Tag: Alternative

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Tunes

Best tunes of 1994: #25 Frank Black “Headache”

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Back in the early 90s, Toronto alternative radio station CFNY collaborated with music retailer extraordinaire HMV on a series of alternative music compilations. Fittingly titled “Free at last”, the radio station would hand them out as promotional items at events and the store would give them out free with purchases of music by at least one of the artists appearing on the compilation. There were five of them made (that I know of) from 1991 to 1995 and I’m pretty sure they were available both on cassette tape and compact disc, though the art work differed between the two.

I must have had friends that had a few of the volumes because I still have a couple of copies dubbed to cassette packed away in the basement. I also have stowed with them a legit one that I got myself from HMV: Volume 4, from 1994. Looking at the track listing, I figure I probably got a copy with Lush’s second album “Split”. Other artists that appeared on this volume included The Breeders, The Charlatans, Meat Puppets, The Tindersticks, and yes, you guessed it, Frank Black. The very track of focus today, the only single off his sophomore solo long player.

I had only just gotten into his band, the Pixies, a year or two before they announced their break up in 1993 and almost immediately, the frontman* appeared with his debut solo album. In truth, Black had been working on solo material for some time, recording some covers for a planned album as early as during the sessions for Pixies 1991 long player, “Trompe le monde”. The eventual self-titled debut only ended up with one cover on it** when it came out but had a banger of a single on it called “Los Angeles”, whose video I recorded one night from CityLimits and watched and rewatched and rewatched. The sophomore release, “Teenager of the year”, appeared the following year, including twenty two tracks, mostly of typical Pixie length, in and around the two to two and a half minute mark. I never really got into that album as a whole but man, did I love “Headache”, and this was mostly due to the compilation I spoke about above.

“This wrinkle in time, I can’t give it no credit
I thought about my space and I really got me down
Got me so down, I got me a headache
My heart is crammed in my cranium and it still knows how to pound”

Economical as ever, Black packs it all into three minutes. There’s no running start here, going from zero to a hundred, right from the get-go. Crashing drums and slacker guitars, feeling so free and loose. But it’s Black’s vocals and melody that are the star. There ain’t no time to sit and ponder one’s place in the universe and in history. You just gotta go for it. Live it and sing along with Frank. Back him up, screaming all the way. You’ll never be sorry.

*Adjusting his assumed moniker slightly from Black Francis to Frank Black.

**Which I loved.

For the rest of the Best tunes of 1994 list, click here.

Categories
Vinyl

Vinyl love: Concrete Blonde “Bloodletting”

(Vinyl Love is a series of posts that quite simply lists, describes, and displays the pieces in my growing vinyl collection. You can bet that each record was given a spin during the drafting of each corresponding post.)

Artist: Concrete Blonde
Album Title: Bloodletting
Year released: 1990
Year reissued: 2017
Details: standard black

The skinny: Well, it’s All Hallow’s Eve again and though it’s been years since I’ve celebrated it in any traditional sense and double that since I dressed up in costume as the holiday warrants, I know it’s an important one to many people and I do try to observe it every year in my own way. This year, as I often do, I’ll spin some gothic rock tunes, perhaps some Sisters, some Joy Division, or this album by Concrete Blonde. “Bloodletting” took the alt rock trio from California into gothic rock territory, their frontwoman Johnette Napolitano having been reportedly inspired by Anne Rice’s Vampire Chronicles novels, and scoring the group their best-selling album* in the process. I purchased this bare bones reissue when I saw it come up for sale on Amazon back in 2017 because it’s one of those albums** that I knew I needed in my collection, a total mood record that is playable front to back and to front again. And every time I do spin it, I get the urge to light some black candles and crack a bottle of full bodied red wine. Happy Hallowe’en everybody!

Standout track: “Tomorrow Wendy”

*This mostly on the back of their huge radio-friendly hit “Joey“.

**It ranked number six on my best albums of 1990 list when I counted it down earlier this year.

Categories
Tunes

Eighties’ best 100 redux: #79 Love and Rockets “So alive” (1989)

<< #80    |    #78 >>

At track #79, we’ve got “So alive” by Daniel Ash’s third and longest lasting band, Love and Rockets.

After the ground-breaking goth act, Bauhaus, disbanded in 1983, guitarist Daniel Ash focused more on his side project, Tones on Tail, with friend Glenn Campling and Bauhaus drummer Kevin Haskins. They would release an album and a litany of EPs (including popular club single “Go!”) before dissolving in 1984. Shortly afterwards, the members of Bauhaus, minus vocalist Peter Murphy, reconvened under the moniker Love and Rockets.

This trio started off in much the same dark place musically as Ash’s two previous bands but as time wore on, Love and Rockets would play with more elements, like psychedelic rock, folk, glam rock, and much later, electronic music, as their sound continued to evolve. “So alive” comes from their self-titled, fourth album and is an obvious example of the band’s love affair with glam rock. It’s sleek, it’s smooth and for the first time, Ash sounds like a sexy beast as he leads a slew of backup singers through a chorus of “doot-doots”. “So alive” became a surprise hit for the band in North America, peaking at number 3 on the billboard charts, their highest ever charting.

This song was so popular back when I was in high school, I couldn’t help but know who Love and Rockets were. I have very specific memories of scouring the cassette tape racks lining the walls of HOV (Hooked on video) music store, the only such purveyor of music in my small hometown, looking for the Love and Rockets album that had this particular song on it. For some reason, I never found it there amongst the other Love and Rockets albums, perhaps because it was always sold out.

I now have a copy of the band’s very fine greatest hits compilation, “Sorted!”, and have developed an appreciation for a great many of their other tracks. But I will always have a soft spot for the “doot-doots” of “So alive”.

Original Eighties best 100 position: 81

Favourite lyric: “I don’t know what colour your eyes are, baby / But your hair is long and brown” Interesting that he doesn’t know her eye colour? What does that mean, I wonder?

Where are they now?: Love and Rockets was a going concern throughout the 90s, finally calling it quits in 1999. They reunited for some live shows for a few years in the latter half of the 2000s and despite the fact that Ash was quoted as being finished with the band in 2009, they returned in 2023 after a failed Bauhaus reunion and are active again… for now.

For the rest of the Eighties’ best 100 redux list, click here.