Hiatus

Obviously this is, well, obvious I suppose, but since I no longer have a cassette deck I listen to daily (i.e. in the car, which I totalled a few months back), this blog is on hiatus until further notice. I'll get back to it eventually, Gaz - I promise. A deal's a deal.

7b. The Residents, 'Nibbles'

The missing link between Steve Reich and Ween, this 1979 collection is silly, scatterbrained, and surprisingly listenable. But that doesn't mean I'll miss it if I never hear it again. B

7a. Public Image Limited, 'First Issue'

Some unfocused lyrics on Lydon's part (cf. "Religion I" and "Religion II"), but that's always been his Achilles' heel. That having been said, by and large this album is a template, alongside Joy Division/New Order and Gang of Four, for so much of the new wave of DOR we're getting hit with right now. And First Issue's better than damned near any of the young bucks; this is how it's done. And "Public Image" is still one of the greatest singles of all time. A-

6b. Adam and the Ants, 'Dirk Wears White Sox'

This has got to be one of the most schizophrenic albums I've ever heard - and not in a good way, mind. From the wretched cock-rock of opener "Car Trouble" to the dirge-like "Never Trust A Man (With Egg On His Face)," this album is a trainwreck. The dronish, in-Bauhaus's-ballpark (if not league) "Tabletalk" is appealling, and "Digital Tenderness" is somewhat endearing in its odd '50s -isms. But for each of those there are two or three as awful as the S&M-themed disaster "Whip In My Valise," which features the awful chorus "Who taughtcha to torture" ("taughtcha/torture," get it? Ugh). This debut album sounds like just that. Adam would do so much more in the years to come, but this is a complete failure - and I want to hear you defend this one, Gaz. C-

6a. New Order, 'Movement'

New Order's 1981 debut was the sound of three men rising from the ashes of Joy Division - and still processing their grief over the suicide of Ian Curtis. It's a somewhat uneven, but incredibly striking record, one which provides the template for nearly everything recorded by Interpol and their kin. This is angular, jittery dance-rock, and beats nearly every contemporary maker of it you can name, hands down. None of the poppiness found in their subsequent work is here; this is icy stuff, the honest-to-God bridge between "Atmosphere" and "Blue Monday." Much better than it has any right to be. A-

5b. Tones on Tail, 'Pop'

So, Daniel Ash + Kevin Haskins + bassist Glenn Campling (who was also a roadie for Bauhaus) = Tones on Tail, which was > Love & Rockets by far. Odd. Also odd is this, their only full-length studio record, a marvelously schizoid collection of tracks influenced by everyone from PiL (check those basslines) to the Residents ("Slender Fungus," I rest my case). But it's not just odd and schizoid, it's also marvelous indeed, a seriously creative, avant-garde pop record the kind of which only seemed to come out in the early '80s. Opening strong with "Lions," Pop doesn't much let up (though "Real Life" lags, sounding too much like a L&R track) through closer "Rain," a gorgeous slice of ambient atmosphere oozing into soft guitarist textures (this is honest-to-God soft rock, meaning rock which is soft, not wimpy shit like a Foreigner ballad). This album begs for a remaster/reissue, and deserves it. A-

5a. Love and Rockets, 'Express'

I wonder if the reason we - and by we I mean my group of friends in high school, particularly 5 guys I affectionately refer to now as "The 5 Musketeers," in which group both Gaz and I are included - loved L&R so much was because they'd been in Bauhaus. 'Cause upon critical re-evaluation, frankly, they're not that good. It saddens me to say this, let alone publicly, but it's true. At root, L&R were basically a fair-to-middling UK rock band with the added cachet of "ooh, they were 3/4 of Bauhaus!" Which means the whole was clearly greater than the sum of its parts. The cover of "Ball of Confusion" is nice enough (and oh-so-'80s-British, covering "political" Motown), and "Yin and Yang the Flower Pot Man" is self-indulgence that actually works, nearly akin to perforamnce art without the visuals. But the bulk of the rest is mumbo-jumbo lyrics fronting faux-"alternative" pop-rock. Ah, teenage heroes... C

4b. The Sex Pistols, 'Live Worldwide'

A patchwork of live recordings which sound as if they were taped on recorders which their owners neglected to remove from their pockets - pockets lined with tinfoil. The album is interspersed with occasionally random interview snippets with Mr. Lydon. Talk about a great rock'n'roll swindle - this is wretched. Were you that enamored with 'em, Gaz? I know, I know, we were young. D-

4a. Siouxsie and the Banshees, 'Tinderbox'

Their most completely realized album, their best album, and the album with which Siouxsie and the boys broke out of their tribal-goth ghetto and entered the world at large, with sterling results. "Cities In Dust" left cities in dust, understand? The bubbling musical cauldron they stirred up here is one they never topped. A dark pop masterpiece. A

3b. The Police, 'Synchronicity'

a/k/a the one where they became the boys with the most cake. Sting, Andy and Stewart had forged a fine career for themselves already, but once this atom bomb detonated in '83, everything changed, many would argue for the worse (Sting's last decade of albums, anyone?). Synchronicity is the sound of the Police firing on all cylinders, pulling every possible weapon out of their arsenal - and some they didn't know they had. From the jazzy aridness of "Tea In the Sahara" to the pounding rock of "Synchronicity II," from the pop-cloaked brutality of "Every Breath You Take" to the freak-out of "Mother," this is where everything great about the Police is distilled to 40 minutes (and, thank God, they finally ditch much of their overwrought reggae-lite). I hated to see them go, but you can't deny that they went out on top. A

3a. U2, 'Under A Blood Red Sky'

This is, of course, the Dublin foursome's 1983 live album, recorded at Red Rocks, Colorado. Much of it's classic - this is from whence the "This is not a rebel song" version of "Sunday Bloody Sunday" comes. Opener "Gloria" is tremendous, too. But this album, so vaunted in U2's history, has its forgettable moments as well: "Party Girl," anyone? "The Electric Co."? B+

2b. Sonic Youth, 'Goo'

This tape is labelled R.E.M. - Eponymous, but is actually Sonic Youth's Goo. Eponymous is a great distillation of R.E.M.'s I.R.S. years, but I'm happier that this side's got Goo on it. Sonic Youth's first major-label album and the followup to the epic Daydream Nation showed them turning their amazing twisted-guitar songcraft into pop song structures - and they nailed it. Lead single "Kool Thing" features Chuck D as a comrade/counterbalance to Kim Gordon and is a shocking, sterling slice of the album, while tracks such as "Cinderella's Big Score" harken to SY of old. This is their most concise album, and one of their best. A

2a. R.E.M., 'Finest Worksongs'

A live bootleg, presumably from their Green tour (based on songs from that album being the latest appearing here), it's good-not-great. Feels perfunctory in spots; not their finest moment. B

1b. Public Image Limited, 'Paris in the Spring'

a/k/a Paris au Printemps, this is PiL working it out live at the start of the 1980s (in Paris, natch). It's interesting, but only just. B-

1a. Public Image Limited, 'Album'

John Lydon and his band of merry men made their kinda-sorta-pop move on this '86 album, which moved PiL's signature avant garde no wave sound into slightly more formalized song structures. Lydon gets superbly shouty on songs such as "Rise," declaiming "anger is an energy!" as the band gets swivey on the wheels. And by getting swivey on the wheels, I mean they amp up the drums over the bass. This is an excellent shouting-along-while-driving album, largely because it's just an excellent, fully formed album. A-

Introduction

Gaz and I have been friends for over 20 years now. Back in high school he was the one who got me into a lot of the music that I still love to this day: the Smiths, the Cure, R.E.M., New Order... I could go on and on. Gaz dubbed onto cassette (mostly on metal tapes) this amazing record collection he had, and these tapes were collected in a wooden cassette case which Gaz kept affixed to the wall of his bedroom. Recently, he collected these tapes, boxed them up, and sent them to me. I'm listening to them one by one on my commute to and from work, and as per Gaz's request, in return for him gifting me these amazing cassettes, I'm reviewing them as I listen to them (in completely random order). I decided to spin this feature off into its own blog. Welcome to Gaz's Cassette Rack.