The Jungle Line

 I subscribe to the (evil) company Spotify because it has managed to serve up new music that I like more frequently than other services. The algorithm seems to know me despite my son polluting my feed with video game music.

I was recently listening to the song “Drive” by the Cars, a track that I hadn’t added to my library or included in my “Liked Songs” playlist. Next in the queue was “I’m Not In Love” by 10CC, a song that I have deliberately placed on rotation. It made me declare: The algorithm knows I love vocal pads!

Let’s talk about vocal pads. They are sometimes called “Angelic Voices”, “Choir”, or some other type of evocative name when dialed up on digital keyboard sound banks.

Their quality varies greatly. On the Casio SK-1, it was called  “Human Voice”, and was pretty robust for such a small keyboard. Casio’s have that quality. Other versions can be thinly layered and tinny, but even the worst vocal pad appeals to me. Vocal pads are both overused and never inappropriate. They evoke 80s camp and heart wrenching pathos in me, often at once. 

Watching the Live Aid performance of Drive, Cars keyboardist, Greg Hawkes, has an array of beautiful synths. There are threads discussing what is what with much keener eyes than mine. Besides the song's sentiment of concern for someone disturbed, the vocal pads give it a romanticism I don’t think would otherwise be there. 

Ten CC didn’t use a synth for the vocal effect on “I’m Not In Love”. Instead the band arduously recorded “ahs” chromatically, and played them back via incredibly long tape loops. The “choir” of tape voices were fed into a mixer, with individual channels holding separate notes, thus allowing the faders to act as the keys of a piano, fading in and out notes to create the thick vocal chords in the song. This gloriously pre-digital technique is what gives the song so much warmth and presence, unparalleled perhaps in all of rock at least. 

Writing about this makes me think I should listen to more choral music in general. Digital recording’s ability to endlessly layer, and effects like pitch shifting have brought voice recording closer to the role that synth representations of vocal sounds once held in pop music. 

Bjork’s voice layerings crest and fall, putting me in that same place emotionally as the washy beds of The Cars and 10CC songs -deliberately set behind the lead vocal. “Harm of Will” on Vespertine is a standout.

To bring this post full circle, one new artist I like that the evil Spotify offered up to me is Sega Bodega. He does cool stuff with vocal cutups, pitch shifting and layering. In the context of the Autotune craze, these types of effects can feel cliche, but his take makes sense harmonically and feels additive. Perhaps it covers up for a lack of sheer vocal strength. Not everyone is Mariah Carey. But regardless, there is no single human that can make the sound of a choir of chromatic “ahs” recorded and played back simultaneously.

Oh no. I've got the hots for my therapist.

I've been stanning her the past week or so. I think I've even written a song about her.

What I know: She's older than I, maybe 6-10 years.

I haven't met her in person. We've only had remote sessions.

She looks good, but not young. She's gone grey like myself, and doesn't dye. When a woman is grey, there is no more "looking" young.

I’ve an idea of what her figure is. There are YouTube videos of her reading poetry.

I've read some excerpts of her poetry online and can't make heads or tails out of it. I guess it's post modern literature. Words for words sake.? And words I have to look up. What the hell is lepidopterology? Oh my god, it’s the study of butterflies. I should have known that.

I do like reading interviews with her about the work. They are heady but make more sense.

She seems tall so if she towers over me, if I ever get the chance, I'll pull her down to reach her lips.

Because I'm obsessed with pop music, I keep wondering what her era is, what brings her back to youth? What posters did she have on her wall? Please don't let it be New Kids on the Block.

No, she's too cool for that, and perhaps too old for them to have gotten to her. Depeche Mode?

Please let it be Depeche Mode.  I want so badly to dance to “Enjoy the Silence” with her.  “Words are very unnecessary. They can only do harm”

But perhaps therapists and poets don't like lines such as these. Or maybe it’s a relief?

I imagine we’re dancing on a pier in Greenpoint, circa 2001, when it was still a ghost town down there. But I’ve the car I have now. Ok maybe it’s now, we are who we are today, but the piers are deserted. I put the song on and turn up my shitty car stereo really loud and we dance and it’s fun. She’s a little stiff. The whole thing is awkward. But I pull her down to me. We kiss and it’s ok.

Hmmm maybe the pier isn’t right. Maybe I run into her and convince her to come dancing at a club. We get lucky, they play this song. We kiss and it’s ok.

What if she never liked bands and music? What if she had a picture of Oscar Wilde on her wall? 

Do any teenage girls have pictures of Oscar Wilde on their walls? Would she have been pretentious enough to covet photos of Susan Sontag ? Fran Liebowitz? Kathy Acker?

More likely it was Johnny Depp from Crybaby. By the way I look a little like Johnny Dep.

Can you tell your therapist you’ve thing for them?

There are few pictures of her online, but there are some. It makes me think of legacy. My name is so common, if you search my name there are thousands of me. But search me in the right way and I’m there. And there are some really good pictures of me out there where I’m young and beautiful. 

But back to my therapist. This is a give away. A little research and any person can be found. Any text decoded, even her esoteric poetry.

I love the song "Our Lips Are Sealed". Jane Weidlin seems like one of the coolest people in rock. I can't stand how hot the Go Go's were. A great piece of film is the footage of them performing "We Got the Beat" in "Urgh! A Music War".

How equally cool are Fun Boy Three. And here's where the insane coolness of fate comes to fruition to think that the illicit young love between Weidlin and Hall gave us "Our Lips Are Sealed".

I must admit I like the Fun Boy Three version better. FB3 in that formation is incredible. It's always exciting to see a cello onstage with a rock band, especially one that is so danceable. Sonically they are just more varied than the Go Go's and most of the time that's what I'm in the mood for. No diss on the Go Go's. They are amazing and perfect for what they are.

There are several side-by-side comparison videos on YouTube of Dead or Alive’s “You Spin Me Round” music video with the remake that Paul Rudd and Jimmy Fallon did for the Tonight Show.

People seem to delight in the exactitude that Rudd and Fallon achieved. When I first saw it I chuckled. It’s absurd and appealing to those who remember the song. I think it clear Rudd and Fallon sincerely like the song and are having a great time recreating it but upon reflection the whole spoof starts to rub me the wrong way.

Why is this funny? Is it to say, “hey look at how campy this video is and how funny we look dressed up like these guys from the 80s”? Because if it's to satirize via camp, it goes nowhere. The video was ALWAYS campy. Dead or Alive must have been fully aware of the absurdity of the video they were shooting from day one. I mean, Pete Burns is wearing an eyepatch and winking at the camera.

With all the makeup, Peter Burns is almost in drag, and there is no art form more steeped in self-awareness and camp than drag. Drag performers have always embraced the concept that a man dressed as a woman is and must be “more” woman than a female. Thus the crazy makeup, outlandish outfits and the celebration of female icons. Drag is always over the top.

From the outside, it seems Pete Burns underwent a journey when it came to how he identified. In "You Spin Me Round” a young version of him is already bending fashion to make it work for both men and women at the time. He is having the same fun that Paul Rudd and Jimmy Fallon would have in their recreation, except Dead or Alive is creating something original and Burns is singing from his heart. For as flippant as the lyrics are, this is a love song from Burns to his object of desire. This song is sexy.

Nothing is changed in the Rudd and Fallon version other than the obvious shortcuts like not casting the full band and the unshiny outfits. It’s extra lazy too because it’s not like the original has high production value. Dead or Alive were working with whatever studio budget their record label gave them and it probably wasn’t much. Kudos to Rudd and Fallon for fully covering the song and singing it themselves, but again we hear just how sub quality their version is. The original sounds much better from the drum machine tone to the synth sounds to Burns’s full throated voice.

In general I like Fallon’s music spoofs. His Neil Young singing “I Whip My Hair Around” is perfect because it is true juxtaposition. And Paul Rudd is cute and one of those actors who doesn’t need a starring role to shine.

But what Rudd and Fallon have committed here is straight appropriation of gay culture. It's not offensive, but it underlines how innovative the gender bending of the original is.

By the way, “You Spin Me Round” is a seminal karaoke song. If it’s available you should do it. You’ll have the whole place dancing and you don’t need much of a vocal range. Go ahead and feel the pure joy of a man flaming out for the one he loves.

is Toto’s “Africa”. 

Released in 1982, it was a number one hit in the U.S. Musically I enjoy the song. It opens with a groovy major to minor chord intro and refrain while the verse and chorus has nice chord movement supporting the melody. This song plays well on an acoustic guitar and I suggest it for anyone’s campfire fakebook. I just wish the lyrics weren’t so problematic. I mean, what the hell are they talking about here? From the wiki page for this song:

“In 2015, Paich (Toto’s keyboardist / singer) explained that the song is about a man's love of a continent, Africa, rather than just a personal romance.”

Hmmm ok whatever. The first verse says she’s coming in on a 12:30 flight so I’m guessing that is about a woman. I know song lyrics are often collages of subjects and feelings but this song is stretching it.

“Hurry, boy, she’s waiting there for you!” So is “she” Africa, or a woman? Either way, heavy colonialist vibes here.

Second verse, we have another problematic line:

“As sure as Kilimanjaro rises like Olympus above the Serengeti“

Why the need to equate Kilimanjaro with Olympus? Talk about a western filter. Also Kilimanjaro is far to the east of the Serengeti. Can one can see it from Kilimanjaro’s peak?

But the biggest lost opportunity in this hollow shell of fine chord changes is the music video. In it we see a beautiful woman, who I presume is the librarian, thoroughly pissed at the frumpy dude loitering about pulling books off the shelves and being an overall creep. Why are his armpits so sweaty?

Not to mention his fellow frumpy bandmates with bad haircuts, each successively worse looking. 

I admit I like the big leathery book they rock out upon for the wide shots. A nice touch but it doesn’t diminish the fact that the hot librarian doesn’t get enough character development, and not nearly enough screen time. Why doesn’t she at least get to stand up and shush these guys for loudly lip syncing while everyone is trying to study?

Outside is lurking some personification I guess of the wild spirit of Africa in what feels to be high 80′s racist idiocy. Soon the whole library will be on fire and all that’s left of our heroic librarian are her glasses. What a waste.

I was watching a tv show and a scene used a song that I recognized. It stuck with me and I racked my brain to think who had sung it. A google search revealed the song was “Breakout” by Swing Out Sister. Watching the video was a revelation.  I was instantly taken back to some middle school form of me, transfixed by this cool, aloof, but joyful beautiful woman. I realized I must of had the incredible hots for Corinne Drewery circa 1986.

First off, it’s a great video. It has just enough narrative, classic lip sync, and variety in scenes and imagery to keep it interesting. Drewery, with her mod bob haircut, graceful neck, and bright lipstick just pops off the screen. She’s adorably awkward. It’s almost like I can hear the director telling her to use her hands more, so she does, and feels silly for it. But who cares! She’s so cool anyway.

One thing that I always require in a good music video is saving something for last. Don’t give up all your imagery upfront. Afterall, it’s basically a short film and the viewer deserves an ending. This video delivers in a glorious saxophone sweep to a final key change. Sweet strings brim with uplifting harmonies and out from behind the curtain comes Drewery, finally outfitted to match all her glamour. A fan fetchingly blows her hair this way and that, jewelry sparkling atop bare shoulders. It’s the most skin we’ll see and it’s just enough.

“Breakout” is my favorite song from SOS. They are not a go-to band for me although certainly they’ve a place in pop jazz. “Forever Blue” isa great tune and sounds like a classic standard. For me “Breakout” wins for its synth pop flavor, an area where the English shine and have full right to own. So I would like a SOS that dwelled there longer.

I’m sure they could care fuck all for what I think of their music, and it’s not important because one song is enough. Let’s listen to it, and in this case, let me watch this video again and again and again.

So I did just that, and here I will admit that I tried masturbating while thinking of the video to no avail. It’s curious because there is no doubt I desire to brush my cheek across her clavicle as Drewery emerges upon the catwalk, shoulders bare for all to see. But this desire did not translate into orgasm. I suppose because the whole video is just too wholesome and other SOS videos sought out didn’t deliver any punch. Not because Drewery is any less beautiful. She seems to have aged well and must be in her 60’s by now. The other videos don’t deliver because I didn’t see them at the tender young age when I first saw and absorbed “Breakout”. Nostalgia shapes our desires but it’s not a person. Nostalgia is not even the song. It’s the moment, the feeling I had back at that time. A wonderful brew of desiring and admiring. Then there’s the added complication inherit to desire in wanting to “be” that person too. That’s part of possessing someone and a twisted element of love. Maybe this is only a thing for gay people who can share clothes with their partners. Who knows?

In any case I understand Drewery’s partner is Andy Connell (on the left) and it warms my heart to see couples in love and music together.