Tag: 1990s

Categories
Tunes

Best tunes of 1991: #17 Northside “Take 5”

<< #18    |    #16 >>

So here’s yet another tune in this list that I discovered while recording music videos off MuchMusic’s Friday night alternative show, “City Limits”, back in 1991. I’m pretty sure the VJ for the show at that time, Simon Evans, might have even been wearing a Northside “Chicken rhythms” t-shirt that night, he was so stoked about the band.

I loved “Take 5” immediately and replayed the video on my VCR constantly after that. And later on, when Simon Evans played the video for “My rising star”, I knew I had to get a copy of that album. The problem was that I couldn’t find it anywhere on cassette tape, not in my small town of Bowmanville, nor even in Oshawa, the next city over. “Chicken rhythms” ended up being my first ever CD purchase for this reason, it just happened to be the only format I could find the album in. And because I didn’t yet have a player, I had to record a copy to cassette using my parent’s stereo so that I could then play it ad nauseum in my Sony Sports Walkman.

Northside formed in Manchester in 1989 by Warren “Dermo” Dermody and Cliff Ogier, and Timmy Walsh and Paul Walsh later filled out the band to a quartet. They were very much part of the baggy, acid house scene in the early nineties that included Inspiral Carpets and The Happy Mondays. I had thought they were so full of promise, given that “Chicken rhythms” was their debut, but it was not to be. A second album was recorded and the release was imminent before their record label, Factory Records, went bankrupt and everything fell apart. I remember hearing at the time that Factory’s collapse was a direct result of Happy Mondays blowing their budget partying while recording their follow up to “Pills ‘n’ thrills and bellyaches”. It was for this reason that I bore an irrational grudge against the Mondays for many years.

“Take 5” was actually slightly bigger here in North America, cracking the alternative billboard charts, than it was in England, where the two previous singles, “Shall we take a trip” and “My rising star” did better. I always liked the way it started off the album with that fantastic bass line that tore this way and that, the funky drumming kicking everything into high gear and then those wicked jangly guitars. It wasn’t a deep song. The lyrics are really secondary to the exuberance of the music. Every time I hear it, I just want to get up and freak out on the dance floor, which is kind of inconvenient on the morning bus ride. It’s been known to get me some strange looks as I bop along.

Have a listen and see that your toes don’t tap a bit.

For the rest of the Best tunes of 1991 list, click here.

Categories
Tunes

Best tunes of 1991: #18 Primus “Tommy the cat”

<< #19    |    #17 >>

How many of you folks use Winamp? I ask this because I know you’re all still out there.

For those that don’t know what I’m talking about, Winamp was/is a media player that predated iTunes by a good four years. It was widely used in the advent of MP3s and during the rise of Napster because it was free and easy to use. It has its diehards that just refused to switch over and were quite vocal about it when the flashier competitors appeared. I had thought it had been decommissioned but it appears it may still be in existence. I’m sure the diehards can confirm or deny either way.

I mention Winamp here because even back when I still used the program, I was very serious about properly tagging the metadata for my music and I always found it funny that there was a genre tag called “Primus”. That right there goes a long way to show how unique Primus is, the band and their sound. Indeed, Primus is blend of metal and prog and the weirdness of Zappa, and yet none of these at the same time, their sound really typified by the spotlight on Claypool’s crazy slap bass, and his oddball vocals and lyrics.

Bassist/vocalist Les Claypool formed the band back in 1984 but the classic lineup didn’t solidify until 1988 when guitarist Larry “Ler” Lalonde and drummer Tim “Herb” Alexander joined in the fun. I’m not sure how they managed it but they got a deal with a major label and on it, released their second album, “Sailing the seas of cheese”.

“Tommy the cat” was the second single off this album and my introduction to the band. It features another unique artist in the imitable Tom Waits, who gives voice to the character of the song’s title. But before we get there, the song’s drum marching band intro gets our attention and leads us right into the aforementioned bass forward sound that is only accentuated by screaming guitars. I particularly remember one afternoon spent working on a theatre set and, when the teaching supervisor was out of the room, us slipping this song on to the tape player. And a bass playing friend of mine got right into that bass solo. You know the one I’m talking about it. You love it.

…But before you get to checking it out below. Props must go out to Aaron over at Keepsmealive, who mailed me a copy of “Animals should not try to act like people” a few months ago. It just showed up in the mail after we had a discussion about it on his blog and I actually hadn’t gotten around to watching the DVD of Primus’s videos until sitting down to write this post. But I slipped it on last night and watching all of these brought back a ton of memories. I actually got to see a few I hadn’t seen before, like the one for “My name is mud”. So cheers dude and to the rest of you, enjoy the video and the tune.

For the rest of the Best tunes of 1991 list, click here.

Categories
Tunes

Best tunes of 1991: #19 Spirit of the West “D for Democracy (Scour the house)”

<< #20    |    #18 >>

I’ve told this story before on these pages but I’ll tell it again.

“D for Democracy” is the first Spirit of the West song I ever consciously heard. Yes, all of this began while I was watching a special, all-Canadian edition of “Good rockin’ tonite” one Friday night in 1991. They finished the show with this particular video (see below) and I noticed at some point during it that the accordion player, Linda McRae, was wearing a Wonder Stuff long sleeved T-shirt. For those that don’t know, I was a huge Stuffies fan back in those days and didn’t know many others who shared my enthusiasm. Luckily for me, I happened to be video taping the entire episode as I watched it so as soon as it finished, I rewinded the tape to watch the video again. And again. Shortly after that, I also managed to video tape the video for the re-recorded “Political”, for which I also fell hard, and then, decided to buy “Go figure” on cassette tape.

So I guess I came for The Wonder Stuff shirt and stayed for the music.

Linda McRae likely got the shirt when Spirit of the West was on tour in England with The Wonder Stuff and the two bands became friends. They recorded a cover of “Will the circle be unbroken” together and McRae (and her accordion) appears on “Welcome to the cheap seats”. It was actually while on tour with The Wonder Stuff that Spirit of the West decided that they wanted to add more of a rock edge to their sound. To that end, they enlisted a drummer before recording the follow up to 1990’s “Save this house”. Enter Vince Ditrich into the picture. The new sound didn’t sit well with all of their existing fans, some of whom preferred the more traditional Celtic folk direction, but it did win the band more radio airplay and new legions of alternative rock fans.

As its title suggests, “D for Democracy (scour the house)” is a political song, an attack on the Brian Mulroney-led government of the day, as are many of the songs on “Go figure”. Musically, Vince Ditrich’s impact is noticeable here, right from the outset. The drums are flexing their well-oiled muscles but not to be outdone, so are Geoffrey Kelly’s flutes. It’s like the band’s two directions came to a head on the intro to this song. The celtic folk becoming celtic folk rock in one jump up-and-down riot. Of course, the vocals come in and up the ante, John Mann singing loud and clear to “Scour the house, flip the wig, shake the tree.”

Indeed.

For the rest of the Best tunes of 1991 list, click here.