Monthly Archives: July 2014

Though the music they produced was only fitfully successful, the Denny Laine-fronted incarnation of The Moody Blues deserves to be remembered for more than a momentary chart fling topped by a gem of a single. In ’65 they released an album at home and another in the US under distinct titles, both holding a dozen tracks and with a third of each LP also unique. The better of the two, Go Now–The Moody Blues #1, was issued in the States by London Records.

Heavy on covers and by extension lacking in gestures toward originality, the ’64-’66-era Moody Blues are unlikely to be many people’s (I’ll stop short of saying anybody’s) most beloved component in the British Invasion. In fact, talk of the group today reliably focuses on the post-Denny Laine/Clint Warwick lineup that saw new members John Lodge and Justin Hayward helping to transmogrify the Moodies into one of the leading if artistically lesser examples of Symphonic Rock. I won’t sully the Prog genre with an inapt association since there was hardly anything progressive about The Moody Blues Mk 2.

Instead, they exemplified the Middlebrow impulse, though that’s ultimately a separate discussion. This piece concerns a band that came together when the leader of Denny Laine and the Diplomats joined up with a bunch of nameless Birmingham hopefuls, their main desire hitting it big or even just making a good living; they briefly played as the M & B 5, the initials an attempt at landing sponsorship from two local beer brewers (last names Mitchell and Butler). And similar to many of their contemporaries, The Moody Blues’ method at least initially was the borrowing and alteration of Rhythm and Blues.

And they did storm the charts with “Go Now,” in the process overtaking in popularity the terrific Leiber and Stoller-produced original by Bessie Banks, though the idea of the cover destroying the source’s commercial hopes is basically a myth. Banks’ tune was released by the Tiger label in January of ’64 while The Moody Blues’ version didn’t emerge until the following November, eventually peaking at #10 in the US in February of ’65 (it took top Brit honors a month earlier).

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A couple of years ago the apartment my ex-wife and I lived in suffered a mouse infestation. We tried regular traps and glue traps, but they seemed terribly cruel, so we finally bought some catch-and-release traps. We lived on the third floor, and I got tired of carrying the traps down to the alley to release them. So I thought, why not release them on the balcony, where they’d be free to scamper along the rooftops to safety? So I tried it, but instead of escaping via the rooftops my frightened test mouse shot out of his little prison like a furry little bullet, promptly sailed off the edge of our balcony, and fell screaming (I may have imagined the screaming) to the concrete parking space below.

I’m not sure why—or actually I am—why that mouse never fails to remind me of Van Halen’s great “Jump.” I might as well have been singing, “Jump! Go ahead and jump!” as he plummeted earthwards. But anyway, the point I want to make is not that mice should look before they leap, although they should, but that I love Van Halen’s “Jump”—loved it even during those years when virtually all I listened to were SST bands, and admitting to liking a Van Halen song (at least amongst my crowd) was not so far from confessing to like that Seals and Crofts song about the summer breeze blowing through the jasmine in your mind.

I should add that my love for “Jump” did not extend to Van Halen itself. I had in fact never so much as listened to a Van Halen LP in its entirety, much less owned one. Honestly? I thought they were a band of morons. They dressed like Jose Feliciano was their haberdasher, and it was my considered opinion that Eddie Van Halen was a shameless showboater with his tapping (a technique he didn’t invent); single pickup, single volume knob guitar; and volume swells, or “violining.” Then there was the perpetually mugging David Lee Roth, whom I considered the world’s oldest class clown. (I’ve come to love him over the years for the same reason.) As for bassist Michael Anthony, well, bassist Michael Anthony was just short. Too short. Like midget short. Then there was the drummer, Eddie’s brother, whose name slips my mind (Alex? Alek like Lee Harvey Oswald’s USSR name?) but it hardly matters because who pays attention to the drummer except other drummers anyway?

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The Chills, nearly 35 years after coming together in Dunedin New Zealand and fronted as always by Martin Phillipps, are releasing a new vinyl single. “Molten Gold” b/w “Pink Frost,” out now through Fire Records, provides vibrant testimony to the heights of Phillipps’ pure pop vision, its two songs refreshingly unburdened by the stature of his past achievements.

I must confess to feeling just a twinge of envy in regard to the numerous guitar pop fans that have yet to make the acquaintance of the estimable Martin Phillipps. It’s not necessarily that the first occasion is the sweetest, but rather that the initial moment of discovery is distinct, the inaugural taste easy to recollect decades later.

Where was I the first time I heard The Chills? Unspectacularly, in the stereo room of a shared abode, though I did give my freshly acquired copy of “The Lost EP” at least a dozen spins on that day alone, primarily because the songs were so damned good, but also due to my persistent doubts over a batch of simple guitar pop being, well, so damned good.

New Zealand’s breakout indie label had their hands in a diverse range of early offerings, but alongside The Clean, The Verlaines, and Tall Dwarfs, The Chills are a cornerstone act in what’s described today as the Flying Nun Sound; with due respect to more famous countrymen the Brothers Finn (of Split Enz, Crowded House, etc), Martin Phillipps can be accurately (if of course arguably) lauded as the great Kiwi pop auteur, mainly due to assured breadth of artistry.

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We continue our Bonnaroo coverage of Festival Fast Talks we did at the Red Bull Music Academy‘s Basscamp. The Basscamp was a Red Bull mini-school pulling 20 producers from the region, offering them studio time in rooms packed with gear and talks with Mannie Fresh and Thundercat, and encourging them to create and collaborate in their cooldown time from the festival.

Producers involved covered all types of varying electronic sound. One that I was able to talk to quickly was daltn, a house producer whose sound is developed from equal handfuls of thick grooves and relaxing vibes. He creates slow-build atmospheric heavy house tunes that are full of rich synth work and optimistic chord progressions that revolve around tightly locked grooves.

How did you start making music?

I initially started playing guitar in bands, and then I played the drums for a bit. I eventually gravitated towards DJing and producing music with drum machines and synthesizers.

How I started DJing is a funny story, actually; I used to have band practice in my old house in Miami that was empty since it got foreclosed. We were a rock band with a cellist that wanted to sound like Godspeed You! Black Emperor. Around then I started to delve deeper into dance music, and I decided to sell some gear and buy a handful of records and some turntables. I set them up in the space and started throwing parties after our practices, and I was having so much fun that eventually I dove in and sold all my guitar gear and bought records and a copy of Logic.

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Retro revivalists Allah-Las have just released the video for “No Werewolf,” a striking cover of The Frantics’ classic. Steeped in West Coast garage rock and roll, Latin percussion and electric folk, Allah-Las add a little wanderlust to the classic rock nugget while indulging their love for 1960s rock.

The video was entirely produced in Russia by the sculptor artist Mikhail Sadovnikov who was inspired to recreate a “dance on the circle” out of wet clay on his potter’s wheel. It’s a surprisingly mesmerizing addition to the fuzzed out audio of “No Werewolf” which adds an appropriate edge to the artsy-fartsy nature of the video.

Allah-Las’ second album, Worship The Sun is out September 16th on Innovative Leisure, the LA-based label which is quickly becoming known for its noisy throwback roster. In fact, one of their 2014 breakthrough artists, Nick Waterhouse acted as in house producer on Worship The Sun.