usually Elfman's vocal are more frantic and abrasive), and "Fill the Void" is laid-back reggae. "No Spill Blood"'s lead vocal is almost a rap while the chorus sounds like an excerpt from a musical - a possible throwback to the beginning of the group which started out as a theatrical troupe. Some great lead guitar here from Steve Bartek whose solos are always interesting and imaginative, even though the guitar is often buried under the wall of sound produced by the 8-person band (4 horns, keyboard, percussion, guitar, bass and synths). "Cry of the Vatos" is a frenzied instrumental with Afro-Latin rhythms and wild shrieks and shouts. "Sweat" and "Dead or Alive" are a couple of fast rockers and "Nothing Bad Ever Happens" a new wave/synth piece that, lyrically and musically, reminds me of Talking Heads' "Once In A Lifetime". It's about people who are only interested in themselves and are indifferent to the problems of the rest and has a suitably sarcastic video to go with it (see below). It strikes the perfect balance between art and commercialism, something that follower "Wake Up (It's 1984)" misses by leaning too much on the disco side. Now, Oingo Boingo may be occasionally dark lyrically, but they're usually musically light, if not outright jubilant. "Pictures of You" is an exception that reveals their Goth side, which is about equal to The Cure's happy side. The album ends with the bouncy "Little Guns". With its wacky lyric, spaghetti western and ska beat it could be an outtake from one of Elfman's soundtracks for Tim Burton, while the cool sax reminds me of Madness (I take it you can all hum the melody of "One Step Beyond?") On the whole this is a wildly idiosyncratic album that will delight those of us who love Elfman's music from his Tim Burton soundtracks. If it wasn't for the cheesy 80's synths, Oingo Boingo could sneak in among my favorite bands of the period. In any case, "Good for Your Soul" has certainly earned its place in my collection.

**** for Who Do You Want to Be, Good for Your Soul, No Spill Blood, Nothing Bad Ever Happens, Pictures of You

*** for Cry of the Vatos, Fill the Void, Sweat, Wake Up (It's 1984), Dead or Alive, Little Guns

Michael James "Runaway World" 1978***

As I entered my house returning from work yesterday, the first thing I did was to reach blindly for the psychedelia record shelves and pick a random CD to play. I then stared at it with incomprehension: what is this? I thought. The cover looked familiar from Ed Wood's infamous movie Plan 9 From Outer Space, but I couldn't remember buying it, or ever seeing it in a record store. The name of Michael James also didn't ring any bells - and that doesn't happen very often to me. I must have found it very cheaply and placed my trust on Radioactive Records, a bootleg label that reissues rare psychedelic LPs. This is a very rare record indeed - the original was self-released in 1978, and apparently at some point commanded prices above $500, although one can get it now on discogs for half that amount. James is supposed to have had a long career stretching from the 60's to today(ish). But discogs only lists this one LP, so I don't feel too bad for not knowing him. There's one name I do recognize here: drummer Paul Lagos, ex-Kaleidoscope. James supposedly recorded the album at his home studio with musician friends who happened to be around, he must have been one. Sound-wise the music gives no indication it could be from 1978, more like late 60's - early 70's. It's also interspersed with pseudo-ads for marijuana and sci-fi spoken word pieces (from the future world of...1988) that belong to the same questionable aesthetic as the flying saucer on the cover. The most charming elements are some acid-folk ballads with beautiful acoustic guitar and dreamy vocals: "I Remember", "Runaway World", "Listen, Freedom Is At Hand", and the more mid-tempo "All The Way". Instrumental "Thank you Ted" reminded me of an old Deep Purple B-side called "Coconarias Redig". "She's Got You (The World)" and "Have You Heard?" are spacey hard rock boogie, and "Sleepers" a trippy rocker. "You Don't Walk On My Street" combines the two styles, with a long folky intro followed by a fuzz garage part. It's the album's highlight, together with "Quest", a mini-song suite divided in three parts: folk ballad "Earth", acoustic guitar instrumental "Mind" and electric "Spirit". Excellent guitarwork here, both on the acoustic and electric parts. Nevertheless, I'm not surprised I had forgotten all about this album. There's some nice and understated guitar playing and a couple of pleasant hippy ballads, but nothing that sticks out. It also flows rather badly, what with the disruptive pseudo-ads and all. If one removed them and balanced the acoustic and electric pieces better, it'd be a much better album. Still not worth $500 though - or even half that.

**** for You Don't Walk On My Street, Quest a.Earth b.Mind c.Spirit

*** for All The Way, I Remember (We Would Change The World), Runaway World, She's Got You (The World), Have You Heard? (You Got Pain And You Ought Not), Listen Freedom Is At Hand

** for Thank you Ted, Sleepers 

* for Guatamalan Strange, Guatamalan Radio 1988, Electronic Silver, Stark Raven