old punks web zine
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New Wave, Ska & Misc. Punk Music Reviews, Part II
F - P

Flash And The Pan - self-titled (LP review) (Epic): Few people remember them, but they were a welcome addition in 1979. A more orchestral New Musik, and kin to The Fabulous Poodles, Flash And The Pan recorded catchy electronics & new wave boogie featuring lead vocals that sounded like it came from an AM radio. Grace Jones did an excellent cover of their "Walking On The Moon".

Consisting of Harry Vanda and George Young, who wrote "Friday On My Mind" as a member of The Easybeats, Flash And The Pan was a pet project. They developed and produced AC/DC with George's younger brother Angus on guitar. One point off for that. To quote the album blurb, "While new wave is just a hairdo and punk is a rusty safety pin, Flash And The Pan is the New Music. It retains the fun of the Easybeats while maintaining its future musical vision by the use of some extraordinary production techniques." Being old-timers they wanted to distance themselves from The Kids while co-opting their sounds. I can't say I blame them, but you can't always have it both ways. Anyway, this is a great album filled with rich textures and beautifully arranged songs. The singing is deep and nasal with a pronounced and distinctive enunciation pattern. I'm sure you can find it cheap at a garage sale.

Flash And The Pan- Early Morning Wake Up Call (cassette review): Flash And The Pan’s fifth album, released in 1984 by Big Brother, is firmly rooted in the commercial new wave rock sounds of that era, and while it has its corny charms there’s nothing as interesting or cutting edge as "Hey St. Peter" or "Walking In The Rain". The dance beats are generally simplistic and not intrusive. The periodic hand-clapping parts are intrusive. "Midnight Man" offers some of the old charm and deserved to be a minor UK hit, and both "On The Road" and "Look At That Woman Go" are worth repeat listens. Otherwise there's too much 1984-era music here.

Flash And The Pan was a side project for Harry Vanda and George Young, an endeavor in vogue with songwriter/producers. A few hits later they found a viable hobby that lasted until 1988. They recorded six albums, and I'll wager most people could get by with just their greatest hits collection. Otherwise it’s pick and choose with a band who were always good and sometimes even great.

The Flying Lizards - self-titled LP (review) (Virgin): On one level I agree with the critic who wrote of the Flying Lizards, "... a perfect example of what can happen when theories and explanations come first." The Flying Lizards were whatever band David Cunningham taped together to present his often pretentious exercises in aural cubism. His reliance on cover songs and having his female singer de jour warble like a cross pollination of Nina Hagen and Lene Lovich led many, often rightly so, to label The Flying Lizards an art-school joke. The thing is though, sometimes it works.

They recorded three albums from ‘79 to ‘84, moving more towards covers as original inspiration escaped Cunningham's brain like air from a tire. It's hard to track down who plays and sings on various tracks. On the debut album it could be Viv Goldman, Deborah Evans or my aunt Edna. They scored in the new wave era with a cover of "Money (That's What I Want)". The detached Euro-snobbery of the tune fit like a glove on those who thought faking a British accent was cool. Band photos always showed Cunningham and a female singer. When not playing all the instruments himself, various members of This Heat and The Pop Group earned quick pub money in the studio.

At worst, The Flying Lizards were pretentious in ways that earn most folks a smack. At their best, they walked a fine line between Kraftwerk, The Talking Heads, The Normal, Klaus Nomi, Brian Eno, The Residents and a few other Ralph Records bands. The best album track ends side two, written and sung by Viv Goldman, who went on to work with PIL and others. "The Window" is a beautiful song Roches fans would pee themselves over. Roches fans are famous for their weak bladders.

Some parts of the album are annoying, while others intrigue me. The love/hate relationship is to be expected on records that go out of their way to be obtuse. My one hand clapping may be your why is that strange man waving at me? Either you liked or really hated that last line. Either wa, I still get to pat myself on the tushy for being clever. F--k Dance, Let's Art!

Franz Ferdinand - Franz Ferdinand (CD review): To paraphrase and sanitize my favorite line from Street Trash (new on DVD but wait for the special edition), "I follow popular culture like old people make love". I don't watch TV, listen to the radio or read music mags. I pick things up mostly from Entertainment Weekly and allmusic.com. For a while I thought Franz Ferdinand were the leaders, if not founders, of the latest new wave revival. They're neither. Their single "Take Me Out" may be the best known in the genre but it's gimmicky and campy. The Futureheads, Interpol, Bloc Party and Maximo Park are so much better. Only about half of their debut disc is worthwhile.

While I enjoy their Joy Division, Wire, New Order and Gang Of Four influences, they also play campy glam and the disco Rod Stewart scorched the earth with in 1978 when he warbled "Do Ya Think I'm Sexy?" Literally, that song, referenced more than once. The good songs are "Jacqueline", "The Dark Of The Matinee", "Cheating On You", "This Fire" and "Michael" (even sung like Sisters Of Mercy) and "40'".

I hate disco. What can I say. White people shouldn't try to shake their groove things, which we don't have anyway. We just have asses. And while I like many old glam songs there's a style of it that makes me wince like a football to the groi-oi-oin. Picture overly happy people clapping in rhythm while a marching band drum major high steps and waves that stupid staff left and right and up and down (no offense to the dude with the Eraserhead hairstyle). That's the glam FF goes for, and if this makes them the most popular band in the genre then once again I'm too cool for school.

The Futureheads - self-titled (CD review): I can't think of a more fun band to come from the new angular movement than Sunderland, England's Futureheads. Their self-titled CD was produced by Gang Of Four's Andy Gill, but to say this sounds like Gang Of Four would be a mistake, especially compared to other bands. The Rosetta Stone for this is XTC's White Music and GO2, albums that have grown in importance years after their release. You can throw in The Jam for good measure.

Barry Hyde sometimes sings like Robert Smith, but these guys sound Scottish or something. "Don't" comes out as "Dough'nt" and "Rust" is "Roost". I'm from New York so I haven't a clue. There's not a weak track to be found, my favorites being "Le Garage", "A To B" and "Man Ray". The songs generate infectious energy. I lost the track listing but a slow one sounds like Al Stewart, he of "Time Passages" and "Year Of The Cat".

I highly recommend this to all you new wave hipster doofus maroons out there in blogtown.

Peter Gabriel - Us (CD review) (Geffen): Anyone who doesn't give Peter Gabriel his due for innovation, intelligence, craftsmanship and sheer intensity is a sad little person. Of all the rock stars to embrace world music, Gabriel is by far the least pretentious and most innovative. As former leader of the prog art-band Genesis, Gabriel could stretch out a song to twelve minutes as well as any ELP or Rick Wakeman. In ‘75 he left the safety of a successful band for a solo career, in quick succession releasing four albums all with the same title and lettering – Peter Gabriel. Us came out in ‘92 and is surprisingly dull. "Kiss That Frog" was the single but it's only ok. Looking at his old records and thinking back to the show I saw in Atlantic City in ‘78 (?), I can't recommend them strongly enough. "Solsbury Hill" (Oh yeah), "D.I.Y" (Hoo Nelly), "I Don't Remember" (Crud!!) – it’s progressive meets new wave and a new standard is set for lush, fully-orchestrated weirdness. Many of these songs are creepy and paranoid. If "I Have The Touch" from the fourth album doesn't force you to dance until you retch from exhaustion, you must be dead, my dead friend.

Gang Of Four - Entertainment (LP review) (Warner Brothers): If you're an asexual, alienated white socialist who likes to dance funky without shaking your hips, Gang Of Four is the band for you! I laugh at the sell-outs they later became, but Entertainment is a classic new wave album, easily in the top ten in quality and importance. The Clash introduced reasoned political discourse to punk, but for a while Gang Of Four packed the intensity of Crass into the more neutral new wave genre without losing impact. The angry jaggedness of the guitars puts this one high up the best-of list.

Released in 1979, Entertainment shows the Gang Of Four as contemporaries of Wire, The Talking Heads, The Fall, Killing Joke, The Cure, Buzzcocks, The Au Pairs and The Mekons. The Minutemen came later but you can trace a line from Leeds, UK to San Pedro, CA. Their energy is kinetic, their seriousness confrontational. Gang Of Four in recent years has disavowed socialist associations in their music, but their lyrics and cover art lay it on hot and heavy. The front cover is bare except for the band name, album title and three small pictures of the same cowboy shaking hands with a Native American. The text that wraps around the pictures reads "The Indian smiles, he thinks that the cowboy is his friend," "The cowboy smiles, he is glad the Indian is fooled," "Now he can exploit him." As you all know, no one has ever been exploited under socialism (sarcasm off). The stridency of the lyrics is something I write off as pretentious and arty mental gymnastics. They never managed to smash the state, but they did manage to love a man in uniform.

The generally slower Solid Gold followed in 198, and then bassist Dave Allen left to form Shriekback with Barry Andrews of XTC. Gang Of Four released "I Love A Man In Uniform" and their descent into the disco side was complete.

Gang Of Four - Return The Gift (CD review): The import of Gang Of Four's old-is-new-again CD contains an extra disc of remixes that begs the question: Will GOF try to out-club the club kids? Thankfully the answer is they don't even go there. Think of Return The Gift as a great new Peel session recorded a quarter century after the fact.

The career of GOF has paralleled that of Wire, with Wire producing more great albums up front before dissolving into irrelevance, only to come back strong riding a wave of nostalgia for jagged edges and asexual dance beats. I only point this out to show you how clever I am.

Why release covers of your own greatest hits? Well, it's not because the drum tracks needed improvement. It's more like how Pitchfork describes it:

To date, Gang of Four still have unrecouped advances on their EMI catalog and have never seen a dime of royalty cash from sales. So in order to pre-empt an attempt by their old label to cash in on the reunion with a best-of compilation they'd see no money from, they made their own best-of album, recording new masters that they'll be able to earn royalties from. It's good business.

Capital failed GOF then but they won't let that happen again! As they admit in interviews now, their politics aren't as they appear:

Q: Ah, so you were into politics already! A: No, I think that's overstating it. When you're young and doing those kind of things, you're throwing various things into the pot. Obviously, with the name Gang of Four, there's a certain element of irony and it's a little bit tongue-in-cheek. That's part of why that name works. But I don't think there was any political awareness at the stage.

Ah yes, to be young, dumb and full of art school pretentiousness. My god, their lyrics were something out of the SLA or a Sacco and Vanzetti musical, and it got more ridiculous as they went along as they tossed in groan-worthy double entendre sex references and packaged it in a disco coating. The girls they love to see you shoot. Hoo boy...

Disc one opens with "To Hell With Poverty" and it's an in-joke confession. Track three, "Natural's Not In It", contains the recurring line "Repackaged sex keeps your interest" and it's an admission of the entire idea behind Return The Gift. "Anthrax" has a spoken/sung vocal on the right speaker which opens with the words "This is an archeology exercise really". Jeez, the CD keeps on referencing itself.

On the plus side, the versions here all kick arse and "I Love A Man In Uniform" is given a stiffer wrist. The drums pound and the guitar slashes and burns. The bonus disc isn't that bad either, with only a few wane efforts at dance groove and club kid numbnuttery. All in all Gang Of Four present themselves well and are presented well by others. This "proves something" and also lines their pockets with a few evil capitalist dollars. Everyone wins and Gang Of Four can still pretend they didn't sell out to maintain the interest.

Gang Of Four - Peel Sessions (CD review): I find it odd that Gang Of Four's latest CD has them re-recording old hits faithfully to the originals. It may be good but I have the Peel Sessions so fifteen bucks stay in ye 'ol vault. Compiled from three John Peel radio sessions, the sound is of course perfect. It slows down as it goes along, with the best material loaded up front.

Gang Of Four released Entertainment! in 1979 and by many accounts, including mine, it's one of the most influential records on modern music. It combines asexual funk rhythms, slashing guitars, disaffected vocals and cartoonishly strident marxist polemics that have aged as well as Ward Churchill. Gang Of Four are either pushing or pushing back fifty, so I wonder if anyone's asking them if they see the irony in their lyric "Repackaged sex keeps your interest". You know, as in selling old records seems a bit bourgeois.

Over its eleven tracks the Peel sessions start with songs from Entertainment! and moves to slower material (and material played slower) from Solid Gold, an over-rated record if there ever was one. The slower work has its charms but faster is always better, and I don't want to keep reminding myself I'm not listening to Throbbing Gristle or Can on barbiturates.

One more thing: "I Love A Man In Uniform" was Gang Of Four's Village People moment.

Even one more thing: Allmusic.com claims GOF influenced Naked Raygun. No, Frigging, Way.

General Public - "General Public"/"Dishwasher" (7" review) (Virgin): Why did Dave Wakeling and Ranking Roger disband The English Beat in 1984 to form General Public? Probably for the same reasons Fun Boy Three replaced The Specials in 1982. I'm just guessing, but I figure both were tired of the punk/2-Tone scenes they came from. The violence and the politics wore like a war. Maybe they decided to start over, explore their pop roots, hop on the top-40 bandwagon and harvest some cash. Fun Boy Three was the more lightweight operation. General Public had a few hits that weren't far off from what they were doing in The Beat. "General Public" was their first and best single. Mick Jones from The Clash plays guitar. Saxa appeared on their second LP and is cooler than you'll ever hope to be. "General Public" was great to dance to and English Beat fans were happy. "Dishwasher" is an instrumental that sounds like Split Enz chipped in ideas. Not bad but it’s here as filler. Dave Wakeling plays all the time in the Los Angeles area, and I think they even advertise it as The English Beat. I’ll bet at this point it's more of a lounge act.

Girlfriend Material - We Love You & We Love You Deux (CDs review): the website for this Long Island alt. pop band no longer exists. That can't be good. There’s three songs on each CD, and just when you think they’re kicking serious tushy with an abrasive guitar chord attack and stinging farfisa new wave organ they throw in a funky white guy on mushrooms groove or off-key backup singing. Bands need to decide up front: do you want to suck or not? Mixing the two in the same song is annoying. "Don't Let Go" sounds like Devo's "Gates Of Steel", and just when you're felling good about life they pull the rave-drug bait and switch. The bastards. Good and bad shouldn't exist as close to each other as they do here. What a waste.

The Go! Team - Thunder, Lightning, Strike (CD review): The Go! Team are from the UK, so the Go Team must be from the USA! (Spinal Tap reference). Thunder, Lightning, Strike is a fun record but there's a hipster cuteness to it that can turn me off. They create an impressive array of cacophonies that creep up on you like The Arcade Fire (the latter less in your face about it) but I'm not a fan of scratching, no matter how infrequent, and the old soul record horns they toss in are a bit too precious, like claiming your favorite movie of all time is an ABC After School Special.

The Go! Team do have interesting shtick: They cook the dials so the high end distorts like a sizzle, the drums are muddy and muted, they sing in a style that combines cheerleading and schoolyard jump-rope and they bang a lot of instruments junkyard style. About half of this is instrumental, and it's not all funk by any means like some reviews indicate. I really enjoy about 95% of this, and so much happens in each song it's not just a matter of saying I like this song but not that one. The allmusic.com review is my thoughts exactly without the total enthusiasm.

My favorite tracks are "Panther Dash", "Feel Good By Numbers" (sounds like the Snoopy theme), "Get It Together" (very pleasant flute), "Friendship Update" and (especially) "Huddle Formation", which packs as much energy as any Agnostic Front single.

God Is My Co-Pilot - Get Busy and Straight Not (CDs review): I know as a weirdo I should be more into this, but God Is My Co-Pilot (GIMCP) tries too hard to be eclectic, unruly and arty. I need to quote Homer Simpson in this case, "Less arty, more farty". I like Renaldo and The Loaf, so I know my freak account is paid up. Bands like God Is My Co-Pilot are seemingly making statements through non-structured music. I wonder how much contempt these guys have toward their audience for having to perform for them. The more I listen to these the better it gets, or at least the more I appreciate what they're trying to do. Still, it's not something I'd buy or see live.

One of the band’s gimmicks is that husband and wife team Sharon Topper and Craig Flanagan are militant bisexuals. To quote Sex And The City, "I'm not sure bisexuality even exists. I think it's just a layover on the way to Gaytown". So, instead of saying God Is My Co-Pilot sound like No Wave Minutemen, it's also jazzy Crass. Crass is a band I can listen to up till the point I feel like I'm being screamed at like a dumb, lumpy proletariat. Topper sings, recites lez beat poetry and occasionally yells, but the lyrics are so dogmatic I imagine the stage she's singing on is forty feet high and her finger always points straight down at my face. Don't take my word for it. Here's lyrics from "We Signify": "We're co-opting rock, the language of sexism, to address gender identity on its own terms of complexity. We're here to instruct, not to distract. We won't take your attention without giving some back." Do whatever you want lady, I'm just not interested in the Power Point presentation. The band’s also known for releasing an endless stream of records on an endless number of labels.

Straight Not is a 26 track release from 1993, a year that saw ten GIMCP recordings. The Minutemen comparison is glaring in everything from song cramming to stridency. The Minutemen got funky, whereas Straight Not is freeform junkyard pickup-band jazz. GIMCP lineups changed constantly, and they mined a rich vein of poor NYC musicians, easy since they were closely tied to The Knitting Factory. It's taken me this long to finally appreciate The Minutemen. Freeform jazz will always elude me, along with Frank Sinatra, who to me was Rex Harrison with a slightly better octave range.

Get Busy is one of their last, from 1998. The songs are longer, and after a fashion they have actual structure. Topper's singing at times reminds me of Cindy Wilson of the B-52s. The crowded-stage, found-instrument junkyard band element is out in force but it's refined and supported by excellent percussion and horn. What makes this CD a keeper is how it evokes in guitar and sax the Smelly Tongue era Residents, who pull from the same Sun Ra influence.

Straight Not would be a perfect gift for your Gutter Gay friends, if such people even exist. Get Busy is for the Zappa fan who lives in his parent’s basement and enjoys the mold in the closet for its colors and musky odor.

The Go Go's - Beauty And The Beat (LP review) (I.R.S.): If recording a near perfect collection of pop tunes is a crime, the Go Go's pulled off a Brinks Job in 1981. One critic described it as "Sixties pop for the eighties with a seventies philosophy." Only the terminally insecure didn't like The Go-Go's when their debut came out, and the same applies now. And if you know your L.A. punk history you know the Go-Go's were an integral part of it starting in 1978. Belinda Carlisle sang with Black Randy. She also sang with The Germs for a short time. That’s right, I wrote The Germs. Charlotte Caffey was in The Eyes, while Baltimoron Gina Schock backed Edith Massey of John Waters fame in Edie & The Eggs (taken from her stolen scenes in Pink Flamingos).

The Go-Go’s painted their faces (like Split Enz) and called themselves The Misfits. Belinda and Jane were the punks (Billy Zoom taught Jane chords) while the others were more pop oriented. The combination worked well for them. Influenced by the singles standard of The Buzzcocks, Beauty And The Beat is not only blessed with great songwriting, Carlisle's voice is superlative and Gina Schock beats the living k-rap out of her drum kit.

The Go Go's break came when they opened for Madness in L.A. This led to a 22-stop tour and a deal with Stiff Records, who released "We Got The Beat" in the UK in a sped up 45 rpm version the band didn't like. I saw them open for The Specials on a pier in NYC. They put on a great show. The Specials were promoting More Specials and I was pissed they played so little off their debut. ODW also opened.

Every song on Beauty And The Beat is great. Lighten up and admit it. Poison Idea and other hardcore bands have covered Go-Go's. It's ok to like them. Really. I give you permission to have fun, ok? OK! Now, let's talk about that stupid haircut....

 The Go-Go's - God Bless The Go-Go's (CD review) (Beyond): The Go-Go's last album came out in 1984. Thanks partly to an episode of Behind The Music (American youth’s favorite morality plays of meltdown and redemption) and partly nostalgia, the best all-female new wave band are back with an album cover that's pissing off the Catholic Church. Jesus!

Before the CD came out I watched The Go-Go's perform "Unforgiven" on Conan O'Brien. Not only did it blow me away, it sent me back to 1980 when Graham Parker and The Rumour played "Empty Lives" on the show Fridays.  The creativity and energy of that lead guitar is still a highlight of my musical life, and "Unforgiven" captured that same feel. Billie Joe Armstrong provided guitar for this track on the album, and his accomplishment here cannot be understated. "Unforgiven" is easily one of the best songs I'll hear this year.

That guitar style comes from a great new wave tradition. Bands like Devo and Wall Of Voodoo were masters of it. They took direct inspiration from surf music (think "Wipeout"), spy theme music ("Secret Agent Man") and spaghetti westerns (Ennio Morricone). It's minimalist yet effective.

Not every song is a keeper, but enough of God Bless The Go-Go's is good enough to trample any notion the band only got back together to cash in on name recognition. The album is pretty much exactly what it should be - neither sucking up to the past nor pandering to the present.

Out of thirteen tracks there are three I'd rather not hear again. "Insincere" is an average album track and the time spent listening to it passes with no harm or foul. "Throw Me A Curve" is Belinda Carlisle's love note to her own plus size figure, on display in an upcoming issue of Playboy. I'll be sure to miss that, but I like how her face has, for lack of a better description, flattened out to an alluring sleekness. She had a pudgy face like Blair from "The Facts Of Life". The word-play of "throw me a curve" is too cute, but it's nowhere as sad as the repeated singing of the words "kissing asphalt" in, you guessed it, "Kissing Asphalt". If you think that's funny you probably think Beavis and Butthead was genius.

"La La Land" opens the CD with power, creativity and confidence. It's more biting than their old songs but it's still good clean fun, and you can dance the new wave two-step to it like we did decades ago! "Unforgiven" follows and we both agree I love that one. "Apology" is beautifully crafted, and such an effective interplay of words and music can only come from either time or talent, and in this case it doesn't matter. You can't come away from "Apology" thinking The Go-Go's reformed to crank out music by the numbers. "Stuck In My Car" opens with a guitar line ripped from "We Got The Beat".

"Vision Of Nowness" spotlights how well Carlisle's vocal chords have aged. She holds a note beautifully, and any time the word "nowness" is harmonized an epiphany reveals itself. I read somewhere that Sammy Davis Jr., upon meeting Belinda Carlise, called her a "vision of nowness". That' as so Candy Man of him. "Here You Are" is Beatlesque and Belinda sings like Cyndi Lauper. Psychedelic rewinds aren't my thing unless it's done for yucks by The Dukes Of Stratosphear, but the strings are nice and the wood block percussion is neat. "Automatic Rainy Day" reminds me I recommend listening to this CD with high volume. The guitar is generally low in the mix so at high volumes it makes more of an impact. Also, the vibrations add an intensity that toughens the entire work. Anyway, there's a nice roaring wall of guitar noise on this track. "Superslide" is playful like The B-52's. "Talking Myself Down" has a great piano accompaniment. "Daisy Chain" is another Beatle-inspired piece of orchestral magnitude, and I like it because it sounds like Andy Partridge arranged it.

I hope this record does well. There's no reason why it shouldn't, except that it may not be retro in the way the masses like it force fed to them. And, you know, these women are old! They're, like, your mom's age!

Goldfinger - (CD review) (MOJO): On Lookout Records, Operation Ivy combined ska with hardcore in a well produced and skillfully conceived package. Green Day made it big in the top-40 world with super-fast power pop and wacky hi-jinx. Hipster major label folks decided a combination of the best of both would sell, so they signed Goldfinger. Nothing sells like commercial street cred, as you know.

Punks make major labels sound like the Devil, an overreaction to what actually happens - music is formulated to appeal to either the widest possible audience or tailored so specifically to a niche market it looses all authenticity and comes off sterile. Major label punk almost always sounds like a corporate product. Majors (and small indies who act big) sell raw energy, individualism, attitude and rebel style the same way McDonald's does Big Macs.

Goldfinger's CD is another in a line of alternative bands, in this case alt. punk, rolled out to a hopefully receptive audience of fickle, trend humping kids. This has a little of everything mixed together to guarantee all potential fan bases are covered - mosh parts, ska/punk, loads of Green Day and just enough funk for that crowd. "Here In Your Bedroom" is a hit, and it's pretty good. The rest blurs into each other, all the nuances and unexpected shifts coming off as spontaneous as a Passion Play. I don't mean to beat up on Goldfinger in particular, but if this keeps up pretty soon I'll be ranting with the rest of the numbnuts on the Major Labels Suck bandwagon.

Gruppo Sportivo - Mistakes (LP review) (Sire): I've seen this in discount bins for years. The name is weird like Spizz Energy 80. For fifty cents, this time I couldn't say no. Mistakes is a fun record with humor and sincere nods to the European and US pop music from that era. The biggest influences I found was Wings, of all things, with good new wave rhythms and even a kazoo solo to be had. Also coming to mind are Martha And The Muffins, Flash And The Pan, and Squeeze.

Formed in 1976 in Holland, Gruppo Sportivo was and is still helmed by Hans Vanderburg. The best of their two UK LPs were compiled on this US release. There's an informed quality to the songs, which touch on reggae, surf, lounge, show tune, girl group and pop with loving parody and serious execution. The two female backup singers have a lot of personality and great vocal range. Some of this is too slow, but "Mission A Paris", "Hey Girl", "I Shot My Manager" and "P.S. 78" are definitely worth a listen. And, for fifty cents I no longer have to wonder what the hell this band sounds like any more.

Guided By Voices- Alien Lanes (CD review) (Matador): I borrowed this from a co-worker and I'm writing as I listen for the first time. GBV have a sterling underground reputation, which is good, but their fans seem too firmly planted in the dreaded Alternative camp, so I turned this on with some trepidation. Here's some bands that pop into my head as I listen: The Who, Husker Du, King Crimson, The Beatles, Ween, They Might Be Giants, The Byrds and The Moody Blues. That's quite a mix, and if you can do it well you must be some brand of genius. Guided By Voices seem to succeed more often than not. GBV's reputation is for short, low-fi diddies that end just before you've figured out what's going on. I like that approach. Their influences may be progressive rock but their attention span is short and sweet.

By the mistake he jewel case came with two CDs - Alien Lanes and something called Box (abridged). I can't say if they were packaged together on purpose. Alien Lanes has 28 blasts of raw, short tunes, while Box has 24 songs with generally higher production values. I like some songs more than others but I will say they're good at what they do and probably deserve their great reputation and small yet fervent following. I can't say I'd buy anything from them, but I would like to hear more just to be more familiar with their work. Who knows, they may have a record that will make me into a groupie. Hey, it could happen, you know.

Half Japanese - Hot (CD review) (Safe House): Jad Fair's been around since the dawn of time putting out more recordings than even Jad himself can remember. He's always working here, collaborating there, yet his combined sales probably wouldn't top 100,000 units - not an indicator of talent but of the obscurity of Jad's world. Jad's weird enough to work with The Residents, but much of what I've heard from him is a milder version of the Zappa/Beefheart formula of eccentric rocking folk. No Trend did it a little harder and weirder, and Clawhammer probably still does a punkier version of it. The photograph of the band looks like it's from 1971. Rockin’ intellectuals who like to think it’s still 1971 are the market for this kind of music. Jad's a genius, and it won't be fully realized until the year 3027, when everybody will have a grand old time at the annual Jad Fair.

Hawaiian Pups - Split Second Precision (12” review) (Portrait): I owned this 12" EP when it came out in 1983, but sold it a few years later because I couldn't look at myself in the mirror for liking the blatant novelty song "Baby Judy". I swear the synthesized vocal track of "Up! Up! Up!" was swiped for that cutesy little dinosaur who chirped "Yup Yup Yup!" in The Land Before Time. Lately I've kept my eye open for this record, and there it was, in a fifty cent bin where it was meant to languish for all eternity. I don't mean that, not really, but the Hawaiian Pups are a guilty pleasure you don't admit to unless the hammer of the gun held to your head is pulled back.

New Wave was filled with novelty acts, some more novel than others. Joe "King" Carrasco's routine made me squirm, and someone still needs to talk me down from Nina Hagen. Then there's Skafish's nose, which I'd break but I only have two hands! Maybe you can argue that most new wave was a novelty. What made "Baby Judy" stand out was its seemingly blatant attempt to attract the attention of Dr. Demento (listed to have played a Hawaiian Pups track called "Spook Opera").

The work of three studio engineers (John Klett, Tara Shanahan and John Terelle), Split Second Precision is manipulated to hell and back, but also beautifully crafted. John Klett is now a master audio engineer who runs his own studio, and his on-line resume sums up The Hawaiian Pups thusly, "...my experience as an artist signed to one of the CBS labels (1982-1983)..." He’s credited with remastering a few Wendy Carlos albums. John Terelle runs Studio B at the Clack Sound Studios in NY, and he's worked with both The Go-Go's and Tom Verlaine. John has a good sense of humor and a while back I ran across something where he mentioned being in The Hawaiian Pups. Tara Shanahan sent me a nice e-mail recently but I don't know what she's been up to.

"Infinite Roads" opens side one, and you can peel it open like an onion until you cry. The influences are obvious but they put it together naturally and it flows nicely. The guitar riff is faux spaghetti western & faux middle eastern. The initial feel is Lena Lovich's "Lucky Number". In the middle you realize the song's changed to Santana's "Evil Ways". Tara's singing mimics the sensuality of Debbie Harry, and then she's going "Ayayayayayayay" like Lena Lovich. And then, and then!, a kid's choir goes into the children's sing-song "Mama mama please tell me, who the man I marry will be, doctor, lawyer, Indian chief, rich man, poor man, beggar man, thief." Children’s choirs are either pretentious (Pink Floyd), creepy (choose from a number of cheap horror movies) or boring (holiday TV specials). Here, it's just insane. It's out of place, but not really. It’s nutty.

There's a creative use of bells, primitive drumming, xylophone and oddball sampling on "Trash", a slow number that's lush and atmospheric. "Young Boys" is close to what King Carrasco was cranking out, but less extreme. The slightly funky new wave dance rhythms are driven by the bass, which is in my opinion deliberately low in the mix. Tara adds some Marilyn Monroe sexiness to her singing.

Then there's "Baby Judy", which takes 1000 face-cringing clichés and throws them at you like rotten fruit. The sad part is that it's masterfully done. The Jew's Harp effect that runs through it is mesmerizing. The voices are modulated to be either high and cute or low and serious. "Run Spot Run" is a major theme, along with lines like "Meanwhile, back in India", which is followed by screeching wails from, uh, India. The Baby Judy voice is the thing that makes you want to rip off your own skin one layer at a time. They also fit in the "Ah ha ha ah ha ha" riff from the silly song that went "They're coming to take you away, ah ha".

The b-side contains extended versions of "Baby Judy" and "Young Boys", the first mostly extended and the second re-worked as a pure dance number. The songs blend into each other, which I assume prevents the DJ from lifting the needle. That's a joke you only get away with once. Split Second Decision is an odd record that has aged fairly well, even if you'll be laughed at forever for thinking it’s not so bad after all.

Hot Butter Popcorn (an appreciation): I've always loved the 1972 Moog classic "Popcorn". You can hear it here in enough versions to make you puke. Written by Gershon Kingsley in 1969 and recorded by associate Stan Free under the name Hot Butter, it pre-dated the guh-oofy Hooked On Classics records but came long after Muzak. It sits to the side in music history as an odd little creature neither fish nor fowl, like "Video Killed The Radio Star". It's pretty cool and radical for 1972.

It opens with a solid tone neither warm nor cold, like a pleasant emergency broadcast signal. The moogs kick in along with a live drummer who works over his kit like Buddy Rich before he's about to have an controlled seizure. Cheesy yet lush strings come in later but I focus on the single note progressions of the popcorn sound, which move up and down the scale like muzak emulating vocals with the piano. At first it's clumsy, like each note is a major effort, but soon Free's hitting each note true. And in muzak fashion I make up lyrics like:

"I love popcorn, yes I do, I love popcorn, how 'bout you?..."

Kingsley was a Moog pioneer: "Kingsley continued to experiment with the Moog, recording two Moog albums for Audio Fidelity. Impresario Sol Hurok, fascinated by Kingsley's work, hired him to lead a Moog quartet at Carnegie Hall in early 1970. There were two catches, however. First, Kingsley had to convince Robert Moog to build the three other synthesizers he needed. Then he had to hire and train four musicians to play them. He ended up auditioning 150 players to find the four he needed, and the group's initial performance drew a range of responses, from an outright slam by The New York Times to an enthusiastic call from Arthur Fiedler. Fiedler asked Kingsley to write a Concerto for Moog that the quartet performed with the Boston Pops Orchestra in 1971."

I bet you can trace a line from "Popcorn" to the Silicon Teens.

The Human League - Dare (LP review) (A&M): I've always liked this record, but I've always been embarrassed by it too. Parts of it are decent while some songs make me wince. The first Depeche Mode album has the same effect. It's what happens when good electronic bands discover they can make money if they record pandering disco funk tracks for loud, stupid trend-humping fashion lemmings. Bitter much I am?

Human League started as a standard Kraftwerk-influenced progressive, electronic gloom outfit. After Travelogue came out in 1980, a few members left to form the British Electronic Foundation while new ones climbed on, including former Rezillo Jo Callis and disco-dancing schoolgirls Joanne Catherall and Susanne Sulley. They were literally plucked from the floor of a Sheffield club called The Crazy Daisy Disco to go-go dance and create a pretty distraction for a band with a rep for being boring on stage. That these two women became singers and a key to Human League's success is a great story of serendipity that used to get a lot of mileage in the music press. It’s a human interest story of how your dreams can come true, it can happen to you, when you wish upon a star.

Dare opens with "The Things That Dreams Are Made Of", sluggish in tempo but a good example of how well Human League used keyboards to emulate guitars, from walls-of-noise chords to emotive leads. When they list "Johnny, Joey, Dee Dee" as things dreams are made of, you can hear a "Hey Ho Let's Go!" feel in the music. "The Sound Of The Crowd" has a nice primitive, noire beat and the keyboards run at a Gary Numan pace. Side 2 opens with "Get Carter", a 1:02 minute mood piece commonly found on records of the time. "I Am The Law" sounds great loud, and any song about comic book bruiser Judge Dredd can't be all bad. It’s also great crooning from the School of Bowie. "Seconds" is reason enough to buy the album. In a just world it would have been the single. It’s easily one of the top five electronic new wave songs of all time. The sound of the explosion was so well mixed that for years I'd flinch every time I heard it.

The rest of the album is disco crap. What I hated most about their hit "Don't You Want Me Baby" was that, like Rod Stewart's "Do Ya Think I'm Sexy", losers mouthed the words while they gyrated their fat asses, thinking this added another front to their war of the sexes. I might say you're lucky for having missed that era, but with today's rap metal being as nihilistically stupid as it is, thinking you're hot poop is, in retrospect, quaint.

Ian Hunter- Short Back N' Sides (LP review) (Chrysalis): Ian Hunter fans love this record, and as a fan of kitsch I appreciate the corn value, but this is one of those embarrassments of riches/riches of embarrassments deals. There's a little of everything, the thought possibly being that if you visit every cliché you'll sell more records. Short Back N' Sides is also so over-produced it comes across more as a special effects reel than a rock album. This is especially true with the drums on the slower songs, which might have been recorded in a custom-engineered cave.

Ian is most associated with Mott The Hoople, one of the best and influential UK rock/pub bands of the ‘70s. As was his way of repaying debts of musical inspiration, David Bowie scooped up Ian during a career lull in 1972, lent him "All The Young Dudes", and produced the album of the same name that both saved and prolonged Mott The Hoople's career. Bowie's singing was partly influenced by Hunter. Master guitarist Mick Ronson oined Mott after his stint as one of Bowie's Spiders From Mars.

The Clash's Mick Jones, repaying a musical debt of his own, produced Short Back N' Sides, and everyone from Ellen Foley to Todd Rungren jumped in to lend support. Ian Hunter wrote the songs but the conception and execution of the album by a revolving menu of studio pros lead to a sterile product. It has its charms, but the faux-disco of "Leave Me Alone", with vocals that deliberately imitate Bowie, is enough to make you furtively peek around the room to make sure nobody noticed you're listening to pap.

"Central Park 'N' West" opens the album in fine pub rock style. The next song, "Lisa Likes Rock N' Roll", oddly sounds like "I Want Candy". "Noises", coming out a year earlier, had to have been the inspiration for Split Enz's "Six Months In A Leaky Boat". "Gun Control", in many ways a Kinks song, suffers from lite-ska. "Theatre Of The Absurd" is a stab at dub reggae, influenced by Mick Jones. There's a little of everything and you wonder how much was initiated by Ian Hunter and how much was pushed on him or added later on in the studio.

There’s some guilty pleasures, some legitimately fine music, and enough cheese to make a grown man wince.

Interpol - Turn On The Bright Lights (CD review): This is about the band Interpol and some other things. I've listened 1 1/2 times and that's all I need.

Interpol do a great take on Joy Division with some other inseminating bands thrown in. They're not as important as Joy Division but I'd rather listen to Interpol's catalog than Joy Division's. Joy Division was part greatness and part Snipe Hunt /No Soap Radio. Sure they have hits, but lordy could they record long stretches of nothing. That kind of noodling is great if you're in a barbituate-enhanced suicide death spiral, but it's dull for us civilians. You also don't want to venture too far from Throbbing Gristle's 20 Jazz Funk Greats or too deep into Jim Foetus. I also didn't appreciate JD and Foetus not listing what songs were on their records. I didn't know if something was an album or a 12", and after a point I lost interest.

I've watched Joy Division tapes for as long as I could hold the fast forward button. The meandering, minimalist electronic dada genre is like Andy Warhol's Campbell Soup Can. It's clever, simple and only worth the time it takes to get the punchline. The longer you dwell on these things the more pretentious or eccentric you must be. I find it creepy and instructive how Joy Division fans back in Ian Curtis' time drew sick pleasure from his epileptic seizures.

As far as Interpol not sounding original, who cares. There's almost no real originality in music anyway. Without The Rolling Stones and The Ramones the punk genre would still just be called garage rock. Without The Clash, Rancid would still be living in their van eating beans. I love bands that do a great job emulating other bands I like. I'd pay in blood for someone who did a good Wall Of Voodoo circa 1981.

Interview - big oceans (LP review) (Virgin): This is a fine collection of soulful pop tunes with engaging backup vocals and nice guitar work. Peter Gabriel was a fan but his early production work on "Shipyards" sounded too much like Gabriel, so Interview started over with someone new. Virgin lent initial support but lost interest when big oceans didn't chart well. There’s not a hit single in the bunch but each track is worth repeated plays Interview recorded two more albums and then faded gently into the night. Try to find this used - you'll be pleasantly surprised.

Interview (LP review) (Virgin): The third and last record from this subtle and underrated UK band. Released in 1980 from Virgin, who by this point had probably forgotten Interview was on their roster, Interview continues the tradition of strong album tracks in search of a killer hit single. If you can imagine a cross between Squeeze, Split Enz and Steely Dan you might get what Interview sounds like. The production values are excellent without being overproduced while the melodies are strong yet simple. Yup, another excellent record for when you're putzing around the house. Still, if they wrote a hit single or two they'd be remembered by more than just their mothers and geezer nerds like myself.

Ivor Biggun - The Fruity Bits Of Ivor Biggun (CD review) (Stiff Weapon): For two decades I knew the words to 1978's "The Wanker's Song" but I didn't know the title or who recorded it. All I know is that I crack every time I remember a line like "I've wanked over Italy, I've wanked over Spain, I've wanked on an omnibus, I've even had a wank on a train!" It’s a throwback vaudeville-era ukulele ditty sung by a man who sounds like Monty Python's Eric Idle, and it stayed on the UK charts for twelve weeks while topping the indie/punk charts for several weeks. It was the first hit for Begger's Banquet.

Why the punk charts? It's subversive within the context of a beloved musical style ingrained in everyone’s minds, young and old. Pub culture in the UK was (is it still?) multi-generational, and the dance hall tradition lasted longer than did vaudeville in the US. The US nuclear family blew up a long time ago, but not in the UK in 1978, so many Brits knew as much about nutty uncle Bob's favorite music as they did their own.

Ivor's still around and he's released a greatest hits collection that's funny even though it relies too much on the riff that made "The Wanker's Song" a hit. Ivor's a favorite of Dr. Demento, who includes Biggun's songs on his special comps. There's little cursing and the material is obscene only if you’re offended by witty metaphors and groan-inducing puns. "Hide The Sausage" is what Burgess Meredith should have quoted at the end of Dirty Old Men. I love the recurring line "Straighten out your wrinkle". Ivor's songs are often given multiple titles as many are cleaned up for mass consumption. "The Wanker's Song" is also known as "The Winker's Song", and in 1978 you could only buy the single in a plain wrapper because the ladies at the printing plant refused to handle the "obscene" cover art. It was then immediately banned by the BBC.

On these sixteen tracks you'll find an Alvin and the Chipmunks parody, backup singing in a fake Brooklyn accent, Buddy Holly rock n roll, faux rap, endless vaudeville influences and references to Suzi Quatro, Bryan Ferry, Gary Numan, David Bowie and Ian Dury. On the last track, Ivor introduces by name the fourteen year old boy who repeats a simple piano line as Ivor lays out a great comical monologue, the punchlines brought home by the rimshot of a kick drum. This CD makes you desperatley want to see the material live in a pub, pissed off your ass with four generations having a great time.

I think you can only buy this through Amazon.com in the UK. It's a great comedy record not only a part of punk history, it'll make your nutty uncle Bob crap his pants laughing.

The Jags - Evening Standards (LP review) (Island): The Jags were a One Hit Wonder on the strength of "Back Of My Hand", a cornerstone of any decent ‘80s comp, but every song on the Jag's debut LP is great. Evening Standards is one of the best retro-70’s power pop albums to come from the original new wave era.

The Jags get slagged as pale imitators of Elvis Costello and Nick Lowe. Big deal. The songs are catchy and punchy. If Elvis sang on this album instead of Nick Watkinson it would have wound up on many critics best-of list. The Jags lacked Elvis' bitterness and Nick Lowe's connections and associations. If Evening Standards came out on Stiff Records instead of Island, we wouldn't be having this conversation.

Half of the album consists of various singles they put out in anticipation of the album. The Buggles remixed the old tunes and are rumored to have had a larger participation in making the record. Again, who cares. If you like 70’s power pop, corny and white bread to the core, Evening Standards is flawless. If you like Elvis Costello and Stiff Records, this is amazing. People throw out the term One Hit Wonder like it’s a horrible thing. Evening Standards is a pop classic that will one day get its due. I picked it up again for fifty cents today. Do the same before everyone else wakes up.

Joe Jackson Band - Beat Crazy (LP review) (A&M): Who was new wave's most angry young man - Joe Jackson, Graham Parker or Elvis Costello? It’s Joe by a landslide! Elvis was married with a child at home, and his clever songs of sexual semantics may have come more from insightful observation than a life of bitter betrayals. Joe, on the other hand, has a face that can curdle cheese. His early songs were bitter and mean as hell. "Is She Really Going Out With Him?", "Happy Loving Couples", "Fools In Love" - the guy was pissed. Beat Crazy, his third album from 1980, saw Joe move from power pop into reggae and jazz driven by a frenetic bass guitar and a richly produced sound. Around 1980 there was a healthy movement towards reggae in both new wave and punk, propelled by The Clash, UK DJ Don Letts and Elvis Costello's '77 classic "Watching The Detectives". This was short-lived and new wave morphed into disco while punk moved toward hardcore and speed metal.

Beat Crazy gets little respect but it’s a great album.. There are as many fast songs as you'll find on either Look Sharp or I'm The Man, the arrangements are rich, and its simplicity is complex. The song "Beat Crazy" is an overlooked classic. After this album Joe dumped his great band and jumped head first into jazz, lounge, Latin rhythms and piano ballads. I'm surprised Elvis Costello is considered a god while Joe Jackson is a Trivial Pursuit question.

The Jam - Greatest Hits (CD review) (Polydor): The Jam formed around the same time as The Clash and the Sex Pistols, but they never fit into that crowd and didn't make headlines until these other bands faltered, making them the kings of punk's second wave. They were very popular, topping the charts and continually winning music magazine's reader’s polls. A mod band in every sense of the word, with their mohair suits, white shirts and skinny ties, they supercharged American r&b, The Who and The Kinks into catchy punk anthems. It's common knowledge The Sex Pistol's "Holidays In The Sun" was a rip-off of The Jam's "In The City". Paul Weller injected politics into the music but mod was more about fashion, dancing, shagging and amphetamines. The skinheads came from the mod/ska tradition, so it didn't shock anyone when the band hinted support for Britain's Conservative Party. Their first five albums (In The City, This Is The Modern World, All Mod Cons, Settings Sons, and Sound Effects), while inconsistent in their mod pretensions, yielded great singles. The Jam and The Buzzcocks were punk's greatest singles bands. Eventually Weller devolved The Jam into an over-produced r&b band with horn sections, female back-up singers and less to believe in. Elvis Costello did a better job of it on Punch The Clock. Weller went on to form The Style Council, and I'll leave it at that.

This CD collects nineteen singles and provides information on release dates and chart positions. The worst, "Precious", isn't listed. Huh... This song is the epitome of limp-wristed, white-boy  soul. "Absolute Beginners" is a waste, but the rest delivers. On "David Watts" they improve the original Kinks version ten times over. They pack a hell of a lot of power, soul and hooks into each song. Anyone can scream into a mike and bang at guitars, but if you can drive the punks wild with hooks and melody you must be doing something right. Highly recommended.

Joy Division- Substance 1977-1980 (CD review) & Permanent 1995 (CD) (QWest/Warner): Substance is the better of these two greatest hits packages because it includes older material ( = faster and angrier) along with the standard gloom&doom marchess. Songs like "Warsaw" and "Digital" show the band to be contemporaries of The Buzzcocks, Gang of Four and Wire. Literally formed in the wake of a 1976 Sex Pistols concert in Manchester, they putzed around as Stiff Kittens and Warsaw, finally choosing Joy Division in 1978, taken from a porno novel and a reference to the Nazi practice of forcing women sent to the camps into lives of prostitution. Oh, lovely. Charges of fascism stuck to the band, and even if not true, their decision not to address the issue acted as silent approval.

Fronted by adulterous epileptic Ian Curtis, Joy Division's love of long, hypnotic drones helped usher in goth. Their pioneering use of gothic imagery inspired other bands to explore and exploit religious, mostly Catholic, themes. Just as Devo came up with De-Evolution as a commentary on the regressive effects of modern culture, Joy Division added melancholy to Kraftwerk's dehumanizing embrace of electricity = robot = human obsolescence to create post-punk dance music for a post-industrial society.

Joy Division reached mythical proportions after Ian hung himself in May of 1980, just hours before departing for a US tour. Every half-wit tried to connect this with "Love Will Tear Us Apart", as if the song made him do it. It's said Curtis listened to Iggy Pop before he slipped on his brown rope necktie. It’s Iggy’s fault. Live shows were a morbid affair, with Ian's epilepsy bringing on seizures for the bemusement of assholes who came specifically to watch (and maybe place bets). Sometimes strobe lights set him off, just like they did with Johnny Rotten.

I like the earlier and faster Joy Division songs. The slow songs make me sleepy. Ian Curtis was an interesting but not very good singer. He’s as off-key as the rest of the band is sloppy. At times they simply can’t keep a rhythm going. For proof listen to "From Safety To Nowhere". What really annoyed me was their habit of not listing songs on their albums, as if you already knew what was there. Are there two songs? Ten? I like attitude and style but not when it comes to this. That's just damn rude. Same with Jim Foetus, the rat bastard!

The Killers - Hot Fuss (CD review): I don't listen to the radio, watch much TV or read music magazines so I'm happily oblivious to whatever's hep. A while ago I heard Franz Ferdinand was retro new wave, which I love as long as it doesn't copy Duran Duran or Culture Club, but their hit had a horrible beat once it kicked in and I dented a finger in my panic to turn it off.

Now that I'm writing again I'm also reviewing, so when I saw The Killer's Hot Fuss on a co-worker's desk I said to myself "self, them there's content!" It's not bad but not great. There's a few hits but nothing for me to listen to again on purpose. What I do like about it is that it's popular without being crap, so maybe good new wave is back in style and the world will be a better place for it.

Reviews mention Oasis as a huge influence. If I've ever heard an Oasis song it wasn't intentional. What I hear in The Killers is The Cure, The Smiths, U2 and The Beatles (especially the last track). The dance songs have a nice beat and the slower songs are melodic, but nothing's knocking me out. The thing gets more heavily produced and orchestrated as it goes along, if that means anything.

The Kinks - "Father Christmas"/"Prince Of The Punks" (7" review) (Arista): This 1977 single is noteworthy for a few reasons: "Prince Of The Punks" is an early use of the word "punk" as applied to the burgeoning UK movement, it mocks punks effectively, and it's a blistering attack on Tom Robinson, who scored with "2-4-6-8 Motorway". According to an informed source Tom was a member of the folk group Cafe Society, whose record was produced by Ray Davies and released on his Konk label. As an act of sweet revenge, Tom Robinson wrote a song about Ray called "You Don't Take No For An Answer" after Ray wouldn't let him out of his contract.

Here's the lyrics to "Prince Of The Punks": "A well known groover, rock 'n' roll user, wanted to be a star. But he failed the blues, and he backed too loose[?], Playing folk in a Cockney bar. Reggae music didn't seem to satisfy his needs. He couldn't handle modern jazz, 'Cause it played in difficult keys. But now he's found a music he can call his own, Some people call it junk, but he don't care, He's found a home. He's the prince of the punks and he's finally made it, Thinks he looks cool but his act is dated. He acts working class but it's all bologna, He's really middle class and he's just a phony. He acts tough but it's just a front, He's the prince of the punks. He tried to be gay, but it didn't pay, So he bought a motorbike instead. He failed the funk, so he became a punk, 'Cause he thought he'd make a little more bread. He's been through all of the changes, From rock opera to Mantovani. Now he wears a swastika band and leather boots up past his knees. He's much too old for twenty-eight, But he thinks he's seventeen, He thinks he's a star, But I think he looks more like a queen."

I love the song but it's a case of the one queen calling another queen a fruit. The insult is also a little unfair because more than a few bands jumped on the new wave and punk bandwagons, especially The Stranglers. The Kinks themselves jumped a few bandwagons: new wave with Low Budget and hard rock after Van Halen's version of "You Really Got Me". The so-called '77 UK punk scene made punk an international sensation/scandal, but these bands were following a path set in France and the United States. It's a delusional myth that punk created itself from the gutter and its stars played nothing else until punk possessed their souls and forced them to form bands. Except for the Ramones and Suicide nobody was doing much that wasn't a direct descendent of what came before it (the Rolling Stones being the biggest influence). Some second wave UK bands may have picked up their first instruments in the after seeing the Pistols play, but they were also fans of popular music their whole lives. Maybe incubated punks are common now, but not in the early days.

The Kink's influence on punk is not direct but from their influence on garage bands of the Nuggets era. They mastered ironic sarcasm with "A Well Respected Man", "Dedicated Follower Of Fashion" and "David Watts". Their most popular and influential work is from the ‘60s. The ‘70s saw Ray obsessed with folk, blues, country and the British dance hall tradition of showmanship. The ‘80s and ‘90s saw the Kinks produce album after album of mostly forgettable music. In many ways I find Ray Davie's career running parallel to Lou Reed's. I'm a huge fan of their ‘70s albums, starting with the phenomenal Lola Vs. the Powerman & the Money-Go-Round and peaking in 1975 with the embarrassment of embarrassing riches known as Soap Opera and Schoolboys In Disgrace. Any good biography on Ray and the band is worth reading, and one day the movie will prove fact is much stranger than fiction.

The Kinks - Lola Vs. Powerman and the Money-Go-Round (LP review) (Reprise): You might find a review of this 1970 album out of place, but 1) it's not, and 2) F. U. Lola is one of the greatest working class, pissed off yet somehow hopeful rock albums of all time. Ray Davies, whose career has been a roller coaster ride of greatness and mediocrity, hits the right notes of folk, country, rock and dance hall vaudeville to produce not exactly a theme album but an honest exploration of his emotions and all around mental state, which rode roller coaster rides of their own. He felt screwed but also saw the ridiculousness of it.

His experiences with the record industry left him feeling helpless and angry. The Kinks had many hits under their belts but not much wealth to show for it. Andy Partridge of XTC felt the same way, and like Ray, he went off the deep end and wrote a song about it, in his case "Funk Pop A Roll". While Andy's song is spitting anger, Ray's "Denmark Street", "Top Of The Pops", "The Moneygoround" and "Powerman" work an arc from seemingly playful parody to blunt seriousness. No one in the record industry food chain is spared, and each gets their turn.

"The Contenders" opens the record with some inspired pub boogie. "Strangers" is a great working-class anthem that works just as well as a drinking song (if not just a song to sing at a pub). "Get Back In Line" is so pro-union it would make Billy Bragg blush. "This Time Tomorrow" is another keeper and the lyrics strike me as the exact feelings of someone who has no idea what the present means or what the future might bring. It's Ray at his best. Oh yeah, their second most popular song of all time is on Lola Vs. Powerman and the Money-Go-Round. Can you guess what that song might be?

Klark Kent - Music Madness From The Kinetic Kid (10" EP review) (IRS): Stewart Copeland's name isn't anywhere to be found on this 1980 green-vinyl 10" packed in a regular LP-sized sleeve, but since the Police were one of the most popular new wave bands you'd have to be as dense as a diamond not to know this was Stew's solo project. In May of ‘78 and January of ‘79 "Klerk Kunt" released two singles, both on green vinyl. Last year everything was repackaged on one disc. Good luck finding it. KK was a one man band with Stew on guitar, piano, clarinet, and the biggest drum kit this side of ELP. The Klark Kent costume consisted of a Where's Waldo chimney-sweep outfit and a clear plastic face mask. In pictures he's always seen running and jumping. Stew was allowed to contribute a song (sometimes two!) to each Police album, probably to shut him up (Larry Fine of the Three Stooges drove everyone nuts with demands to play the violin on film). KK songs are so silly it's hard to accept them on any other level than childish. Every line has to rhyme, no matter what, like "Ritch In A Ditch": I want some money of my own/I gotta bring my work home/In a bus on the street/On the beat in the heat/I gotta fake with the law/I gotta look like a pawn". It’s like Dr. Seuss without the cartoons, which is what the KK thing was all about. The whole point might have been for Stew to jump up and down and sing silly rhymes. He went on to compose soundtrack albums, the best for the movie Rumblefish, featuring Stan Ridgeway on the excellent single "Don't Box Me In". A real oddity, this collector's item is something only Dr. Demento could love.

Klark Kent - Kollected Works (CD review) (Capitol): This being Novelty Record Month, it doesn’t get more novel than Stewart Copeland's alter-ego from the 1980+ era. Being an eccentric of many talents, Stew plays all the instruments and sings. A Copeland track called "Don't Care" was rehearsed by the Police but Sting couldn't sing it well, so Stew recorded it himself, and lo and behold it charted high enough to earn a guest slot on the BBC television show Top Of The Pops. Due to murky legal restrictions Stewart created an alter-ego complete with what might have been a cheap Jimmy Carter mask. Everyone who showed up to help also wore masks. Klark Kent made it big before The Police.

When the first single was released few suspected Klark Kent's real identity, and the press material made so little sense it almost repelled further scrutiny. As the Police became popular, and the public heard Stewart sing with them, the jig was up and Klark Kent settled into a comfy side project. A few singles and EPs came out, finally compiled as Kollected Works in 1995.

Stewart Copeland writes in his own style - quirky and based on his signature kinetic drumming and percussion. Not only did he own the world's largest drum kit, he used every bit of it, literally bouncing out of his seat with every hit. The vibe is jerky white-boy new wave reggae with world music inflections. The humor doesn't go beyond simple rhymes but the silliness is infectious and the music odd enough to be interesting. Kollected Works is an odd little collection from an odd tall man.

The Korgis - Dumb Waiters (LP review) (Rialto): Imagine a synth pop band with Leo "You Make Me Feel Like Dancing" Sayer singing. Then imagine Leo Sayer looking like Bill Gates. Korgis singer James Warren and a-little-of-everything-else Andy Davis were in a progressive band called Stackridge, whose label refused to release their last album because it contained long passages of narration and non-commercial (read unlistenable) music. A small core of Korgis fans fondly remember this but the only compliment I can give is that Dumb Waiters could have been a lot more limp-wristed.

I like synth music. Only 10% of all synth pop was listenable. Then again, only 10% of anything is listenable, but the difference is that bad synth pop is110% more embarrassing than anything else that's bad. OMD, ODW, Thomas Dolby, Human League, New Musik, Silicon Teens, The Normal, Ultravox, Gary Numan and a few others managed a few good albums that will nicely define the genre in the year 3000. The rest is leans towards lame. The Korgis may have had potential in 1979 but it's grown pungent like the beef-jerky-ized gym socks I recently excavated from the trunk of my car.

Their debut album, The Korgis, was well reviewed. Hopefully it's better than this slightly romantic, slightly gimmicky and only slightly interesting follow-up. I detect a touch of New Musik, Silicon Teens, ODW and even Fingerprintz in the mix. The cumulative effect is weak yet thankfully minimalistic and a little quirky. I acknowledge they didn't resort to disco or funk grooves to make it more commercial. "Silent Running" and "Rovers Return" bookend the record,  and they’re all I can recommend to you out there in zine-reader land.

I picked this up for a buck. No harm, no foul. They thank Peter Gabriel in the liner notes, which led me to believe this record might be worth a listen. (Insert random wistfully snide throwaway comment here).

Kraftwerk - Computer World (LP review) (Elektra): Without Kraftwerk the world might not have been cursed by the disco plagues of trance, ambient and rave. (C)rap, while owing a heavy electronic debt, probably would have happened anyway. Still, these German electrical chemists are partly responsible for the creation and popularity of electronic dance music, which also includes bands I do enjoy, like Gary Numan, Bowie in his Low/Heroes period, OMD and Joy Division. 1981's Computer World was their last great work, and even if the world had caught up with them by then, and even if it does contains a share of commercial clichés, this album is a great guilty pleasure I can easily defend and easily distance myself from, depending on the song and my mood.

Kraftwerk didn't invent electronic music but they did a better job of refining it into self-contained song structures than their contemporaries. Their earliest albums from 1971-74 come across as experiments in avant-garde minimalism, only rarely cohesive enough for popular consumption, specifically the shortened version of the 22 minute "Autobahn". Radio Activity (1975), Trans-Europe Express (1977) and The Man Machine (1977), each a concept album, contained normal songs and earned Kraftwerk their reputation. Electronic, minimalist, layered, pristine, asexual - it's the soundtrack for a feared yet embraced future of technology as conqueror of all once known as "human". Kraftwerk worked from a series of specific concepts and theories, and I sense they felt man's evolution into machine was neither good nor bad, but inevitable. God damn were they German in that regard.

Computer World is a commercial record that sometimes crossed the disco line, but I love how they layered sounds to create emotional tones. The blips and bleeps they use to flavor each song are also genius. I saw them play live on this tour and they toured with something like four tons of computers. I was in awe because they invented many of the instruments they were playing, in their own Kling Klang Laboratories. Calling your music studio a "laboratory" sounds awfully pretentious, but these guys really did tinker with oscillators, computers and radio waves like scientists. The rumor was that robots performed their encore, but it was too hard to tell since I was far away and the band didn't move much to begin with.

1986's Electric Cafe was too little too late, and various remixes they've sporadically put out violate my remix rule - which is that I never listen to them because remix means sex it up more to appeal to dance club numbnuts who look for any reason to act sexy. Computer World is a great record. It's more fun to compute the numbers of my computer love on my pocket calculator on my home computer in our computer world....

Kraftwerk - Minimum-Maximum (CD review): Read this and this for info on Kraftwerk. Wolfgang Flur's book Kraftwerk: I Was A Robot was poorly received. To me they've had three stages: their early, prog-electronic period (up to Autobahn), their golden creamy middle period (Radio-Activity thru Computer World) and their we're still here period (the single version of Tour de France is the exception). This two disc set from various stops on their 2004 world tour visits them all with loyalty to each as they were in their day. I was able to salvage one full disc of material from the first two stages, banishing the Eurotrash enviro-sounds that open and close the set to the humorless folks who "Must get back to Dancecentrum in Stuttgart in time to see Kraftwerk".

Kraftwerk were an incredibly influential band but that doesn't mean the bands they influenced aren't crap. I loved Komputer's The World Of Tomorrow, an ode to Radio-Activity, Trans Euro Express and The Man-Machine. This is also really good.

I'm glad Kraftwerk didn't modernize "Autobahn" and "The Model", which would have been desperate and sad. Whatever tweaks they give tracks from Computer World I can live with, this album being as close to electronic dance music as I'll get. It helps that I loved the previous five albums.

The sound quality is great and the audience is barely discernible. I saw Kraftwerk on their Computer World tour and didn't want them to vary one note. That's what I came to see: man-machines replicating electronic music as man-machines would. You mostly get that on Minimum -Maximum. If only the new material wasn't weak.....

6/29 update: I watched a bootleg of the London stop of this tour. Florian Schneider seemingly can't sing and play at the same time. It's impossible to tell how much is live and how much is pre-recorded. It matches perfectly with the background visuals, often song lyrics in huge letters. These robots were brought out for one song and then the band came back dressed like Tron characters. Pictures are here at the Kraftwerk home page.

Lene Lovich - New Toy (12" EP review) (Stiff): There's an assumption "New Toy" was Lene's first hit, but it came out two years after her debut album Stateless, which yielded both "Lucky Number" and "Home". Who knows how many records it takes to be a hit. "New Toy" was written by Thomas Dolby in his prime. It has a bit of funk but not anything like the new romance crap that started overflowing the toilet at that time. What also helps is Lene's endearing eccentricity - unique and refreshing. Nina Hagen was probably as nutty as she looked. Nina and Grace Jones were both interesting but completely unapproachable in that East Berlin-brand of diva. Lene, born in Detroit, was more like Cyndi Lauper. Lene isn’t wildly giddy like Cyndi but her music is fun and doesn't take itself any more seriously than dance music should.

The New Toy 12" was a teaser for the LP that was to follow, but "New Toy” didn't appear on No Man's Land. This made no sense because it would have sold a lot more units of that album without denting the residual market for the EP.

Lene's catalog is reviewed as hit-or-miss, but it's aged well because the arrangements are quirky and well produced. Lene had a few hits and her album tracks were brushed aside as filler. At the time I wasn't that impressed but my attention span was shorter than it is now. After nineteen years a record can take on new meaning, and I've found there's a lot to like about Lene Lovich. Her music was not a gimmick and she worked hard at it. So, if you see anything from Lene Lovich on Stiff Records you should give it a twirl on the jukebox.

Lene Lovich - Stateless (LP review) (Stiff/Epic): Lene is a great example of the eccentric pop artist with intermittent talent who inevitably wound up on Stiff Records - new music’s answer to vaudeville. She looked like she hailed from the hinterlands of Austria, but until age thirteen she grew up in Detroit, Michigan. Her father was Yugoslavian and her mother British, which might explain the bad teeth and genocide against her neighbors (ka-zing!). The family relocated to England where Lene soon ran away to London, where she worked as a go-go dancer before discovering art and the saxophone. She and Les Chappell, her husband/svengali/manager/co-writer, came up with her image - a friendlier, less crazed version of Nina Hagen. Both worked the same turf and soon became friends.

Nina recorded a German version of "Lucky Number" and they've appeared together in support of PETA. Lene scored a #35 hit with her cover of "I Think We're Alone Now", standard Stiff pop pap, but she made a real name for herself with 1979's Stateless, which uses as filler the marching pop of Hazel O'Connor, but features a few choice new wave dance hits - "Home" and "Lucky Number". Lene's voice is strong, controlled and slightly more than slightly eccentric. Her Debbie Harry-esque inflection on "Telepathy" is nicely executed, and live probably melodramatic.

In 1981 Lene scored her biggest hit with "New Toy", written by Thomas Dolby of Thomas Dolby fame. Lene put out more records, but by 1982 her fan base had moved on to middle management positions in large corporations and whatever the hell's on the radio on the drive to and from work. Her last album came out in 1990. Here's Lene Lovich introducing herself, "Hello, I'm Lene Lovich. Well, I used to be the Lene Lovich, but now I'm just Lene Lovich. Oh never mind, may I have my food stamps please?"

Life Without Buildings - Any Other City (CD review) (Tugboat): This is profoundly good, and probably the most satisfyingly pleasant record I've listened to all year. Not pleasant as in sweet and quiet, which can be too, but beautifully crafted and constantly engaging like Patti Smith and The Feelies, whose filtering of Velvet Underground and Television haunt this like a ghost. Like both Patti Smith and The Feelies, Life Without Buildings create subtle rhythms and grooves that wind themselves up and increase with intensity the more you pay attention. The songs envelope you in ways most bands can only dream about.

Sue Tompkin's voice is similar to Altered Images' Claire Grogan (the band is out of Glasgow but only the guitarist is Scottish), and at a cursory level the comparison is shocking, but that may be only because it's hard to imagine anyone besides Claire actually owning that voice. While Claire sings like a baby doll, Sue is more human, adult, working class, or something like that, and how she uses it is a universe away from Claire Grogan. She owes Patti a bit in this regard too. Sue Tompkin manipulates her voice as a musical instrument, similar to scat singing and David Thomas' eccentric warblings with Pere Ubu. She uses repeated phrases and seemingly conversational lyrics in ways you can visually chart with movements forward, down and back. When you listen to Life Without Buildings it’s amazing how the music and Tompkin's voice compete with and compliment each other. You can focus on one, the other, or be lost completely in both.

Robert Johnston (guitar), Will Bradley (drums) and Chris Evans (bass) create a full sound with an intimacy you'd imagine best suited for a jazz club. The band cites PIL and ESG (a UK garage funk band) as influences, which I find missing in abundance. All you can see in a Talking Heads comparison is a similar understanding of minimalist white guy funk beats. Every time a band displays an introspective interplay of guitars Television is mentioned, but that band never aged well, whereas many post-Television bands crackle with excitement. I can see a Raincoats comparison but not The Slits, and of course there's Altered Images when they weren't stealing from themselves for a hit record. I do hear some Pylon. For fractions of a moment you can read Gang Of Four into "Philip" and "Envoys", but they dissipate quickly enough. The Feelies, Patti Smith and The Velvet Underground are a given. The more Rough Trade and jangle pop bands you know the more comparisons you can make.

My favorite tracks are the speedier ones, especially "PS Exclusive" and "Young Offenders". Notice how "I'm Waiting For The Man" is woven into "14 Days", and that "Sorrow" is based on the VU's "Femme Fatale", along with the intimate feel I've heard in a live version of Lou Reed's "Coney Island Baby". "New Town" sounds close to Altered Images, so two points added to that column. If you've read this whole review and have any interest in this type of music you should definitely own Any Other City. If it's not punk enough for you, spike up your mohawk, remind yourself how real you are, then choke on your own puke in the gutter outside CBGBs. Now THAT'S punk!

Kleenex/Liliput: Complete Recordings (2 CDs review) (Kill Rock Stars):  This 46 song, two CD set retails for $14.95. Holy smokes that's value! 75% of it I rate as very good. The 25% that opens the show is someplace between astounding and and an endless string of happy expletives chanted while dancing a twitchy Teutonic jig. I easily place "Nighttoad" or "Split" in the category of top ten songs from the post-punk era. Liliput formed after The Slits, X Ray Spex and Gang of Four, but they recorded their first release the same year as Spex and one year earlier than The Slits and GOF. They were recording before Nina Hagen, Lena Lovich, The B-52's and any of a number of bands you may think they sound like. They're a cult band because they hailed from Zurich, Switzerland, and until recently their catalog was long out of print. Now everything they recorded is available and for lots cheap too.

Over the course of their run from ‘78-‘83, Liliput's roster fluctuated from three to five members, the only consistency being guitarist Marlene Marder and Klaudia Schifferle on bass. Over five years they fronted three different singers. They formed, as often happened, in the wake of a Sex Pistols concert. Marder and Schifferle were active in the local Swiss scene, and they probably had access to bands you assume influenced their music: Wire, Pere Ubu, Talking Heads, XTC, The Slits and Gang of Four. The songs on Disc 2 are from their two studio LPs, Liliput (1982) and Some Songs (1983), which as a pair match what The Raincoats were getting more credit for in the UK press. The music is slower and less joyous than the demos and 7"s they recorded starting in 1978. Disc 1 is the reason to buy this and you're nuts if you don't.

I found the following lyrics from "Split" on the internet: "Hotch-potch, Hugger-mugger, Bow-wow, Hara-Kirr, Hoo-poo, Huzza, Hicc-up, Hum-drum, Hexa-pod, Hell-cat, Helter-skelter, Hop-scotch". Some of it I hear, others I don't. It's hard to tell and it doesn't make a difference because it's irrelevant. Behind Laura Logic-loving saxophone and angular dance beats, nonsense words are yelled with reckless abandon with an infectious joy. All decorum vanishes when I hear the line "Hello kitty hello kitty woo woo woo woo!" I’m silly.

Before Liliput was Liliput, they were Kleenex, but after John Peel played the grooves out of their first single the Kimberly-Clark company put the kibosh on that infringement. When they started, Marder was the only one who knew chords so she wrote the music and helped the others figure out their parts. Lislot Ha didn't even know her drums could be tuned. In the fine tradition of Johnny's one-note guitar solo on "I Wanna Be Sedated", three and four chords are varied and manipulated with more skill than you’d expect from novices. Legend has it they started with only four songs, which they repeated for up to four hours for friends who kept asking for more. Sweet!

In their early days Liliput were the Swiss B-52's, while the B-52's were the American Liliput. They both minimized and deconstructed dance music, then added layers of aggressive, happy and eccentric novelty. If you frequented new wave clubs in the early ‘80s you’d remember "Die Matrosen". Looking down the list of songs on disc 1 all I can think is how much I love Liliput. A classic. Oh yeah.

PS: Much of the literature on this trumpets Liliput as a direct inspiration to the Riot-Grrl movement. Considering how difficult this was to find, and that they were a footnote in most people's memories, I don't see it. Musicians are not music historians and don't have access to everything.

PPS: The Business ripped off Liliput's "Hitch-Hike" when they wrote "Guttersnipe". The guitar on "Nighttoad" is an inversion of "Stepping Stone". The great cycle of theft, I mean life, continues...

M - "Pop Musik"/"M Factor" (7" review) (Sire): This 1979 single bookends nicely with The Buggles' "Video Killed The Radio Star". It's studio cheese but its creator Robin Scott is an interesting person. His approach to M was a deliberate approximation of Andy Warhol's take on art, media and culture. On an artsy fartsy level there's much going on behind this one-hit wonder.

In the ‘70s Scott managed and produced the pub rock band Roogalator, who recorded an early Stiff Records single. He also produced The Slits and released on his Do It label the first Adam Ant LP. In Paris circa 1978 he started a personal project called "M" and released a failed single. The next was "Pop Musik", and it became an international #1 hit. Some find the song an embarrassment but I'm impressed with the production and exactness to formula. This was by design and the story behind it is redeeming.

In response to an interviewer's comment that the song was antagonistic towards pop music, Scott came back with, "To some degree pop music is the muzak now. I mean, after the Sex Pistols I couldn't see what was left to do except make these observations. That's not to say that this communication doesn't have its possibilities, it’s just that people are too easily fooled by form as opposed to content. I certainly have always strongly identified with pop music because I felt it was 'white man's music', whereas I don't feel confident with rock'n'roll. For some reason the media has always used rock'n'roll as a means for separating generations and glorifying violence."

In Sounds Magazine Scott says of the song, "It was meant to sound like a current pop record. There's nothing dangerous about it. It's a glorified jingle. It was meant to be a Song For Europe, taking what is happening at the moment and taking the most impersonal approach to constructing a record."

That's cool as crap and his insights are impressive. He mentions the Sex Pistols as an inspiration, and you can't take away street cred from the man who produced The Slits.

The single was also released as a 10,000 run 12" where the two tracks run parallel to each other on the same side of the record. Depending on the luck of the needle drop, you either get one song or the other. Dude, the colors!

M - The Official Secrets Act (LP review) (Sire): M -  producer/ musician/ manager Robin Scott, along with hired studio guns, earned the one-hit-wonder title with "Pop Muzik", an electronic ditty which was the "I'm too sexy for my shirt" of its day (1979, a Wednesday). The Official Secrets Act was M's second album, and while it didn't yield any top-40 hits there's a lot of interesting music, and it's fun to listen for what influenced M and who later sounded like M.

Sire Records was a haven for multi-talented innovators to show off their studio skills. There's a little of everything here and I bet Robin Scott considered it a matter of pride to cover much territory and cover it well. From the past he took early Kraftwerk's electronics and Roxy Music's lush romanticism. A contemporary of Bauhaus, Scott sometimes sings like Peter Murphy. "Join The Party" would be a nice rip of Re-Flex's "The Politics Of Dancing" if M didn't write his version three years earlier. OMD shared a few aesthetics with M and Thomas Dolby might have studied M like teenagers do internet porn. Sometimes The Official Secrets Act comes off like an off-Broadway musical ("Working For The Corporation") but there's a mastery of the various styles presented and even some hints at the world music Robin Scott embraced later in his career. It might help to have a high tolerance for 1980-era new wave indulgence, but this is better and more interesting than I expected. Trivia Tidbit: Scott's small record label released Adam Ant's first album, Dirk Wears White Sox, so now you know who to blame.

The Mad Professor Meets Puls Der Zeit: Meet In Berlin At Checkpoint Charlie(CD review) (ROIR): What a great record this is. From a technological, composition and mondo perspective, it's hard to beat this 1988 collaboration between South London's Neil Fraser (The Mad Professor) and (then) West Germany's Puls Der Zeit (Pulse In Time). Puls' now deceased lead singer, the blonde Nico-clone Soer La Blanche (White Sister), was the first to sing reggae in German. The tracks on this CD alternate between the Professor's own tracks, backed by his own band, and works with Puls Der Zeit that perfectly blend the political underpinnings of immigrant life in the UK with the Kraut-Kafka paranoia of life behind the wrong side of the Berlin Wall.

If reggae is ska slowed down by years of pot smoking, dub is reggae processed through Kraftwerk's Kling Klang laboratory. Dub is short for dubbing - the layering of tracks and reconfiguration of sounds. Any remix you've ever heard is a dub, and many original studio versions are manipulated as much as any Lee "Scratch" Perry or Mad Professor track. The Mad Professor isn't "sampl