Thursday, June 18, 2015
Wednesday, June 3, 2015
maypole music
when i was a yout i thought this song was the silliest of trifles
but now I think it's really cool - especially in combo with the lavish video
on the radio here they play the 'extended version' which is more dance-dubby in the early 80s mode and much more crisp and detailed
Did Men Without Hats do anything else of note?
but going back to "The Safety Dance", it got me thinking about maypole songs
now would you believe (embarassing to admit, being a hauntologist and all) I only recently saw the whole of The Wicker Man for the first time
two things astonished one about it
1/ it's pretty much a musical, isn't it? a horror musical
2/ I had assumed - having seen only the end bit in the past - that it was your standard plot of stranger gradually realising something is awry leading up to a horrific revelation at the end (and last minute rescue and/or twist). But in fact (spoiler alert) you are shown right from the start - and Edward Woodward's visiting police sergeant sees right from the start - that Summerisle is a pagan community based around a cult of Nature and fertility - it's all upfront, from sexual shenagigans in the cemetery at night, to strange totem shaped confectionery in the sweetshop, to the teacher teaching the schoolgirls about phallic symbolism in their rites and revels .... There is nothing to discover, nothing to unveil... and what's odd about the plot (apart from all the songs and dance routines interrupting - not the Hammer/Tigon norm) is that Edward Woodward plods along in full awareness that something utterly-aberrant is a-going on, seemingly determined to meet his fate.
And of course instead of the last-minute reprieve you're expecting, he's goes up in smoke along with The Wicker Man
but now I think it's really cool - especially in combo with the lavish video
on the radio here they play the 'extended version' which is more dance-dubby in the early 80s mode and much more crisp and detailed
Did Men Without Hats do anything else of note?
but going back to "The Safety Dance", it got me thinking about maypole songs
now would you believe (embarassing to admit, being a hauntologist and all) I only recently saw the whole of The Wicker Man for the first time
two things astonished one about it
1/ it's pretty much a musical, isn't it? a horror musical
2/ I had assumed - having seen only the end bit in the past - that it was your standard plot of stranger gradually realising something is awry leading up to a horrific revelation at the end (and last minute rescue and/or twist). But in fact (spoiler alert) you are shown right from the start - and Edward Woodward's visiting police sergeant sees right from the start - that Summerisle is a pagan community based around a cult of Nature and fertility - it's all upfront, from sexual shenagigans in the cemetery at night, to strange totem shaped confectionery in the sweetshop, to the teacher teaching the schoolgirls about phallic symbolism in their rites and revels .... There is nothing to discover, nothing to unveil... and what's odd about the plot (apart from all the songs and dance routines interrupting - not the Hammer/Tigon norm) is that Edward Woodward plods along in full awareness that something utterly-aberrant is a-going on, seemingly determined to meet his fate.
And of course instead of the last-minute reprieve you're expecting, he's goes up in smoke along with The Wicker Man
Tuesday, June 2, 2015
Burundi Wow Wow (original junglists)
For about eighteen months, Bow Wow Wow were my favoritest band in the whole wide world
In my first year at college I had this ginormous poster for the See Jungle album that I'd somehow managed to peel off of a hoarding in London.... probably by ripping it starting from the layers of poster and glue well below the top layer.... Ragged and glue stained, it took over a whole wall of my room at Brasenose
I had all the band's stuff except for the first single for some reason (maybe my brother bought it) .... "W.O.R.K.", Your Cassette Pet, "Prince of Darkness", the See Jungle album and the singles off it, and some other odd E.P. (I think) release that had "Mile High Club" on it ... even got the post-McLaren, Mike Chapman produced album....
I think the Chapman connection must have come about through the Blondiesque vybe of this song...
So keen I was on the whole vision thing around the band I even bought a Vivien Westwood World's End frock for my first girlfriend (she never wore it, and fair enough... bloody expensive it was though for a student on a grant)
She and I saw them play live once in St Albans probably in between "W.O.R.K." and See Jungle
A year or two ago I saw them for a second time - with my last girlfriend - as part of an Eighties nostalgia line-up at the Hollywood Bowl.... bottom of a bill that also featured Psychedelic Furs and was topped by The Go Go's, who were just great ... Bow Wow Wow - well, it was sweet to see them... but the drummer they had, in lieu of Dave Barbarossa, couldn't get the rolling and tumbling beat right at all... and the guitarist taking the twangy place of Matthew Ashman (RIP) was only moderately swashbuckling....
Actually they sound alright in this clip someone took on their phone, but in the audiotorium it didn't sound so hot.
Can't embed my absolute favorite song of theirs - "Hello Hello Daddy (I'll Sacrifice You")
This would be in the Top 5
Now this next one really ought be a convergence of my passions / universes so righteously designed-pour-MOI that my head explodes
Unfortunately it's ruddy awful...
Need to wipe that from my memory-screen ASAP
Now this, this is hauntological
I was really into Adam and the Ants too, but I'm not ready to show the photographs. Not yet.
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