DECKARD
Stereodreamscene
2001 – Warner Brothers

While some bands are just plain unlucky, it would appear that others are basically cursed.

Y’know, like sometime, somewhere a witch dropped a hex in the street and the main creative force behind a typically unlucky band of minstrels stepped on it, dragged it to rehearsal and accidentally jinxed the fortune of the band forever.

And then there are Deckard.

Not to be confused with the German hip hop outfit, Deckard, possibly the unluckiest band to almost have walked the planet, unfortunately never really broke out of Glasgow.

This tragic four-piece began their lives as Baby Chaos, a fresh-faced bunch of Scots with a deft knack of penning hits-to-be and mixing up the brew with fearsome heaviness and math-core tightness. Led by charm-blessed frontman Chris Gordon, this potent crew attempted to plough a furrow in the UK rock scene at a time when grunge was being replaced by Britpop.

By 1998, after two excellent albums (1994’s Safe Sex, Designer Drugs And The Death Of Rock N Roll, and 1996’s Love Your Self Abuse) Baby Chaos became justifiably disillusioned with a largely disinterested industry and retreated to lick wounds, regroup, write some new tracks and rename the band Deckard.

Adding ex-Jesus Jones drummer Simon Gen Matthews, after the heartbreaking retirement of BC drummer Davy Greenwood, due to health problems, the remaining members (guitarist Grant McFarlane and bassist Bobby Dunn) joined Gordon to record the first album under the new name. While still stuck with, er, I mean signed to Warners, the new moniker for the startlingly inefficient East West label, and attempting to negotiate a new deal with US Reprise label, things would not look too healthy for the world’s unluckiest band.

And then it all went wrong, again, this time even wronger than it had previously went, which was very wrong indeed.

The recordings of 2000’s Stereodreamscene would be shelved and criminally ignored in favour of the burgeoning nu-metalisms of Korn and the ilk.

Without an easy market this startling album would gather dust, eventually being granted a half-hearted release by Warners long after the point was well and truly missed.

Great music will always rise through the grime but someone has to actually release the bloody thing in the first place.

Thankfully, thanks to the wonderful internet, there are still very limited, but very definite outlets, such as Amazon and eBay, where this wondrous album can occasionally be found today. I can’t urge you strongly enough to avail yourself of this gem of a record, if only to own a piece of history in the shape of possibly the most criminally neglected album of all time.

Stereodreamscene is nothing short of astounding.

Opening up with ‘What Reason’ the quality of the production is the first thing readily apparent from the listening experience, closely followed by the crystal clarity of Chris Gordon’s wonderful voice, and then, finally, THAT chorus hits you like a double-barreled discharge of sheer class. Just when you think you’ve had yourself a perfectly great hook, shouted at you like a public service announcement, the second half of the chorus drags your limp resolve around the dance floor like a throughly thankful rag doll as wave after wave of melody wash over your inert form. Absolutely marvelous.

With such an elegant introduction, Stereodreamscene eases into the journey with the effortlessly appealing ‘Remain This Way’, mixing almost trip hop rhythms with a Bacharachian control of understated melody creating a timeless fusion of classic elements.

This is the perfect scenario in which to set up glorious third track ‘Conversation’, the last segment of the opening barrage that solidifies the albums intent by mixing pure rock pop with grand orchestral arrangement and establishing a quality and scope that never once, not once, lets up throughout the entire duration of this awesome listen. ‘Conversation’ has one of the greatest multi-tier choruses ever put to record, flowing in ever broadening strokes, creating a gloriously dizzying, slightly exhausting result by the songs climax.

‘Christine’ tells of a friend longing for a sex change using classic punk/pop-rock chugging with which to relate the tale, and as another great chorus offers way more than expected within the context of the musical style one thought resonates heavily. There are many great tunesmiths out there and there are many great pop rock bands, and not many share the same dressing room, know what I mean?

Rest assured, dear listener, this thought will reoccur through this album. This is very classy fare indeed.

For me the absolute shining spear of diamond in this sea of liquid gold is the sublime ‘Still’, a song that moves me almost to tears even after almost 10 years of pretty regular airing. Like all great songs I’m not even sure why this song moves me so, but once that incredibly stirring refrain of “still you’re breathing, surefire something’s here that I can believe in” lands then I’m lost in its esoteric power. As with all mesmerising music explanation is often redundant. It gets ya or it does not get ya. All I can say is that if I ever get drafted I’ll be playing this song when I’m getting ready to jump the bunker.

And as I sit here, the song resounding in the room, yet again, the thrill of first hearing it floods through the channel of memory marked Deckard, timeless, ageless, peerless. ‘Still’ is the sound of perfect synchronicity.

The Radiohead comparisons of ‘Wasted At your Wing’ are purely complimentary. There are moments in The Bends where Radiohead get it so right, and ‘Wasted At Your Wing’ could have been one of those moments. Slow burning and aching with ghost like regret it acts as the perfect bridge between the grand monolith of ‘Still’ and the imminent and resounding pop fireworks of ‘Once There Was A Girl’. Perfect pacing is the basis of every truly great album and Stereodreamscene has a running order that is the definition of charm itself. And as ‘Once There Was A Girl’ throws hook after hook from the speakers it is with an almost false sense of security that the listener is disarmed and left unprepared for the emotional hammering to follow next.

‘Christine II’ shares the same confessional sentiment as Cooper Temple Clause’s ‘Waiting Game’ with its male protagonist painfully telling the girl of the story what she isn’t prepared to hear, that things change and people move on. If you’ve ever been in this most dreadful of situations then this song should speak to you like mother tongue. Cruel and definite, life often has beauty masked in painful experience otherwise how would we grow as an emotional species? Sometimes the only pleasure you can take from certain experiences is that of the songs written from the same page. ‘Christine II’ is one of the better ones ever penned on relationship shift, and that is some recommendation. Still gives me goosebumps to this day.

‘Today Is A New Chapter’ returns to a much more familiar style of bouncy pop/rock, albeit buff with added songwriting savvy, and ‘Sycamore’ revisits the delicate Walker Brother-isms of Radiohead, building and dipping in dramatic masterstrokes. Leaving only ‘Bear’ to round things off nicely with a nursery rhyme and a promise that the next spin of this neat little piece of work will be even more rewarding.

I’ve honestly been playing thios album on heavy rotation for the last eight years and it still stands up to the best of any UK releases of the past 30 years.

People of the UK often exhibit a disturbing tendency to dismiss homegrown talent if it isn’t an instant hit with journalists and DJs alike, but please believe me that the reason you haven’t heard, and already love this album is sheer record company laziness and their ugly desperation to lavishly follow trends. Now the idiocy of those same records companies has been seen to destroy their bloated empire it’s prime time to uncover some of the pearls that ignorant A&R departments had left to die an inglorious death.

The unluckiest band in the world? Without a doubt. Still, on Stereodreamscene they did themselves a great service, and as some bands never manage to actualise their ambitions on record this satisfying collection of songs is something to be truly proud of.

If you are lucky enough to find a copy of this album online then do snap it up, and if you see two then buy the other copy for someone that you love.

It’ll be a purchase that you will not regret making.

The label is dead, long live the artist.

TOADIES
Hell Below/Stars Above
2001 -– Interscope

There’s a theme in the house, ladies and gentlemen.

More than a couple of times I’ve singled out an album as being a classic, only to follow the hyperbole with ‘unfortunately the band split up not long after its release’, or words to that depressing effect.

Well, why break a habit now that it’s simmering nicely in the pan? This week’s choice effort is another in the ‘death knell’ series where a group develops a distinct style based on years of honing their skills the hard way and, once they nail this glorious sound down for magnetised eternity, they go and call it a day, resisting the urge to capitalise on the gruelling dues duly paid.

After Toadies formed in 1989, the Texan quartet would record a debut album, ‘Rubberneck’, in 1994 that would almost hit platinum status based on a pummelling mash-up of Pixies playing grunge highlights. Featuring the possibly TOO awesome ‘Possum Kingdom’ (which The Wildhearts covered as part of our ‘Stop Us If You’ve Heard This One Before Vol. 1’ tribute album) the album was such a success that it almost threw the band, and record label Interscope Records, into confusion as to how to expertly follow it.

And four years later they attempted to do so with an album tentatively entitled ‘Feeler’.

After proposed recordings were rejected by Interscope the band took the unwanted tracks, re-recorded a bunch of them, added some new shards of sonic propulsion and, in 2001, a full SEVEN years after the release of their debut, Toadies gave the world their second album proper, ‘Hell Below/Stars Above’, an album so colossal, so audacious and so downright cool that the band decided that the correct mode of conduct would be to pack their bags and get out of a business that would leave a band hanging for this long. And believe me when I say I fully sympathise and empathise.

And although the classic quote by Charlie Watts commenting on the Stones’ first 25 years of service (“Yeah, 5 years working and 20 years hanging around”) carries genuine comedy weight, the reality of being stood in creative quicksand bore down on the band to the point that bass player, Lisa Umbarger, ultimately left the group, resulting in the disbandment of this fine US powerhouse four-piece.

Charging from the stables with ‘Plane Crash’, complete with ‘woah… yeah’ choruses, there is no confusion as to the sheer weight that the collective Toadies force intend to deliver on this album. Singer Vaden Todd Lewis (then just plain old Todd Lewis) has the ultimate rock growl stirred up with enough punk spirit and indie cred to suggest possession of THE ultimate voice. ‘Plane Crash’ is little over two minutes of goosebump fury with no regard for speed limits.

‘Push The Hand’ eases off the gas enough to establish a heavy swing that increases in intensity until the chorus pounds the earth like an angry colossus. Once again Lewis’s vocals leaving every hair on the arms standing to attention and he breaks into almost Steve Whiteman (Kix) territory. This is the single most thrilling aspect to the Toadies’ sound: while it has enough crazy Pixies rhythmic twists to please fans of far cooler fare the brutal truth is that Toadies simply fucking ROCK with almost heavy metal zeal. The result is well played, perfectly tuned, expertly produced hard rock with a Kurt Cobain-sized streak of aggression. In fact comparisons with Nirvana are as inevitable as they are tedious, and while I’ll still make them it’s fairer to say that with their previous album the Pixies tag stuck fast, here they branch out into a more imaginative Frank Black ‘Teenager Of The Year’ play park, albeit gained by impish forced entry.

While ‘Little Sin’ serves up a classic staccato riff that complements the perfectly double-tracked vocal, this would be a good time to introduce guitar whizzkid Clark Vogeler. Effortlessly playing with graceful economy he is as likely to break off into a jazz grunge tangent while all the time fully aware of the track he’s playing to. Tasty and inventive. And no one controls feedback like this guy. Not Hendrix, not no one, y’hear?

‘Motivational’ starts with as odd a set of chords as you’ll hear in a post-rock pop song, surging with menace until its own intensity breaks its restrictions and off it charges in pissed-off spiral flight. Lewis’s insane vocal stylings, recalling Frank Black on steroids, hold the madness together while sneering in deranged enjoyment at the carnage. ‘Heel’ begins as a Django strum that contains the ever-present Toadies threat of imminent eruption, and erupt it does. By GOD it does. And as Todd Lewis stands at the precipice, bellowing like a Christian fundamentalist, Vogeler belches in filthy whammy bar swoops into the very depths of Hades. Awesome stuff. Truly.

‘You’ll Come Down’ comes as a blessed relief, then, after such a battery of energy, allowing its walking-bass dominant Pixies verse legs with which to survey the carnage. Satisfied with the album’s justified damage it rewards the listener with a Urge Overkill-meets-Doughboys style chorus before lifting itself back on to its fearsome steed, gently cantering between the flames and debris as ‘Pressed Against The Sky’ plays in the background, to superb cinematic effect

‘What We Have We Steal’ lurches like the unholy alliance of Tad and Jack Endino, breaking into a melodic chorus with just enough menace to hold it back from Cheap Trick territory but allowing it to wallow in Nirvana. This makes Toadies such an easy band to like. What they do is so inherently cool while staying loyal to traditions of melody and structure like no one has managed to straddle with quite such elegance. And they almost give the game away with the sublime songwriting skills that are written all the way through ‘Jigsaw Girl’. At once open and confident, the ghosts of John Lennon and Jeff Buckley are heard to sweep through the corridors of its cavernous, loping melody.

Toadies are fundamentally an amazing band making very loud music. This is the secret.

The new wave pop of ‘Sweetness’ is an impossible lure to resist, and with a chorus straight out of ‘Bleach’, this is a song that Cobain would have greatly approved of. In fact Toadies are probably what Nirvana would have developed into once their tortured singer had accepted his love for straight-up rock and grew out of the tortured artist trap.

‘Hell Below, Stars Above’ is the album’s highlight, probably, with its choppy intro threatening some awful ska/punk diversion until the verse kicks in with pure, undiluted pop that pulls the track into the place that Toadies have threatened to take us for the entire album. A place where humour and tradition enjoy a smirk-heavy tryst as they turn up the guitars beyond what is accepted as appropriate. Sheer noisy joyous bliss. It’s a difficult song not to grin inanely throughout, especially during the hilariously brief guitar-that-shouldn’t-be, that is until the final payoff where this incredible band twist the entire song around to reveal a melody of Brian Wilson-sized ambition which, naturally, builds with almost unbearable poignancy.

Where else could this beautiful album possibly have left on the emotional map to explore?

The answer is ‘Dollskin’, the album’s other highlight. A simply breathtaking vocal performance guides this hauntingly familiar chord progression to its final resting place within in a shimmering foam of blistering guitar-fuzz headed skyward. This is the place where perfect music resides. Where a performer is united with the song he was born to sing. Where musicians fuse like planets aligning. Where sense is made of every misguided musical purchase you have ever made.

The Toadies understand your dissatisfaction and are here to offer solace.

An amazing band, an amazing album and an amazing shame that they would split up soon after the release of this, their greatest hour.

I’d like to stop saying that. It’s kinda depressing. Still, thank God these people at least have the decency to leave us their music.

‘Hell Below, Stars Above’? Here, somewhere located in the middle, Toadies make it a pretty damned beautiful place to be.

Stop press: Toadies returned for a reunion show in March 2006, and have played a number of gigs since. They played their first ever British shows this past June. Their mini-album, ‘Made In Texas’ (Maybe Music), is out now.

LUCINDA WILLIAMS
Car Wheels On A Gravel Road
1998, Mercury/Polygram

Hailed as ‘America’s best songwriter’ by Time magazine, it doesn’t take much figuring out why Lucinda Williams is as much the artists’ favourite as she is almost internationally invisible. While far less talents enjoy far greater fruits, Lucinda has a powerful worldwide cult following every bit as strong as that of, say, Frank Zappa, albeit on a far more discerning scale.

Never one for rush-releasing material, Williams would record a paltry four albums in her 20 year career leading up to Car Wheels On A Gravel Road. Beginning with a debut of sweet voiced standards, ‘Ramblin’, and culminating with the melancholic ode to suicide ‘Sweet Old World’, this world worn lady of blues-country would define a tough style of vocal delivery every bit matched by a direct lyrical approach, and by this, her fifth album she’d gotten just about tough enough to soften, allowing brief excerpts of childlike love to enter the bitter tales of rejection. The result is an instantly classic collection of adult country songs for a disillusioned generation.

Famously firing Steve Earle as producer, Williams would eventually finish this, her greatest album by far, after three years of painstaking perfectionism, and while in most circles this much of a gap since previous album, Sweet Old World, released a whole 6 years earlier, could be considered clinical and downright dull the finished offering is a career defining album that is every bit worth the hiatus.

‘Right In Time’, the album’s opener, says everything that is great about Lucinda Williams. Croaky voice oozing a free spirited sexual energy, astounding musicianship, classic songwriting and a sense that the object of her desires is no-one that a good girl’s mother would immediately approve of. Instantly the production boasts of a clarity and timeless quality that Williams’ previous, or, for that matter, subsequent releases would enjoy. Drums whipcrack tight and vocals stridently invasive, this is a very confident sounding album indeed, and, with the songs and performances to match, a hugely enjoyable listen. And as Ms Williams describes a very personal account of undressing before a bout of self service, while all the while thinking of her muse on his bike, the listener honestly hankers to share a bottle of whiskey with this woman as much as a bed, it has to be said.

‘Car Wheels On A Gravel Road’ settles into a solid, laid back groove as the album’s second song establishes a lonesome theme of bittersweet memories that Lucinda will revisit throughout this, largely upbeat album.

‘2 Kool 2 Be 4-Gotten’ belies its Prince-esque title by delivering a 100% proof alt-country dusty roadster, the kind of which could easily feature in a David Lynch movie and which Sheryl Crow is still trying to write. ‘Drunken Angel’ enters dressed up as The Faces as performed by a biker’s moll fronting The Black Crowes. And as ‘Concrete And Barbed Wire’ suggests Hank Williams with a modern twist and a tongue loosened by age and experience as much as booze, we’re five songs in and this album has settled into its own boots, smoldering sensuously and stewing in rich storytelling.

Don’t approach this material if you’re in the mood for a line dance – this music comes with a 40% proof label and its own pack of king-sized Rizla.

‘Lake Charles’ sees Lucinda hit her full Marlborough red roasted vocal glory while the songwriting adopts a traditional edge that almost takes the quality of this material to higher, more familiar level. Truly the sign of all great songwriting. And after this awesome slice of laid backwoods melancholy the mood is shifted into bluegrass/skiffle that truly reveals Williams’ rootsy authenticity as ‘Can’t Let Go’ channels the porch-beating originals of traditional blues, further blurring the distinction between authentic country and authentic blues.

‘I Lost It’ mixes a jaunty melody with a languid rhythm resulting in surely one of the finest examples of pop-based middle of the road that ever drew whiskey soaked breath, perfectly setting the scene for the album’s finest point, the wonderful ‘Metal Firecracker’ [hear a cover version by Bright Eyes here]. Please don’t let the title throw you off, this song is the track with which to truly fall in love with Lucinda Williams.

“All I ask is don’t tell anybody the secrets, don’t tell anybody the secrets I told you,” pleads a chorus so perfect that you will revisit this one for the rest of your life, and without the aid of speakers, too, as this song will enjoy heavy rotation on the jukebox in your head forever. Heavenly catchy and devastatingly simple, this is songwriting at its finest and most direct.

Following this track would be an unenviable task for most, so it is almost a relief, and testament to this wonderful album, that Lucinda does it with such grace and poise, with ‘Greenville’, a song so moving that it’s difficult to know why. Maybe it’s the purity of the vocal performance? Maybe it’s Emmylou Harris’ glorious harmony vocals? Maybe it’s the memory of a love-that-never-was that this song recalls? I still don’t know why this song gets me every single time, and like an armoured glove inside my chest it’s doing just that right now!

Emotionally draining and yet a delight so sweet that you’d gladly revisit that place in your heart that reminds you that life is not perfect but thank God people like Lucinda Williams not only share this notion but have penned some of the greatest songs in history on the subject. And that, in itself, makes life perfect.

And with this powerhouse one-two fresh in your ears and heart ‘I Still Long For Your Kiss’, with it’s playful 50s swing, almost comes as blessed relief after the previous tsunami of emotion manipulation. By this point in the album, may I add, you would happily run to the bookies and put odds on Lucinda being the greatest singer in American roots music. Such is the subtle erosion of all reservation you might have entered into this album with regarding Williams’ beaten and bruised vocal technique. She sounds so unlike any other singer that this very difference is the quality that so effectively glues this fine vocalist to your subconscious. Deeper than simple technical ability, Lucinda Williams has lived every one of these songs.

‘Joy’ holds down a Tom Petty groove and adds an almost schoolyard rap to it, leaving the joyless subject matter free range to roam and infiltrate. This leaves final track, ‘Jackson’, to swing sleepily on a bed of bluegrass picking and deep-rooted sadness as Lucinda sings of leaving the subject of her longing and, instead, taking that long and lonely road in the opposite direction, following it until the hurting stops. Ry Cooder style slide slinks in and out of the song and a single sombre cello underpins the mood, suggesting a far darker version of ‘Will The Circle Be Unbroken?’

The perfect ending to an album of such emotional depth that any ending seems trite. This album should be kept on loop, to be revisited any time the world once again becomes an unfriendly and troublesome place.

Lucinda can take great comfort that she has created a soundtrack that allows the rest of us to explore the more unwelcome, yet no less vital of emotions. In fact she places such virtue on the dark side of the human experience, namely loving others, that she makes a broken down love affair seem like a valiant attempt rather than a failed endeavour.

Hers is a rare talent, and one that will be revisited and relived for as long as our species is born with emotions.

Little surprise, then, that Lucinda Williams is the artists’ favourite. Few people with an interest in art, love or the human condition could argue.

Today’s Tee Pee Tuesday is lost in cyberspace somewhere over the Atlantic, so here’s a quick replacement: a free download pf The Wildhearts’ version of the Icicle Works 1987 classic “Understanding Jane”.

Hosted courtesy of Camp Freddy’s Billy Morrison, who’s playing at the Viper Room in LA with Ginger on Thursday night, it’s a power-pop classic taken from the Wildhearts’ 2008 covers album Stop Us If You’ve Heard This One Before, Vol. 1 – sort of an audio version of Ginger’s Secret History of Rock’n’Roll…

Here’s the link http://www.billymorrison.net/weblog/

And here’s where you can hear the original version:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZje_pgjbSY

BAD BRAINS
I Against I
1986, SST Records

Widely regarded as pioneers of the whole US hardcore movement, the four Rastafarians from Washington DC known as Bad Brains may well have been the most bad-assed group in this emerging scene but they were arguably the most culturally relevant band in America at the turn of the 80s.

Formed in 1977, taking their name from a Ramones song and mixing reggae and punk with soul and heavy rock, to ferocious effect, the early Bad Brains sound was an aggressive speed-a-thon with hints of jazz fusion that made it onto two full length albums (‘Bad Brains’ and ‘Rock For Light’) while the band carved out their legend as one of the most electrifying live acts around. In particular frontman HR cut an intimidating figure as a manic colossus complete with borderline lunatic tendencies and a voice so unique that no-one since has been able to fully copy it.

By 1986 the live hardcore scene had moved on and from being a vital social movement it became, for most, a neat little money earner with an audience consisting largely of college students and trust fund weekend warriors heading into the city for some high octane thrills.

The big three original US hardcore bands – Minor Threat, Black Flag and Bad Brains – had unavoidably moved on in various ways due to the Reaganomic pressure to succeed in an increasingly commercial marketplace. Minor Threat (founders of straight edge) split in ‘83 and Black Flag (featuring Henry Rollins) split in ‘86 leaving only Bad Brains still standing. No surprise, then, that the first people to put breakneck tempos into hardcore punk rock would strip down their sound and recreate it as a bombastic and almost mainstream offering using thrash metal, punk and (dare I say it) pop, and release an album that would influence every heavy band in its wake.

Bad Brains never were like any other band, and in 1986 this was still very much the case.

Surprisingly, and refreshingly reggae free, I Against I is the sound of a band entirely at home with challenging norms, Slamming into devastating life with opening track, simply entitled ‘Intro’, Dr Know’s Eddie Van Halen level fretboard fireworks are given the rhythmic framework in which to excel, courtesy of Darryl Jenifer and Earl Hudson (bass and drums respectively), and the result is mesmerising. Man, this is a band that can play! Not only master musicians in their own right, together they form one of the tightest and most thrilling musical forces of any generation.

If you want to be impressed by musicianship you’ve come to the right place, if you merely want to lose your fucking mind then you need look no further than second track ‘I Against I’, as HR comes screaming and snarling into the fray amid machine gun fire rhythms and classic punk chord progressions. Traditional arrangements, however, are given short thrift as the song speeds up and slows down with supernatural grace. Bad Brains are their very own force of nature and nothing that they do needs explaining, so don’t try to figure it out. This music is coming from somewhere else entirely. With complete disregard to traditional punk rock, this album contains more undiluted punk spirit than most sloganeering poseurs before it.

As ‘House Of Suffering’ comes tumbling out of the chaos, and while HR sings like he is standing on the lip of the world preaching to his minions we can only listen in stunned awe. The man is simply a legend. ‘Re-Ignition’ detonates with an outburst of snare fills and skin tight staccato guitar and bass runs (as most Bad Brains tracks do) then settles into the serpentine hook that Helmet have heard more than a few times.

Riffs are randomly spat out in brutal discharges of manic energy as the vocals sound as alien as it’s possible for a human being to sound. So far, so fearsome. The album is a heavy-hitting declaration that hardcore punk is whatever the players say it is, and who would argue with evidence as solid as the sonic warfare that has taken place?

Yet it is the moments that Bad Brains let down their guard and raise up the bar that the breath is truly snatched from the listener. The rest of the album seems intent to pile on contrary musical ideas on top of the now familiar guitar, bass and drum fury, like, for instance, the funk of ‘Secret 77′. With as solid a rhythm section as you’d find in any genre of music, Jenifer and Hudson lay down a beat as deadly as it is fluid and serve up funk Bad Brains style, far darker and threatening than any funk you’ve ever heard. And yet there is an anthemic quality that never fails to send an electrical charge to the skin. It’s a magical effect that hasn’t lost its thrill in the 30 years I’ve been listening to this album.

‘Let Me Help’ follows a more traditional hard rock path, with gang vocals putting a sinister twist on the idea of a ’singalong’ until the chorus adds an irresistible pop edge, leaving this band standing alone in a world of one. Seriously. Who, in the 80s, ever managed to splice as many disparate elements and still managed to sound so utterly unnerving? Take ‘She’s Calling You’, for example. With a purely pop heart it breaks into a joyous heavy rock chorus section while still sounding like the last thing you’d hear before being shot in an alleyway by a stray bullet. As with anything that HR sings it sounds like it’s beamed down from a very disturbing planet where smiles are strictly forbidden and handshakes are consummated in the eyes.

The absolute highlight of the album is a song called ‘Sacred Love’. Sang by HR down a prison telephone, the song has everything that Bad Brains are about, in my opinion. Obscenely precise staccato rhythms, dense lyrics that make even love songs sound subversive and HR’s lascivious delivery. If you only listen to one song on this album, then let it be this track. Classy, shadowy and utterly delicious, it’s an impossible song not to be moved by, in one form or another.

‘Hired Gun’ gives itself over to a much more Jazz inspired groove, while still favouring those crunching bass chords ushering in another familiarly grinding chorus, allowing Dr Know and Darryl Jenifer to fully display the dexterity of their musical nous. Leaving ‘Return To Heaven’ to finish the job of cementing this album into your conscious, and making sure that it’s place in Robert Dimery’s 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die will surely remain in every revised edition for the rest of time.

It’s difficult to imagine a band having the same kind of cultural and social relevance these days as Bad Brains at the turn of the 80s. The music scene today, and in particular the world of punk and metal, would be in very different shape without this band. Bad Brains yield an almost Ramones-like level of influence on everything that happened after them and still this album packs a punch unlike any other influential piece of essential musical history.

Check out Ginger’s past Secret History Of Rock’n'Roll entries.

POWWW, KERRRRASHHHH, BOOOOM, GGGRRRRRRR, AAAAARRRRRGGGGHHHH, RRRRROOOAAARRRRRRR…

And that’s just the sound of the CD being lifted from its case.

For lovers of bludgeoningly heavy music this album is surely the Holy Grail: dense and huge, precise and pissed off – and still funny. Devin Townsend’s Strapping Young Lad are everything a fan of sonic warfare could possibly wish for, and this album is their Operation Shock and Awe.

I had the pleasure of touring with Devin when he sang for Steve Vai in the mid 90s, some kind of contractual agreement wherein he got to release his solo album (SYL ‘Heavy as A Really Heavy thing’, an album that combined Devin’s winning sense of humour with bi-polar intensity) on the proviso that he behave himself and act duly professional throughout his tenure with the self-loving guitar god.

He, of course, went the opposite way and became a surging dervish of chaos that escalated into further unpredictability as the tour progressed. Soon afterwards he was playing guitar in The Wildhearts but soon left to further pursue the last word in majestic noise, assembling the classic line-up of Jed Simon (guitar, b/vox), Byron Stroud (bass, b/vox) and Gene Hoglan (drums) and The Lad were finally born.

With Strapping Young Lad establishing a stable line-up the next stage was to see if this sheer brutality of sound could be captured on record.

And holy fuck did they capture it.

Taking the blueprint of the ‘95 debut and fleshing out the carcass until it aurally resembled the collective size of the band members, ‘City’ is simply a monster. Wildhearts drummer Ritch and I have subjected more people to this album than is rightfully fair, and still those opening moments pack a wallop that is impossible to describe without actually playing the thing.

click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click….hey,   BOOOOOOOOOOOOM!

Probably the greatest intro to an album ever, ‘Velvet Kevorkian’ is so large that it’s sometimes necessary to revisit this beast of a track, just to make sure that your imagination didn’t help create this monstrous wall of sound. And as The Lad pummel you senseless with their primal onslaught they give no time for breathing as track two, the majestic ‘All Hail The New Flesh’ implausibly increases the power.

This song is so gloriously unhinged that the very foundations of your sanity are put on trial, and herein the weak of heart are left quelled before its awesome invective. This is no place for the meek.

The devastating might of drummer Gene Hoglan (formerly of Death and Dark Angel) is now in full attack mode: pounding flat the ground before him, he drives forward like an machine devised to crush and terminate with extreme prejudice.

Nothing prepares you for the obliteration that this man is capable of bringing. The greatest drummer in Heavy Metal? It’s so obviously true as to be fairly insulting.

And as ‘All Hail The New Flesh’ vaporises your comfort zone with unbridled riffage and a chorus larger than the Nuremberg rally, building into the most outrageously massive mid-section ending in what can only be described as the most awesome use of the word ‘motherfucker’ ever recorded, the heat is once again raised. With a segue that exclaims, in a German accent (of course), “Well gentlemen, a great deal of money has been invested in this project and we can’t allow it to fail” the mighty Hoglan ushers in ‘Oh My Fucking God’, a song so preposterously behemothic that any other title would be a great disservice. You think you’ve heard heavy, I know you do, but dear reader you simply haven’t, unless you own this album and have been subjected to these first three tracks back to back, as they are, with no respite, no surrender.

It’s like being thrust under ice while simultaneously facing the flames of Hell. Disorientating and unholy, and downright fearsome. With a smile.

‘Oh My Fucking God’ is the sound of joy made heavy. Armed with the greatest middle section ever dared to be attempted by a heavy band, this song will have you wondering if you’ll ever come out of this experience fully intact. And the answer is yes you will – in fact you will come out of this experience twice the person you went into it being. So comically heavy is the attack that you’ll laugh at the size of the chunks of ceiling falling onto your floor.

‘Detox’ is almost a break in intensity, and while still being ball-bustingly crushing in its own right its galloping lurch almost comes as a relief after what has gone before. With one of the greatest riffs ever waiting to spring almost 3 minutes into the track, this – the only single from the album – is a gloriously familiar stomper that shows the band off as the musical powerhouse they are often overlooked as being. True, with such intensity it can be difficult for the average listener to fully appreciate the intricacy of the arrangements, and the genius of Townsend, but when The Lad settle into a groove as warming as ‘Detox’ the musicianship on show rivals anything in the world of heavy music.

And as ‘Home Nucleonics’ reopens the cellar door the demons return en force bringing with them the fury that superseded the lull. And all Hell, once again, breaks loose. Double bass drum bedlam propels the band into more deranged abandon and Devin screams like a banshee on very bad drugs.

As dark as all this sounds, however, The Lad never lose their infectious sense of rapture that makes every hook as catchy as an ABBA chorus, albeit a filthy marauding Viking version of the Swedish pop combo.

Ludicrously tight and feverishly energetic, ‘Home Nucleonics’ makes way for the far more languid, yet no less gargantuan, ‘AAA’. Super cool samples swoop in and out of this lumbering monolith like dark, misshapen bats creating a shadow drenched brute of a thing that seems to rise from some dreadful steam filled stench with Devin riding its horny back, roaring in blissful melody.

‘Underneath The Waves’ mixes death metal rhythms with a chorus of incredible theatricality as church-like keys lift the song into a dark cinematic world of sound where classical grandeur meets classic thrash.

And then a surprise cover version, in the shape of Cop Shoots Cop’s ‘Room 429′, allows the Goliath that is The Lad to get mellow (almost) in a sensational trip through even more cinematic heights. What could have been an awkward choice of direction, at this point, in the wrong hands, ‘Room 429′ merely shows off the range of The Lad’s collective musical savvy. Stirring and beautiful, this is a rare, and very welcome diversion of sorts that deftly sets up the finale, the sumptuous ‘Spirituality’. Resembling the kind of material that Strapping Young Lad, and Devin personally, would go on to explore on later albums, ‘Spirituality’ closes this remarkable album in stately fashion. Satisfying and definite. The perfect end to a meal far too large for dessert.

Quite unlike anything else before it, Strapping Young Lad’s “City’ marries elements of the greatest moments in the history of heavy music. There are hints of Master Of Puppets’ finest points, touches of Marilyn Manson at his most classic and deranged, but mostly it is the diverse and undoubted talents of Devin Townsend that make this such a brilliant album. And the players are every bit up to the task of making Devin’s vision spring to multi dimensional life.

This is the sound of one man’s frustration but this is also very much the sound of a band unified in determined spirit.

Seldom do we ever get both so lovingly delivered with such expert handling and understanding of the genre.

It is a monster, for sure. And yet it is as accessible as it is uncompromising.

For lovers of extreme music as well as a perfect introduction to the more challenging face of heavy metal, ‘City’ delivers. And the world is a much better place for it.

Check out Ginger’s past Secret History Of Rock’n'Roll entries.

With more star quality than any number of 80s LA darlings, Fishbone, led by the insanely charismatic Angelo Moore, can still be seen playing live around the states to this day. They still rock and they still radiate an onstage presence that makes a mockery of most of their Californian counterparts who went on to bigger and more lucrative things.

Few people could argue with the fact that Fishbone were the best live band to come from LA since forming in the early 80s, but even fewer would argue that great live bands seldom capture their true live fury in a sterile studio environment.

Yet, in 1988, on only their second album, Fishbone grabbed this popular statistic, strapped a rocket to its ass and fired it into musical history.

Truth and Soul is the sound of a band effortlessly having and doing exactly what the critics would have you believe is nigh on impossible. They became the greatest live band in LA and then they made arguably the greatest album of the 80s.

From their reggae/ska roots, while an exhilarating live phenomenon Fishbone initially tread a fairly well worn trade in the kind of ska/dub that was already boring people in England, but by their second full length release their stock came to include funk, thrash metal, punk, pop, soul, psychedelia, rhythm & blues and sheer drop dead gorgeous balladry in such authentic style that it has yet to be matched, by themselves or anyone else.

A firework display of ingenious ideas played by master craftsmen, with their obvious love for every genre deftly blended, theirs was an alchemy that could have only been successfully attempted by a musical force whose record collections were as huge as their talents. And while slices of prime Suicidal Tendencies, Prince and Sly And The Family Stone/Funkadelic can be picked out as influential landmarks, its the melodic, funky insanity that fills up 80% of this trip into schizoid musical heaven. And why I’d state, with little reservation, that this is an album that is impossible to dislike.

Opening up with Curtis Mayfield’s ‘Freddie’s Dead’, there’s an almost Bad Brains tight/looseness to the approach of this introductory number, something levelled out, however, when Angelo Moore’s sweet, vibrant and soul-drenched voice muscles into the metallic opening bars. If Bad Brains HR were to scream into this opening track we’d have a very different animal in our room, but where Bad Brains openly terrify, Fishbone almost reassure, and it is this odd choice of an opener that lays Fishbone’s entire credo on the line.

Yes, this opener might sound like a funk/metal workout, but there are so many layers in their superior take on existing genres that one can only sit back and marvel at what they will attempt next. And while the funk/metal social commentary of ‘Freddie’s Dead’ leaves you thinking of how utterly wasteful the death of a junkie is, the next song ‘Ma And Pa’ bursts in, all shakin’ an’ a skankin’, with no less of an essential social statement, this time concerning domestic violence. And while the players groove with the assurance of seasoned pros, the lyrical weight is never undermined nor heavy handedly mixed to gain maximum attention. These stories from the street merely are.

‘Mighty Long Way’ follows these two seemingly conflicting styles with equal disregard for conformity. Using Allman Brothers swing and toe tapping southern flavour to devastating effect, this feel-good boogie monster sings of the brotherly bonds of friendship. And Hell, if you don’t wanna call up a mate for a beer after hearing this one then you’re tee total or seriously in need of a social life. The good news is that this song’ll probably fix both for you.

As various vocalists playfight for supremacy this full-on party number plays like the kind of night out you wish happened more often than not.  Life affirming and awesome, ‘Mighty Long Way’ is the sound of good times.

Things are brought way down for the loping ‘Pouring Rain’, its melancholic horn section creating a theatrical picture of desperation and resignation while Fishbone handle the lazy groove with expert finesse.

And then, almost typically, ‘Deep Inside’ batters the mood with 1:23 minutes of hardcore speed ska/funk, once again allowing the many voices of Fishbone to create a dizzying vision of unity.

Barely has the brain adjusted to the last sonic attack when the delightful summer breeze that is the fabulous ‘Question Of Life’ is upon us like the third cocktail of the party hitting just as the sun begins to lower into the water. Beach party brass blows a subtle and seductive wind as the feet refuse to behave, and Fishbone, once again, become easily the best band in the Universe.

No-one is better than Angelo Moore, seriously. Bellowing on his baritone sax, dancing (usually naked) like a rhythm driven sprite and singing his considerable lungs out, he comes off as equal parts Prince, Sly Stone and Dave Lee Roth. The ultimate ringleader and living spirit of the party, his infectious nature is unbeatable and entirely lovable.

‘I Like To Hide Behind My Glasses’ is an odd addition to European releases of the album, with its dinosaur stomping take on Chicago blues/jazz it sits uneasily with the rest of the material on offer, but, still, is played so well that its difficult not to love jazz. At least for a little while.

(However, if Columbia records had wanted to pad the album out with something awe inspiring they could have included the hard-to-find classic ‘Love And Bullshit’, a hardcore frenzy of schizophrenic intensity featured on an NME freebie at the time)

And if ‘….Glasses’ offers a brief but slight lull in (admittedly inhumanly high) standards then the next track, ‘Bonin’ In The Boneyard’, readdresses and super-sweetens the deal by being probably the best funk based song ever written.

Ladies and Gentlemen the quality presented to you in this perfect 4:45 of unfiltered, brass-fuelled joy may actually be too high for you to endure. You must approach this song with caution as the air-tight rhythm section of John Norwood Fisher and Philip “Fish” Fisher take you on a journey of untamed rhythmic dexterity, the likes of which will leave you spinning in stunned submission. As unbridled and astounding as any rhythm partnership who ever backed Frank Zappa or Prince, the brothers Fisher even share the audacity to break into a drum and bass solo section that is, to put it bluntly, fucking insane.

Worthy of the cost of this album alone, ‘Bonin’ In The Boneyard’ is a song you MUST own if you ever want to take any party to the kinetic heights that only a super host/DJ understands.

Just sayin’, that’s all.

Only the Steve Wonder stylings of ‘One Day’ could save us now. Gorgeous and groovesome, Fishbone almost mock us with their ability to make any style their own. There have been very few bands in history that slide between genres with such natural ease, and while the delicious Motown harmonies seep into your subconscious one second the arena rock solo section throws you completely off the path in another, leaving ‘Subliminal Fascism’ to derail you altogether with another hardcore runaround, shedding bizarre backing vocals, gospel hammond organ and breakneck riffing in its 1:27 wake.

It’s almost with a knowing wink that the jungle beat of ‘Slow Bus Moving (Howard Beach Party)’ shuffles merrily along with almost comical disregard for its message of towering racial tension. The message is there, if you’re inclined to listen; the groove is there if you only came to dance.

Social commentary with a sonic conscience? This is music with no colour and this is music with ALL colours.
This music is for everyone to love.

‘Ghetto Soundwave’ compounds this point with lyrics of police brutality and social frustration, but when cunningly placed, as it is, upon the sweetest musical magic carpet ride, sweeping the listener to places beyond the confines of political rhetoric, the respect for the message is deep and lasting. Music is the language of hope and unity. Always was, always will be.

Leaving only the beautiful ‘Change’ to allow the listener to consider what a breathtaking musical road trip has just gone before them. Yet while Angelo Moore pleads for change, accompanied by a plaintive acoustic guitar, it feels that he is singing with us, not at us. We all want what is right and, as always, we can use the beauty of music to help us understand how this is possible as a cultural reality.

Truth And Soul is a timely album for today’s opinions on the ideology of hope. Where this very recently, very fashionably hailed notion is already being criticized, and the belief in such challenged by impatience, it’s worth recalling this album, recorded over 20 years ago. The message is the same, the political climate is different and yet society still feels an almost natural leaning towards distrust.

If hope can be accepted then people must learn to believe. If belief begins within oneself then music is as good a teacher as any number of political manifestos.

And when the music is made by people to whom mixed race is the obvious place to begin all discussion then it helps to be able to listen to the music AND the message. Culturally this is the language of hope, if you truly believe.

If you haven’t heard this album yet then I am honestly envious of the rewards you are about to receive.
And you can believe that.

Check out Ginger’s past Secret History Of Rock’n'Roll entries.

IMANI COPPOLA
The Black & White Album
Ipecac Recordings, 2007

Of all the living artists I’d willingly part with a testicle to be able to work with, New Yorker Imani Coppola stands at the very top of the list. The woman has everything that a vocalist should ever need and on this, her 8th album, she gets to deliver the entire banquet of talent, squarely and without fuss, at the table of the listener.

Signed to Columbia in 1997 Imani would record her debut album only to be dropped within a few years, before even getting a chance to release her completed second album.

After taking on a far more DIY approach, Imani would spend the next seven years self releasing her material until Mike Patton invited her to sing, and play violin, for his Peeping Tom project.

It is no surprise, then, that Patton, suitably smitten by the talent of the insanely gifted Ms. Coppola, would release 2007’s The Black And White Album on his own Ipecac label.

And what an awesome release it really is.

Managing a precarious balancing trick using blocks of hip-hop beats, punk spirit, gospel vocal stylings, rap, pop and general Coppola style weirdness, this album attacks with the fury of punk, the fun of DIY pop and the sweet sass of a very smart woman self-educated in understanding the streets of Brooklyn NYC.

Feisty, anarchic, daring and willfully impossible to pigeonhole, Imani perfectly showcases a biting wit with headstrong attitude and the effect feels like running through your favourite radio station and hearing 14 amazing, completely unrelated songs play one after the other, with added adult lyrics.

Opening with one of the few small interlude pieces, and recalling a nursery rhyme in it’s simplicity, ‘The Black & White Jingle #1′ lyrically sums up the theme of the entire album, namely frustration and anger at the racial intolerance Imani has experienced through being of mixed race parents. Then the album cranks into one of the many, many gear changes about to take place, and ‘Springtime’ sees the party off to an audacious start. With flippant wisdom pouring from every sentence the energy levels are set to stun with rich vocal textures traded in for ferocious punk spite in ‘Woke Up Hwite’.

Such a rude opening barrage could be seen as aimless in the wrong hands, but Imani chooses her running order with a specific effect in mind, and as the opening playful piano starts up the absolutely gorgeous ‘Raindrops From The Sun (Hey Hey Hey)’ one suddenly feels a sense of protection that comes from being in the safe hands of unique genius. Imani is now in full control and ‘Raindrops….’ is the proof. Grand and childlike, it suggests a softness to her tough exterior that lifts the rest of the album to another level entirely. ‘30th Birthday’ attempts to follow with workmanlike big beat hip hop that plods amiably along, but in all seriousness nothing could follow ‘Raindrops…’ without sounding lumpen by comparison.

‘Let It Kill You’ glides blissfully by, laying vocal cut-ups next to laid back beats and stinging social commentary. Then, as the mood is suddenly, and very severely darkened with ‘Dirty Pictures’, the brassy ‘Keys 2 Your Ass’ sends the satellite navigation into utter confusion as all strains of a theme are tossed aside on favour of an iPod playoff with a team of schizophrenics.

‘Black & White Jingle #2′ brings a semblance of order to the chaotic bliss with more gentle profanity and the album settles into something resembling a groove, with the cutting (sic) ‘I Love Your Hair’. This groove is then rudely pushed aside by the dense hugeness that is ‘J.L.i.a.T.o.Y.O’. where Imani spits at the idea of John Lennon being a trademark of Yoko Ono. Once again tearing up the album 101 rule book, and once again gleefully swearing like a pirate.

I have yet to hear any female swear with more style than Ms Coppola!

‘I’m A Pocket’ follows in typically eclectic style with loops and samples creating a hypnotic sixties flavoured groove, making way for ‘This Is My Chicken’ to perform a wantonly inappropriate 13 second Latin beat on a bontempi organ until ‘In A Room’ completes the wonderfully bizarre collection with a Californian sunshine take on ‘I’m A Pocket’ that is almost impossibly infectious.

And there, in a very mixed bag of nut shells, you have it.

You don’t own an album like ‘The Black & White Album’. As close to De La Soul as it is to Beck, as much Poly Styrene as it is Lil’ Kim, and as black as it is white, this is the sound of frustration made sonic. A place where ideas follow no guidelines and The Beatles are held in as high regard as Public Enemy.

Imani Coppola currently enjoys more mainstream success with her new Little Jackie project, which relies on a more rap heavy delivery, but it is the freedom to experiment with all her musical toys that makes ‘The Black & White Album’ a far more rewarding experience.

One day I hope to make music with this amazing lady, and I would hope to use this album as a blueprint. Until that beautiful day arrives, The Black & White Album will more than keep me entertained.

Watch the Video for Legend of A Cowgirl, Coppola’s 1997 hit.

Check out Ginger’s past Secret History Of Rock’n'Roll entries.

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Where do you begin to describe Cardiacs to someone who hasn’t heard this magnificently deranged band?

Imagine Frank Zappa, The Kinks and Devo forced into a sonic blender and you’re almost there. Have the results played by the most talented residents of an asylum for punk musicians and you’re getting warmer.

On this, their fifth (and arguably best) album, Cardiacs created the final masterpiece to utilise the dubious charms of classic line-up William D. Drake (keyboard), Sarah Smith (sax), Dominic Luckman (drums), Tim Quy (percussion), Jim Smith (bass), and Tim Smith (guitar/vocals). On their next album, Heaven Born And Ever Bright, they would turn in an awesome slice of twisted genius featuring a trimmed down 4 piece line-up, featuring Wildhearts/Silver Ginger 5/Ginger And The Sonic Circus stalwart Jon Poole, but it is on ‘On Land And In The Sea’ that the full circus effect that was their legendary live show is finally captured forever.

Under the protective genius that is Tim Smith the band are guided by a talent every equal to Frank Zappa.

Mr Smith’s day-glo nightmare vision of the world is one where time signatures are given no welcome and subject matter resembles the remnants of a rapidly-fading fever dream. Where lyrics inhabit a realm that David Lynch can be seen sharing anecdotes with Salvador Dali. This is a very adult fairy tale, boys and girls.

The world of Cardiacs can be a very disturbing place, albeit one where evil is created by smiling children.

The sprawling cacophony that is opener ‘Two Bites Of Cherry’ sets the scene for the entire opus. Deafening organ blasts sit in eerie comfort with scratchy punk guitars as blaring saxophone outbursts barge into the scrum, leaving seemingly scant space for Tim Smith’s car alarm vocals, yet the entire production works perfectly in a manner not unlike an explosion in a toy factory. Nothing is familiar to the ear, from the off-beat rhythms to the sudden stabs of chamber instruments, and still the ever present pop factor lend a classic and timeless quality throughout.

‘Baby Heart Dirt’ and ‘The Leader Of The Starry Skies’ expound on the theme where chorus gang vocals suggest a World War 2 stiff British upper lip canoodling with demonic angels in perfect harmony, leaving ‘I Hold My Love In My Arms’ to delve into more sinister, nursery rhyme territory.

Disoriented, the listener barely has time to regain any sense of reality before ‘The Duck And Roger The Horse’ throws all linear narrative into swirling chaos. Even with the benefit of countless airings this song still retains the ability to leave a person with the feeling of being spun around a few dozen times before trying to walk in a straight line.

Awe-inspiring madness.

‘Arnald’ and ‘Horsehead’ release the band’s frantic grip just long enough to begin some kind of coherent thread to the amount of info that the brain is attempting to digest, while ‘Fast Robert’ begins to intensify the attack again.

‘Mare’s Nest’ refuses to let up on the majesty that is Cardiacs in full, overblown glory, and ‘The Stench Of Honey’ maintains the nuttiness while retaining an almost comfortable groove.

I do, however, use the term ‘comfortable’ in the context of this particular acid trip. Moments of relaxation are as fleeting as a 4 bar rhythm on this album. They exist, but only in the way that a sudden gust of wind might stop you falling directly from a 500 feet building.
The album ends all too soon with ‘The Everso Closely Guarded Line’, a huge theatrical affair that would fit perfectly in a Tim Burton production of Les Miserables.

It’s a ride recommended for lovers of rollercoasters. Sunday drivers and casual speed freaks might want to stay away just as they would avoid bungee jumping without rope. This is the equivalent of being beaten with a feather pillow just enough to cause the exact amount of damage as a breeze block.

But for those with the disposition sturdy enough for high velocity rides through severe aural battery, this is bliss. Absolute and almost unbearable bliss.

Cardiacs would enjoy another eleven years in various incarnations, releasing another three albums (four, if you include the double album, Sing To God parts 1 & 2) of glorious insanity, none of which would be a bad purchase once falling in love with Tim Smith’s talent and vision.

Though it is, with everso slight hesitation, that I would heartily recommend On Land And In The Sea as a perfect starting ground on which to fully experience the might and madness that is Cardiacs.

Check out Ginger’s past Secret History Of Rock’n'Roll entries.

Maria McKee
Maria McKee
Geffen, 1989

Possibly the strangest tale of underachievement in the history of criminally ignored talent is the bizarre case of Maria McKee. This stunningly beautiful, multi-instrumental songstress not only wrote her own material but was – and still is – the owner of the such a powerful voice and limitless range that the fact people only know of her via the execrable fluff that is ‘Show Me Heaven’ and Fergal Sharkey’s ‘A Good Heart’ (both of which she penned) only heightens the mystery of why Maria McKee isn’t a name held in the same regard as Dolly Parton.

Born in LA in July 1964 (same year as me, and, as well as sharing the birth year with Maria, her seemingly stuttering career is also something I’ve also taken great comfort in, musing that if someone of her immense talent isn’t hugely successful then what right have I?) she carved out a reputation in the early 80s as the explosive singer for Lone Justice, who spilt in 1986 shortly after the release of their second album Shelter, to which this self titled solo debut plays as a wonderful companion piece in its lyrical stylings and musical twists on the pop theme.

1989’s Maria McKee album begins much as ‘Shelter’ began with a rhythm led pop number, this time with ‘I’ve Forgotten What It Was In You (That Put The Need In Me)’, where after the album settles into it’s comfortable settings. Maria soothes and seduces with the masterful balladry of ‘To Miss Someone’ and ‘Nobody’s Child’ and the classic country rock of ‘Am I The Only One (Who’s Ever Felt This Way?’) before hitting the listener with the album’s shining and gloriously defining moment of absolute class, ‘Panic Beach’. Every touching word, every swooping chord progression and every detailed character, candidly painted in voyeuristically twice stolen tales, establish this song as a modern classic and quite simply a lesson in songwriting.

After this awesome moment only a truly great album could regain its composure and carry on with anything resembling confidence, but the tunes just don’t let up. ‘This Property Is Condemned’ recalls Chuck Berry’s emotive performance of ‘Cottage For Sale’ on the Hail Hail Rock’n’Roll movie before the blustery Tom Waits vibe of the chorus suggests yet another hit playing in an alternative and just universe, while ‘Breathe’ serves up generous inspiration for much of Tori Amos’ ‘Little Earthquakes’ album, some ten years later.
Then, just as ‘Shelter’ ends on ‘Dixie Storms’, as delicate a piece as human hand and voice could weave, ‘Maria McKee’ departs on a Richard Thompson composition, ‘Has He Got A Friend For Me?’, almost outdoing its former counterpart with awesome fragility and fine beauty. This song has the power to wring out a healthy flow from the most stony heart and haunt the listener long after the last, plaintive piano kisses.
And then it is over.*

An album of immense emotional breadth and panoramic musical scope by an artist fit to be labelled as a legend.

Legends don’t come around too often, and are often ignored until long after the point has been made.
Maria McKee is such a talent. Authentic, magical and quite unlike any other voice.

Let’s hope that the history books will be kinder to Maria than the foolish music industry that sadly missed this shining star in its ascension.

Check out Ginger’s past Secret Of Rock’n'roll entries.

* CD reissues of Maria McKee actually end with the awesome Drinkin’ In My Sunday Dress but Ginger has no truck with that. “Has He Got A Friend For Me is actually the final track on the vinyl,” says he. “I won’t acknowledge bonus tracks on CDs, I’m afraid. For me they ruin the running order.” Someone called Susan Haynes recently covered it. It’s decent enough, but faithful to the point of being, well, pointless: http://video.yahoo.com/watch/2072488/v28589437

See Maria McKee interviewed in 1989.

See Maria McKee doing Shelter last year.

This Property Is Condemned is also a movie starring Robert Redford and Natalie Wood.

Read the lyrics to this album here.