Aretha Franklin - "Freeway Of Love" (forgotten song)

Aretha Franklin, the Queen of Soul, died today.  I'm not even an especially big fan of hers, but her impact is far too significant to ignore.  I'm not going to even to attempt to review her career -- spanning 60+ years, with over 100 charting singles, and 18 Grammys, her career speaks for itself.  I do count myself lucky to have seen her perform live once: Danette and I saw her at the Ferguson Center in Newport News in 2009. 

I will mark her passing with her 1985 single "Freeway of Love", from the LP "Who's Zoomin' Who?"  It's certainly not one of her classics, but it was her last #1 single and did result in her 12th Grammy.  It's a very 80s sounding song, and features Clarence Clemons (bonus Bruce reference -- he had a 1984 song called "Pink Cadillac").  And while you hear her classics all the time, I don't recall the last time I heard this song.

Aretha Franklin - "Freeway of Love": single edit, 12" "Rock Mix" (this version also features Dez Dickerson of The Revolution)

Grandmaster Flash - "The Adventures of Grandmaster Flash on the Wheels of Steel" (forgotten song)

This post goes out to Terry as well as Drew's wife, Lian.  Terry and Drew had a 30 year class reunion (they are class of 88, I'm class of 87) on August 4, and Terry noticed that later that night at the Boathouse in Newport News, very near the reunion hotel, Grandmaster Flash was giving a concert.  Not missing a chance for a complete 80s weekend, Terry organized a post-reunion sortie to see this hip hop legend.  I have to admit that before this show I did not realize he was still touring!  Thanks to Terry for setting this up.

This post also goes out to Lian because, owing to being a few years younger than us, she did not know who Grandmaster Flash is.  Of course, she was raised on classical music and show tunes and knows more about those genres than me, Terry and Drew put together, but, well... "Flash is fast, Flash is cool".  Once we had conveyed the cultural significance of the night's show she was as pumped as we were.

Flash did not disappoint.  The entire show was given in the style of a history lecture, with a backing video helping him convey the origins, history, geography, and key figures of hip hop and turntablism.  I was unable to find the backing video online but GMF's Youtube channel has several other items worth checking out, including this letter to Kool Herc.

Flash did elements of "The Message" in his set, and I'm pretty sure he did not do "The Adventures of Grandmaster Flash on the Wheels of Steel", but I'm including it here because 1) I remember when it came out in 1981, and 2) this single was notable because it featured only Flash and not the Furious Five (as did last week's show).  While "Wheels of Steel" might seem straight-forward today, it is hard to overstate its significance in mainstreaming the role of DJing and mixing.  Zoom in on the label pictured above and you can see the "Special Thanks" and the source material listed.  Some of those songs were on the same label (Sugar Hill Records), but the prohibition against sampling had yet to catch up with the state of the art.

I'm really glad I had the opportunity to see GMF, catch up with Terry and Drew again, and that Lian filled in a gap in her musical knowledge!

Grandmaster Flash - "The Adventures of Grandmaster Flash on the Wheels of Steel"

Terry's text message about the August 4, 2018 show.

A still from one of Terry's videos.

Bonus link: The "Boathouse" in Newport News?!  It's a nice venue, but it's not the real Boathouse.

2019-07-27 update: Like the "real" Boathouse, the Newport New Boathouse is now closed.

The Interrupters - "She's Kerosene" (spotlight)

Today on 96X I heard the DJ talking about Ska, explicitly mentioning her fondness for The Specials and The Selecter.  After accusing 96X of being less alternative than they used to be, the mention of those two bands got my attention.  The DJ then described The Interrupters as carrying on that tradition, and proceeded to play "She's Kerosene".

And while the 90s had a Ska revival, The Interrupters appear to be more indebted in sound and aesthetic to 2 Tone Records of the late 70s / early 80s, which gave us The Specials, The Selecter, Madness, The English Beat, etc. 

The Interrupters have been active since 2011, and "She's Kerosene" is from their 2018 LP "Fight the Good Fight". Billboard has a nice interview about their "breakout hit", two days before they were featured on the Jimmy Kimmel show.  Sounds like another overnight success, 7+ years in the making...

Other tracks on their Youtube Channel make it clear the debt Aimee Interrupter owes to both Joan Jett and Joe Strummer, but I'll feature "She's Kerosene" here since 96X was kind enough feature a song that fits my definition of alternative: 80s alternative music, with updated production... 

"She's Kerosene": official video, live on Jimmy Kimmel 2018-07-27

Peaches - Live KEXP 2015-10-07

I'm about two weeks late for Pride Month and about six weeks late for the Samantha Bee controversy, but today I address both, via a live in the KEXP studio three song set by Peaches, aka Merrill Beth Nisker.

Why?

1. Peaches is awesome, and her entire canon is a wickedly-clever blend of feminist, LGBTQ, and social commentary.  Even though you've probably never heard of her, a scan of her guest appearances and remixes will establish her alt-cred. 

2. The Peaches song "Boys Wanna Be Her" is used as the theme song for Samantha Bee's TV show "Full Frontal".  Samantha Bee is also awesome, wickedly clever, fierce, and... I don't think she should have apologized.  One word should not distract us from the larger message, but I suppose this leaves us with the other "c-word".  

Velocity Girl - "Sorry Again" (forgotten song)

I already mentioned "Sorry Again" in passing in my review of Velocity Girl's self-titled 1993 EP, but I was recently reminded how much I love this song when it recently came up in my iTunes session the other day.  As the only single of their 1994 LP "¡Simpatico!", this actually received limited airplay locally in the mid-90s but I don't think I've heard it on the radio in 20+ years.  That's too bad because it's an amazing alt-power-pop song as well as a great aural mid-90s time capsule.  And the outfits in the video -- was 1994 really that long ago?! 

Eventually I should review the entire LP, and although it's solid, nothing else on it matches the magic of "Sorry Again".  For me, this song is like "Cruel to be kind" and "Jessie's Girl" -- I can play them 10+ times in a row without getting tired of them.

Velocity Girl - "Sorry Again"

Sun Mahshene - "Drones That Don't Kill" (LP review)

A year ago yesterday, Terry, Drew, and several other of us saw the Irish band Sun Mahshene at a bar in Dublin, Ireland.  We were there for Terry's bachelor party and Terry had researched where we could catch some live music close to where we were staying.  We listened to some of their stuff on Youtube and decided to arrange our schedule so we could catch them performing that Saturday.  They put on a great show and we were able to purchase one of their last copies they had with them that evening of their 2016 EP "Drones That Don't Kill".

Their web site describes their sound as:

Lead by Nathan Henderson, Sun Mahshene is a collective of musicians from Dublin Ireland. Their melodic hooks mixed with fuzz and grit delivers a sonic wall of sound.

This brings up a recent conversation Danette and I had last week: I stated that I thought 96X was no longer as alternative as they used to be, to which Danette countered that perhaps the definition of alternative had changed.  I thought about it some and decided that probably at least part of it, because I prefer my "alternative" to stick mostly to modern interpretations of 80s and early 90s alternative music.  Sun Mahshene certainly does that: a shoegazing sound with heavy influences from "Darklands"-era The Jesus and Mary Chain and "Bad Moon Rising"-era Sonic Youth.  So, yeah, it's new music, but there is a clear line of sight back to what for me (and presumably for Danette, Terry, Drew, et al. as well) is real alternative music; the aural equivalent of what we in the car world call "new old stock" (see also the video for "No Control", which is reminiscent of Terry's light shows back in the day...).

The streaming EP has four tracks, but the CD has a hidden fifth track ("I Love You").  It's just a few bucks and it would be a great addition to your collection.  And keeping with the theme of this post, I'm happy to have the actual CD in my collection.

Standout songs: "No Control", "In the End" (with a great guest vocal from Lydia Des Dolles that would make Hope Sandoval proud), "You", "I Love You" (hidden track)

Skip 'em songs: n/a

Final score: 7/10

Bonus links: Review on Primal Music, Review on GoldenPlec

Bonus pic:

May 27, 2017, at the correct bar (Sin é, IIRC), but after the band was done -- who thought to take a pic of Sun Mahshene performing?

Update (bonus bonus pic): Drew sent me this image and "reminded" me that he was smart enough to take a pic of the band performing...

Boogie Down Productions - "Love's Gonna Get'cha (Material Love)" (forgotten song)

It's been a while since I've discussed BDP / KRS-One, and the 1990 single "Love's Gonna Get'cha (Material Love)", from their LP "Edutainment", is a good opportunity to pull together a variety of threads.

First, I like songs that tell a story, and KRS-One is an excellent storyteller.  In this song, KRS-One tells of a teenager's progression into criminality in order to provide for his family:

The very next day while I'm off to class
My moms goes to work cold busting her ass
My sister's cute but she got no gear
I got three pairs of pants and with my brother I share
See there in school see I'm made a fool
With one and a half pair of pants you ain't cool
But there's no dollars for nothing else
I got beans, rice, and bread on my shelf
...
So here comes Rob his gold is shimmery
He gives me two hundred for a quick delivery,
I do it once, I do it twice,
Now there's steak with the beans and rice,
My mother's nervous but she knows the deal,
My sister's gear now has sex appeal,
My brother's my partner and we're getting paper,
Three months later we run our own caper,
My family's happy everything is new,
Now tell me what the fuck am I supposed to do

Second, I recently finished Trevor Noah's "Born a Crime", part autobiography and part biography of Trevor's mother and growing up in South Africa with apartheid and subsequent poverty.  This passage (p. 209) about his post-high school hustling in Alex struck me as similar to the story that KRS-One tells:

One of the first things I learned in the hood is that there is a very fine line between civilian and criminal.  We like to believe we live in a world of good guys and bad guys, and in the suburbs it's easy to believe that, because getting to know a career criminal in the suburbs is a difficult thing.  But you go to the hood and you see there are so many shades in between.  ... In the hood, even if you're not a hardcore criminal, crime is in your life in some way or another.  There are degrees of it.  It's everyone from the mom buying some food that fell off the back of a truck to feed her family, all the way up to the gangs selling military-grade weapons and hardware. 

Third, for some reason the BDP Youtube Vevo channel seems to have removed the official video (4:52 radio edit); in fact all the bookmarked URLs come back with a copyright violation takedown notice (example 1, example 2).  But since this was a popular video, there are correctly archived versions in the Internet Archive.  For reasons I don't understand, the 6:39 LP version is still available on the official Youtube channel.

So there you go: a great storytelling song from some 27 years ago, with a connection to a book I recently finished, and I was able to use web archives to resurrect the original video (with its charming, community theater production feel).

Boogie Down Productions - "Love's Gonna Get'cha (Material Love)" official video / radio edit, LP version

2020-07-23 update: The archived version no longer works (!), but I found another version on the live web.