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.
It's at least 72 hours since you last posted which means I get to post more heavy metal. Good news for me, bad news for our reader(s). When you bring me this turntable (weekly reminder) the first thing I'll do is go out and buy the first four albums of Sui Generis and Black Sabbath. The second thing I'll do is listen to the hundred-odd albums I bought and never listened to, starting with the 30 Years of Bossa album I claim to have listened to in the post below.
A brief history of Black Sabbath, cribbed from Wikipedia: In 1968 everyone liked flowers and listened to pretty music, so Black Sabbath were pretty revolutionary. In December 68 Tony Iommi left Sabbath to join Jethro Tull, appearing on the Rolling Stones' Rock n Roll Circus and becoming the first of many members to leave the band. Their first album, Black Sabbath, was released in 1969, recorded live in one take and described by Lester Bangs of the Rolling Stone as
discordant jams with bass and guitar reeling like velocitised speedfreaks all over each other's musical perimeters, yet never quite finding synch
Which sounds like fun. Paranoid was released in 1970. The title track was written in twenty minutes, although that includes the time taken to skin up. It reached number 4 in the UK, Sabbath's only UK top ten hit. Master of Reality was released in 1971, featuring marijuana paean Sweet Leaf, which you'll know from Ugly Kid Joe's cover. Lester Bangs described it as
naïve, simplistic, repetitive, absolute doggerel
Such a way with words, our Lester, though perhaps ignorant of the very essence of heavy metal. With the success of Black Sabbath Vol. 4 the band appeared on Top of the Pops, sharing a stage with Engelbert Humperdink and Diana Ross, though perhaps not at the same time. By now the band had more money and more drugs, which shows in the video to Sabbath Bloody Sabbath, off the fifth album Sabotage, which featured 24's Rick Wakeman on keyboards. It was downhill after that.
I was going to post this as a link from the other Sui Generis song below, but this video is just so good I have to post it here and now. If you don't like it, I don't think I can be your friend anymore.
Dear Daniel,
It's alright! I like it! We can still be friends. I liked it the best on that compilation you made for me. I remember us listening it together at one point and you telling me who it was. Immediately, I forgot, while Doug Stegmeyer remained. So I'm glad you've brought it up again, thank you. What's a snow clone?
Dear James,
A snowclone is a set phrase that can be adapted for the purposes of comedic humour, such as including "moment of zen" anywhere you like, the phrase "no xs were hurt in the making of this y" and "x is the new y", as in that popular mid-70s dictum, "Stegmeyer is the new Moon". I have a friend called Stegmayer, you know? I remember on the compilation tape this song segued into Cat Stevens' Father and Son. That was one big hippierama.
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?".
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
