Except the one at the end, I guess.
Hey! We don't swim in your toilet!
special introductory
paragraph!
The World In Your Eyes
Heaven's End
Fade Out
A Gilded Eternity
Wolf Flow: The John Peel Sessions (1987-90)
Way back when I was only 13 years old and President Ronald Reagan was funneling drug money to the Contras, a young South Londonite named Robert Hampson was putting together the first incarnation of a three-piece rock band called Loop. Which reminds me of a little joke. Q: What do you call a Nicaraguan rebel with no sperm cells in his semen? A: A Contraceptive! But don't think for a minute that just because they were a trio, Loop was an empty blot of bloot. What they did was as follows: Write a fairly basic but catchy bass line and fuzzed-out guitar chord sequence, play them over and over and over again, pile on about five lead guitars either creating feedback or playing intertwining blues-rock licks (generally starting with one bent note and proceeding down the neck), and bury the whole sack of shit in the warmest and most hypnotic phase, distortion, feedback, vibrato, echo, tremelo and delay effects possible. The result of this studied practice was some of the most mesmerizing, psychedelic, spacey, druggy, buzzy, droning, pulsing, vibrating, fuzzed-out bliss available over the counter (OTC) in the late '80s/early '90s. Some folks toss them into the same "Stooges + acid" bucket as Spacemen 3, but Loop's music is much louder, denser and more distorted, and doesn't have those silly keyboards. Ha ha, you silly keyboards! Your antics make me laugh!
I guess Loop was called Loop because they generally played one single riff over and over and over again as if it were a "loop," and then constructed their songs out of the sonic elements that they placed atop this foundation. Also, everyone in the band was born with the bottoms of their feet attached to the tops of their heads. But before I go any further, please enjoy this one-liner comedy joke ripped from today's headlines: "If black smoke is coming out of my ass, it means I haven't elected a new Poop yet!"
The World In Your Eyes isn't an actual album per se as such per se; rather, it's a compilation of Loop's first two singles, a couple of newer songs and two pointless "extended versions." It's this sort of scatterslapshodshot approach that renders it a slightly less consistent listen than your average Loop release. Three of the songs are so early, they don't even have any bass guitar as far as I can tell with my ears! Nor are they terribly good - two are harmless but ineffective Stooges/MC5y simple macho fuzz originals and the third is an intriguing but uneventful revisioning of Suicide's "Rocket USA" for guitars. Then there's the two "extended versions," which -- as great as the songs are -- are time wasters when we could be out dancing nude at the police station. Just tacked on there at the end with no regard for one man's needs.
But the other five? Jump Up And Down While Dancing Nude At The Police Station, they're fantastic! Bass lines push things along melodically, minimalist drums loudly pound-pound away, and billions of guitars perform simple chord sequences topped by intertwining blues-rock leads in a Hawkwindy space way. This music is VERY mesmerizing, VERY beautiful and VERY repetitive (Kraut-Rock influence? Or The Fall? Without actually sounding like Kraut-Rock or The Fall?). Amplifier feedback is engaged and converted into musical notes, phase and flange effects make it all go "keeeeeooooooooooooooo" like you're on rubbery acid drugs, and heavy vibrato/tremelo settings make everything vibrate in and out like a dildo. Then on top is a likable young singer intoning into an echo box like he's speaking into the corner of a curvy bench and you've got your ear to the other end listening to him. At their best, Loop created an all-enveloping wash of guitar fuzz, buzz, twiddle, fwoosh and bwee.
At their worst, they murdered hundreds of people by impaling them on spikes and watching them slowly bleed to death. But, as Michael Stipe once sang, "Everybody hurts sometimes."
I noticed on America's Internet last night that this CD is so out of print, the cheapest copy available on half.com is $98.98 before shipping. I have it though. I found it in a cheapy bin about ten years ago. I never even knew I was sitting on a fortune! Although literally I did because my couch is made out of liquid gold and I did know that. But metaphorically I didn't know because I didn't know this CD was so rare.
Here's a little game for people who own the album. For each of the following descriptions, guess which song I'm talking about. If you get them all, and you're an attractive female, you win a prize! A SKIN prize! Even if you don't get them all, or any of them!
#1 -- No bass! Two chords like half of "No Fun." Very loud drum going "THUB! THUB! THUB!" and guitar feedback.
#2 - No bass! Like a slow Stooges pop song. Verse is ONE chord, chorus is two. HUGELY loud snare hit. The wah-wah lead dicks around.
#3 - YES! Guitar feedback goes up and down. Fuzz chords, cute lopey-dopey bass line, gets better as it goes! For nine minutes. Tambourines smash with a beat too.
#4 - Suicide cover with no bass. Rhythm is a reverbed electronic pulse going "PIP! PIP! PIP!"
#5- GREAT! Very catchy! High notes on multiple guitars playing together plus warm drone and really nice happy upwards bass line. Great friendly vocal melody too!
#6 - WONDERFUL! Two notes and one chord. Slow, mesmerizing. Relaxing. Gorgeous wash of tremelo fuzz and delayed vox!
#7 - FANTASTIC! Sorta bluesy lead line but fuzzed in one chord and kinda "tough" feel to the simple bass line. Shaky maraca percussion. 7 1/2 mins of dark drone.
#8 - GORGEOUS!!! Adorable happy bass line that swoops up and down. More fuzz. Beautiful simple vocal melody.
#9 - more of #3
#10 - more of #5
Hmm.... Apparently, by some mistake of the error, I accidentally listed all of the clues in the order that the songs appear on the CD. As such, congratulations everybody (if you're an attractive female)! And don't worry if you made a "boner" and missed a few; I didn't mean for my test to be so "hard on" you. No need to hire a private "dick" to watch me from when the rooster says "cock"-a-doodle-doo in the morning until I "prick" my arm with a heroin needle before bed at night. If your father's out of town, "woodie" mind if I came over to say hello? Great! I'll be there at 2:"69"!
Best,
As an important and occasionally-paid work executive, I naturally have many clients that are embedded in the grifty bowels of high finance. And it's this "finance" experience that has allowed me to create the following brainteaser for the ages:
Q. What's the worst thing about being a teenaged dolphin?
A. Finacne!
So you see, typos are our friends. Or pals, at least. Take the word "carp" - Isn't it much more refreshing to read a note saying "I took a crap and put it in your fridge"? Or how about "teeth" - wouldn't you rather have "some guy's dick" in your mouth? Yes, typos! Unlike correct things, typos allow for a bit of individualism in this stodgy-shirted necro-world we call "Today". As Born Again Christian Roger McGuinn once sang, "I Wasn't Born To Follow."
But one thing I WAS born to follow is the career of London's Loop. A beautiful stretch of highway connecting Yorkshire to
But one thing I WAS born to follow is the career of the London-based band Loop. Heaven's End, their first full studio album, will hypnotize and rock ya. The nice heavy bass, loud high-pitched fuzz guitar, wah-wah lead lickerish and manipulated feedback bring all kinds of dynamics and range to songs that otherwise have exactly one part. The drums sound monolithic like a caveman beating on rocks, but the phased, tremeloed guitar wash feels like druggy Heaven rolling liquidly down your earspine like bird urine from the sky. FUZZY! DIDDLY! WHOOOSHY!
Side two's weaker than side one though, and one of the songs is also on The World In Your Eyes. So on side two even more than usual, WHAT they're playing isn't the point so much as HOW IT SOUNDS. If these songs were played on a saxophone, I'd hate them. But then again, if strip poker were played on a saxophone, even by a group of very attractive singles, I'd hate IT too. So maybe the saxophone is the real problem here and not the songs at all. In fact, I'd probably give the album a 10 if not for the saxophone. Not that it currently HAS a saxophone, but if it did, it certainly wouldn't get a 10 the way it would if they were to get rid of the saxophone and replace it with a bunch of fuzzy guitars. As it is, I can only give it an 8.
The songwriting is pretty similar to that of the previous singles, with hypnotic druggy bass-and-fizz-driven space acid classics sharing space with a few basic proto-Stooges throwaways. Advances of note include an impressive musical feedback break in the middle of "Straight To Your Heart," mesmeric stinging arpeggiation in "Forever," "Tomorrow Never Knows"-style backwards/forwards guitar/drum experimentation in the title track, and a CLEAN ACOUSTIC guitar smothered in heavenly fuzz noise in "Carry Me." So for god's sake, take note of these advances.
One word of caution to parents, however; two of the songs are called "Head On" and "Soundhead." Unless you want to explain to your children what "head" is, how to give "head," and how much they should charge for "head," you may want to consider getting them a more child-friendly record, like Billy Joel's Piano Man or REO Speedwagon's You Can Tune A Piano But You Can't Tune A Fish.
Ooo, actually on second thought, you probably don't want to have explain to your kids what a "pianist" is either. Or, in the case of Billy Joel, a "pussy."
Reasons Why Loop Were Different From Spacemen 3:
1 - Loop had a rhythm section. Technically Spacemen 3 had one too, but Spacemen 3's rhythm section was beyond useless - the bassists were fine, but almost all of their drummers could barely keep time with one drum, let alone a full drum kit.
But Loop's drummer, John Wills, could actually play his instrument, and played it well. Although all the drumming here is fairly simple, it's also really driving, heavy, and forcibly injects a sense of trancelike, but rocking repetition that is worlds away from Spacemen 3. He also keeps the slow songs going forward and makes them trancey The drumming is also often really reminiscent of '60's garage rock, which is something that I endorse in pretty much every way possible. ThumpThumpThump away (competently!)
2 - Loop almost never, ever used keyboards in their music, while Spacemen 3 started using more and more and more of them as they went on.
3 - Loop wrote much more standard, recognizable rock songs than Spacemen 3 did, who were all about that drone at all costs. There's also much more of a rhythm/lead guitar dichotomy in Loop's music, what with the wah-wah guitars in the sides of the speakers offering little commentary all the time.
4 - Loop took more of a recognizable influence from garage rock and song structure than Spacemen 3 did. Spacemen 3 were much more avant-garde.
5 - Loop liked really heavy fuzzed-out distortion a lot more than Spacemen 3 did and used it one whole hell of a lot. This is a really good thing.
Anyway, the point of all this drivel is to suggest that Heaven's End, the first Loop album, is better at the whole ass-kicking rock side of things than Spacemen 3 could ever have had a hope of being, for all the reasons outlined above. (Also, Robert Hampson played with Godflesh for Christ's sake! That's almost enough right there!) And that you ought to give Loop your entertainment dollar for those reasons.
Basically, Heaven's End kicks almost as much tranced-out druggy rocking ass as a 300-pound hardcore kid moshing in the middle of a crowd of hippies. The guitar tones on this album are crazy - hugely loud, wonderfully fuzzed-out oceans of shimmering, tremolo-and-flange-enhanced distortion and feedback saturate the music. Hell, they ARE the music. The guitars, from Hampson and second guitarist James Endeacott (I think Loop were actually a quartet, Mark), play ridiculously cool, minimalistic and simple '60's-tinged acid rock riffs that repeat over and over and over and over again, or a lot of wah-wahed lead guitar that's fun but doesn't distract from the awesome rhythm riffing, all over this release. Hampson also coats his vocals with about five gallons of reverb and mixes them way down so that they sound like they're part of the overall sound, rather than just some guy singing over the music. (And apparently the mix of Heaven's End has Hampson's vocals at their most upfront.) This makes most of the lyrics pretty hard to understand, but that's fine because vocals are almost beside the point with this music - I'm glad they're there and I like them plenty, but they're not the main focus and they shouldn't be. It is all about the guitars and the rhythm section pounding away underneath them.
Highlights are hard to pick out because all the songs are of a piece, especially on Side 2 of the album (two songs are blended into each other through a shared thick-ass distorted tremolo chord that pans all around the stereo spectrum), but all of Side 1 qualifies, especially the INSANE title track, which just blasts one psychedelic tremolo chord into your brain as bizarro effects and backwards tapes battle it out over the rhythm section smashing away. God, what a great song. "Straight To Your Heart"'s eerie feedback breakdown is also wonderful and unexpected. Side 2 isn't across-the-board flawless, but it's still really good, and "Fix to Fall" has a truly awesome fuzz-bassline from bassist Neil MacKay that really makes it stand out a bit. "Carry Me" also submerges an acoustic guitar in the middle of the mix to wonderful effect.
Man, what a great album. This gets an A. Or a really high A minus. The songs do sound a little too much of a piece, and the riffs are almost too simple and easy sometimes, but when the sound is this fucking cool, who gives a shit?
Today is a VERY special day, and I'll tell you why:
(*farts*)
Also, on an unrelated note, this is the best Loop album. Most "rockin'," finest production, best mix of lead blues-rock licks and swirly swoosh metallic fuzz glow, and the most consistently catchy hooks too! Beginning and ending with an anonymous acid beauty drone, the record bursts forth unseen into the uptempo beat, cheery descending bass line and vibratoed "keeee-RASH!" guitar noise/chord of "Black Sun," which rest alone like a true trio until four billion other guitars climb aboard after the second verse to buzz, drone, and love your mind all the way to Halosville, Heavenstate.
But only an asshole would go track by track describing each song, so I'll try to make a few general statements instead. Generally, this album has more headbangin'-ready ROCK songs than the other records, with mean garage grungers like "Torched" and "Pulse" bringing Loop a lot closer to pissed-off heavy metal than you'd ever expect from a pre-shoegazing outfit of this sort. Also generally, they try a couple of different "sound" approaches that foreshadow the tonal experimentation that would become their focus on A Gilded Eternity and in the band members' post-breakup outfits Main and The Hair And Skin Trading Company. Specifically, these new-fangled "sound" approaches are (a) "Fever Knife," which gravitates around the slow, methodical downward "strum-strum-strum-strum-strum-strum-strum" of a fairly clean guitar that slowly drowns as it's hit by wave after wave of phased droney overdubs, and (b) "A Vision Stain," a mostly one-chord song that finds the guitar line LOCKED TIGHT within a heartless, unceasing "PIDDA-PIDDA-BUH!" roll-and-stop drumbeat as a high-pitched hammered percussion instrument cries for release! Not literally, but I had to end that sentence somehow.
I will make two minor complaints about the record: "Got To Get It Over" only has one guitar (or if it has two, the second is only playing feedback) and the riff - as cool as it is - could really use a blast of noise on top of it, and, although I appreciate its probably accurate impression of a heroin/acid drug comedown, the title track takes FAR too long to get to the mindbendingly entertaining guitar solo "round" at the end (wherein two guitars play the same exact blues-rock lick but one trails the other by half a sequence as if they're singing "Row Row Row Your Boat" together). Otherwise it's all smiles and profiles for Loop's best album, Fade Out!
Oh, I nearly forgot! There's also this song called "This Is Where You End." Even if it weren't the great macho MC5-style rocker that it is, can you beat that title? What a TITLE!
Speaking of which, have you seen this piece of paper that came with my car? What a TITLE!
Similarly, if you're name's "Le," have you ever seen Betsy Ford's right knocker? What a TIT, LE!
Nobody knows what "gilded" means. That's a stupid title. But first let's talk about that guy on the subway stairs this morning. Now, I'm all for urban people walking down the street rapping to themselves, just as I myself enjoy walking down the street singing to myself like a stupid little fairy, but this morning's incident was the cat's pajamas. So I get off the downtown 4/5 at 59th St. to transfer to whatever it is that takes me to 49th St and 7th, then pull out Virtual Government: CIA Mind Control Operations In America to do some light reading as I traverse the stairwell, and what do I hear but some dumb fucking asshole rapping boastfully and REALLY loudly as the crowd made its way up the stairs. Unable to resist peeking a glance at this moron, I realized two things in quick succession: (a) he was either Puerto Rican or just some fat fucking white dumbass, and (b) the hardcore rhymes he was slidin' off tha tongue were in fact from that piece of shit "I forgot my name!" song on Eminem's latest shitty album. If I managed to not giggle at him, it was only due to my concern about the CIA mind control operations in America. I mean, you really can't get much less "street" or "gangsta" than rapping an Eminem song really loudly in public, can you? Isn't that kind of like walking through the South Bronx singing a "Weird Al" Yankovic song? At any rate, I'm now a firm believer in eugenics and the Final Solution.
No hang on that's not what I meant. What's the word for - ah! yes -- I'm now a firm believer in eucalyptus and the Proactiv(R) Solution. Not only have my pimples cleared up; my diptheria smells like muffins baking!
Named in tribute to late comedienne Gilded Radner, A Gilded Eternity finds Robert Hampson and his Loops pursuing a different sound. No longer can a Loop fan count on finding his earholes awash in super masses of rich guitar tones and swizzling swoozle pwooshes; instead, the guitars are very high-pitched and trebly, with a surprising absence of phase, delay and echo that makes it different to sort out one guitar line from the similar-sounding mess of racket surrounding it. Elsewhere, the drums are crisper, the bass is louder, and the band continues to experiment with song structure to push their style forward. The songs themselves are mostly terrific, filled with interesting chords and rhythmic ideas. But the mix is kind of a drag. I MISS my Heavenly fuzz farm!
I will now review each individual track with one word apiece:
"Vapour" - Neatchords!
That didn't work. Ooo! I've got it! I'll tell you things to listen for in each song. You'll LOVE that! It'll be like a list of "Easter Eggs," and where to find them (behind the couch, under the dresser, etc). Here we go. If you don't own this album, that's okay - it works with any album.
"Vapour" - Check out those awesome weird bent guitar noises at the end!
"Afterglow" (incidentally, this was the first Loop song I ever heard - loved it then and love it now!) - Sit right between the speakers so you get the full experience of the guitar interplay. As the guitar in one speaker plays the main super-sad chord combination, the guitar in the other straddles a similar (but sole) chord in a different rhythm with silent spaces thrown in. The result is that the SILENT spots in the second guitar line are more noticable than the playing, due to the sudden vacuum it keeps bringing into half of the listening experience. If my name were Sandra, I'd say it was "Sandra Good"!
"The Nail Will Burn" - Around the middle of the song, try to count how many guitars are in the mix. There's like five million guitars in there! All playing in and around each other like a bunch of orgiastic swingers! Wait a second -- is that your sister in there getting fucked by the black guy? Why, I think it is! And look - there's your girlfriend with Jeff Goldblum!
"Blood" - Listen closely and you can actually HEAR yourself getting annoyed by that incessant clanging metal noise!
"Breathe Into Me" - Christ, did they write this when they were 9? Fuck this song. Don't listen to it. Don't even look at it. Cut its name off the album cover and bury it in the middle of the ocean.
"From Centre To Wave" - The ending, man. The ending is SO classic! Check out all the looping blues licks swirling around in the mix too. And the buzzsaw guitar. But mainly the ending, man. The pickle is so Vlasic!
"Be Here Now" - This was a piece of advice that my cognitive therapist gave to me a while back. BE. Don't get stuck in your head thinking or worrying - just BE. HERE. Don't think about where you'd rather be, or somewhere you have to be later. Be HERE. NOW. Don't worry about something that might not even happen, or get depressed about something you have to do later in the day. Be here NOW. Be here now. Be Here Now.
It was either that or "Think Elsewhere Later"; I don't know, I was kinda playing with my dick while he was talking. As for the song, don't look for Easter Eggs. Just listen. And Be Here Now. Take a journey down its lengthy river of repetitive bliss.
Then put on some James Taylor and take a uriney down its stinky river of malodorous piss.
Yep - if you're looking for dicks, piss, diptheria and your sister getting fucked by a black guy, look no further than Loop's A Gilded Eternity!
It's Sleepy Time, so I'm not going to spend a lot of time on this review. Suffice it to say that it features three different sessions recorded for the late John Peel's late BBC show. My conclusion is that it features two tracks each from A Gilded Eternity, Fade Out and Heaven's End, just one from The World Up Your Ass and two that aren't available on ANY Loop LPs, including this one. Hey! That doesn't make sense! Ha ha! Someone's ass is lying! And I assure you it ain't MY ass, because MY ass only tells the truth! BRAPPPP. See that? South African farmers are cleaning up with 'green sugar'! BRAPPPPPPFWEEE! You don't say! A fire and stampede at an Egyptian theater killed 29? That's horrible! Plus it smells in here!
Jesus, I leave Mel Brooks alone with my computer for five minutes and look what I come back to. As I was saying before "The 79 Year Old Man" interrupted with his BULLSHIT about FARTS, there are four great reasons to shell out the (chocolate chip cookie) dough for this LP and they are as follows: songs.
First of all, it's got the killer Gilded Infernity tracks "Afterglow" and "From Centre To Wave" in versions produced as if they were early Loop! No more the metallically-tinged sprinkle-tinny-tones but fully fuzzed loud and proud eardrum bursting mixes to drool with. The songs are STILL weirdly composed (this fact is actually made even more clear by the stronger, more traditional production featured here), and it makes you wonder in lost hope what else Hampton And Co. might have come up with had the band not splintered into the excruciatingly weak "Main" and "The Hair And Skin Trading Company" projects shortly thereafter
Secondly (or as one of my Tae Kwon Do instructors puts it without a hint of irony or self-awareness, "The last and final one..."), the two non-LP tracks are fuckin' F-bone G.G.R. "Collision" is just two uptempo chords going up and down and up and down, but it's of course layered with bluesy bend licks, phaser and wondrous fuzz so it's a must-own if you're a Loophead. "Sunburst," on the alternate hand, is very slow and long, with one repeated high yearning sad chord, a coooool bass line, and a fededback-drenched lead guitar sprashing two additional sad chords atop. This is another later experimental track, and its absence from A Gilded Eternity is baffling. It's a fantastic song(!!!!!!!!!!), layering together three different hooks (lead guitar, rhythm guitar and bass) that have nothing to do with each other yet somehow combine into something mystifyingly mesmerizing. Even the drums are dynamic, taking absolutely FOREVER to finally get going but suddenly turning out to be as speedy as a Hispanic mouse when they do.
Only gets an 8 though - Few of us need "Straight To Your Heart" for 10 minutes, and nobody at all needs a Suicide cover. Don't get me wrong -- I'm all for Suicide, especially among toddlers and Eric Clapton, but there's this band called Suicide that ehhahlk;f Say! You know what I just realized? If you're one of my homosexual friends who likes this band, and you're illiterate, that makes you a FROOT Loophead! And if you're one of my coprophile friends, that makes you a POOPhead! Ha ha! Get out of here, you Poophead! Stop rubbing your scalp on my couch! You're the zaniest! Look at all that poop! Whee!!! And it SMELLS in here!
Jesus, I leave Mark Prindle alone with my computer for five minutes and it's like Spaceballs all over again. Agh!! What has he done to my script for Little Red Riding Hood: My, What Bad Gas You Have?!?!?!!!??
Back to Mark Prindle's Dog Doo Gymnasium
Guy Who Thinks Fake Breasts Are Real
Can't agree with you regarding the two "extended versions" Mark, can't agree with you at all at all, I just can't agree with you about them two rascals I mean I'm listening to the second one right now and it's like some kind of blissfully endless audio cement mixer so it is and sure when I heard it first I just knew I'd end up defending it online so here I am telling you I just can't agree with you about them two at all at all. The name is Noddy, don't wear it out. Am going now to read the rest of your Loop reviews so don't be surprised if I get back to you on account of some further provocation you might have perpetrated.
While Peter Kember wants you to think that Loop were just a bunch of lowdown dirty unoriginal Spacemen 3 copyists, the truth is that Loop were actually a fairly different band, even if Robert Hampson did or didn't use inspiration/notes on guitar gear from Spacemen 3 to start his own band. And it's hilarious that a member of Spacemen 3 would have the balls to criticize anyone for lifting anything at all. ("O.D. Catastrophe" is "T.V. Eye," "Revolution" is "Black To Comm," "Ode To Street Hassle" is, obviously, a rewritten "Street Hassle," "Suicide" is basically "Rocket U.S.A." etc.)
All Loop's albums remain astonishing. On a not entirely unrelated note, I hope it's OK if I shamelessly promote my fanzine here. Issue four of Ice Cream For Quo features an exclusive interview with Robert Hampson of the mighty Loop. Issue one of the same publication features an exclusive interview with the even more mighty Mark Prindle. Issue eight is out now and features an exclusive interview with Sky Saxon. If you would like copies of all or any of these, please get in touch at icecreamforquo@yahoo.com or go to www.myspace.com/icecreamforquo for more info. As someone said recently, the magazine is 'cheaper than the new Dylan album and more fun, too'. (Mark, I know this sort of thing is completely forbidden on your fine site, but it's also promoting you so I hope that makes it semi-acceptable. -- Stephen)
Get your Loop CDs here! They were recently reissued finally!
