Song of the Week – Floating in the Forth, Frightened Rabbit

by

IGNORED OBSCURED RESTORED

I wasn’t planning for this to be today’s SotW. But then I heard the news that the singer/guitarist for Frightened Rabbit died and read this unnerving headline in yesterday’s edition of the British newspaper, The Daily Mail:

Frightened Rabbit singer Scott Hutchison imagined his own death in song Floating in The Forth – the river where police have found his body

The article continued:

Scottish musician Mr Hutchison, 36, disappeared on Wednesday after walking out of a South Queensferry hotel at 1am and he was found dead close to the Forth Road Bridge last night.

Police today confirmed a body found in the river is the Frightened Rabbit star as his heartbroken family admitted he had been fighting depression but they still hoped he ‘would walk back through the door’.

On his band’s acclaimed 2008 album The Midnight Organ Fight he penned the song ‘Floating in the Forth’, which Scott himself said ‘would remind him that he was alive’ every time he performed it.

He sings: ‘And fully clothed, I float away. Down the Forth, into the sea’ and the song ends with the words: ‘I think I’ll save suicide for another year.’

Here’s the song:

Too, too sad.

The band formed in 2003 and released their debut album in 2006. Several more critically celebrated discs came out, the last being Painting of a Panic Attack (2016). They had just recently begun a tour to celebrate the 10th anniversary of The Midnight Organ Fight.

While it’s too soon to conclude on Hutchinson’s cause of death, it is regrettable to think that revisiting “Floating in the Forth” may have played a part.

Another talented, tortured artist has left this mortal coil.

Enjoy… until next week.

Dream Syndicate, Still Holding On To You

by

They came from LA in 1983. Jon Pareles, NY Times rock critic then and now, wrote about their show at the Mudd Club. They did indeed do a fine job imitating the Velvet Underground back then, as I learned a few days later at their show at Gerdes Folk City.

Their second album, Medicine Show, was produced by Sandy Pearlman, of Blue Oyster Cult fame, who had a few years had produced the Clash’s Give ‘Em Enough Rope. Medicine Show sounds harder than Days of Wine and Roses, their debut. I put the record on the other day, for the first time in probably 30 years and liked this one right off the bat.

 

Richard Hell and the Voidoids, Walking on the Water

by

The lone cover from the band’s debut elpee, Blank Generation, seemed unlikely. Creedence? Until you hear it.

The Voidoids take the pounding rhythm from the original, cut the running time in half by getting rid of a long instrumental break in the middle, and replace John Fogarty’s growling defiance with Hell’s skreechy pleading. Different approach to the guitar solos, too. It works.

Song of the Week – I Don’t Want To Be Without You, James Hunter Six

by

IGNORED OBSCURED RESTORED

I read MOJO magazine for a reason! I still find it the best source to discover new music, especially these days when the likes of Spotify, YouTube and Pandora put the universe of recorded music at your fingertips, but that multitude leaves you aching for a curator. Well, that’s where MOJO comes in (for me).

In the March 2018 issue (#292) I spotted a review of Whatever It Takes, a record on the Daptone label by The James Hunter Six. I called it up on Spotify and was instantly hooked by the classic soul/R&B/blues influences. Hunter is a pretty damn good singer too.

Today’s SotW is the lead track from the album, “I Don’t Want To Be Without You.”

MOJO says Hunter’s song is — “an under-the-influence-of-love rhumba, (that) frames his tough-yet-tender croon with bubbling organ and punchy brass.”

Hunter is a middle-aged dude from the UK with connections to Van Morrison who’s been kicking around since the mid ‘80s. But he’s never sounded better than he does today.

Enjoy… until next week.

Song of the Week – Debaser, Pixies

by

IGNORED OBSCURED RESTORED

I was lucky enough to catch v 2.0 of Pixies in concert at Street Scene in San Diego in 2005. I never saw them in their first incarnation that lasted from 1986 to 1993, even though they were based in Boston and I was living there at the time. But at least the group I saw shortly after they reunited in 2004 still consisted of all the original members, including bassist Kim Deal. (A 2006 documentary film called loudQuietloud: A Film About The Pixies captures the behind-the-scenes trials and tribulations of the band’s reunion. It is available for viewing on YouTube.)

The Pixies’ debut album, Surfer Rosa, is a gem. But their high-water mark was their second album, Doolittle (1989). Today’s SotW is the opening cut on Doolittle, “Debaser.”

The lyrics relate to the 1929, Luis Buñuel silent film Un Chien Andalou. In the opening scene of this cult classic a man appears to slit the eye of a young woman. In “Debaser” Black Francis sings:

Got me a movie
I want you to know
Slicing up eyeballs
I want you to know

Girlie so groovy
I want you to know
Don’t know about you
But I am un chien andalusia

In a 2014 interview with Esquire magazine, Francis said of “Debaser”:

“The song is sort of my Cliff Notes for the surrealist film Un Chien Andalou. There’s just enough information to get you through a test or if you need to know a few nuggets about that film. That was it from a lyrical point of view. Musically, it is what it is. I’m not even sure how I feel about that song. Sometimes I really enjoy playing it, sometimes I find it… I’m on the fence with it. We do it almost every night when we’re on tour. People seem to like it. It’s a good example of Pixies minimalism.”

“Debaser” is a prototypical Pixies song. It utilizes the loud/quiet dynamic that Nirvana later employed and made even more popular during the ‘90s grunge craze. But Pixies did it first!

Enjoy… until next week.

Bo-Peep Record Release Party in NYC.

by

Our friend Walker invited us to a short show by Bo-Peep, who promised some nuevo punk sounds from Fukuoka Japan. And saki, wine and sandwiches. The band was invited to the states by two guys, one of whom Walker knows, who paid their way over and set them up with some shows in Brooklyn over the weekend (including at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden’s cherry blossom festival, the blossoms will be rocking).

The place was an empty store on 8th Street in Greenwich Village, which is serving now as an art gallery, and the vibe was heterogenous, consisting mostly of young Asians, mostly women, and old American rockers. You can read what Bo-Peep has to say for themselves here, at their website.

I thought the band was terrific. This is high energy rock, but every song has musical ideas in it that make it stand out from the others. One tune had the pulsing drive of Golden Earring’s Radar Love, others had the straight-ahead drive of the Ramones. Others get a little herky-jerky, like this one from their album Vibe, which reminds me of Karen Oh’s band, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Live the vocals were a little undermiked, but the group’s dynamics comes across in this music video.

Here’s a cut of live footage with a studio version of another song.

Final note: The band had a little Pee Wee Herman doll sitting on the front of the stage. Don’t know why, but it made me think of Moyer.