Lots of songs with the last post...so today, I'm putting up only one. But it's one of my all-time favorite songs: The Flamingos' version of "I Only Have Eyes for You." The song itself has a long, interesting history. It was first a hit way back in the 1930s, and rather unusually, it's retained its popularity, in various versions, pretty steadily since then. My collection features contemporary covers of the track by Mark Eitzel, Cole Marquis, Seth Knappen, and Mercury Rev (at least: I haven't finished entering my collection into my database. Sorry, folks alphabetically after "S" and not on compilations or on box sets...).
But the Flamingos' version remains my favorite. On the one hand, it's a fairly classic doo-wop arrangement, and the eighth-note piano rhythm in 6/8 time is a staple of '50s rock balladry. But the song's also unconventional in some respects, which makes it sound as if it might be more recent than it is. For instance, it's a little bit longer than most late-fifties pop singles at 3:15; more importantly, it's positively lazy in getting to its point. After the first vocal lines ("my love must be a kind of blind love / I can't see anyone but you"), the verse doesn't get underway until nearly forty seconds into the track. Your stereotypical top-forty programmer wants the damned chorus to hit by the thirty-second mark; it's not until nearly a minute into the track that we get to the chorus. The arrangement is pretty spare and clean for a fifties ballad; aside from the rich vocal texture, there's just guitar, piano, bass (barely audible), and a nearly unvarying drum part. And check the fake-out opening, which modulates dramatically from a B-flat seventh chord that initially sounds like it might be the dominant of E-flat (nope), down to a G major chord, then to D major, and finally downward into the song's key of C major. But that's not just trickiness for trickiness's sake: first, that sequence outlines the bass vocal line that shows up later. And you could argue that the sense of (harmonic) bewilderment is resonant with the song's lyrics, which work the metaphor of blindness and distraction to a positively narcotic degree - especially in the bridge, where the singer can't tell if he's "in a garden / or on a crowded avenue." In fact, the whole song's mood is nearly proto-psychedelic: I'm not sure if any psychedelic bands actually covered the song (not according to the All-Music Guide) - perhaps it felt too square for them - but lyrically it would have been an inspired choice. The only thing that disrupts the languourous mood is the sudden irruption of the rapid "doo-wop sh-bop" interjections - a rather bizarre touch, actually, that's almost jarring.
Okay, before I get all swoony I'll have to play the Spike Jones version to cure me.
The Flamingos "I Only Have Eyes for You"
7.29.2005
7.27.2005
we've secretly replaced your regular instruments with Folger's Freezedried MIDI instruments...
I'm not sure why, within a year or so of one another, two acts (both of whom normally use a lot of conventional instruments) decided it would be a good idea to release CDs whose instrumentation was almost entirely made up of blatantly synthetic MIDI-based orchestrations . . . but they did. What's interesting to me is what aspects of their music came through regardless, and how the new (for them) textures altered that music.
First up was Sparks with 2002's Lil' Beethoven, on which the Mael brothers seemed to jettison nearly everything one had associated with their music (Russell Mael's stratospheric vocals, tunefulness...hell, for all I know, Ron Mael shaved off his mustache) except their bizarre, conceptual, sometimes snarky wit. The opening track, "The Rhythm Thief," is an example: while the entire album features almost no "beats" in the hip-hop sense, it's also almost entirely rhythmic, being structured primarily around repetitive lyrical, vocal, and chordal motifs. And if the joke seems a bit obvious and hammered-over-the-head, well, the next track is called "How Do I Get to Carnegie Hall?" and, yes, it elaborates (slightly) on the joke which, astonishingly, is several centuries older than Carnegie Hall itself. In other words, although the sound is utterly different from any earlier model of Sparks, the lyrics make these songs instantly recognizable as a Sparks product. The music's evocation of furrowed-brow cello-sawing and ponderous choral emoting is nicely undercut by its artificiality and absurd lyrics, while constituting its own species of slightly out-of-phase joke.
A year or so later, Dan Bejar's Destroyer released Your Blues which - in the manner of most Destroyer albums - pretty thoroughly confounded previous expectations of what a Destroyer record would sound like. I don't know the history of this CD's recording, whether Bejar always intended it would come out like this or whether these were home demoes that he decided better conveyed what the songs were about - but there's a peculiar tension between the gestured-at lush orchestration and the distancing sonic similarity of almost all the sounds coming from a single source that, at least, compels attention. Of course, Bejar's a distinctive writer, both lyrically and compositionally - and it's fairly easy to imagine these songs re-scored for previous, more conventional configurations of Destroyer (in fact, a handful of tracks were redone with the band Frog Eyes as backup, and released as an EP earlier this year). In other words, they still sound like Destroyer songs, if perhaps from an alternative dimension...Here's "An Actor's Revenge," one of my favorites from Your Blues.
And just now, as I write this, I realize at least one set of residents of that dimension: (to quote Abbott & Costello) "exactly." That is, I'm thinking of the Residents, and specifically the way they transfigured their music when they became infatuated with electronic instrumentation in the early '80s. For comparison, here are both the original version of "Hello Skinny" (from 1978's Duck Stab/Buster & Glen) and the revamped version as heard on their Live in Holland CD from 1986. The change in affect from the acoustic to the electronic version is similar, for me, to the effect of my hearing Destroyer, or Sparks, through the scrim of the synthetic orchestrations...even though I know that those are the "real" versions of the songs, that there is, in fact, no version of "An Actor's Revenge" that I know of with an actual quasi-Spanish trumpet or a string section.
Sparks "The Rhythm Thief"
Destroyer "An Actor's Revenge"
The Residents "Hello Skinny" (from Live in Holland)
The Residents "Hello Skinny" (original version)
First up was Sparks with 2002's Lil' Beethoven, on which the Mael brothers seemed to jettison nearly everything one had associated with their music (Russell Mael's stratospheric vocals, tunefulness...hell, for all I know, Ron Mael shaved off his mustache) except their bizarre, conceptual, sometimes snarky wit. The opening track, "The Rhythm Thief," is an example: while the entire album features almost no "beats" in the hip-hop sense, it's also almost entirely rhythmic, being structured primarily around repetitive lyrical, vocal, and chordal motifs. And if the joke seems a bit obvious and hammered-over-the-head, well, the next track is called "How Do I Get to Carnegie Hall?" and, yes, it elaborates (slightly) on the joke which, astonishingly, is several centuries older than Carnegie Hall itself. In other words, although the sound is utterly different from any earlier model of Sparks, the lyrics make these songs instantly recognizable as a Sparks product. The music's evocation of furrowed-brow cello-sawing and ponderous choral emoting is nicely undercut by its artificiality and absurd lyrics, while constituting its own species of slightly out-of-phase joke.
A year or so later, Dan Bejar's Destroyer released Your Blues which - in the manner of most Destroyer albums - pretty thoroughly confounded previous expectations of what a Destroyer record would sound like. I don't know the history of this CD's recording, whether Bejar always intended it would come out like this or whether these were home demoes that he decided better conveyed what the songs were about - but there's a peculiar tension between the gestured-at lush orchestration and the distancing sonic similarity of almost all the sounds coming from a single source that, at least, compels attention. Of course, Bejar's a distinctive writer, both lyrically and compositionally - and it's fairly easy to imagine these songs re-scored for previous, more conventional configurations of Destroyer (in fact, a handful of tracks were redone with the band Frog Eyes as backup, and released as an EP earlier this year). In other words, they still sound like Destroyer songs, if perhaps from an alternative dimension...Here's "An Actor's Revenge," one of my favorites from Your Blues.
And just now, as I write this, I realize at least one set of residents of that dimension: (to quote Abbott & Costello) "exactly." That is, I'm thinking of the Residents, and specifically the way they transfigured their music when they became infatuated with electronic instrumentation in the early '80s. For comparison, here are both the original version of "Hello Skinny" (from 1978's Duck Stab/Buster & Glen) and the revamped version as heard on their Live in Holland CD from 1986. The change in affect from the acoustic to the electronic version is similar, for me, to the effect of my hearing Destroyer, or Sparks, through the scrim of the synthetic orchestrations...even though I know that those are the "real" versions of the songs, that there is, in fact, no version of "An Actor's Revenge" that I know of with an actual quasi-Spanish trumpet or a string section.
Sparks "The Rhythm Thief"
Destroyer "An Actor's Revenge"
The Residents "Hello Skinny" (from Live in Holland)
The Residents "Hello Skinny" (original version)
7.24.2005
the story is telling a true lie
I often wonder how I'd listen to music differently if I could hear it stripped of whatever acclaim it might have received. As someone with historicist inclinations, I tend to attach some weight to critical reputation - not that I have to agree with every critical consensus, but it seems I should at least give things more of a chance, as if the fault (if I don't like it right away) might be my own rather than the music's. On the whole, I think, that attitude has worked well for me - but I do sometimes wish for the impossible dream that I could hear music all on its own, free of context both musical and extramusical. (This is a dream because music is contextual: its effects are social in an almost linguistic way, and aside from those who'd argue that there's something inherent in the relation of the physics of sound that compels certain emotional reactions, there's no way to recognize music as music outside musical context. To reverse that: once we have a musical context, we can listen, if we so choose, to anything as if it were music. And having done so, it is music - for us. Anyway.)
All of this is by way of introducing two songs by Nico: one from Chelsea Girls which is a Velvet Underground song in all but attribution, the other from The Marble Index. That album was one I'd heard of quite a bit before I finally picked up a copy: I can't remember what I'd heard of it, specifically, or what I expected (I suppose something similar to the Nico tracks on the June 1, 1974 live album). But what I got was something utterly unlike anything else I'd listened to previously - and aside from its (much inferior, to my ears) followup Desertshore, unlike anything I've heard since. There is, of course, Nico's brooding, deep voice, nearly a baritone; and that spooky harmonium that drones under most tracks, which are built on two, maybe three chords, sometimes only a single chord. But the most striking thing about the recording is John Cale's absolutely flabbergasting arrangements, here represented by "Evening of Light," probably my favorite track on the album. I could talk straightforwardly about what instruments are where, and what they do, but you can hear that - so instead I'll just say that it sounds rather like a music-box diorama that quickly turns hellish, one that presents an earth-shattering battle between a brontosaurus and a pterodactyl rather than the expected delicate Victorian porcelain-laced figures in a pas de deux.
"It Was a Pleasure Then," from Chelsea Girls, is a bit more...human...with Lou Reed's spiky guitar explorations and John Cale's abrasive viola scrapings evolving in a straightforwardly improvisatory manner. What's striking about this song for me, though - given the usual Nico voice and its smoky depths - is her clear, almost flute-like soprano register, which she uses a few times in the song to pipe out mysterious little melodies. It's not the sound one thinks of where her voice is concerned, yet its tone melds quite well with Reed's and Cale's instruments - and its flutey timbre connects the track sonically to the rest of the album, even though otherwise the song's arrangement is quite different from most of its other tracks.
And the funny thing about those musical expectations? I picked up Chelsea Girls after I'd heard The Marble Index - and its very 1966 chamber-folk arrangements (string quartets, flutes, acoustic guitars) were, in their relative conventionality, almost startling by way of contrast.
Nico "Evening of Light"
Nico "It Was a Pleasure Then"
All of this is by way of introducing two songs by Nico: one from Chelsea Girls which is a Velvet Underground song in all but attribution, the other from The Marble Index. That album was one I'd heard of quite a bit before I finally picked up a copy: I can't remember what I'd heard of it, specifically, or what I expected (I suppose something similar to the Nico tracks on the June 1, 1974 live album). But what I got was something utterly unlike anything else I'd listened to previously - and aside from its (much inferior, to my ears) followup Desertshore, unlike anything I've heard since. There is, of course, Nico's brooding, deep voice, nearly a baritone; and that spooky harmonium that drones under most tracks, which are built on two, maybe three chords, sometimes only a single chord. But the most striking thing about the recording is John Cale's absolutely flabbergasting arrangements, here represented by "Evening of Light," probably my favorite track on the album. I could talk straightforwardly about what instruments are where, and what they do, but you can hear that - so instead I'll just say that it sounds rather like a music-box diorama that quickly turns hellish, one that presents an earth-shattering battle between a brontosaurus and a pterodactyl rather than the expected delicate Victorian porcelain-laced figures in a pas de deux.
"It Was a Pleasure Then," from Chelsea Girls, is a bit more...human...with Lou Reed's spiky guitar explorations and John Cale's abrasive viola scrapings evolving in a straightforwardly improvisatory manner. What's striking about this song for me, though - given the usual Nico voice and its smoky depths - is her clear, almost flute-like soprano register, which she uses a few times in the song to pipe out mysterious little melodies. It's not the sound one thinks of where her voice is concerned, yet its tone melds quite well with Reed's and Cale's instruments - and its flutey timbre connects the track sonically to the rest of the album, even though otherwise the song's arrangement is quite different from most of its other tracks.
And the funny thing about those musical expectations? I picked up Chelsea Girls after I'd heard The Marble Index - and its very 1966 chamber-folk arrangements (string quartets, flutes, acoustic guitars) were, in their relative conventionality, almost startling by way of contrast.
Nico "Evening of Light"
Nico "It Was a Pleasure Then"
7.21.2005
whew!
As most of you know, for the last week we were hosting and tour-guiding a contingent of friends (i.e., you). The first days after such visits are always full of mixed feelings: on the one hand, it's nice to be able to relax, to do whatever you want, to not have to worry that something is about to be ruined by a two-year-old...but there's also this lingering sense of absence, that something's just missing - that something, of course, being the joy of the presence of a bunch of people you like a lot. And today's gloomy gray skies, followed by a (much-needed, in fact) downpour, just contributed to my general air of low-level depression.
So far, the left-behind items include one elastic hair-tie and a single copy of a mix CD one of us made for everyone else. Both cats survived their encounter (although Oranj of the sensitive tummy probably should not have licked up every foodlike substance he found on the floor) - hell, they dug all the extra worshippers (Amy in particular spent about an hour playing with and photographing them), even those who are small and haven't quite grasped the concept that cats aren't to be stepped on.
We are very lucky, and very grateful. Thank you all.
So far, the left-behind items include one elastic hair-tie and a single copy of a mix CD one of us made for everyone else. Both cats survived their encounter (although Oranj of the sensitive tummy probably should not have licked up every foodlike substance he found on the floor) - hell, they dug all the extra worshippers (Amy in particular spent about an hour playing with and photographing them), even those who are small and haven't quite grasped the concept that cats aren't to be stepped on.
We are very lucky, and very grateful. Thank you all.
7.13.2005
Fire!
I'm Eighties Boy again today it seems: when I pick out CDs for the car or for work, often I'll just randomly grab from the collection and bring what I find (unless I'm just not in the mood for it). So it was that I pulled out Against All Flags by Tirez Tirez, from 1988. I discovered this band from a review of their previous album Social Responsibility (which I never did find), I think in Option magazine or something. Anyway, Tirez Tirez (which supposedly is what the guy instructing the French Foreign Legionnaires to execute somebody might yell, not a band with an auto-parts fetish and a malfunctioning spellchecker) was primarily one guy, Mikel Rouse (speaking of malfunctioning spellcheckers), who began the band as one of the late seventies' hordes of Talking Heads imitators, but who then went to music school and decided it would be more fun to cram as many tricky musical devices as possible into tuneful little songs that sound pretty much like normal pop songs to everyone except other music geeks. Rouse has gone on to a moderately successful composing career (here's his website) in that musically fruitful but audience-impoverished realm where rock and classical, post-minimalist musical devices coexist.
"When Pilots Came" is fairly typical of the songs on Against All Flags, its surface tunefulness underwritten by a complex lattice of polyrhythms (I think you can hear the influence of both Talking Heads and Steve Reich-style minimalism). The effect for me is to give the verses a sort of restless feeling (that's probably from the 5/8 phrases) while the choruses, with their more regular movement (you might almost think you're in 4/4 for a while...) contrast with and resolve the feel of the verses.
"See the Living" is maybe a little less ostentatious in its trickiness, being built as it is around a couple of fairly typical rock rhythm structures (they're even in 4/4, for real!). However, as it's the last track on the CD, by the time the second part of the verse comes around, you're so used to Rouse's shifting structures that you actually expect the accents to shift into some other time signature...and when they don't (yet), that's actually as surprising as the other songs' restless rhythmic patterns. Instead, leading into the chorus itself, Rouse throws in a bit of Bulgarian vocal harmony (in intervals of major and minor seconds) as lead-in to the chorus which...ah, there we go: five bars of 5/4, with the 4/4 vocal pattern (doodle-a doo do-doodle) running underneath it in counterpoint. Perhaps because there's so much else going on, it takes a while to notice that Rouse seldom writes bridges: his songs stick pretty much to verse/chorus, with variations for introductions and fade-outs.
As an attempt to be musically tricky within a pop framework, Rouse succeeds almost too well - in that the surface smoothness of the songs, including his voice, almost makes the songs sound far more disposably simple than they are. This is similar to the way Steely Dan's chart success in the early '70s blinded a lot of folks to how tricky - and amusing - their songs were, as if they were writing songs for the teenyboppers. But then the '70s was a weird time, in which actually being able to write a song, with a melody, chords, and dynamic structure, was considered essential to charting a track - and so long as a song fit in with that traditionalist definition of a pop song, its authors stood a chance of being convicted, in the Court of Hip, of Selling Out to The Man. Structure was rigid, boring, and uncool, man - twenty-minute freeform drum solos are where it's at. Anyway. (Steely Dan had the last laugh: "you think we're old and boring before our time, tools of the system? Ha: now we're bringing in a bunch of old jazz dudes wearing natty suits, bearing saxophones and vibes, who know what the hell a diminished thirteenth chord is." They then disappeared up their own assholes, only to re-emerge a decade later with their now desperately faded retro-hip usable only as stage dressing to ironic indie-films-set-to-music. Ah well.)
Okay, it's clear I just want to ramble endlessly rather than bring this to a conclusion, but instead I'll just stop. There.
Tirez Tirez "When Pilots Came"
Tirez Tirez "See the Living"
"When Pilots Came" is fairly typical of the songs on Against All Flags, its surface tunefulness underwritten by a complex lattice of polyrhythms (I think you can hear the influence of both Talking Heads and Steve Reich-style minimalism). The effect for me is to give the verses a sort of restless feeling (that's probably from the 5/8 phrases) while the choruses, with their more regular movement (you might almost think you're in 4/4 for a while...) contrast with and resolve the feel of the verses.
"See the Living" is maybe a little less ostentatious in its trickiness, being built as it is around a couple of fairly typical rock rhythm structures (they're even in 4/4, for real!). However, as it's the last track on the CD, by the time the second part of the verse comes around, you're so used to Rouse's shifting structures that you actually expect the accents to shift into some other time signature...and when they don't (yet), that's actually as surprising as the other songs' restless rhythmic patterns. Instead, leading into the chorus itself, Rouse throws in a bit of Bulgarian vocal harmony (in intervals of major and minor seconds) as lead-in to the chorus which...ah, there we go: five bars of 5/4, with the 4/4 vocal pattern (doodle-a doo do-doodle) running underneath it in counterpoint. Perhaps because there's so much else going on, it takes a while to notice that Rouse seldom writes bridges: his songs stick pretty much to verse/chorus, with variations for introductions and fade-outs.
As an attempt to be musically tricky within a pop framework, Rouse succeeds almost too well - in that the surface smoothness of the songs, including his voice, almost makes the songs sound far more disposably simple than they are. This is similar to the way Steely Dan's chart success in the early '70s blinded a lot of folks to how tricky - and amusing - their songs were, as if they were writing songs for the teenyboppers. But then the '70s was a weird time, in which actually being able to write a song, with a melody, chords, and dynamic structure, was considered essential to charting a track - and so long as a song fit in with that traditionalist definition of a pop song, its authors stood a chance of being convicted, in the Court of Hip, of Selling Out to The Man. Structure was rigid, boring, and uncool, man - twenty-minute freeform drum solos are where it's at. Anyway. (Steely Dan had the last laugh: "you think we're old and boring before our time, tools of the system? Ha: now we're bringing in a bunch of old jazz dudes wearing natty suits, bearing saxophones and vibes, who know what the hell a diminished thirteenth chord is." They then disappeared up their own assholes, only to re-emerge a decade later with their now desperately faded retro-hip usable only as stage dressing to ironic indie-films-set-to-music. Ah well.)
Okay, it's clear I just want to ramble endlessly rather than bring this to a conclusion, but instead I'll just stop. There.
Tirez Tirez "When Pilots Came"
Tirez Tirez "See the Living"
7.11.2005
what's the old saying about the only thing you find in the middle of the road?
I really don't understand the Hummer H3 (the smaller knockoff of the Hummer H2, which still looks to me like an industrial refrigerator mounted on wheels). I mean, as far as I can tell, the whole appeal of the Hummer (both the original and the slightly domesticated H2) is that they're the bulkiest, ugliest, most aggressively obnoxious and pointlessly wasteful vehicles on the road. The H3 seems as if it's aimed at folks who are envious of the appeal of the Hummer brand even if a little bit squeamish about the more no-neck aspects of that appeal, but who, unable to conceive and propose a viable alternative, are hoping for a bit of me-too charisma to tag along after them.
In other words, the H3 is the Democratic Leadership Council of the automotive world.
In other words, the H3 is the Democratic Leadership Council of the automotive world.
7.10.2005
how to make an old fart think of (post-Syd) Pink Floyd
First, set up a slowish, mid-tempo 4/4 beat. Hit the drums fairly hard, but add a few eighth or sixteenth notes in there, otherwise people will think of Low instead. Music should be a bit spacious, but not psychedelic. Vocals should be approached with a sort of serene, weightless sound slightly above a middle register, and should be double-tracked (bonus points if the double-tracking is split one voice in each stereo channel). Voila.
Engineers "New Horizons"
Lilys "Day of the Monkey"
Pink Floyd "Fearless"
Engineers "New Horizons"
Lilys "Day of the Monkey"
Pink Floyd "Fearless"
7.08.2005
7.06.2005
an inappropriate application of glamour - and I still don't have my sunglasses
As an architect, Rose receives catalogs at work from any number of suppliers - including Kohler, the cover of whose latest catalog features this image:
It may not be immediately apparent to the casual viewer, but the object upon which our model is seated is, in fact, a toilet.
Now, someone at Kohler clearly decided hey, we've got a model, we'd better use her...but really, you'd think the absurdity of this perfectly (if bizarrely) coiffed, little-black-dressed woman casually seated atop a strangely plumbing-free toilet in an empty silver-white wilderness (practical me notes also the absence of any sort of hygienic appurtenances that might be necessary should the toilet actually be used) would've struck at least someone. Unless they're going for comedy (cuz, you know, toilets are always funny, at least to one's inner twelve-year-old).
The toilet itself is rather odd, being so stylized from its usual form (they call it a "hatbox toilet" - rather a metaphorically unpleasant name, doncha think?) that it takes a second to realize what it is...a delay that only makes the image's absurdity register more strongly. Oh - and in the catalog, the toilet is also depicted with its lid up, multiply exposed in three near-matching positions to suggest the idea of motion. Reading the copy, you discover this is meant to convey the "soft-touch" closing mechanism, a feature presumably added to the "hatbox" lest the unpleasant clang of porcelain remind denizens of Silver-White Surrealia that the toilet is, in fact, a physical object. But before you read the copy, you get the disturbing impression that the lid is, like so many other items of modern bathroom paraphernalia, motion-sensitive...and that at some level, it has an ass-sensor that allows it to open its maw when a likely user approaches. This, too, is disturbing on several levels.
Anyway, in a desperate bid to connect the toilet-advertising critique above with the musical component of this page, I note that the Australian label Lexicon Devil (mail-order here) has reissued Oil Tasters' 1981 self-titled LP, which contains the immortal "Get Out of the Bathroom." Oil Tasters were a three-piece featuring bass, drums, and sax - but (a) years before Morphine was a glimmer in Mark Sandman's eyes, and (b) despite what all the press says, not at all jazz-like. (Some critics apparently think "jazz" is a musical state conjured up exclusively, and universally, by the presence of a saxophone.) The LP was originally released (if I remember right) on a short-lived Alternative Tentacles subsidiary called Thermidor Records. The compilers of the CD issue have thoughtfully included a few bonus tracks from the two singles that preceded the LP, but they omitted "Let Me Sleep on Your Couch," an otherwise unreleased track from the LP sessions that showed up a few years back on the excellent double-disc compilation of early Milwaukee punk and new-wave bands, History in 3 Chords (theoretically available here). I'm not sure, but perhaps Richard LaValliere, who wrote the Oil Tasters' songs, was planning an entire suite based on different parts of the house.
Oil Tasters "Get Out of the Bathroom"
Oil Tasters "Let Me Sleep on Your Couch"
It may not be immediately apparent to the casual viewer, but the object upon which our model is seated is, in fact, a toilet.
Now, someone at Kohler clearly decided hey, we've got a model, we'd better use her...but really, you'd think the absurdity of this perfectly (if bizarrely) coiffed, little-black-dressed woman casually seated atop a strangely plumbing-free toilet in an empty silver-white wilderness (practical me notes also the absence of any sort of hygienic appurtenances that might be necessary should the toilet actually be used) would've struck at least someone. Unless they're going for comedy (cuz, you know, toilets are always funny, at least to one's inner twelve-year-old).
The toilet itself is rather odd, being so stylized from its usual form (they call it a "hatbox toilet" - rather a metaphorically unpleasant name, doncha think?) that it takes a second to realize what it is...a delay that only makes the image's absurdity register more strongly. Oh - and in the catalog, the toilet is also depicted with its lid up, multiply exposed in three near-matching positions to suggest the idea of motion. Reading the copy, you discover this is meant to convey the "soft-touch" closing mechanism, a feature presumably added to the "hatbox" lest the unpleasant clang of porcelain remind denizens of Silver-White Surrealia that the toilet is, in fact, a physical object. But before you read the copy, you get the disturbing impression that the lid is, like so many other items of modern bathroom paraphernalia, motion-sensitive...and that at some level, it has an ass-sensor that allows it to open its maw when a likely user approaches. This, too, is disturbing on several levels.
Anyway, in a desperate bid to connect the toilet-advertising critique above with the musical component of this page, I note that the Australian label Lexicon Devil (mail-order here) has reissued Oil Tasters' 1981 self-titled LP, which contains the immortal "Get Out of the Bathroom." Oil Tasters were a three-piece featuring bass, drums, and sax - but (a) years before Morphine was a glimmer in Mark Sandman's eyes, and (b) despite what all the press says, not at all jazz-like. (Some critics apparently think "jazz" is a musical state conjured up exclusively, and universally, by the presence of a saxophone.) The LP was originally released (if I remember right) on a short-lived Alternative Tentacles subsidiary called Thermidor Records. The compilers of the CD issue have thoughtfully included a few bonus tracks from the two singles that preceded the LP, but they omitted "Let Me Sleep on Your Couch," an otherwise unreleased track from the LP sessions that showed up a few years back on the excellent double-disc compilation of early Milwaukee punk and new-wave bands, History in 3 Chords (theoretically available here). I'm not sure, but perhaps Richard LaValliere, who wrote the Oil Tasters' songs, was planning an entire suite based on different parts of the house.
Oil Tasters "Get Out of the Bathroom"
Oil Tasters "Let Me Sleep on Your Couch"
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