Working Batterie is a ne collaboration by New York based producer and multi-instrumentalist Pierre de Gaillande and Minutemen's Mike Watt. Batterie is the French word for drums and so many of the songs starts with them played by different drummers and Watt's joins with his bass. It is a mixture that spreads from pop-rock to jazz-punk and many in between. It is always great to hear Mike Watt playing the bass and at the best moments it remains to Watt's joyness of experimentation. Get more here.
After yesterday's post I come direct to another album that impressed me very much. In 1994 former Minutemen and fIREHOSE bassist, songwriter and vocalist Ben Watt released his first solo album and it was an outstanding record for me. For this album he recruited a lot of followers that followed his musical career for a long time. It is a who is who by American independent music. Henry Rollins, Eddie Vedder and members of Meat Puppets, RHCP, Nirvana and Sonic Youth and others made this record so very unique because on this record were so many influences of every kind of American alternative music in like never before and never after. Still a classic that and seldom listened to it from the start to the end. A very fine torture if you will allow.
One thing I really love about the blogs I constantly visit is that sometimes you are surprised about a post you didn't expected and your musical fondness changes rapidly. This happened when Brian posted about fIREHOSE last week. When Minutemen appeared on the scene nothing was like before. I played Double Nickles On The Dime at these days very often and was deeply sad when I heard about D.Boon's deadly accident and thought by myself that another band will vanish in history. The more I was surprised when fIREHOSE revived from the fragments of Minutemen. Ragin', Full On was a highlight in 1986 but for me they're second record If'n means more to me. Moving away from the tradition of Minutemen to more extensive song. This album is more different than their first and showed their mellow side and their heavy side as well. I think that Mike Watt was the leading figure in this band at this time. He wrote most of the songs and the way he played the bass was extraordinary. I spent the last days for hours listening to their old output and never got tired listening to them. Great band, great songs, great fun.
A few days ago I was out for a couple of beer with an old mate of mine and as usually we started talking about music. I can't explain why but suddenly we were talking about record labels and that a lot of them stand for a unique sound. We are not talking about classic labels like Sun Records, Motown or major companies. More about independent labels. The more time we talked the more we stuck in this theme. One named a label and the other had to add the artists the label signed or are formative to it. So I think it it will be now the start for a new series.
SST Records were formed by Greg Ginn in the late 70's in California to release material of his band Black Flag. SST's merit was to be a platform American underground music in the pre-Nirvana era. Originally featuring classic hardcore-punk they spread their spectrum during the years into alternative music.
Black Flag was the first band on the label and they sounded like The Ramones on speed with atonal guitar solos. They maintained their attitude as angry nonconformists and got their highest level when Henry Rollins joined the band.
The Meat Puppets started as another punk band from Arizona and changed their style from their second record on. Instead of noise there was suddenly alternative rock and country in their sound. Nirvana played years later three songs from their second album on their legendary MTV appearance.
Another band that made SST Records famous was Dinosaur Jr. The first three albums are all classics in alternative rock music. J. Masics's drawling vocals and distinct guitars sound with the extensive use of feedback were highly influential for many bands in the 90's.
Minutemen started as a punk band as well. But all members were so highly talented so that this post will not be complete if I won't name then. True pioneers of alternative music. Their first records are a legacy that I listened often during the last decades.
Sylvia Juncosa played guitar in SWA (the band of Chuck Dukowski after he left Black Flag) before she started a career with her own name. Her only record Nature from 1987 was one of the records I loved these days. Simply forward going aggressive hard rock.
Probably the best selling SST-artist was a trio from Minneapolis. Hüsker Dü started like many other artists as hard-core punks and developed their own unique sound album by album. Flip Your Wig was the completest record they made and it is still a timeless beauty.
Also Sonic Youth started their career on SST. Evol is probably the first record on that they created their very individual sound. Still a classic record from these days.
Probably the first cross-over record in this genre. Bad Brains made a great melange out of ingredients of hard-core punk, reggae, funk and soul. Massive basses and heavy guitars made this record a classic.
At the end a band that never got the credibility they should have. Firehose started as the following band after Minutemen was history. Instead of D. Boone Ed Crawford, a Minutemen fan played guitar.
Yesterday I had to take part in a rating workshop with colleges from other institutes. It took place in an academy close to Stuttgart airport. Taking the public transportations it will take me hours to get to and from there. So I decided to take the car. And for the fact that I don't listen to the radio I grabbed me a couple of CD's without selecting. One of them was the 1995 album by Mike Watt 'Ball-Hog Or Tugboat?'. For those who don't know the co-founder of Minutemen and Firehose can get more informations here.
I really forgot how great this record was. It was the perfect further development from the sound of Minutemen. It was his first regular solo album and he collaborated on it with Eddie Vedder, Dave Grohl, J. Masics, Even Dando, Henry Rollins, Mark Lanegan and many other well known musicians from the American independent scene. That might be the reason why this record was more successful than his others. By chancing the personal on every track make the album so different. And Mike Watt shows that he is a fantastic bass player.
The only thing I don't understand is the meaning of the title of this record. I know that ball-hog is a perfect throw in American Football and tugboat is a nickname of a famous wrestler. But I don't understand what it means in combination with wrestling.
As said we started last year to play football for our favorite pub. We used to meet once or twice a week in the late afternoon to play with other football-mad lads on a public playground for a match. During the weekends we played a lot amateur competitions that took place in near era. Finally there were four teams that dominated these competitions - ours was one of them. Throughout the following years we had a lot of great games at different places. Many times we won the competitions and we used to play the semi-finals as a minimum. I remember the evenings when we celebrated our success in our local pub. One evening I took the chance to move to the turntable to present the audience my musical taste. One hour later another mate from our team wanted to go on put some records on by his own choice. This was the start of our DJ-circle - long before the DJ-cult started. From this time on we were six lads and we used to play our music alternately on Friday and Saturday. It was a wide spread of music that reached from Funk and Soul over classic rock and rockabilly onto the new and older stuff from Britain and the USA. Every DJ grabbed his own records and played it for five/six hours. One day the owner of the pub mad us an offer that each of us could buy a few records each month on his calculation when we play them in the pub. That's one of reason I my record collection expanded this days.
1984 was also the year I first fell really in love with a girl. After some affairs all over the last years I met Susanne who was a close fried to a female college. She knew me from playing my records in the pub but was to shy to get in contact with me. So she took the way over her girlfriend. We got really quick in contact and fell in love to each other. After a short trip to Italy we decided to life together. A few month later she pulled to me. It was the start of another chapter in my life. More next.
And here again a small choice of songs that dominated the charts or mean a lot to me::
George Michael - maybe the smoothest song of the year in the charts (or was it Stevie Wonder with I just called to say I love you?)
Frankie Goes To Hollywood - with a big bang and attitude from Liverpool
Ultravox and their version of the last day on earth
Alphaville from Germany with their second smash hit
Chaka Khan - back in the charts again
Echo and the Bunnymen - some of my all time favorites
The Style Council - music of quality and distinction
Sade - perfect combination from jazzy moods and a great voice
Prefab Sprout - Paddy McAlloon appears
Icicle Works - Also a song I listened these days
Let go over to the records that was released in 1984:
The Smiths - same: Their first record. I'm a fan since then
Joe Jackson - Body and Soul: Perfect mix of pop and jazz - timeless
The Style Council - Café Bleu: Paul Weller arrived at his new sound
R.E.M. - Reckoning: Perfect College Rock from Athens GA
Echo and the Bunnymen - Ocean Rain: Good to have Ian McCulloch back
Nick Cave - From Here To Eternity: Their debut - something big and dark from down under
The Waterboys - A Pagan Place: Not only because of the trumpet solo on the title track
Sade - Diamond Life: This years sound most of could agree to
Minutemen - Double Nickels On The Dime: Their monument. A perfect combination of punk rock, funk, country and jazz. Also statements to the American way of life
Hüsker Dü - Zen Arcade: Another monument of post punk released on SST
The Go-Betweens - Spring Hill Fair: Just good music and great songs
Scott Walker - Climate of Hunter: The man and his voice is back after long years
Cocteau Twins - Treasure: Superb reduced music
What we saw when we went to the cinema:
Amadeus - Milos Forman shows what happened when the great composer Salieri meet the genius of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
Birdy - One of the best post Vietnam war movies with a great Matthew Modine and Nicolas Cage
Blood Simple - The Cohn brothers appear with a great movie
The Company of Wolves - British gothic horror and fantasy
The Hotel New Hampshire - Great movie based on a novel by John Irving
Paris, Texas - Arty movie by Wim Wenders
Stop Making Sense - Unforgettable The Talking Heads in Concert
And of course: Ghostbusters, Beverly Hills Cop and Gremlins
What was in the news this year::
Apple places Macintosh personal computer on sale in the United States; the Winter Olympics are held in Sarajevo/Yugoslavia; German minister of defense retires general Kiessling because he was suspected of being assessed homosexual - some month later he was found innocent; Konstantin Tschernenko get the president of the USSR; the former boxer Gustav 'Bubi' Scholz get arrested under suspicion to shot down his wife and killed her under heavy influence of alcohol; Ronald Reagan announces the bombardment of Russia during a microphone test and regrets behind his 'joke`;Assassination of Indira Gandhi by her two Sikh security guards - Anti Sikh riots breaking out and more than 10.000 Sikhs were slaughtered; Band Aid records the charity single 'Do they know it's Christmas'; Bhopal Disaster A methyl isocyanate leak from a Union Carbide pesticide plant in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, India, kills more than 8,000 people outright and injures over half a million (with more later dying from their injuries the death toll reaches 23,000+) in the worst industrial disaster in history.
Talk Talk released their second record in 1984 and it was the breakthrough of the band around her founder Mark Hollis. There was a lot of commercial successful singles like 'Dum Dum Girl', 'Such A Shame' and 'It's my life' which are recommended as their best. But I prefer more songs like 'Renée', 'Does Caroline Knew' and 'It's you' for them reduced speed and their arrangements. The best versions of these songs came out a few years later on a live-record called London 1986 released in the last year of the last century. While I write these words I listen to the record once again and I find new little things I didn't realized the last times. It is one of these timeless records you would take to a lonely island.
