We write about the songs that make the whole world sing, we write about the songs of love and special things, we write about the songs that make the young girls cry, we write about the songs, we write about the songs.
I'm back. You'll say I only spoke to you 2 hours ago, but for the purposes of the blog I've been away over a week, pretending to be working.
You may remember my previous posts about Charly Garcia and Sui Generis. Well, after they'd broke up he formed Seru Giran. This song is particularly interesting, I'm told by people who didn't get all their knowledge about Charly Garcia from a cursory glance at Wikipedia, because it was written in the early 80s when people like Charly couldn't get anything past the censors. Although if I was a censor, I probably wouldn't let these lyrics past either.
The innocent are guilty says his lordship, the king of Spades. Don't tell what you saw behind the looking glass you will have no power, lawyers or witnesses.
The music press liked Charly's new direction with Seru Giran, but the fans longed for the good days of twee songs around a piano and tin-flute. I'm with the fans on this one.
I was going to do a post about the UK Christmas number one, in light of that wonderful Alexandra girl's victory on Opportunity Knocks. I read in The Guardian that she "literally cried". Literally! Can you believe that? She didn't just cry cry, she literally cried. Anyway, then I saw the video to that evil satirist Peter Kay's Christmas song and only made it half way through before switching it off in disgust/boredom/the need to get to bed early. So I'm going to tell you about Sui Generis. No, not Genesis.
You'll know Sui Generis from a tape I sent you many moons ago which included their Cancion para mi muerte, or Song for my Death for those of us that don't have Spanish degrees. Well, last Saturday I found myself in the all-too familiar situation of an Argentinian asking me if I liked any Argentinian music, looking offended at the degree of negativity in my answer and then spending the rest of the evening trying to play me something I might like. This time it was one of Josefina's 297 cousins, Eduardo, and finally an Argentinian came good.
Las increibles aventuras del señor Tijeras, or the Incredible Adventures of Mr. Scissors, for those of us who thought a maths and chemistry degree would serve us well in life, being written in 1974 is about censorship, as you'll guess from the scissor sound effects at the start of the song. Taken from their third and penultimate album, the sound marks a change from the "hippies with a flute sitting round a campfire" aesthetic of their first two albums, and is all the better for it. In this respect, singer and songwriter Charlie (later Charly) Garcia is very much a latter day South American Dylan, although don't tell Argentinians that as they'll claim he's far huger than Dylan ever was, and indeed anyone else.
The things that made me like this song instantly are: 0:23 der der der der der der der der! 1:33 the "I'm bored of this musical direction, let's change in mid-song" moment of zen. Charlie had just got himself a new Moog from the States and couldn't wait till the next album to use it. My apologies for my use of the phrase "moment of zen", by the way. That's what we linguists call a snowclone. And then 2:45 when the synths come in, just when you thought the big musical change was at 1:33. One of Charlie/Charly's main influences was Procol Harum and Vanilla Fudge. I'm glad somebody was influenced by those bands.
Dear Daniel,
What wonderful, psychedelic nonsense. I love it. To me, there seems to be a gentle open-mindedness to this era of bizarre mixtures between Beatles-style harmony and avant-garde wierdness. A kind of engaging naivity which was completely missing from 70s prog rock, who is essentially the same hairdresser attempting the same job but with shinier scissors and an arrogant air of, "Who was the last person to cut this?".
Dear James, Is this the worst song ever? This was on VH1 right before the Hey Saint Peter video, and was no doubt instrumental in heightening my appreciation of the latter. This video has so many things to dislike: -the barrels under the drum-riser (0:30). Why? Do they have a constant supply of Jack Daniels fed intravenously into every one in the audience so they'll holler more? Are Lynyrd Skynyrd vintners? - the double bass drum (0:31). Why again? Are they going to launch into a Slayer cover? Or does the drummer have a small penis? -the futility of having a keyboard player (0:41) with two keyboards for a song that consists of the same three chords over and over again. Is the keyboard pink as well? Does the keyboard player have a small etc and so on? -all these references to the south (0:59). Can you imagine if there was a war between north and south England, the north lost and Stuart Maconie was left wandering the theatres of West Yorks. with an obsolete flag singing "Sweet Home Wakefield Westgate"? I bet you can. -there are at least 9 people on stage to perform a song that could easily be done by 4. Are Lynyrd Skynyrd the new GNR? Do they run some kind of musicians' cooperative? Is it so that half the musicians can play interminable solos? Ah. -the hair. Can't the ageing backing singers share their conditioner around? Sadly, Lynyrd Skynyrd got their name from gym teacher Leonard Skinner, who enforced the school's anti-long hair policy. I suppose once you've made that kind of statement, the barber shop's kind of out. - I think this is where GNR got their inspiration for their 10-minute version of Knockin on Heaven's Door hey hey hey hey hey yay.
Charlie Garcia, Argentinian nutjob and occasional musician, did a cover of this called Sweet Home Buenos Aires. You don't really want to click on that link.
Alternatively you can watch Free Bird and tell me whether that slide guitar is out of tune or not.
James and Daniel, or Jim and Danny to an unfortunate few, were going to be like the old men who ran 78 Records in Stockport, but writing a blog about the songs and videos they came across seemed a lot less hassle, and saved them having to move to Stockport. And so they created 78x78 Records, so that other people could know what it was like to be their friend, and what they wrote about when they wrote to each other about music. And so they will post videos of songs you might enjoy 78x78 times. And then they will stop. And then they will do something else. That's 6084 posts. They´ll endeavour to get it done quickly. They'd love to hear from you and any videos or songs you'd like them to post. You can do this by commenting in the pertinent area, or by e-mailing them your suggestions at 78discos@gmail.com
