Saxon - "Princess of the Night" (forgotten song)

An early 1980s metal band, a song titled "Princess of the Night", and ... it's about a train.  Because who hasn't asked themselves "why aren't there more love songs about trains?"

Saxon was a central figure in the NWOBHM movement of the late 70s and early 80s, however they are all but forgotten today.  I have a handful of their LPs on vinyl stashed away somewhere, but aruably the best was their 1981 LP "Denim and Leather", from which "Princess of the Night" was a single.  I remember being enthralled by their video (and the NWOBHM sound) in the early days of MTV, but only now (nearly 30 years later) do I realize the visual similarities between this video and Spinal Tap (yikes!).

And while the 8-year old in me still likes steam trains (who doesn't?), I've transposed the song to a more personally applicable setting: every time I walk through a computer machine room, the second verse comes to me:

She used to be an iron horse
Twenty years ago
Used to bring the mail to me
Through the ice and snow
I've sat alone and watched her
Steaming through the night
Ninety tons of thunder
Lighting up the sky

Speeding smokestack lightning
Engine working hard
Furnace and the footplate
Shining in the night
Iron striking metal
The sound of racing steel
It's all I ever want to hear
It's music to my ears

Ninety tons of thunder
Lighting up the sky                                       
Steaming red hot pistons
See the wheels flash by                                    
Hear the whistle blowing                              
Streaking down the track                     
If I ever have my way
I'll bring the princess back one day    

Well, realize that connection was made for me in the late 80s when first working at NASA and walking through the machine room complete with a Cray-2 and Cray-YMP.  In 1989, I saw the Crays as beautiful, purposeful, behemoth "engines working hard".  Now they, especially the Cray-2, are revered but obsolete museum pieces like steam engines.

Until there is a NWOBHM song about machine rooms, this love song about a train will have to do...

Princess of the Night: official video, regular video

Bonus link: Does the pre-solo break in the song sound familiar?  Metallica, who were heavily influenced by the NWOBHM, would borrow it for "Seek and Destroy" two years later: listen to this comparison.

Bonus images:

Chesapeake & Ohio RR #2756 located in Huntington Park, Newport News.  An obvious landmark for those growing up in the area. 

The NASA LaRC Cray-2, "Voyager".  Named after the Rutan/Yeager Voyager, not that Voyager. 

Ph Balance - "Ph Balance" (LP Review)

I'm betting you haven't heard of the band Ph Balance; few people outside of their original Atlanta base have.  Outside of a chance viewing of one of their videos in 1999 on the "Independent Music Network" (I've forgotten which cable channel carried it), I would not have heard of them either.  discogs.com has almost nothing on them, YouTube has two songs, wikipedia has literally nothing on them, and myspace has an outdated page. 

The summarized band history goes something like this: Pam Howe (the "Ph" in Ph Balance) and Christopher Burt have formed the basis of Cicada Sings, then Ph Balance, then Chakra Bird, then (and current, I believe) Pam Howe's Bossa Nova Jazz.  Cicada Sings was a straightforward lounge, jazz, bossa nova band, and when they incorporated a hip-hop esthetic (complete with a few new members), they changed their name to Ph Balance.

What makes Ph Balance different from the 100s of other bands that seek to achieve the prized but elusive jazz/hip-hop integration is they do it with from a solid jazz orientation: no samples, the instruments are acoustic, and the synths are rare and limited to background use (think of them as a lounge-oriented version of The Roots, or the acoustic, non-trip-hop version of Portishead).  MC Mudfish provides the adequate rapping, but the star of the show is Pam Howe: the Gen-X, hip-hop influenced torch singer.  Not unlike Blondie 20+ years earlier, while Ph Balance is technically a band the whole thing works only because of Pam. 

The sound is very much of the time, and while not every experiment works (a few songs are worth skipping), they fail while trying to do interesting things so the misses are easily forgiven.  "Soothing" was the video I saw in 1999 (it may well be their only video), and it made such an impression on me that I had to order this LP.  Their eponymous first LP was released on tiny Daemon Records (founded by Amy Ray) and although I think it is out of print you can still find new copies on Amazon. 

Standout Songs: Soothing, Flora Avenue, C'est Noire, Come Back to My Arms (And Stay), Whirl Twirl Toy, Speak To My Face, Hand Hurt, I Want to Shrink, (find these songs at grooveshark).

Skip 'em Songs: She Favors Winter, Kaleidoscope React, Back Off

Final Score: 8/10

Bonus link:  cduniverse has an informative LP review.  

Sirah - "Double Yellow Lines" (spotlight)

Since the previous post mentioned Annabella Lwin of Bow Wow Wow, you might be asking "whatever happened to her?"  I can now tell you she has been reincarnated as Sirah, the 20-something DIY punk/indie-pop/hip-hop rapper. 

I learned about her a while back when 96.1 played the Skrillex song "Bangarang", in which she is featured.  Poking around on Youtube turned up her 2011 single "Double Yellow Lines".  Since she's unsigned, her discography is not entirely clear: I think this song was supposed to appear on an EP called "Trick'd", but I can't determine if that was ever released.  You can learn more about her in various interviews: LAWeekly; Her Campus; Mousertime; Vlaze.

In the "Double Yellow Lines" video, Sirah is clearly channelling Annabella as the mohawked coquette, albeit updated by 30 years.  Although it is probably a coincidence, the video also features a "Luncheon on the Grass", like BWW's "See Jungle..." LP.  However, instead of the "Endless Summer" beach setting of the "I Want Candy" video, DYL is set in a safe, suburban environment: how many music videos do you know that feature a bunch of kids riding around in a minivan, filling up on gas, and eating at a diner?  Danette also noted the "Chatty Cathy" reference in the lyrics -- not standard fare for Gen Yer. 

Regardless, the whole thing works surprisingly well.  A youthful, light-hearted video that captures the spirit of the song, well-produced and successfully straddling a number of genres; I'm surprised this song hasn't launched a career for her (yet).  I'm not really her target demographic; I have more in common with the boring, old-enough-to-be-her-dad guy that appears at 1:14 in video (left), but the video is so fun that it makes me feel like the just-happy-to-be-here entourage guy that appears at 3:20 (right).

Sirah - "Double Yellow Lines"

Since this is neither a cover, forgotten song, nor a review of a complete release, I've started a new series, "spotlight", for songs that deserve attention but don't fit in the previously defined categories.

Bow Wow Wow - "I Want Candy" (forgotten song)

Earlier this week Danette and I saw Adam Ant at the Norva.  Danette was more of a fan of Adam and the Ants/Adam Ant than I ever was and Adam is looking a little worse for the wear, but it was a fun show regardless.

It does remind me that I've been meaning to blog about Bow Wow Wow for a while; the connection being that Bow Wow Wow was formed when band manager Malcom McLaren (of Sex Pistols fame) convinced the Ants to leave Adam and form their own band with Annabella Lwin as the lead singer. 

That was probably a bad decision since although Bow Wow Wow had some success in the UK, their biggest hit in the US was their 1982 cover of the song "I Want Candy", released in 1965 by The Strangeloves.  "I Want Candy" is probably the most well-known example of the "Bo Diddley Beat" (bomp, ba-bomp-bomp, bomp-bomp).  Many (most?) artists have used this beat at some point in their career (here's a good list of  examples) and you have to ask yourself: given the primal effectiveness of the Bo Diddley Beat, why do we even have other beats?

Bow Wow Wow: "I Want Candy"
The Stangeloves: "I Want Candy"
Bo Diddley: "Bo Diddley", "Hey, Bo Diddley"

The Cure - "High" (forgotten song)

Another birthday song for Danette.  The last two have been punk songs ("Punk Rock Girl" and "Josie"), so this time we'll pull from the related goth genre.  

"High" is the first single from The Cure's 1992 LP "Wish" and while "Robert Smith was (is) still sad", I'm glad he took some time off to write this uncharacteristically joyful song.  The playful wording, the memorable guitar riff...  three and half minutes of perfection that always made me think of Danette:

when i see you sky as a kite
as high as i might           
i can't get that high       
the how you move              
the way you burst the clouds
it makes me want to try 

The Cure: "High", live version, extended version

The Beach Boys - "Good Vibrations" (the song remains the same)

I just finished reading "The Nearest Far Away Place", the 1996 biography of Brian Wilson and The Beach Boys.  I believe it was a thrift-store find from Terry many years ago and I've just now gotten around to reading it.  I moderately enjoyed the book, but there were several features that limited my enjoyment: 1) it was written before the 1998 death of Carl Wilson, 2) there was way too much biography about the Wilson's grandparents and great-grandparents, 3) many of the stories reported in the book now have contradicting stories, and 4) Timothy Whites's "rock-n-roll" writing style was excruciating.  Having recently read Marc Spitz's "Bowie" I can only assume things have reached epidemic status and  Hunter S. Thompson was patient zero. 

Regardless, it was fun to revisit The Beach Boys; I've been busy ripping my old CDs and I've just now gotten around to ordering (and enjoying) the apocryphal "SMiLE".  I'm not quite ambitious enough to rehash the cultural importance of Brian Wilson, "Pet Sounds", "SMiLE"/"Smiley Smile", etc.  -- and really, what could I say that hasn't been said before?

But I will briefly mention the 1966 single "Good Vibrations".  Originally developed during the "Pet Sounds" sessions, it was left off that LP and released as an advance single for "SMiLE".  Nearly a year later "SMiLE" devolved into "Smiley Smile", and that was pretty much it for Brian Wilson.  But the fact that this song was ever a hit is nothing short of amazing.  Sure, the standard song structure is in place, but how many other hit songs that you know of feature an electro-theremin?!  If you could pretend that you haven't heard this song 1000 times before, you realize it is amazing that you ever heard it in the first place.  Before The Beach Boys became a Ronald Reagan-approved nostalgia act, there was the drug-induced breakdown, the TM, and of course Charles Manson (no, really).

And now I would like to draw your attention to Psychic TV's excellent cover of "Good Vibrations", which I believe first appeared on their 1986 EP "Magickal Mystery D Tour".  I'm not going to even try to explain Psychic TV / Genesis P-Orridge... other than credit Terry for my first Psychic TV experience too.  Psychic TV plays the cover pretty close to the original, with only the spoken word part during the break (~2:40), but that little touch makes the cover stand out. 

The Beach Boys: stereo version, mono version, 1976 live version

Psychic TV: 7" version, long version

The Equals - "Police On My Back" (the song remains the same)

My previous post was about The Clash covering a rebellious song, so let's do another.  "Police On My Back" was originally a 1967 single by The Equals.  Don't worry, nobody in the US has heard of them either.  But if you're a Gen Xer, you might remember Eddy Grant's 1983 hit "Electric Avenue" -- that's the same Eddy Grant that was fronting The Equals in the late 60s.  Now you know.

I learned of this song from Sandinista!, the 1980 sprawling, ambitious, wreck of a triple LP from The Clash.  I keep threatening to review Sandinista!, but truthfully it is simply too daunting.  In the meantime I'll just chip away at it, starting with arguably the best track on the LP.

The Equals: no, that's not Austin Powers IV or "Listen to the Flower People"-era Spinal Tap, it's a lip sync version on Beat-Club, ca. 1967 (version 1, version 2), studio version

The Clash: studio, live in Jamaica, live in Tokyo, live in ???