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THAT'S MY MOTHERFUCKING JAM! Returns with The Buggles, "Rainbow Warrior"

Aug 13, 2009
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The Buggles

Yeah, yeah--I know. You ask: Pegritz, where the hell have you been for the last...howevermany months? Did you die? Were you off exploring the Jovian system in a hotwired UFO? Did the post-Singularity quantum computer running your simulated consciousness crash or catch a sentient virus? No, no, and--sadly--no. The truth is far more mundane and thoroughly unexciting. I ran into some weird problems uploading tracks to this site, and thought that maybe I'd exceeded my storage here...but it wasn't that. Not sure what caused the problem, but I got disgusted with it and just stopped using Vox for a bit. Then everytime I wanted to start up again and see if things were running smoothly once more, some bullshit arose that distracted me. Losing my shit job was one of them. But, now that I am a "man of leisure"--that is, a lazy slob living on unemployment benefits, which means I don't have the money to ever leave the house--I've got plenty of time to start smackin' y'all across your faces with some tight jams once again!

To get things back on the right track, I offer you The Buggles' "Rainbow Warrior," a little-known track from their little-known second album Adventures in Modern Recording. Unless you want to shell out $119 for a used copy of the ultra-rate Japanese import pressing of the album (the only version ever available on CD), I highly suggest you look for a torrent of the album--they're out there, believe me. Anyway, that said--on to the jam!

"Rainbow Warrior" is one of those songs entirely "made" by one specific instrumental part--and that's the crunching Moog bassline that comes in after the choruses. The song itself has a very strong prog-rock feel to it--which should be no surprise, considering that Trevor Horn was already involved with Yes when he started working on Adventures in Modern Recording--but also feels like a classic synthpop track, as well, thanks to the blatantly electronic percussion and the dense analogue synths. The lyrics also feature one of my favourite lines: "Time is all you're measuring." But, again, what really makes the song is the interleaved analogue bassline and guitar solos. The two instruments weave around one another like the snakes on a caduceus, each mirroring the other's curves perfectly. It gives me goosebumps everytime I hear it, and anyone with an interest in making music should listen to this track carefully in order to understand the stirring nature of counterpunctual melodies.

Of course, you can also just listen to it and rock the hell out, as well.

Billy Joel, "Allentown"

May 13, 2009
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08-Greatest Hits Volume Ii 1973-1-Allentown

Billy Joel

Damn. Don't know what happened to the cover art for this song...but who cares--if you want to look at pretty pictures, go the my DeviantArt page!

Anywho, Billy Joel is one of my alltime favorite singer/songwriters: he's an amazing pianist, a great singer with a wonderfully powerful soulful voice, and--most importantly--one hell of a songwriter. I'm a big fan of narrative songs and artists such as John Prine, Bob Dylan, Neal Fox, and Warren Zevon have released some of my favorite storytelling jams. The stories of Sam Stone, Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner, and James Lewis (the Kid With Two First Names) are as gripping as any novel--maybe even more so, because they all have wonderful tunes to back them up.

One such song that both tells a great (if incredibly depressing) tale is, of course, Billy Joel's "Allentown" (from 1982's The Nylon Curtain--my favorite Joel album--or Greatest Hits Volume 2). I've been through Allentown, Pennsylvania--the decrepit old eastern-PA coaltown in which the song's set--and...well, these days it's not quite the post-industrial wasteland of despair, unemployment, and hopelessness that it was in the early '80s (which is when Joel wrote and recorded the song), but it's certainly a place scarred deeply by its industrial heritage. In 1997 when I passed through on my way to new York City, I saw the familiar sight of rusting steel mills and mining equipment looming on the horizon like the skeletons of biblical behemoths: the dead gods of a past age. The homes of those gods' former slaves are all permanently smokestained and sagging beneath the weight of industrial exhaustion and post-industrial depression. Though Allentown has begun to recover--today it might even be a pretty, clean place like Pittsburgh--the wounds of its barbaric mining past are still visible.

Which is why a song like "Allentown" is still viable today: its speaks of a past that's still there over your shoulder. Well, it is if you're from Allentown or anywhere in southwestern Pennsylvania (Fayette County reprazentin' right here, yo!). It speaks of what my grandfather went through from the 1940s through the 1960s: born and bred a coalminer, after the mine closed down he struggled for decades doing odd jobs because he simply wasn't trained to do anything but grub for coal in the hateful guts of the earth. Of course, even had he been a jack-of-all-trades, there still weren't any other jobs to be had in southwestern PA. It was a singularly depressing time.

Joel has done a great job of encapsulating all that what-are-we-going-to-do-now? depression, the sense of betrayal by their employers, that former miners like my grandfather and former steelworkers experienced after the deaths of their respective industries. But what makes "Allentown" a stonecold jam despite its somber subject matter is Joel's masterful melody and the little touches of industrial percussion that tint the song with an aural suggestion of the blue-collar Golden Age's steelyards and coal-tipples. You can dance to this song, or sit back and nod along soberly to it. It's both uplifting and spiritually crushing. But that's a testament to Joel's power as both a songwriter and musician.

Steve Porter, "Rap Chop"

May 12, 2009
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"Rap Chop" featuring Vince (Steve Porter's Slap Chop remix)

Steve Porter is a DJ. But in addition to being a DJ, Steve Porter is also some kind of genius with the auto-tune. Just listen to what he's done with that goofy "Slap Chop" infomercial featuring the crazy guy who...what the hell did Vince do? Got into a fight with a prostitute because she bit him? Here's a life lesson for you, Slap Chop Vince: don't pick up hookers who smell like sewage and are covered in dirt and flies. Your zombie fetish will inevitably lead to tragedy.

Anyway, DJ Steve Porter created this brilliant "Rap Chop" video/song, and, yes, it was last week's Viral Video of the Week. But that doesn't mean it isn't 100% Bitchin'. Aside from the brilliant use of auto-tune and production on the "vocals," the song has an awesome oldskool electrofunk beat (DJSP was clearly channeling the spirit of Afrika Bamabaataa here) and a powerful groove. The best thing about the track is that it doesn't need the video to be awesome. You can download the track from Steve Porter's MySpace page and, man, this jam will slap-chop your speakers and keep you going throughout even the dullest of workdays.

And here's the best thing about it: this song may be responsible for more Slap Chop sales than anything else. Hell, I went out and bought a Slap Chop at the local Wal-Mart just so I could slap along to the damned song...and you know what? It's actually pretty useful! Thanks to the Slap Chop and DJ Steve Porter, I, too, have stopped having a boring tuna and stopped having a boring life! I'm in a great mood all day just slappin' my troubles away with the Slap Chop.

Wuf Ticket, "Ya Mama (12" Mix)"

May 9, 2009
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02 - Wuf Ticket - Ya mama (12'' mix)

Who is "Wuf Ticket"? I don't have the faintest clue...but this oldskool hip-hop diss track is completely Tha Shizznit, even if it does sound positively juvenile compared to some of the diss tracks dropped by more recent emcees. I mean, I don't think these guys would survive thirty seconds in a battle with Eminem or even Humpty Hump--but...so what? Nothing--and I do mean nothing--quite gets a child of the '80s laughing than rollin' up one some buster and shoutin' "YO' MAMA!"

The Dramatics, "Whatcha See Is Whatcha Get"

May 5, 2009
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The Dramatics - 02 - Whatcha See is Whatcha Get

The Dramatics

Where would the world be without soul? Classic soul, y'all--'60s soul, like the Temptations, Otis Redding, freakin' Martha & The Vandellas...but, even more importantly, '70s soul. Barry Muthafuckin' White. Billy Paul. Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes. And The Dramatics.

Soul music in the '70s was heavily influenced by funk (which, in turn, owes a whole hell of a lot to soul), and with the combination of heartfelt lyrics, attitude, and jamtastic beats, you've got instant gold. It's a rare thing for music to touch all the levels of human existence at the same time, but the smokin' hot soul of the Polyester Decade managed to strike both the physical, emotional, and even spiritual aspects of life with its timeless sound. There isn't an activity that I can think of which can't be done to '70s soul: makin' the sweet love (naturally), walking down the street wearing a big fuzzy pimp hat on your way to the liquor store, chopping walnuts, kissing babies on the campaign trail, chasing a rabid fox through the woods--it all goes better with some Earth Wind and Fire or some Chi-Lites or some Marvin Gaye. '70s soul is, like, the soundtrack to the Human Experience.

The Dramatics' "Whatcha See Is Whatcha Get" is a stone cold jam, folks. It's equal parts funk and soul: funk in the gritty guitar licks and the beat, soul in the elevating horn section and creamy vocal harmonies. I particularly love the way in which all the Dramatics get to deliver a line in the first verse: it lets each member of the quintet take a moment in the spotlight before the song really kicks in. Though not The Dramatics' first recorded song, 1971's "Whatcha See Is Whatcha Get" was their first hit--and it was a monster hit! Well, why not? I mean, listen to that perfect orchestration, those energized vocals delivering those universal lyrics? Listen to those effin' horns, people! Listen to those harmonies!

You know what this song makes me want to do? Bust out a wing-collar shirts and an orangish/reddish pleather jacket and some bellbottom polyester slacks (black and white checkers will do just fine). Get dressed to the nines and go cruisin' in a 1973 Cadillac Eldorado painted to match my jacket. Because the song's just pimp like dat...but just as smooth as it is funky. With a breakthrough hit like "Whatcha See," it's no surprise that The Dramatics went on to become one of the most popular soul quintets of the decade.

Insane Clown Posse, "The Tempest"

May 5, 2009
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02 - Ride the Tempest - Insane Clown Posse - The Tempest

Insane Clown Posse

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ICP are definitely an acquired taste, but you know what? I've acquired it. But, hey, remember that I own Killer Klowns from Outer Space on VHS, DVD, and LaserDisk and I revel in juvenile humor. In that light, some of their stuff is absolutely brilliant--if and only if it doesn't take itself too seriously! ICP are at their best when they're dropping rhymes about zombie parties, peripatetic corpse-collectors, possessed car audio systems, and, of course, the Dark Carnival. Their carnival-music-meets-hip-hop tracks are almost insanely catchy, oftimes funny as hell, and 100% individualistic. There simply ain't no one out there quite like them.

Of course, I maintain that ICP just isn't ICP without music by legendary Detroit producer Mike E. Clark. The albums that wicked clowns put out without Mike E. Clark just aren't very interesting...because the music just doesn't quite fit: they started turning into a rap-metal outfit for a while and...man, that shit just ain't right. Where're the carousel jams mixed with rolling beats and utterly insane lyrics? Where's the silly ten-year-old humour?! The awesome, childish glee of songs like "Dead Body Man" and "3 Rings"? Man, ICP without Mike E. Clark is like Harold Melvin without the Blue Notes--they'll never go Platinum! (Yeah, I just ripped off Snoop Dog there. What you gone do about that?! HUH?!)

Fortunately, Mike E. Clark returned to produce their last full-length album, 2007's The Tempest, and I swear that CD lived in my car stereo for six months. Why? Because it's nothing but straight-up Dark Carnival tracks that call to mind images of county fairs being invaded by the walking dead, serial killers lying in wait around the next corner in the House of Mirrors, sideshow freaks going on a bloodthirsty--but hysterical--rampage. And the album's first proper track (after the obligatory album intro), "Ride the Tempest"--which is simply about riding a gigantic, murderous rollercoaster--is so full of wicked carny craziness that it makes me paint my face and go running down the street wearing nothing but clown paint and a little red foam-rubber nose. I'll leave it to your imagination where I'm wearing the nose.

For a hip-hop song, it's surprisingly uptempo and full of verbal gymnastics: Violent J and Shaggy 2 Dope fling lines back and forth like maniacal mental patients playing catch in the hospital gymnasium. The beat is superb and the organ leads give the song a proper carny sound, but what really make the song are the hilarious pitch-bent shouts of "Rickety-tickety-tippity-top!" and stuff like that which gives the jam a rabid ringmaster sound to it. It's just a fun song, and you can tell that J and Shaggs are just having a blast on that track!

This is what you should expect from a pair of guys whose schtick is dressing up like murderous clowns and rapping about a Dark Carnival...not some kind of lame-ass Christian allegory or pointless rap-metal. Keep it carny, guys, and you're golden. Of course, The Tempest features songs that aim to make a point, such as "What About Now" and "News at 6 O'Clock," but Mike Clark's genius production makes even those tracks sound fun and electrifying. Still, The Tempest is definitely the clowns' best album since 1997's side-splittingly funny The Great Milenko.

Metric, "Sick Muse"

May 4, 2009
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Metric - 02 - Sick Muse

Metric

Dear lords, Emily Haines is hot. What the hell is it with me and indie-rock girls? Actually, that's an easy one to answer: I missed out on the whole New Wave scene, but I'm immersed to my neck in its little cousin, the contemporary indie-rock scene. I missed the sound on its first go-around, but I'll be damned if I'm not going to revel in it the second time around!

So anyway, Metric. Really good band. I just discovered them recently, through a friend's suggestion, and...I'm impressed. I haven't heard anything but their latest album Fantasies (the link is to the Amazon page for the CD, but I'd advise purchasing the CD and digital download package directly from the band, as it comes with a lot of great extra stuff and--better still--directly supports them and their music), and I'm seriously impressed. This is the kind of music that I can't get enough of: rock with a danceable edge that manages to be both literary and intellectual and booty-rockin' at the same time.

"Sick Muse" is probably my second favorite track from Fantasies, after "Gold Guns Girls"--but the reason I'm showcasing the former instead of the latter is because "Gold Guns Girls" is a pretty straightfoward song, which "Sick Muse" is a more interesting jam with a chorus that doesn't quite seem to fit with the rest of the song, but it still works perfectly. One of my main problems with a lot of indie rock is that a lot of bands, in their quest to try out new and different chord progressions, create songs that just don't stick with you. Modest Mouse is a great example: whereas "Dashboard" is a headsmashingly awesome jam, most of the other tracks on their latest album are...well, forgettable. Every song on that album is great, but which track sticks in your head and won't leave for a week? "Dashboard." Exactly.

"Sick Muse," despite its somewhat different-sounding chords, is still a memorable song with a highway-driving beat and sizzling guitars. What really makes the song for me, though, is vocalist/songwriter Emily Haines' voice. I'm such a singer for women with thin, etheral voices--hence the reason I love the Sundays so much. In fact, Haines' voice reminds me a lot of Harriet Wheeler's, and Metric's music, too, sounds at times like a sped-up version of the Sundays. Which is just great. And any song whose title is taken from a poem by William Blake is guaranteed to light up the crotchety old English-major in my heart!

Electric Six, "Dance Epidemic"

Apr 29, 2009
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06 - Dance Epidemic

Electric Six

Oh, my freakin' gods, this song rocks. It makes me want to strap myself to a Saturn-V rocket and shoot myself right into the heart of the sun. It makes me want to dress in a latex gimp suit and run around Washington, DC, setting off M80s in every sewer grate or mailbox I come upon. It makes me want to fling myself around a dancefloor like a monkey on crack.

I was introduced to Electric Six in 2004 or 2005 by my lovely friend Carolee, who exposed me to the sheer radioactive cloud of awesomeness that was "Gay Bar" (from their debut album Fire)--and I was instantly converted into an Electric Six devotee. If you mix blazing rock/disco/New Wave jams with silly, oftimes sidesplittingly hilarious, and sometimes downright mindblowing lyrics you're prettymuch guaranteed to end up on Pegritz's Favorite Bands list...but no one landed on the list with the atomic, Hiroshima-destroying impact of Electric Six.

Fire was an incredible album, but the band's follow-up effort, 2005's Señor Smoke, was just devastating. From track one, "Rock And Roll Evacuation" through to track fifteen, the unbelievably wonderful "Future Is In The Future," the album is just jam after jam after motherfucking jam--an unrelenting explosion of dance-powered energy, whacked-out but witty lyrics, good times and lightning bolts. To say that "Dance Epidemic" is the best song on the album is really difficult, because every damned track is nuclear war incarnate, but, if anything, "Dance Epidemic" packs just a little more megatonnage than the others.

I mean...listen to this friggin' song! The beat! That buzzing beast of a bassline! Those waxy disco guitars! And Dick Valentine's vocals....By Crom, who can't immediately fall in love with a song that begins with the line "Your body goes to waste every minute you don't give it me"? I'M DYING FOR YOUR SINS ON THE DANCEFLOOR, CAN'T YOU SEE?!?! I just...I just...don't know what to say. Everytime I hear this song I...I don't care if I'm so tired I feel like I've got both feet in the grave, I simply have to leap to my feet and shake my booty so damned hard I throw my back out.

"Dance Epidemic," y'all. It's more contagious than ebola crossed with the common cold.

Too bad the band's three following albums never quite captured the same insane, balls-to-the-wall power of Señor Smoke. But hey...if I managed to ever put out an album like Señor Smoke, I would never make another album ever, because there would be no way I could ever top it.

The Presets, "Talk Like That"

Apr 28, 2009
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06-the_presets-talk_like_that

The Presets

UH-OH!

You know...I really didn't like The Presets first album, Beams. Except for "Girl and the Sea," most of the tracks sounded as though they'd been constructed from sounds and samples from two different projects awkwardly sewn together into a listenable but ultimately mediocre whole. Were The Presets aiming for pure synthpop or some kind of pseudo-industrial sound? Sometimes hard sounds can mix just fine with pretty sounds, but Beams just sounded like a jumble of both....

But it seems the Australian duo has figured out exactly what kind of music they want to write, and their second album Apocalypso nails that sound to the wall and smacks it right in the mouth! What is that sound, you might ask? A sound rather similar to the pounding oldskool industrial of Black Strobe or Nitzer Ebb: melodic and danceable, but hard and angular at the same time. It can be harsh at times, pretty at times, but is always saturated in enough energy to light up Tokyo for a full twentyfour hours.

Give "Talk Like That" a listen and you'll see what I mean. The song is insanely energetic, with its massive organ intro, punching industrial beat, and Julian Hamilton's pure, unadulterated post-punk shouts--"UH-OH!" The chorus's combination of robotic delay and melodic singing seems to beam into your brain from some smoky club in London circa 1979. And yet, the quality of the synths and the production is 100% contemporary, and you can certainly expect to hear this album's singles blasting in just about every underground club on Earth, giving dancefloors an aural beat-down and forcing you to bust moves involving violent hair-flinging.

Apocalypso is a great name for this album, in that it sounds summery and potent while still being somewhat threatening--just like The Presets' music. Give it a listen, but don't blame me if you end up covered in bruises and hipster-sweat!

Ultravox, "We Came to Dance"/"Dancing With Tears In My Eyes"

Apr 25, 2009
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I couldn't mention Ultravox in the last post without following it up with two of my alltime favorite Ultravox jams. "Why two?" you ask. Well, why do I always post two jams by the same band?--because they're so fucking awesome they deserve double the love! *Smack* So just shut the hell up, play the music, and get ye some edumakayshun in the glory that was the New Romantic movement. Or, at least, the one band who embodied its ideals the best.

09.Ultravox_-_We_Came_To_Dance

Ultravox

As much as I love Wikipedia, its definition of "New Romanticism" is largely nonsense. Though like all New Wave and post-punk subgenres, fashion was certainly an element of New Romanticism, the movement was first and foremost a musical endeavour. If you listen to the artists whose sound defined New Romanticism--Ultravox, Visage, Spandau Ballet, just to name the most obvious--you'll notice that: 1) though the music can be as mechanical and angular as anything coming out of Britain's insanely-fruitful underground music scene in the late '70s/early '80s, the vocals are flatout soulful at times; and 2) the bands' lyrics often deal with eternal emotional subjects (often to the point of almost sounding proto-emo at times) and come across almost like straightforward pop songwriting. This is because New Romanticism is what happens when New Wavers decide to go Motown. As I mentioned in yesterday's post, New Romanticism is equal parts Motorik and Marvin Gaye. Soul music has always been popular in Britain, and naturally influenced all manner of music: it only makes sense that New Wave was touched by it as well.

Ultravox's "We Came To Dance" would be a straight-up, be-stiff post-punk dance jam were it not for Midge Ure's deep, passionate vocals. The beat is mechanical and the synths cold, but very dramatic--calling to mind the ice-cold psychodrama of Tubeway Army/Gary Numan's Replicas while adding a somewhat more human tone. Ure's vocals have a melodramatic quality that gives the song a touch of early Gothic, which should be no surprise, considering that the whole New Romantic look was one of the first flowerings of the modern Goth aesthetic...and it should also be no surprise, to industrial mavens, that I don't even know how many collections of classic industrial dance numbers have been called We Came To Dance.

10.Ultravox_-_Dancing_With_Tears_In_My_Eyes

Ultravox

But if you really want to hear balls-to-the-wall, heartrending New Romanticism, you need go no further than "Dancing With Tears In My Eyes." Yeahyeahyeah, the title sounds like something a bunch of skinny white teenagers with ugly haircuts should be screaming over riffs stolen from Green Day...but whereas 99.999% of "emo" is built around overwrought emotions, Ultravox didn't have to exaggerate one bit to get their point across. This song literally embodies the entire concept of New Romanticism with its gorgeous piano lead, soaring vocals, and extremely club-friendly beat...but it's the lyrics and Ure's aching blue-eyed soul voice that really give this jam its potency. If someone has every broken your heart and you went out dancing to forget your miseries and, instead, ended up celebrating them on the dancefloor, you've dance to this jam. Or you've requested it. This is the ultimate "dance yourself sick because life sucks and you're better off dead" song.

As a last note, I'm going to append the video for "Dancing With Tears In My Eyes," because...well, you just have to see this. Talk about completely and utterly missing the point of the song it's meant to illustrate! Whereas the bitter old Romantic chained up in my heart still thrills to the idea of spending your last few moments before nuclear annihilation in some hot babe's arms, the song has fuck-all to do with meltdowns and vintage '80s nuclear paranoia, but...the video was made after Three Mile Island, so hey....