Man, those are some boots!
I’ve been meaning to upload this track for a while. Today is the perfect occasion. The simplicity of the bassline is so astounding. Thanks to Awesome Tapes from Africa for posting this a while back. I love this one.
Check here if you need a few pointers in Nigerian Pidgin English…
Sweet mother I no go forget you
For dey suffer we you suffer for me yeah
When i dey cry my mother go carry me
She go say my pikin wetin you dey cry yeah yeah
Stop stop! stop stop!! stop stop!!!
Make you no cry again
When i wan sleep my mother go pet me
She go lie me well-well for bed
She go cover me cloth say make you sleep
Sleep sleep my pikin
When i dey hungry my mom go run up and down
She dey find me somthing we i go chop
Sweet mother
Sweet mother
When i dey sick my mother go cry cry cry
She go say instead wey i go die make she die
She go beg God, God help me, God help me, my pikin oo
If i no sleep, my mother no go sleep
If i no chop, my mother no go chop
She no dey tire
Sweet mother i no go forget dey suffer wey you suffer for me yeah yeah
Sweet mother
Sweet mother
In addition to Yellow Magic Orchestra, Haruomi Hosono (bass), Yukihiro Takahashi (drums and vocals) and Ryuichi Sakamoto (keyboards) have made a lot of really interesting music and influenced whole movements of Japanese pop music.
One of my favorites is drummer Takahashi’s 1981 solo album, Neuromantic. Sci Fi synth pop at its eeriest, with Takahashi’s out-of-body vocals hovering over the whole like a slightly ugly angel on your shoulder.
Takahashi and Hosono reunited in the late 90’s to form the electronic duo SKETCH SHOW. Their minimalist glitchy pop blends robotic discipline with human emotion in a truly elegant way. The music is patient and mature, yet infused with their great sense of humor and absurdity. The blend of acoustic and electronic sounds influenced many artists such as Towa Tei, Cornelius, Takako Minekawa, and many others from the Shibuya Kei movement as well as western artists like Psapp, Tunng, and the Books.
I am only slightly ashamed to say that I’ve become obsessed with the TV show “Friday Night Lights.” It’s a TV show, which is based on a 2004 movie, which is based on a 1990 book about the high school football obsessed town of Odessa, Texas.
I haven’t seen the film or read the book, but the show is super emotional and intense. Every episode, there are at least two or three moments when a character is about to cry, and the music swells up, and Dillon, TX becomes the most heartbreak-iest, emo-ist little town in the world.
Speaking of the music, the Austin, TX band Explosions In The Sky scored the film, and their music was used in the show’s pilot. We actually played a random show with them years ago. It’s interesting how well their music works on the show, since their grand, guitar-y post-rock is pretty far off from Linkin Park or DJ Screw or whatever might actually get played in a typical Texas high school football locker room. Though who knows, maybe they listen to this now instead of “Let The Bodies Hit The Floor.”
The funny thing is that the show’s theme song - which sounds a lot like Explosions In The Sky - was actually written by W.G. “Snuffy” Walden (great name), the same guy who scored My So Called Life, thirtysomething, Roseanne, The West Wing, and all kinds of other big TV shows. You can hear it here (though it is inexplicably “mashed up” with the intro to some show called “Coach,” which I don’t remember.) It’s actually a well done homage, though one way you can tell that the theme song is NOT by a “real post-rock band” is that there’s a wooow-wooow-ing fretless bass playing, which is near the top of the list of indie-rock stylistic no-no’s.
But what this means is that the lineage of post-rock bands, from Explosions In The Sky to Mogwai to Godspeed and all the way back to Slint, is somehow represented now in a major network TV drama, usually the final outpost of outdated aesthetics. Kind of strange.
That said, the show can’t seem to find an audience and might get canceled after this season anyway. (At which point I will shrivel up and die.) So maybe their theme should sound more like this.
This guy did an amazing job of cutting together different youtube clips to make new songs. Very very cool.
I saw this on everyone’s favorite circuit bending blog get lofi
This song is not great, but it sure is good. More in the satirical vein of “welfare mothers” or “piece of crap”.
But you gotta love Neil’s ability to let his ideas and opinions flow free, responding reflexively to the world around him, quickly and naturally.
I especially enjoy his air guitar during the solo.
Neil Young - Fork In The Road
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Technopop pioneers of Japan. Their quirky music embraced the extremely modern aesthetic of early ATARI. A strange amalgam of disco, techno, pop, japanese, and romantic music. Similar to Kraftwerk in robotic vibe and pop point of view (not to mention tasty vocoder), but where as Kraftwerk repeat minimal melodies until they shift appearance, YMO layer electronic and sonic filigree atop their grooves with typical overdone Japanese cheesiness.
By the way, their keyboard player is Ryūichi Sakamoto, who has collaborated with a number of western artists, including with David Byrne on the excellent soundtrack to “The Last Emperor”.
The videos are truly cutting edge for 80’s computer animation ala TRON. If I had my way, this is what the video for “Loving Sounds of Static” would have looked like.
The real song here, “Firecracker” doesn’t come in till almost 2 minutes. Then it zooms around like a Saturday night birthday party at the old roller skating rink.
Their 1981 album, “Technodelic” is my favorite due to its more restrained sound. Spare, spooky, and infectious; like a Japanese counter point to OMD’s “Dazzle Ships” or even a bit reminiscent of “My Life in the Bush of Ghosts”. Check this album out.
Here is a really interesting article from Sound on Sound about the early days of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. The Workshop housed many electronic music pioneers, including the lovely beat matching Delia Derbyshire (how’s that for an english name) seen above.
Especially well known for her realization of the theme and sound effects in the original Dr. Who, Delia Derbyshire was an amazing example of sonic curiosity leading to the innovation of new techniques. Her contribution to the experimental, psychedelic band White Noise’s album “An Electric Storm” is certainly worth checking out, as well as her immensely forward looking album “Electrosonic”.
computermatic (from “Electrosonic”)
air (from a BBC Radiophonic compilation)
firebird (from “Electric Storm”)
PA RUMP PAH PUM PUM!!!!!!!
Mad Men - Before this show, I can’t say I was very curious about the atmosphere at Madison Avenue advertising firms circa 1960 and the drunken lives of its worker bees. But now it seems like a completely acceptable obsession to have.
Chic - I fell completely in love with Chic this fall. Especially their amazing string arrangements, apparently done by one of the Daft Punk-ers fathers (weird). I’m serious, their strings sound like the best cotton candy you’ll never have.