The 1981 Listening Post - Cooper Brothers - Learning to Live With It

 Reviewed by Brian Kushnir

Released: 1981 Cooper Brothers Learning To Live With It Genre: Canadian Soft Southern Rock Rating: 3.5 out of 5 Highlights: Come Back Baby You Live Just A Little Learning To Live With It Rules Of The Road If you were having a 1973 themed party, serving things like three cheese fondue, Ritz mock apple pie, and spinach souffle, you could throw about half of this on in the background. The other half would work on the soundtrack of the next edition of the “Cars” franchise, or on “Yellowstone” during a honky tonk scene. Cooper Brothers are a unit from Ottawa, Canada that in the 70s were originally signed to Capricorn Records (home of the Allman Brothers). You had to have some chops to be on Capricorn, so it is no surprise that these are some finely crafted, well-played if innocuous little ditties. Les Emmerson (late of Five Man Electrical Band, “Signs,” etc.) joined the brothers Cooper for this album and handles most of the lead vocals. All the playing and singing is aces, the solos (on guitar, sax, and flute) are all tasteful, brief, and to the point. And there is lyrical craft on display, though the words often land like phrases swiped from the inside of Hallmark cards: “You live just a little but you’re dead for a long long time,” “If my heart only knew what I knew you’d be gone,” “the girl will break your heart in style,” “you’ve got trouble written all over you,” “learning to live with the heartache.” That said, the songs are neat and tidy and go down easy, so if this (mishmash of soft country fried rockers that would fit right in on a Stagecoach side-stage combined with easy listening just perfect for kicking back in a dentist chair) is your type of thing, you may have found yourself a new guilty pleasure. Pass the rumaki!

The 1981 Listening Post - Alkatrazz (UK) - Young Blood

 Reviewed by Brian Kushnir

Released: May 1981 Alkatrazz (UK) Young Blood Genre: NWOBHM Rating: 2 out of 5 Highlights: (none to speak of) Alkatrazz UK. That’s Alka with a K. Like Alka Seltzer, which is what you all may need to drink after imbibing this. Don’t mistake them for Alcatrazz, the US band that is still in the future at this point and featured the absolutely insanely brilliant and original Yngwie Malmsteen shredding away on guitar along with Graham Bonnet on bona-fide rock star vocs. This Alkatrazz are a bunch of second or third tier NWOBHM’ers from the charming and appropriately metal town Maidstone, Kent, coincidentally also the home of the Performing Ferret Band. It's clear these two bands didn’t travel in the same circles and there is no “Maidstone Sound” of clever inventive subversiveness for us to comment on. Songs. Sound. Attitude. Chops. Characters. Design. Vision. The best of the bands have all of these. The ones with a hint of something interesting have at least one. Alkatrazz UK have none, which is likely why they plop plop fizz fizzled out.

The 1981 Listening Post - Trevor Rabin - Wolf

 Reviewed by Brian Kushnir

Released: 1981 Trevor Rabin Wolf Genre: Prog Lite Rating: 2.2 out of 5 Highlights: Heard You Cry Wolf Looking For A Lady - (Wolfman) [Source material for VH’s Hot For Teacher?] Nothing could save Trevor Rabin’s “Wolf.” Not his amazing, flashy, at times astoundingly evocative guitar chops. Not the killer sidemen that he got to join him with their formidable skills on display. Not Mo Foster (!), Simon Phillips (!!), Jack Bruce (!!!), and definitely not Manfred Mann (!!!!). It has a glossy, high-class sound but not even Ray Muthafunkin' Davies of the Kinks, who he got to co-produce, could turn this into something you’d want to come back to, because the songs aren’t compelling and Trevor can’t really sing. In fact, when he sings “I feel the pain” midway through the album I find myself unconsciously nodding in agreement. A short time after this, his fortunes changed. He walked into a studio with the members of Yes, the band he had just joined as their new ace on guitar, and played them the demo for his new song. It was “Owner of a Lonely Heart.”

The 1981 Listening Post - Amon Duul II - Vortex

Reviewed by Brian Kushnir Released: 1981 Amon Düül II Vortex Genre: Communist Prog Rating: 2.5 out of 5 Highlights: Wings On The Wind (Ras)Putin In Der Badewanne (Bonus Track) In the hierarchy of cool origin stories for a band, coming together in a West German commune has to be up there in the rankings. Which is where Amon Düül got their start. The problem with originating in a commune is that makes you essentially a band of communists, and with apologies to my communist friends, I’m here to suggest that for “Vortex” the egalitarian commune ethos, where everyone in Amon Düül is equal and where every idea and whim should be indulged, simply got the best of them. It’s a varied set from the Düülers. We get a bit of interesting, and a lot of dreck, leaving us with a trivia question answer rather than something to come back to again. Interesting as in a wide variety of sounds and styles. Sinister laughter and tribal drums, like you’re in a voodoo ceremony. Slow pop, a vaguely Eastern European melody punctuated by Oompa Loompa choruses, faux banjo pickin’, all make appearances. There’s also a lilting reggae-infused new wave knock off about a fashion model who puts her life on display but can’t connect with her lover (“Mona”), and a cheeky response to Kraftwerk (“We Are Machine”) including gratuitous space rock robot voice. In a flash of uplifting inspiration, “Wings on the Wind” comes forward among all the tracks as a majestic prog symphonic masterpiece, with Renate Aschauer-Knaup on soaring lead vocals. The grand finale is “(Ras) Putin en der Baderwanne” which perfectly captures the sinister insanity of what Rasputin in the Bathtub would be like, even if you don’t understand German. [Ed. Note: (Ras)Putin In Der Badewanne is a bonus track from the 2005 re-issue.]

The 1981 Listening Post - Performing Ferret Band - Performing Ferret Band LP

 Reviewed by Brian Kushnir

Released: August 1981 Performing Ferret Band Performing Ferret Band LP Genre: Twee To The Extweem Rating: 3.9 out of 5 Highlights: Howler Monkey Field Of Yellow Flowers The Rush Bar Room Bottle Fruit Disco One (II) Great Duos Of Our Time In 1983 when I was in high school the nearby college radio station held a Maximum Louie Louie event, where they would collect as many versions of Louie Louie as possible and play them in a marathon session on the radio. This was exciting. Some friends came over to my house and we recorded ourselves in my bedroom singing Louie Louie, with me on electric guitar and a cheapo Panasonic drum machine to supply the beats. We called ourselves the Generic Zombies and sent in our tape. They collected over 800 versions, we listened to the 60+ hour marathon on KFJC as much as we could and sure enough, there we were on the radio. We sounded like perfectly charming kids playing Louie Louie to a cheap drum machine that had made it to the big time. There’s something charming about this Performing Ferret Band album that appeals to me as a failed songwriter. My wife and 17 year old son walked in while I was listening and we all three agreed it has something going on. He says it sacrifices some of the finer aspects of music in order to convey emotion and I have to nod in assent. The name, Performing Ferret Band was what hooked me in the first place. Turns out these are punk DIY kids who have song ideas (okay, maybe not necessarily fully formed, but they are interesting ideas, some of them) even if they are just one phrase or part of a song, along with the ability to get these ideas down on tape, in a way that just makes you pause and admire what they have done in their own absurd, cheeky and idiosyncratic way. They are multi-instrumentalists not really appearing to be proficient on any of them, but their ‘just give it a go’ spirit shines through and you forgive them because it's cute and they sound like they are true friends who completely trust each other. They have things to declaim, often in the form of provocations about the state of their 1981 world, and from what I can decipher they manage to tackle weighty topics like environmentalism, disease, relationships, in addition to more mundane topics like kissing, drinking, and the occasional goof. The Ferrets are also genre skippers, dabbling in blues, minimalism, punk, power pop, all with little regard for tempo, tuning, melody, it don’t matter, they are getting their ideas down. It's fun, it's a lark, it's got a wee bit o’the twee. Give it a spin. Turns out they hail from Maidstone, England, which is a town that may not be famous for much, but there was apparently a bit of a 1981 music scene there which means more on the horizon for us, so watch this space…

The 1981 Listening Post - Eddie and the Subtitles - Skeletons in the Closet

Reviewed by Brian Kushnir Released: 1981 Eddie And The Subtitles Skeletons In The Closet Genre: 80s SoCal Punk Rating: 3.9 out of 5 Highlights: American Society Magic Dave Dacron Stream Of Consciousness Gina Your Head's In The Right Place You got your hardcore and your cowpunk. It’s a pretty good slice of 80s SoCal punk life. The core of this is garden variety disaffected youth 80s OC punk, courtesy of band leader Edwin “Eddie” Joseph, who writes most of the songs. Opener “American Society” could be a template for Green Day’s “Boulevard of Broken Dreams” - they share a chord progression. There’s a lament for their friend Dave Dacron, who’s ‘dead and gone.’ A bored sounding cover of “We Gotta Get out of This Place.” A basic bash at “Louie Louie” that my own 16 year-old high school crew did in similar fashion for the KFJC Louie Louie marathon. And more. There is some interesting guitar work kind of casually going on across a few of these songs. Key in on the guitar on “Stream of Consciousness:” the guitarist is making some evocative and non-traditional guitar sounds in the background there which I like. Same with “Magic,” which has a hint of the nice new wave sound via a guitar that sounds like a synth. And “Dave Dacron” includes a pinch of Morricone for added spicy flavor. Mixed in with the punk at regular intervals is some well-played rockabilly / cow-punk, which in LA around those times was also a thing that many bands in the underground scene were doing. Some of these tunes are among the coolest on the disc - “Movin On,” “Boppin’ Little Bobcat,” “Your Heads in the Right Place,” and “Gina.” The difference in songwriting styles across the record is notable so I looked it up - the last two of these were written by Bobby and Larson Paine, who in fact were some well connected crack songwriters of the day who also penned the big 80s hit “Johnny Are You Queer?” There was a frat party every year at UCLA during the mid 80s called The Decline, where the frat house brothers would book a real live SoCal punk band to play. The Dickies, Celebrity Skin, and Circle Jerks are among the bands that I can remember playing. I don’t think Eddie And The Subtitles played The Decline, but they would have fit right in.

The 1980 Listening Post - Seals & Crofts - The Longest Road

 Reviewed by Brian Kushnir

Released: July 1980 Seals & Crofts The Longest Road Genre: Yacht Rock On A Smooth Jazz Cruise To Gilligan's Island Rating: 1.5 out of 5 Highlights: when it ended 10 thoughts on The Longest Road by Seals and Crofts 1. The Longest Road? More like the longest 42 minutes of my life. 2. The album that got S&C mercilessly dropped from their label. 3. Their first album with no Crofts in the writing credits, a fact that may be useful as a trivia question answer. 4. The patented Seals and Crofts vocal harmonies do show up on occasion. 5. I wonder who called in a favor and got them Herbie Hancock and Stanley Clarke? 6. Even the Jazz legends can’t make it swing, so forget about searching for meaning here. 7. Torture music for insomniacs. 8. If yacht rock’s your bag be careful not to barf in this one. 9. In hindsight one can see their begging for world peace here was not at all effective. Half a point for trying. 10 Why couldn’t this have been the legendary lost album that explored the intersection of Seals and Crofts and Sid and Marty Krofft?

The 1980 Listening Post - Live Wire - No Fright

 Reviewed by Brian Kushnir / LISTENING POST DISCOVERY

Released: 1980 Live Wire No Fright Genre: Dub Rock Rating: 4.25 out of 5 Highlights: Don't Bite The Hand Competition Broken Glass One More Show First Night Every Night Red Light Is On Yaogote. Pronounced: Yow Goat. As in, Yet Another Obscure Gem Of The Eighties. You haven’t heard of Live Wire. They were on A&M so definitely caught someone’s ear, but didn’t go big. The album has less than 100 plays on YouTube which is the only place it streams. You can buy it for a dollar on Discogs. Plucked from the dust bin of humanity we are here to shine a light on the yaogote that is “No Fright” by Live Wire. It’s got the goods. The songs quickly become old friends, played by a four-piece shifting between tight, poppin’-funky dance beats and dubby ska, evocative of a time, place, attitude. Come-what-may lyrics delivered with a confidently imperfect swagger. We all got another TV spectacular. Can’t take it for anudder day. You win. I lose. Driving around all night looking for a light in the window. A man with a violin asking me for money. Hey Brubeck, yeah he wrote this one for me. Maybe he did; one can dream, and just revel in the sparse, well defined production. Confidently breakneck playing, little to hide behind. Pulsing tremolo. Grooving bass. A lazy Strat teases out country licks on a porch, a sweet little slide guitar solo, a honky tonk piano. Trainspotters, note the subtle homages and winks: a Clash reference in “Castle in Every Swiss Cottage,” musical Springsteen reference in “One More Show,” police siren guitar in “Don’t Bite The Hand That Feeds.” Probably more if you dig around. And maybe you will think of other bands of that era, the befores and the afters in the melting pot of styles and steals. And guess at who nicked from them in years to come. Just listen and appreciate "No Fright" from Live Wire. Mike Edwards on the tasteful slide guitar and vocals, Simon Boswell producing, now a prolific horror and fantasy film score composer via works with Dario Argento, Danny Boyle etc., Jeremy Meek on the grooving bass and German Gonzalez on drums. "No Fright." Yaogote.

The 1980 Listening Post - Falcon - Walk Into the Mirror

 1980 Housekeeping LISTENING POST DISCOVERY

by Brian Kushnir

Falcon

Walk Into The Mirror

Genre: Proggy Power Pop

Rating: 4 out of 5

Highlights:

Los Alvarez

Thinking About You

Walk into the Mirror

Dance Dance Dance

1982

Listen to the Marc Maron WTF interview with Daniel Lanois when you get a chance. He talks about all sorts of interesting legendary producer things including his origin story recording local musicians in his Grant Avenue studio in Hamilton, Ontario.

“Walk Into The Mirror” was recorded at Grant Avenue and before Eno delivered U2 and punched his ticket Dan Lanois was engineering stuff like this and it is pretty sweet and unexpected. Kudos to the Listening Post Sleuths who will stop at nothing including spelunking to unearth all the records, including digging up this one in the Museum of Canadian Music, where apparently I need to be spending more of my free time.

Falcon is a project of songwriter and multi-instrumentalist virtuoso Glen Foster. He cruises effortlessly from genre to genre (proggy new wave, rockabilly swing, surf, country, space-fi rock, etc...) keeping everything tight and earnest.

For me there’s a lot to cheer about here. Something different around each corner. Great singing and vocal harmonies throughout. There’s brilliance in the playing all over the place in all different musical styles from metal, blues, flamenco, pedal steel, with lots of tasty licks and interesting things happening when listening on headphones from flute, claves, and a distorted Hammond B3, and found sounds.

“Los Alvarez” opens side 2 and is about as perfect an homage to Jackson Browne and the Eagles as you could write and record, even more impressive is that it comes from a guy from Hamilton Ontario which is closer to the Northern Lights than ‘The Border.’

Soon after releasing this Glen Foster decamped for the Canadian west where he spent years working in a music store selling, teaching, and repairing instruments, releasing 9 original albums and all the while continuing to play live around Vancouver in pubs and beyond. Sounds like a good life.

http://www.citizenfreak.com/titles/278432-falcon-walk-into-the-mirror

The 1981 Listening Post - The Human League - Dare

 The Human League - Dare

#509

By Brian Kushnir

October 16 1981

The Human League

Dare

Genre: Synth-pop 

 Allen’s Rating: 4.5 out of 5

Brian’s Rating: 4.5 out of 5

Highlights:

The Things That Dreams Are Made Of

Open Your Heart

The Sound Of The Crowd

Darkness

Seconds

Love Action (I Believe In Love)

Don’t You Want Me

All We Wanted To Be Were The Ramones

I could spill all the ink in this review on the one Human League song. You know the one, with the guy and the girl who called each other baby, who may or may not have wanted each other?

The backstories alone about the hit song, the original incarnation of the band, or how these four men and two women got together in the studio to make Dare is worth the price of admission and the subject of a whole nother story, which we don’t have time for today. Maybe in episodes two and three of the podcast.  

This isn’t about the backstory. This is about the dare. 

 

Specifically, what was the dare that the Human League was getting on about?

Surely it was a dare for the Human League to be British in 1981 and make a record with only synths and drum machines. Specifically noted with understated bravado in the credits, they used a Roland MC8, System 700, JP4, Korg 770, Delta, Casio VLT 1, M10, Linn LM1, Yamaha CS15, and Roland Microcomposer and Linn Drum Computer. That’s it! 

Was the dare about putting “Don’t You Want Me” - what would become the biggest track in this band’s history, the one Human League song that would become a definitive iconic 1980s marker of a synth-pop point-in-time, so infused with memories and meaning that 40 years later it still resonates and transports you back to this moment, even if you weren’t there in the first place - at the very end of the record?   

Or was the dare to just give in and indulge all their sensual urges, tensions, hopes, dreams, fears and inspirations, and create a new kind of punk-pop band. Because they clearly wanted all of this - to be punks like the Ramones and pump out catchy tunes for the pogoing clubbers, and to be boundary-pushing edgy auteurs like Kraftwerk and YMO and paint cinematic crypto-romantic electro-symphonies.

“All we wanted to be were The Ramones.” I believe this is what principal lyricst and frontman Phil Oakey would have said if I asked him what they were getting on about. They wanted to be Johnny, Joey, and Dee Dee but instead they were Joanne, Jo, Susanne, Ian, and two guys named Philip. And let’s not forget producer/programmer Martin Rushent. And being eccentric stylish intellectual Brits from the land of the Queen rather than snot nosed blue jeans rockers from Queens, The Human League did the Ramones their way, creating something unique and moving, at once of the times and timeless.  

The music on Dare works on multiple levels, like 5D chess. Do they have multiple symphonic sing-along synth anthems to kick the album off in a rousing hey ho let’s go fashion? Why yes, yes they do, with fanfares and flourishes in the opening threesome “The Things That Dreams Are Made Of,” “Open Your Heart,” and “The Sound Of The Crowd” to push and push and empower your pleasure buttons. Even the slinky island groove in “Do Or Die,” which may go on a little too long to close side one, still serves its purpose as a palate cleanse with a melody that could have surely been played on steel drum if not for the ‘electronics only here’ rule. 

Rewarding a close listen there are production subtleties throughout like dubbed out electronic drum fills, a heart beat rhythm to drive “Open Your Heart,” and even a bridge with a clever “Flight of the Bumblebees” homage. 

And “Darkness” has a full round of la la la’s in place of what would typically be the first verse of lyrics, which is an interesting Eno kind of move, as if they drew an Oblique Strategies card that cryptically said “la la your way through.’  

Are the lyrics often sparse, poetic, and open to multiple interpretations? You be the judge.  

(from Open Your Heart)

“And so you stand here

With the years ahead

Potentially calling

With open heart”

(from Do Or Die)

“I’d like to leave so would you kindly look the other way”

(from I Am The Law)

“My life

I’m a fool for you

You who take no advice

You who think evil doesn’t exist

Just because you deny it is true”

Let’s face it, the Human League are demanding. This is a band that knows how they want to look, where they want to go, and will tell you where you should stand when you are in their frame. Take time to see! Dream! Take a cruise to China! Get around town! Get in line now! Run all day! Run all night! 

There’s plenty of vulnerability on display with themes including love, dreams, fear of the dark, death, violence, power, the pursuit of both good times and bad.

A stylish mini-suite on side two draws inspiration from a 1971 British gangster-noir film, starting with your Requisite 90’s Cover(™): “Get Carter,” a one minute high and lonesome synthesizer take on Roy Budd’s mournful theme song from the film starring Michael Kaine and Britt Ekland among others. Maybe a wink from the band or a nod to their thematic influences, the potential connection between this album and the sordid tale in the film helps explain some of the lyrical content here. Again, a question to be explored in more detail in the podcast where we will attempt to track down those concerned.  

At this point, which feels like the deep end of the album, the Human League are in an especially dark place, like Kyle McLaughlin goofing along a white picket fence and suddenly getting stuck in a Lynchian reality. Now it’s dark, and we’re suddenly confronted with a murder and the law.

We suddenly come up for air back at the disco and in high-style outfits, first with the single minded and danceable “Love Action,” and then finally, at the very end, the chart topping duet “Don’t You Want Me,” which is basically “Don’t Go Breaking My Heart” but with the guy in the role of a schmuck, and a badass, ahead of her time empowered girl.  

Confession time, I thought that Dare was complete and utter shite when it came out, and we were talking about it then with an attitude of dismissive disbelief. I love it now but it was definitely above my head in 1981 - I was 14, played the drums and guitar, and these pretentious Brits had the unmitigated audacity to create an entire record with nothing but synths and drum machines. 

I’m here with humility to say that I was wrong back then. 

Maybe the Human League’s Dare was to be different, to search for something new, something scary, and explore how to find meaning in the world. In the end, as they say on the record, everybody needs love and adventure, cash to spend, and 2 or 3 friends.  

In the end they couldn't possibly have been the Ramones, but it still seems that their dare paid off.           

https://open.spotify.com/album/3ls7tE9D2SIvjTmRuEtsQY?si=7Rl7tT3pQGSYRvpzmss6Jw                      

The 1981 Listening Post - Loverboy - Get Lucky

 Loverboy - Get Lucky

#497

By Brian Kushnir

October 7 1981

Loverboy

Get Lucky

Genre: Loverpop

Allen’s Rating: 4 out of 5

Brian’s Rating: 3 out of 5

Highlights:

Working for The Weekend

When It's Over

Lucky Ones

Take Me To The Top

Who Wants The Guy in the Hot Red Leather Pants?

After the success of their 1980 debut, Loverboy was a contender. They had a hot and sexy band based solidly on the lover archetype and ownable red branding, riding in on a Canadian power pop goose and seemingly going straight up to the top with their sweet, fiery and inspiring sound. Question was, with their second album “Get Lucky” in late 1981 could they continue their cupid streak?   

Loverboy wastes no time in making their saucy case, and with three swift knocks of a cowbell we’re galloping straight into one of their biggest ever hits, “Working For The Weekend.” Loverboy knows what they are and immediately places you at the center of a tantalizing romantic vision, YOU are off the deep end, YOU are in the show, YOU want a piece of Mike Reno’s sugary sweet heart. It's an anthem of anthems and just thinking about it here you are compelled to sing along and join them in their romantic quest to get to the weekend that everyone including YOU have been working for. Are we there yet?

Unfortunately, while the tunes all sparkle with catchy hooks and Bob Rock engineering sheen, “Get Lucky” heads mostly downhill from there, because the kid who was once hot tonight and seemed like a kind of James Dean lover/hero is now someone who’s been on the road too long, gotten himself into multiple overlapping relationships, been dumped a few times, and is jaded, pissed, and likely hungover to boot. 

Who ever said it was easy being Loverboy!?

The “Get Lucky” songs are like a series of Joan Didion shorts slouching around the unspoken sordid drama at the intersection of love, fame, and violence. Trying to get someone in the sack by convincing them that their current lover is a jerk. Lovers sneaking around while cheating on their other lovers. Finding the ‘sexy’ in being mugged by a gang. Haters hating on you for making it almost to the top of the rock game. Fighting and cheating your way through your unhappy relationships.  

Only in “Take Me To the Top,” the last track on the record, do we finally have a song of uncontrollable Loverboy lust and unbridled carnal desire, with a slinky groove that slow-burns its way to an inevitable peak, hearkening back to the original Loverboy promise. 

“Get Lucky” Loverboy sounds like a band coming again and again out of a department-store dressing room with different outfits each time, almost never satisfied with how it is looking. We all know they chose the tight red leather pants for the cover of the album, which was spot on for the band, but what you actually get with the music on “Get Lucky” is more like patched-up jeans. 

I’m left with a couple of unanswered questions: 

Does The Weeknd ever think about releasing  a cover of  “Working for The Weekend?” 

What really may have happened when legendary promoter BIll Graham brokered a “sit-down” between Iron Maiden’s Bruce Dickinson and Loverboy’s Mike Reno backstage at Day on The Green #2 in Oakland in July of 1982, when Iron Maiden opened up for Scorpions, Loverboy and Foreigner? George Montgomery and I were both at the show (unbeknownst to each other at the time) and I have intel that the conversation would have gone something like this: 

Bill Graham (hereafter, BG)  “Listen you motherfuckers, we have 55,000 people here today who are expecting a good time, a massive show to put on and I will not tolerate any crap from any of you.”

Bruce Dickinson (BD) “All I can say is that Iron Maiden are the band that fucking gallops and there’s only going to be one fucking galloping band on this stage here today. In Oak Land.”  

Mike Reno (MR)  “I will concede that we have a few songs in our oeuvre that may include some galloping riffs. That said,” he said while raising one eyebrow, “don’t you like my tight red leather pants? We all have them.”

BD: “Real rockers don’t wear underwear! And have you met Eddie, our 10 foot tall zombie-demon mascot who shoots lasers from his eyes and treats Satan as his puppet?”

MR: “Oh, hi Eddie....”  He takes a sip of beer. “Actually I always get new underwear before each show, it’s one of the ways I get in touch with the local fans in each market so…”* 

BG: “Get the fuck out on stage you motherfuckers.”

*h/t Andrew Anthony

https://open.spotify.com/album/6oZb0svo8JG9mVxZmHjPxE?si=LXCGb7V_TE2JrOwuHRyj_g

The 1981 Listening Post - Matt Johnson (The The) - Burning Blue Soul

 Matt Johnson (The The) - Burning Blue Soul

#446

by Brian Kushnir

September 7 1981

Matt Johnson (The The) 

Burning Blue Soul

Genre: Troubled Experimental Post-Blues

Allen’s Rating: 3.5 out of 5

Brian's Rating: 3.75 out of 5

Highlights: 

Red Cinders in the Sand

TIme Again for the Golden Sunset

Icing Up

Like a Sun Risin Thru My Garden

This is an origin story. The the prequel, because most people would come to The The via “Soul Mining” or a later release first. Originally released with a different cover under his own name on 4AD in 1981, this is the debut LP from 20 year old Matt Johnson, who’s “Burning Blue Soul” is like a view from inside someone’s head as they watch the Hindenburg go down. It's impressive and disturbing, something you can’t look at too long or too often. This is the nucleus, the kernel of The The before you add the more palatable sugary coating of pop gloss that folks like Jools Holland and Johnny Marr brought in. Influenced by John Lennon but not the clever Beatle John the tormented one who wailed about all that drags him and Yoko down and there was a lot. Burning Blue Soul is foreshadowing everything that was to come and has come and is here now. Alienation. Numbing crowds. A post-industrial shocked wasteland of nihilism and insecurity and oh what’s the use. It’s a deep, dark night of the soul and Matt Johnson gets down on tape what’s in his head, singing and making most of the sounds. 

Burning Blue Soul was boundary pushing for its time and still sounds avant and interesting: tape loops, musique concrete, muted tribal drums, submarine sounds… distorted, occasionally off-kilter voices with hard to catch words, there’s a recognizable beat there like you’re outside a rocking club but maybe you're actually just floating in the river and didn’t know how you got here except that you dropped the needle on this. Arpeggiated guitar. Bagpipes. A bongo drum loop with seagull sounds throughout, drenched (oh must it always be drenched!) in reverb, ok well slathered in reverb, and echo, and someone is kicking in the guitar amp, and finally a bass starts to really tie the room together. Fog Horns!  Maybe we’re at the shore. Bristol? Layered, pulsing beats. Reverb-amp explosions in time. 

And that’s just the opening track!

This is the kind of dark into which people who feel alone in this world may want to walk toward. ‘This artist gets me, they see me, they are putting my feelings into words.’

Some songs work better than others, with gentle, memorable melodies, or a turn of a phrase that sticks with you. “Time Again For The Golden Sunset” opens with wobbly bass and echoed out guitar, and Johnson sings quietly, naively, with close in doubled-up vocal, occasionally conjuring a feeling of tortured anger. Johnson is showing his Residents' influence a bit. He may be in his bed, under the covers. The verbally dexterous Johnson is deadpan and dark:

“I used to be indecisive,

But now I’m not so sure.”

He mixes a dubbed out almost steel drum interlude with this commentary on his state of mind:

“I find it hard to come alive

When I’m all hollowed out

From the inside”

“Icing Up” is peak 1981 Johnson. Slow, reverby drum loops then guitar strums as if by random stumbling into the type of layered, chorus-driven guitar and synth progression that Johnny Marr, who was later in The The, may have himself actually been influenced by. A short, characteristically downbeat sing-song verse: “I have no future for I’ve had no past, just sitting here, pulling arrows, from my heart” (as one does), is followed by a positively psycho multi-tracked home studio jam session, replete with backwards guitars, synths floating in from right to left, and even a guitar solo where Johnson plucks out a nod to Jimi Hendrix.

Later in the record Johnson takes the piss out of “Dancing in The Streets,” by singing “Summer’s here…but I hardly noticed, there’s no reason to be singing.” This is no future music made for people anticipating their imminent annihilation. It’s chilling, heady, and still relevant.

https://open.spotify.com/album/4mwZ8nCDkOE4FB0TKHaWwl?si=Tt54OuZ6QC2gPshGy25cSQ

The 1981 Listening Post - The Allman Brothers - Brothers of the Road

 The Allman Brothers - Brothers of the Road

#384

By Brian Kushnir

August 1981

The Allman Brothers Band

Brothers of the Road

Genre: Rock Gone South

Allen’s Rating: 2.5 out of 5

Brian's Rating: 2 out of 5

Highlights: 

Leavin’

10 hot takes on The Allman Brothers Band's “Brothers of the Road”

These are not the Allman Brothers you’re looking for.

Starts with promise, but give it 10 seconds and you’ll be disappointed. 

The Brothers of the Road straight to nowhere.

Is this the Allman Brothers or Doobie Brothers?  

Steve Martin may have been listening to this when he got the idea for his book, “Pure Drivel.”

Profusely dull, lachrymose, misguided, empty, and wrong.

It's obvious this was released before the advent of Viagra because it is positively flaccid. 

There is a moment where the band clicks into a groove on Leavin’, but that’s an eccentric aberration.  

The patented Dickey Betts guitar solo(™) is reduced here to a bleating, repetitive cry for help.  

Sometimes I feel like I’ve been tied to the Listening Post. 

https://open.spotify.com/album/6c7Tr0ltE8TX2x3loUeFgW?si=3O0mssITStCawuNCRcS73g