The Talking Head's fourth album, Remain in Light, was released on October 8, 1980, making it exactly 30 years old today. I was 11, and I have to confess I was not quite a hip enough eleven-year-old to have picked up the album on the day of release. I became a fan of the band in 1983 after hearing "Burning Down the House" and quickly started exploring their band's back catalog (probably by taking advantage of my Columbia House membership).
Remain In Light, along with the Eno-Byrne collaboration My Life In the Bush of Ghosts and the first Tom Tom Club album, all had a major impact on my evolving taste in music at that time. The sense of adventure, and the combination of playfulness and high-art seriousness of these projects all went a long way toward convincing me that music could be more than whatever happened to be on the radio in the background, but something to be listened to seriously and followed passionately. In that respect, the Talking Heads were probably the first band that I actually became a fan of as opposed to merely making music I happened to like.
Totally by coincidence, I listened to the first Tom Tom Club album on my way to work this morning after having needledropped my LP last night (I had already ripped Remain in Light and My Life In the Bush of Ghosts to my iPod). I have to say, 30 years on, while this music does sound a bit like a time capsule from the early eighties, I believe it holds up as music, art and entertainment remarkably well. In many ways it still sounds more forward-looking, open and even futuristic, than any of the new music I am hearing these days (mainstream or otherwise).
Yep Roc just reissued Nick Lowe's classic first solo album, Jesus of Cool. Hopefully it is the first in a series of reissues, because the man's catalog (or catalogue) is a mess. How can it be that an album as great as Labour of Lust could ever be allowed to go out of print? Sure, many of the highlights are available on Basher: The Best of Nick Lowe, but you really need songs like "Born Fighter," "You Make Me," "Skin Deep" and "Dose of You" too. Every song on that album is a classic. Nick The Knife, The Abominable Showman, Cowboy Outfit, etc. may not be as consistently great, but they still deserve to be heard without being robbed on Amazon's Marketplace. This is an injustice of epic proportions. Can you imagine the reaction if none of van Gogh's paintings were on display in any of the world's museums? If Citizen Kane were only available on SelectaVision? If Hulk Hogan retired? This is the rock and roll equivalent people. It's sick and twisted and just plain wrong, wrong, wrong. Am I making myself clear?
So go buy Jesus of Cool (even if you already own it it's worth it for the bonus tracks and excellent packaging). Then demand reissue of Labour of Lust and the rest of Nick Lowe's catalog.
Yep Roc (or possibly Robyn Hitchcock) decided not to include Hitchcock's second solo album, Groovy Decay on the I Wanna Go Backwards box-set. Instead, they reissued the album exclusively as a digital download. It's now available directly from Yep Roc, on emusic and on iTunes.
It's hard to argue with the decision. Groovy Decay (and its demo-heavy doppelgangerGroovy Decoy) is probably Hitchcock's least well regarded album. Hitchcock himself has all but disavowed it. Also, including it would have blown any chances that Hitchcock would be declared the godfather of freak-folk.
The truth is there are some very good songs on the album ("52 Stations," "America," "The Cars She Used To Drive"), along with a few clunkers ("Old People Scream," "Midnight Fish"). But the whole album is undeniably weighed down by its slick, "new wave" production aesthetic, and the reliance on horns and synths to carry the melodies rather than guitars. Unlike much of Hitchcock's work, Groovy Decay sounds dated.
Listening to the album I am reminded of the episode of Freaks and Geeks in which Sam is convinced by a clothing store sales clerk at the local mall (brilliantly played by Joel Hodgson) that all his troubles with the ladies will be over if he purchases a snazzy new "Parisian Night Suit" (which is really nothing more than a hideous powder-blue polyester jumpsuit). The results are predictably painful. No one should wear a "Parisian Night Suit," but some people (say, John Travolta) are capable of pulling off the look anyway. But poor Sam can't because the Parisian Night Suit is simply the opposite of who he is.
Groovy Decay is Robyn Hitchcock's Parisian Night Suit moment insofar as he dresses his music up in a style that simple doesn't fit his musical personality. Somebody convinced him that if he only adapted his style to the slick new-wave ethos of the era that he could have a hit. To his eternal regret he followed their advice, and the results, while not exactly cringe-worthy, are at least a little embarrassing in retrospect.
None of this should discourage you from downloading the album. No, it's not Hitchcock's best work. Yes, it sounds more than a little dated. But it is still certainly possible to hear the good songs beneath the production.
A few things got left off the latest digital incarnation of Groovy Decay. The demo version of "Midnight Fish" was originally released on Groovy Decoy, which featured mostly demos recorded in advance of the Groovy Decay sessions. Even the demos, recorded with former Soft Boy Matthew Seligman, are slicker and more produced than anything Hitchcock had recorded up to that point in his career. Special "disco" versions of "Night Ride To Trindad" and "Kingdom Of Love," originally issued in 1982 on a 12" single (a misguided attempt to get played in clubs?) were also omitted from the program. Can the world survive without disco versions of Robyn Hitchcock songs? I suspect so. But you shouldn't have to if you don't want to.
Also, since this album is no longer available in any worlds but the virtual one (or perhaps in some other parallel universe in which people prefer dancing to Robyn Hitchcock over Rihanna and J-Lo) it no longer comes with any tactile artwork. But that is no excuse for the lo-rez image--gleaned no doubt from a quick Google image search--Yep Roc features on their website. Feel free to paste the artwork above into your iTunes library.
Down in the park Where the Machmen meet The machines are playing 'kill-by-numbers' Down in the park with a friend called 'Five'
In Fall 2004, I attended a coffee shop fundraiser for a progressive political organization. The Big Election was coming up and, being in a more sensitive frame of mind than usual, I attended. The weather was pretty depressing, as I recall, and there was a sense of real pessimism in the air. Still, local bands, some containing friends, were playing and a full afternoon, if not an actual good time, was guaranteed for all.
The line-up consisted of eccentric New Weird Folkidelica alongside potent electronic avant-gargling and a classical string duo. Alec K Redfearn, an accordionist, close friend, and on-off bandmade of Yours Truly, also played a set. He informed me, beforehand, that his would include a Gary Numan cover.
Alec's rickety squeezebox pulse, strengthened by the presence of some talented cello and violin players, pumped some life into an otherwise downbeat day. As he performed the aforementioned Gary Numan composition, its unforced melodic beauty became quite moving. The song, originally a frosty electro tune, lent itself to Alec's idiosyncratic R. Crumbly instrumentation. I was also startled by the references to "rape machines."
The song was, of course, "Down In The Park."
With some cursory research using Ye Olde Internete, I can ascertain that "Down In The Park," has been covered by a large and varied group of musicians. Besides Mr. Redfearn, artists such as Foo Fighters, Marilyn Manson, somebody named DJ Hell, Christian Death and Girls Under Glass have attempted this oddball number. Now, granted, most of this "research" amounts to me pounding around on Wikipedia and a few other sites, so I haven't heard most of these. However, I do own a CD reissue of Foo Fighters' The Color And The Shape, so I have listened to their take. The rest, I will have to take on faith. What is striking about this list--however accurate or inaccurate it may be--is how people have been affected by this fairly obscure song by Gary Numan, a man thought by much of the general populace to be a cyborgian NuWaver of days gone by.
Why? Why has "Down In The Park" hummed in the collective unconscious of so many freaky people for such a long time? It's certainly not Mr. Numan's most popular tune. That would inarguably be "Cars," his big hit. In fact, it's not even his second most popular tune. We'd have to give that award to the mighty "Are Friends Electric?" Yet, somehow, "Down In The Park," off Replicas by Gary Numan & The Tubeway Army, coming at you all the way from 1979, may shape up as the most enduring song of The Pleasure Principal's career. Again, we must ask ourselves, "Why?"
Well, first of all, the song is quite beautiful. Despite Mr. Numan's solid-state at sub-zero sonic approach, "Down In The Park," possesses a gorgeous and melancholy musicality, like some of the best efforts of The Zombies, The Left Banke or even John Cale. The melody is rolling and sophisticated, yet memorable. Very "Eleanor Rigby" at points, albeit glacial in its pace (and, some would say, attitude.) Surgically remove Mr. Numan's willfully antiseptic approach and you are left with a haunting and powerful set of lines. As such, Foo Fighters attach it to their muscular chug and Alec K Redfearn swaddles the thing in his lysergic chamber music and "Down In The Park" emerges as the true victor. One hears the strength of the songwriter as well as the specific personality of the interpreter. As reluctant as some folks may be to admit it, we should all doff our space helmets in tribute to Mr. Numan's intelligence and wit as a craftsman.
Secondly, and, perhaps, just as importantly, Mr. Numan has put this remarkable melody in the service of some of the most unguardedly bonkers lyrics of his, or anybody else's, career. Near as I can tell, an upsetting William S. Burroughs/JG Ballard lyrical theme oozes through the entire Replicas record, a function of some internal logic and product of The Talented Mr. Numan's imagination. "Down In The Park" is explicit in the details of something so subjective that, even still, it remains vague and troubling. Taken literally from the first-person perspective of an Unreliable Narrator (I was in a car crash/Or was it the war?/Well, I've never been quite the same) the song describes how humans, corralled in The Park by sadistic, robotic Machmen, meet their deaths by the steely gears of "rape machines" and other infernal devices. Our Narrator, perhaps lobotomized by his mechanical captors, watches the ghastly events from a night club near The Park under the supervision of an android "friend" named Five ("Are Friends Electric," indeed.) The whole thing has a really nasty and nauseating Punishment Park/Demon Seed/A Clockwork Orange kind of vibe.
The effect is stunning. Seriously. Take an old 70's AM Radio hit--say, "Just An Old Fashioned Love Song" by Three Dog Night and replace the existing lyrics with rhyming couplets about the "Is It Safe?" scene from Marathon Man and you kind of get an idea of the "Down In The Park" vibe. In the spirit of Love's Forever Changes (the subject of my last entry for this operation, by the way) you sense that Enya or Sade could interpret this just as effectively as Genesis P. Orridge or LCD Soundsystem.
My first encounter with "Down In The Park," like so many of my generation and temperament, came from watching Urgh!- A Music War. Resembling Christopher Pike, Mr. Numan "belts out" the number while coasting across a glowing stage in what appears to a combination orgone box/go-kart. I suggest interested parties watch the clip on YouTube. It is impossible not to be distracted by the overwrought Futurisms of the show, but the song and its composer are unique. Give it a look, or, even better, a listen.
The Talking Head's fourth album, Remain in Light, was released on October 8, 1980, making it exactly 30 years old today. I was 11, and I have to confess I was not quite a hip enough eleven-year-old to have picked up the album on the day of release. I became a fan of the band in 1983 after hearing "Burning Down the House" and quickly started exploring their band's back catalog (probably by taking advantage of my Columbia House membership).
