Category: Music

The Police first played “Message in a Bottle” in public on a BBC TV show called Rock Goes To College on February 21, 1979. Here they are, live from Hatfield Polytechnic:

If you get a chance, check out other Rock Goes To College clips on YouTube. It was an interesting concept for a show: the BBC would find an up-and-coming band and arrange for them to play at a university, usually giving tickets away free to students. They’d then air the show live on TV and radio simultaneously, which allowed people to watch the show on their TVs and use their home stereos to provide a big, booming sound that televisions lacked on those days.

Other bands featured on the show include: The Boomtown Rats, AC\DC, Rich Kids, Cheap Trick, Ian Dury & the Blockheads, George Thorogood, The Cars, Average White Band, Joe Jackson, The Specials, Tom Petty, UB40, The Motels, U2, Stiff Little Fingers, Siouxsie and the Banshees, and The Stranglers… whose set was only 5 songs long; the band walked off the stage after the BBC refused to give tickets to local non-students. The band played whatever minimum number of songs that were required in the contract and refused to play any more for “elitist audiences”.

A little while back, I was surfing my favorite Internet message board when I found an interesting thread. The author proposed a thought experiment: imagine that it’s the late 80s or early 90s. You have a car with a tape deck, and you’re going on a road trip. Which 15 tapes would you bring with you?

He only proposed two big rules: the album had to be released in cassette format, and the cut off date was the year 2000. Aside from that, anything was fair game.

I made my own list, which you can see below. But keep a few of my “rules” in mind:

1) I got my first CD player for Christmas in 1985, and stopped buying pre-recorded cassettes shortly thereafter. So, in my mind, the “Age of Cassettes” is 1980 – 1986.

2) I was the “King of Mix Tapes” in my day. I bought a lot of cassettes in the 80s, but I mostly bought LPs or CDs and dumped them to blank tapes, and later took the best songs and mixed them in with tracks from other albums. So, when I think of cassettes, I tend to not think of “albums”.

Continue reading “The Road Trip List”

You ever hear a song, think “that’s nice”, and file it away in your memory… and then hear the song years later and think “wow, that’s pretty cool!”

Such is the case with me and the song “Once I Had A Love” by Blondie. The song was the basis of the later megahit “Heart of Glass”. But whereas “Glass” was much influenced by the Disco movement, “Once I Had A Love” is more of a rock and roll song, with a nifty reggae\ska beat. Many of the sounds that would by made by synthesizers in “Glass” were made by guitars in “Love”. And, most interestingly of all, the words “heart of glass” do not appear in the original at all. Where Debbie Harry would later sing “had a heart of glass”, in this version it’s “was a thing of the past”.

Have a listen:

Also, I had no idea the line “soon turned out, to be a pain in the ass” (heard in both songs) was such a big deal back in the day. Apparently the song was banned from Australian radio completely. In the UK, the BBC demanded an edited version of the song, and when the music video was played on Top of the Pops it faded out before the last verse.

Here’s a few of my favorite cover tunes!

We’ll start with Eve Plum’s version of Duran Duran’s “Save a Prayer” (stick with it to the very end, that’s my favorite part):

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pIQIL-KUG-E

I also like 10,000 Maniacs covers of “Sally Ann” (The Horse Flies) and “Everyday is Like Sunday” (Morrissey) and “(Don’t Go Back to) Rockville” (R.E.M.), but can only find “Rockville” on YouTube at the moment. Amazingly, all three covers are from the same Candy Everybody Wants EP:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BpIxOPUxIt4

Something funny: Most everyone knows that 10,000 Maniacs also covered the Patti Smith Group’s “Because the Night”. Many fans also know they covered David Bowie’s “Starman”, and the post-Merchant Maniacs an OK job covering Roxy Music’s “More Than This”. But the Maniacs are also responsible for one of the worst cover songs ever, of Joy Division’s “Love Will Tear Us Apart”. The recording I heard was live, and Natalie Merchant sang something like “When routine gets hard, and la-la-la is low… la-la-la-la-laaaaa and la-la-la don’t grow… and la-la- our ways… take a different approach”. Whoever sang backup then took over, and Merchant would only join in the chorus. It was pitiful!

Continue reading “FRIDAY FUN: A Cavalcade of Cover Songs!”

I dunno if I “love” this song just yet, but I spent the past hour listening to it over and over and over again, so that’s a good sign. It’s by the French band Karaocake (MySpace page here) and it’s amazingly hypnotic. Have a listen:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NNcTOu3R0OA

Here’s a rare acoustic performance of R.E.M.’s “Driver 8”. What makes this particular performance so interesting is that it’s supposedly from a July 1984 episode of the show “The Cutting Edge”… which was almost a year before Fables of the Reconstruction was released.

Have a watch and tell us what you think:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XjX7udu1SxE&feature=related

erockster.com might have the cheesiest name ever, and it might be owned by Clear Channel… but it’s one of the coolest radio stations ever!

I’ve been listening for a week and have been gobsmacked to hear songs by bands I already like but almost never hear on local radio such as Au Revoir Simone, MGMT, Husker Du, Massive Attack, Beach House, Vampire Weekend, Brian Eno, Sleigh Bells, La Roux, Asobi Seksu, Bat for Lashes, R.E.M., Hot Chip, Spoon, Lykke Li, The Clash, Radiohead, Best Coast, Metric, LCD Soundsystem, Golden Filter, Cocteau Twins, New Order and more.

But the truest test for a radio station is how many new acts I find on it. In just a week, I’ve discovered several awesome new bands (Polly Scattergood, Kisses, Yeasayer, Blonde Readhead, Stars, The National, and Washed Out) as well as a few bands I’d already heard of, but had overlooked (The Apples in Stereo, XX, Florence and the Machine).

You can listen to erockster here, but what’s even better is that Clear Channel runs the station as a subchannel in most large markets. So if you have an HD radio, you can tune in to erockster almost anywhere!

It’s a really great station, and I’d advise you to check it out soon!

Factory Records was an influential British record label based out of Manchester. Founded by TV host Tony Wilson and band manager Alan Erasmus in 1978, the label was home to giants like Joy Division, New Order, The Durutti Column, A Certain Ratio and Happy Mondays, and was the “starter label” for bands like Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark and James. Like competing label 4AD, Factory relied on a producer (in this case, Martin Mannett) and a graphic designer (Peter Saville) to give the label’s releases a unique and consistent look and sound.

As anyone who has seen the film 24 Hour Party People will tell you, there were a lot of drugs being used by practically everyone at the label. In fact, one need only to look at the label’s catalog system to see that.

Almost every Factory release begins with the prefix “FAC”, except albums, which have the prefix “FACT”. “Special” numbers were reserved for big, important releases, so Joy Division’s Closer album is FACT 25, New Order’s Movement is FACT 50, New Order’s Power Corruption and Lies is FACT 75 and New Order’s Low Life is FACT 100. Because these “special” numbers were used, sometimes the catalog numbers seem out of order: New Order’s greatest hits album Substance is FACT 200, while Joy Division’s greatest hits album, also called Substance, is FACT 250, even though Joy Division preceded New Order.

The last digit of a catalog number was often reserved for certain bands, although there are many inconsistencies in its implementation. However, the last digit being 1 usually signified a release by Factory Corporate, 2 was used for Happy Mondays singles, 3 for Joy Division and New Order singles, 4 was used for Durutti Column singles, and 6 was reserved for short-lived “Factory Classical” releases.

Continue reading “Fun with Factory’s Catalog!”