i playlisted my brother’s 21st birthday last night, i think it went ok. that fine old tradition of the “21st birthday DJ” – its got me feeling real kitsch. so, here’s some messed-up kitsch to help get you through your working week.
i got to say, love shack is the most played-out of played-out tunes. but i couldn’t help but fall in love with it all over again when i got distracted with some pitch-shifting while putting together my bro’s playlist. simple pleasures, folks, simple pleasures. here’s what i’m talking about:
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its not quite a screw, but you know. i’ve always had a sneaking suspicion love shack was meant to be sung by an all male choir, and this is a step closer. for some reason i can’t get this guy out of my head when i listen to it, brian, hank kingsley’s assistant:
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but here’s a real screw, and a real heavy-hitter. this is bona fide, knock-it-out-of-the-park amazing type shit! god bless dutty artz for posting this earlier in the year. i’ll admit to having a serious soft spot for alicia keys, but this takes this song to a whole other planet. this is the kind of song that can keep me going when things get tough, know what i mean? this is something i can get behind. i feel better every single damned time i listen to this. i’m posting it here because you can no longer get it from dutty artz.
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screwing is about slowing songs down, but i can’t bear to hear any more of love shack than absolutely necessary so, yeah, original tempo. in fact, recently i’m all about shortening songs. like, for example, did you know that “horses” by daryl braithwaite is waaay more palatable when condensed down to 1 minute and 9 seconds?
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this all reminds me of the time i condensed my 60 minute JJJ mix up set down to 7 minutes. imagine if itunes or winamp or whatever just had a button you could press that says “condense music” and it just compacted what you were listening to into a fraction of its running time. we’d get so much more done.
and lastly, i found this great 7 minute megamix of “i wanna dance with somebody.” in fact, on a p2p network that shall remain nameless, i found no less than TEN remixes of this track, all neatly packaged together by some dude. its 70 minutes of i wanna dance with somebody. most of it sounds way to queer eye soundtrack for my liking – this is the pick of the bunch. no trickery here, just seriously intense 80s pop remixing. the best bit is about 5 minutes in, where it just becomes this intense drum machine workout and some dude yelling at me over and over “dance, dance, d-d-d-dance”
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i’m seriously RIAA-baiting with this post. methinks i’m about to trigger a wide variety of alerts on RIAA automated blog piracy detection bot programs. note to tim’s ISP: prepare to receive correspondence! shit i’ve even said RIAA a couple of times in this paragraph so no doubt they’ll be checking me out.
following on from my recent revelation that i’d accidentally become some kind of hub for moody blues internet piracy – with 40,000 downloads in 6 weeks of a recent edit i uploaded (lets just say between you and me that none of the mp3s i post here ever generate close to that traffic) – i thought i’d redress the balance by posting a few of my favourite moody blues youtube clips. they are more than just “nights in white satin” and they are more than just a daggy not-quite-psychedelic 60s band that became a horrendous 80s dinosaur band. that said, it is true that “nights in white satin” is their best song, and that they are a daggy not-quite-psychedelic 60s band that became a horrendous 80s dinosaur band.
i listened to the moody blues a lot when i was a kid because of my dad. i think actually that we were both exposed to the moody blues at the same time in our childhoods – he, an impressionable kid when “nights in white satin” was on the airwaves the first time, me about the same age when he started to bring home the remastered CDs in the late 80s.
lets start with the obvious, in case you’re drawing blanks on the moody blues completely. after a flop debut album, the moody blues recruited a symphony orchestra to make a rock version of dvorak’s new world symphony (their label’s idea). the dvorak connection was lost, they ended up making orchestral psychedelic pop songs, and the album “days of future passed” spawned the mega-hit “nights in white satin.” here’s a promo clip for the original 1967 single edit, shot at least partially in paris. i get chills.
Video: The Moody Blues – Nights in White Satin (1967)
they scaled back the orchestral overtones for the following album “in search of the lost chord” and instead upped the hippie factor. yes, its a concept album about trying to find the ‘lost chord’ – i don’t want to ruin the ending but, they do find it, and it turns out to be ‘om.’ despite this vomit-inducing revelation there’s much pop greatness on this record. here they are on the bbc show colour me pop, miming the opening track on the record “ride my see-saw.” its introduced here, as on the record, with a poem.
Video: The Moody Blues – Ride My See-Saw (1968)
gosh they are a handsome bunch. in particular, check out the smooth dance moves of the moustachioed ray thomas, the band’s flutist. and justin hayward busts out a mean guitar solo. the moody blues shared around the songwriting duties in a fairly democratic fashion. never mind the fact that its generally the honey-eyed sickly-sweet ballads of justin hayward that pull focus, its the esoteric contributions from the less pop-idol members of the band that make their records intriguing. check this tribute to timothy leary, also from “in search of the lost chord”, which incidentally is my favourite song featuring my own name in the lyrics:
Video: The Moody Blues – Legend of a Mind (1968)
“a question of balance”, the fourth record, opens with an absolute belter. thats what craig huggins would probably refer to it as. i find this track really curious actually, because its possibly the most forthright and commanding pop song that they’d written to this point – its the moody blues equivalent of ball-tearing, frenzied acoustic strumming, intense orchestral flourishes, and justin hayward getting, like, totally in your face about the world, like:
Why do we never get an answer
When were knocking at the door?
With a thousand million questions
About hate and death and war.
Its where we stop and look around us
There is nothing that we need.
In a world of persecution
That is burning in its greed.
fuck yeah! but the song just dies about half way through, basically they cut and paste a syrupy ballad into its middle. its like taking the heart of a puppy and transplanting it into a dragon – the dragon is weakened, and a perfectly good puppy (that if left alone would probably have been very cute and been doted on by many handsome ladies) is left for dead. you’ll know what i’m talking about – feel free to skip the middle bit:
Video: The Moody Blues – Question (1970)
i could really go on forever here, but go forth and enjoy yourself with the moodies, there’s plenty more surprises for you to uncover in the first four or five albums from the moody catalogue. plenty more stuff on youtube. there are drum breaks to be had for those who are that way inclined. also, one of the moody’s was one of the first mellotron reps and pioneered the use of the instrument live and on these records.
but i leave you with a part of their legacy that unfortunately can’t be denied, and its that they just went off in the 80s, not like pat benatar going off or metallica going off, but like milk going off. innumerable lineup changes and an unhealthy obsession with 80s synths and production techniques led the moodies down a dark path i’m afraid. like jethro tull, basically everything they released in the late 70s and through the 80s sounds like it was written by a team of trained monkeys and recorded in a septic tank. there is one exception to this – an album called “long distance voyager” released in 1981 (the year of my birth – coincidence? i think not) thats probably best described as a guilty pleasure. its a rarity though in that its an early 80s album that doesn’t sound like dick.
but look, the descent into 80s pop balladry and 90s dinosaur band mentality is their true history and i’ll share a bit of it now – the rather hideous “i know you’re out there somewhere” from 1988:
Video: The Moody Blues – I Know You’re Out There Somewhere (1988)
i gets an email from bob zeal, who is currently working on a faux pas film clip (and blogging the process), which say:
made a wormhole this morning. sending a ship down it now :) i don’t know what stephen hawkings was on about. it’s not THAT hard!
a photo posted at the zeal blog provides more clues. for real, this is like some “dark knight” style viral marketing puzzle type shit for you. for example, at 54.3, a cat will be seen. at one point there will either be a long shot or a long shoe. and at 55…. re-unite! i’m not sure exactly what bob is re-uniting in this film clip, but i know i’m not the only one who hopes that it will be korea:
/// New 6-track Vanderbilt EP features two Faux Pas tracks plus remixes by Crumbs, Aoi, Pasobionic and Lewis CanCut. Its a free download, get it here.
/// My album Noiseworks – featuring “Vanderbilt”, “Chasing Waterfalls” and “Silver Line” – is available here.
/// I’ve been working on remixes for local bands Rat vs Possum, Flying Scribble and Akimbo. These are good people.
/// I’ve started making some new songs – if you want to have a sneak peek at what they sound like, here is the place to start.
Tim Shiel lives in Melbourne. He makes music under the name FAUX PAS, and is also a broadcaster on public radio station 3RRR FM. This blog began in 2005.
1981: Born in Melbourne Australia, life feels empty and without meaning
2005: FAUX PAS created – life still meaningless
2010: Tim writes brand new three-line biography
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