The holiday was spent, as usual, with me hardly listening to any of my music, although I did spend some time with a Depeche Mode playlist I made a few years ago. I got some new music for Christmas which will probably get covered here in coming weeks – History by Loudon Wainwright III, Hudson River Wind Meditations by Lou Reed, The McGarrigle Hour from Kate and Anna McGarrigle and their various talented relatives and friends (Loudon, Martha, Rufus etc), Station To Station by Bowie, and one album which I'll come to further down this page. Mrs S, on the other hand, rediscovered her love of the Red Hot Chili Peppers.
The Chili Peppers are a band that she was into as a teenager at the time that Blood Sugar Sex Magik was released, and then promptly forgot about them. That interest was rekindled at the time of By The Way (her joint favourite album with Blood Sugar...) and started a passionate love affair that lasted until just after the birth of Daughter#1 and the simultaneous release of the bloated, patchy and horrendously-titled Stadium Arcadium double album. The single 'Snow (Hey Oh)' from that album is the one Mrs S always think of as the soundtrack to Daughter#1's first few weeks and it still evokes fond memories and emotions whenever we listen to it now, nearly five years on.
Daughter#1 was relatively well-exposed to the Chili Peppers (and the parallel solo albums of the band's now second time ex-guitarist, John Frusciante) quite a lot during her time in the womb. The track 'I Would Die For You' from By The Way was the one song Mrs S would play over and over while pregnant and a few days after we found out we were going to be parents Mrs S and I went to the Borgata hotel and casino in Atlantic City to watch an intimate performance by the band along with around five hundred other people, an event that totally ruined seeing them at Earl's Court the following year. Once you've seen a big band play a small venue you can't go back.
A book that Mrs S got for Christmas re-ignited her interest in the band, who are scheduled to release a new album this year, ably assisted by Frusciante's replacement, Josh Klinghoffer (who was brought into the band by his predecessor to add extra guitar to the Stadium Arcadium tracks on that album's tour, and who has been a long-standing musical partner of Frusciante). Consequently we spent a good chunk of New Year's Eve watching old RHCP performances instead of the garbage on TV. Since then the band have rarely been off the house iPod, and it's nice to see Mrs S falling back in love with them all over again. She even played some of their old videos to the impressionable Daughter#1. 'What did you think of the Chili Peppers then?' Mrs S asked. 'They were....really....noisy,' she replied, proof, if required, that familiarity with songs developed in the womb doesn't change a child's fundamental insouciance. She just wants to listen to Rufus Wainwright, which is okay by me.
The album I found myself listening to often during the holiday was Angelo Badalamenti's soundtrack to David Lynch's Twin Peaks. For reasons that I still don't understand – possibly my long-standing aversion to hype – I didn't watch Twin Peaks when it was first on; school friends discussed it avidly the day after an episode and yet the whole thing would just go completely over my head. Later I became something of a David Lynch fan after exposure to the twisted Eraserhead, but still for some reason I never watched Twin Peaks.
When the Horror channel started showing every episode late last year I figured it was about time I finally checked this out, and at last I understand what the fuss was all about; I was totally hooked. The mystery, intrigue, the faint whiff of Dynasty / Dallas piss-taking and the brilliantly loopy FBI agent Dale Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan) all add up to something pretty addictive and I'm vaguely reluctant to get around to watching the final three episodes, simply because I know then it's over.
The soundtrack grabbed me from the first episode. The electronic strings of Badalamenti's 'Laura Palmer's Theme' were familiar to me from Moby's 'Go', which sampled those strings and set them to a thudding 4/4 beat, never for one second losing the drama and lingering darkness of Badalamenti's piece. My favourite piece on the soundtrack is called 'Audrey Dancing', a wonky ersatz jazz number dominated by an off-kilter vibraphone riff and some skronking synthetic sax, used in the programme whenever something amusing or plain mysterious is happening (i.e. it gets used a lot each episode). The Julee Cruise songs I could live without (I'll stick with A.C. Marias for my ethereal female vocalist thanks), but do they effectively compliment the slightly surreal atmosphere of the programme.
Vinyl Corner
Sharks In Italy 'Time (Is Ours)' b/w 'Dancing' (7", 1984, Clay Records)
A Google search on the Eighties band Sharks In Italy produces one discogs.com entry for the Canadian release of their solitary album, and nothing else apart from some images of pontiffs and sharp-toothed and menacing great whites. I'm not terribly surprised; Sharks In Italy's 'Time (Is Ours)' found its way into my parents' collection thanks to a loose extended family connection to the singer, Sandy Reid, and consequently I figured that this was a 7" that only existed in the collections of random Stratford-upon-Avon friends of the band. I've had to scan the sleeve myself and everything, for Heaven's sakes. I'm not sure my parents ever played it while I was around, buying it more out of local duty rather than musical interest, but its existence has taken on an almost mythical importance to me; an importance which I fully expected to be shattered when I finally listened to this after New Year as part of a process of recording my parents' vinyl collection.
It's brilliant. If the recently-departed John Hughes had wanted another fey English band in the mould of Psychedelic Furs to populate more soundtracks to films of teenage classroom emotion and angst, he would have been well-advised to include 'Time (Is Ours)' or its equally excellent B-side 'Dancing'. Nice synthetic-sounding drums, shimmering, watery guitars, subtle keyboards and a euphoric Andy 'OMD' Humphries-esque vocal from Reid makes this overlooked gem suddenly one of my favourite Eighties-songs-I-didn't-actually-hear-in-the-Eighties.
You'd agree, if you could actually get your hands on a copy.
The Chili Peppers are a band that she was into as a teenager at the time that Blood Sugar Sex Magik was released, and then promptly forgot about them. That interest was rekindled at the time of By The Way (her joint favourite album with Blood Sugar...) and started a passionate love affair that lasted until just after the birth of Daughter#1 and the simultaneous release of the bloated, patchy and horrendously-titled Stadium Arcadium double album. The single 'Snow (Hey Oh)' from that album is the one Mrs S always think of as the soundtrack to Daughter#1's first few weeks and it still evokes fond memories and emotions whenever we listen to it now, nearly five years on.
Daughter#1 was relatively well-exposed to the Chili Peppers (and the parallel solo albums of the band's now second time ex-guitarist, John Frusciante) quite a lot during her time in the womb. The track 'I Would Die For You' from By The Way was the one song Mrs S would play over and over while pregnant and a few days after we found out we were going to be parents Mrs S and I went to the Borgata hotel and casino in Atlantic City to watch an intimate performance by the band along with around five hundred other people, an event that totally ruined seeing them at Earl's Court the following year. Once you've seen a big band play a small venue you can't go back.
A book that Mrs S got for Christmas re-ignited her interest in the band, who are scheduled to release a new album this year, ably assisted by Frusciante's replacement, Josh Klinghoffer (who was brought into the band by his predecessor to add extra guitar to the Stadium Arcadium tracks on that album's tour, and who has been a long-standing musical partner of Frusciante). Consequently we spent a good chunk of New Year's Eve watching old RHCP performances instead of the garbage on TV. Since then the band have rarely been off the house iPod, and it's nice to see Mrs S falling back in love with them all over again. She even played some of their old videos to the impressionable Daughter#1. 'What did you think of the Chili Peppers then?' Mrs S asked. 'They were....really....noisy,' she replied, proof, if required, that familiarity with songs developed in the womb doesn't change a child's fundamental insouciance. She just wants to listen to Rufus Wainwright, which is okay by me.
The album I found myself listening to often during the holiday was Angelo Badalamenti's soundtrack to David Lynch's Twin Peaks. For reasons that I still don't understand – possibly my long-standing aversion to hype – I didn't watch Twin Peaks when it was first on; school friends discussed it avidly the day after an episode and yet the whole thing would just go completely over my head. Later I became something of a David Lynch fan after exposure to the twisted Eraserhead, but still for some reason I never watched Twin Peaks.
When the Horror channel started showing every episode late last year I figured it was about time I finally checked this out, and at last I understand what the fuss was all about; I was totally hooked. The mystery, intrigue, the faint whiff of Dynasty / Dallas piss-taking and the brilliantly loopy FBI agent Dale Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan) all add up to something pretty addictive and I'm vaguely reluctant to get around to watching the final three episodes, simply because I know then it's over.
The soundtrack grabbed me from the first episode. The electronic strings of Badalamenti's 'Laura Palmer's Theme' were familiar to me from Moby's 'Go', which sampled those strings and set them to a thudding 4/4 beat, never for one second losing the drama and lingering darkness of Badalamenti's piece. My favourite piece on the soundtrack is called 'Audrey Dancing', a wonky ersatz jazz number dominated by an off-kilter vibraphone riff and some skronking synthetic sax, used in the programme whenever something amusing or plain mysterious is happening (i.e. it gets used a lot each episode). The Julee Cruise songs I could live without (I'll stick with A.C. Marias for my ethereal female vocalist thanks), but do they effectively compliment the slightly surreal atmosphere of the programme.
Vinyl Corner
Sharks In Italy 'Time (Is Ours)' b/w 'Dancing' (7", 1984, Clay Records)
A Google search on the Eighties band Sharks In Italy produces one discogs.com entry for the Canadian release of their solitary album, and nothing else apart from some images of pontiffs and sharp-toothed and menacing great whites. I'm not terribly surprised; Sharks In Italy's 'Time (Is Ours)' found its way into my parents' collection thanks to a loose extended family connection to the singer, Sandy Reid, and consequently I figured that this was a 7" that only existed in the collections of random Stratford-upon-Avon friends of the band. I've had to scan the sleeve myself and everything, for Heaven's sakes. I'm not sure my parents ever played it while I was around, buying it more out of local duty rather than musical interest, but its existence has taken on an almost mythical importance to me; an importance which I fully expected to be shattered when I finally listened to this after New Year as part of a process of recording my parents' vinyl collection.
It's brilliant. If the recently-departed John Hughes had wanted another fey English band in the mould of Psychedelic Furs to populate more soundtracks to films of teenage classroom emotion and angst, he would have been well-advised to include 'Time (Is Ours)' or its equally excellent B-side 'Dancing'. Nice synthetic-sounding drums, shimmering, watery guitars, subtle keyboards and a euphoric Andy 'OMD' Humphries-esque vocal from Reid makes this overlooked gem suddenly one of my favourite Eighties-songs-I-didn't-actually-hear-in-the-Eighties.
You'd agree, if you could actually get your hands on a copy.
I have a copy sir.
ReplyDeleteI have a copy because for a short time I worked with the drummer in a Restaurant in Leamington Spa.