For some reason, the Propellerheads only put out one album, but it's a great one. Arriving on the scene in the middle of the 90's lounge resurgence and around the same time as Austin Powers, the album is acid-jazz-soaked electronica, chock full of bass and horn-driven funk riffs with a twist of 60's spy themes. In all, it's a potent cocktail that should get your bootie shaking regardless of what sort of mood you're in.
Highlighting the set is "History Repeating", which features the astoundingly dynamic vocal talents of Shirley Bassey. You might remember her from such incredible numbers like "Goldfinger", "Moonraker" and the almighty "Diamonds Are Forever". The old dame still has it, and she belts the tune like it's the theme to a long lost Sean Connery-era James Bond flick. The song has it all, a shag-worthy rhythm section, a funky organ groove, a killer horn line, and of course Shirley's sterling vocals. Gotta love it.
If you're interested, and you should be, you can find "History Repeating" on the awkwardly titled Decksandrumsandrockandroll. (When I wrote this, Amazon had it for 2 bucks, plus shipping and handling. Delivered to your door for five bucks? Sold!)
Sigh. All that talk about Vampire Weekend bashing and I totally forgot to talk about the music. So here's a paragraph that belongs somewhere in the middle of that article.
The nice thing about Vampire Weekend is that they have a great pop sense and sound a little like a South African version of Lincoln-era They Might Be Giants. By South African, I mean there's definitely a Bert Kaempfert bouncy feel to the music. Listen to "Holiday for Bells" or "Swingin' Safari" to get an idea of what I mean. It also rings a little of Paul Simon's Graceland, which is quite possibly my favorite album of all time. So it's no wonder I like Vampire Weekend. Check it out.
Bongwater is notorious for full-on kaleidoscopic freak-show psychedelia, and this is a prime example. The piece starts out with a pastiche of found samples, including a stuttering pontification on Bongwater as a band name and someone abusing a telephone. After a minute and a half of psychotropic randomness, the actual song kicks in. The tune itself is a journey through classic psychedelic territory, with hazy guitars and a martial snare pattern laying down the backdrop for Ann's spoken word performance. Somehow she manages to be both sexy and bizarre, tripping her way through double entendres and references to funnel clouds, chocolate cake, lingerie pose-a-thons, balding actors, Dorothy Stratten, and of course, Nick Cave dolls. I want one.
This tune is a little on the adult-oriented side, with some salty language and vaguely risque situations. I mean, the album is called The Power of Pussy.
I said at the beginning, "The music should just be really good, or at least interesting." This one falls into the latter category. Don't get me wrong. It is good. I enjoy it, and I wouldn't put anything up here that I didn't like. But posting this song is more about giving you something different than giving you something great. I don't think this song rings with the same universal appeal that the previous posts might have had, so if you don't like it, I won't think any less of you. But you should still hear it, because it's cool.
I couldn't find much about Linda Draper. She's apparently a folk/indie singer, which means she's probably a singer-songwriter who either wants to be Tori Amos or Norah Jones. I haven't heard anything else she's done, as is the case with many of the covers I've heard, but I'm sure she's wonderful if you like that sort of thing.
Here though she provides a stripped-down take on the Rolling Stones' Mother's Little Helper. Draper lilts her way through the song with nothing but a little bit of double-tracking and a tambourine. Where the original rocks, this version sort of ... floats. The weird thing is, it doesn't really sound full enough to have originally been imagined as an a cappella recording. Even most solo vocals have a sort of weight that seems to be missing here. It's almost as if they instead took a song that originally had all the parts, bass, drums, guitar and whatnot, and stripped them out, leaving only the backing percussion and the voice. Or maybe it's just a matter of some weird equalization. Either way, the result is a flat, dark, empty take on the song, which resounds with the subject matter quite nicely and makes for a vaguely unsettling experience, like driving down your neighborhood street in a light snow at three in the morning: familiar, yet eerie.
Mother's Little Helper can be found on Linda's 2009 album Bridge and Tunnel.
Yeah, I'm gonna kick this thing off with Vampire Weekend. "Vampire Weekend?!" I hear you say, assuming you are a follower of the indie scene and read Blender or AP or Pitchfork or whatever else the hip kids are reading these days to get their musical views. "They totally suck, because they're, like, indie wannabes and posers and everybody who likes cool music hates them."
Or, maybe you have no idea who they are and actually what I heard you say was, "What?"
Vampire Weekend has this weird cachet as the indie band that everyone loves to hate. See, if you like "indie" music, then you're not allowed to like this band. I'm not sure why. I think because they are from well-off New England families. Or maybe it's because your mom and little sister can stand them. Or maybe it's because you should hate everything that even remotely smacks of potentially being related to Twilight. Or maybe it's because they were in an Apple commercial... No wait, not an Apple commercial, but a Verizon commercial mocking iPhones... even worse.
But the problem with this whole "sell-out" line of thinking is that it completely ignores the music. How can you say a band sucks just because they were used in the credits for Step Brothers? How does that change the quality of the music? I mean, if they were good before, then they end up on the cover of Rolling Stone, how can they suddenly be bad?
That's stupid. Almost as stupid as the whole concept of "Indie" music. I mean, if it's coming out on a subsidiary of a subsidiary of a subsidiary of Sony Megacorp, it's still not really 'independent' is it?
Regardless, the entire album is excellent, and finding a single representative song is an impossible task. I picked "Campus" because it's a great song, it sounds like them, and it's in the middle of the album. So if you've heard them, you've probably heard "Mansard Roof" and "Oxford Comma" and "A-Punk" and "Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa". If not, go buy the album, or maybe borrow it from your indie-music-loving friend who has a copy, whether or not they claim to despise the band, because frankly, it's just a great album.
"Campus" can be found on their first, eponymous album. They've got another album coming out in a week too. How serendipitous! (No, really, it was. I only learned about it today!)
* For the record, I prefer the oxford comma in lists of phrases (see above), but I dislike it in simple lists. Just so you know where I stand.
Just in time for Thanksgiving! "Serenade for Jive Turkey" is a raving full-band funk stomper with a bit of a prog bent. It starts with a scream and barrels along from there with a solid funk groove. Then around chorus-time, it breaks into an angular riff that's hammered out by the horns and some wordless vocals. Then, in a master stroke, it ends with a killer drum fill and two (just two, no more, no less) claps. Bang, bang! All done!
A sure-fire upbeat mood-alterer. Be sure you play this one while you're stuffing that bird, if you get my drift.
I don't know much about The Nite-Liters themselves. I'm pretty sure I picked this one up from the excellent Funky16Corners website, but it can also be found on their recently re-released 1973 album "A-NAL-Y-SIS".
The goal for Topeka is to expose the reader to new music. Not new in the sense of "just came out last week", but new in the sense of "Hey, you may not have ever heard this before." In order to do this, I'm certainly going to pull some "just came out last week" stuff that I like, but I'm also going back into the creates to explore stuff that maybe you heard but forgot. I especially like the idea of pulling non-single album tracks or B sides from more popular groups, hopefully to shake up your preconceived ideas about what they represent.
Also, the music should just be really good. Or, at least interesting.
To that end, here is the first entry. It's a well-known band, but a lesser-known song. I think. I wasn't really around at the time. The song is Paint Box, by Pink Floyd, the flipside to Apples and Oranges (which is also a great song).
This one sounds a bit like a Syd Barrett penned song, but it turns out it was written by Richard Wright. It's a simple enough little ditty, kind of melancholy riff on the mundane perils of going out on the town with your mates. But it's a bit hazy. There's forgetting and confusion. Someone's calling him on the phone, but she's unnamed. He's late, she's mad, and he ... trips out.
This is all backed by a hazy, psychedelic swirl of production. Not so thick that it becomes a parody (like the Lemon Pipers) but just enough to contribute to the whole sense of oddness, disjointedness and anxiety that pervades the track.
The whole song feels like it really captures the befuddled stupor, the fog of a high one might find oneself in after a long night of imbibing alcohol and ingesting narcotics.
This version came off the awesome Early Singles compilation from 1992.
"But, where's the song, Risser?" I hear you venting through clenched teeth. "You promised me a SONG."
It's there. Here's the deal.
I hope to use this site, not just as a way to introduce folks to new music, but as a way to prompt myself to get writing.
But Blogger is notorious for taking down messages that contain links to popular bands. They just delete them. No warning, no notification, no saving as draft. Just gone.
So, one way I hope to combat that is to keep the file itself out of the post with the description. So the description will talk about the track, which shouldn't cause anyone any consternation. And it will be followed by a note that explains which post contains the actual link for the song, referenced by number. Each post with the actual link is numbered and that number links the two posts together. The link is in the body of the post and also in the title. Click the link or title, hear the song. Right-click the link or title, download the song, then hear the song.
Comments work on the description posts, but not on the file posts. Make sense?
Also, I think you should pull down the songs and start them up before reading. If you read beforehand, there might be a spoiler or two, and I don't want to spoil it for you. If you're really disciplined, you should listen to the whole song beforehand, then listen to it again while you're reading.
I think one of my new years resolutions is going to be to improve my writing. One way to help with this "they" say, is to write something every day. That being said, I am going to try and get this sharity site up and running. I'm going to try and get 4 weeks ahead with writing, then start uploading and publishing. This will give me the ability to revisit and clean up before I publish.
I'm starting today, though you won't notice until probably after Christmas.
For some reason, the Propellerheads only put out one album, but it's a great one. Arriving on the scene in the middle of the 90's lounge resurgence and around the same time as Austin Powers, the album is acid-jazz-soaked electronica, chock full of bass and horn-driven funk riffs with a twist of 60's spy themes. In all, it's a potent cocktail that should get your bootie shaking regardless of what sort of mood you're in.
talents of Shirley Bassey. You might remember her from such incredible numbers like "Goldfinger", "Moonraker" and the almighty "Diamonds Are Forever". The old dame still has it, and she belts the tune like it's the theme to a long lost Sean Connery-era James Bond flick. The song has it all, a shag-worthy rhythm section, a funky organ groove, a killer horn line, and of course Shirley's sterling vocals. 
Gotta love it.
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