Archive for the ‘B-sides’ Category

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Purple Pain

Saturday, April 23rd, 2016

Fuck this year.

As I’ve commented on this site many a time, I’m a pretty lousy Prince fan. I only have Purple Rain, the three-disc edition of Hits, and a few of his newer albums. I don’t own 1999, Sign ‘O’ The Times, Lovesexy, Parade, Come and so on. I’ve often mentioned my desire to fill this rather egregious gap in my record collection, and I think now I might finally get around to it.

That being said, I own a shitload of Prince singles, both on CD and vinyl, and many of them are among my most prized musical possessions. Sometimes I just need nearly half an hour of “My Name Is Prince” remixes, and thankfully I can indulge in such ridiculousness.

I just wish more people could.

When Bowie passed away, I shared a few of his rare tunes here, and I was happy that doing so such was a chore. The overwhelming majority of Bowie’s discography is not only in-print, but incredibly easy to get in pretty much every format available. Most of his single-only tracks have been collected in one form or another, and his rarer B-sides and remixes have made their way to digital storefronts or in box sets. You want to hear the Mandarin version of “Seven Years In Tibet?” Yo, you’re covered.

But if you want to hear the 12″ remix of “My Name Is Prince,” you’re out of luck. Ditto if you want to hear the beautiful 10 minute versions of “Mountains” or “I Would Die 4 U,” countless remixes of “Gett Off” or filthy rarities like “Lubricated Lady.”

It’s hard to say what will happen with Prince’s back catalog now that he’s passed away, we’ll have to wait and see. But I hope in the years to come that Prince’s vast army of released material will get a proper remastering and re-release campaign, all of his music, even the eight minute Purple Pump remix of “Gett Off,” for example, deserves to be heard.

Let’s hope they crack open that legendary vault too.

And someone put that album by The Family back in print for fuck’s sake.

Prince
Erotic City (Full Length Version)
Let’s Go Crazy (Extended Remix)
In the massive pantheon of out-of-print Prince classics, these to spectacular remixes are probably some of the best. I can’t believe you can’t buy them today.

I guess I shouldn’t be all that surprised by that fact though, as they seemed to have barely been in print in the first place. Both the extended remix of “Let’s Go Crazy” and the full uncut version of “Erotic City” first appeared on a 12″ single in 1984 at the height of Purple Rain mania. In the years that followed, that single was only reprinted on CD once, in 1990, but that hard-to-find European release excised the uncut version of “Erotic City” and instead only included the album version of “Take Me With You” as a B-side.

“Erotic City” has made its way to a few other releases over the years, but always in some sort of abbreviated form. The full version that first appeared on that 1984 12″ single is over seven minutes in length. The version that is included on the Hits compilation is only a little over half that, clocking in at an all-too-brief four minutes. That’s three minutes of funk stripped away from people who need to hear it.

It’s a damn shame because, and yes I know that my Prince knowledge is criminally lacking, I think that the full uncut version “Erotic City’ is one of Prince’s best tunes. A sparse, ferociously sexy electronic funk jam that sounds just as sexy now as it did over 30 damn years ago.

Like I said, I have a ton of Prince singles, and I may share more in the coming weeks. Unfortunately, many of them aren’t in the best shape, so I need to do some sorting first. Until then, enjoy this small offering and remember Prince in all his purple majesty.

And then buy HitnRun Phase One and Two, and Plectrumelectrum. Critics destroyed that album when it came out, but they were crazy. Even after I absorb the rest of Prince’s discography I imagine that one would still make my top 10 list. It’s raw as fuck and completely in your face. It has a song that compares a threesome to a pretzel. And it works.

Because Prince could even make pretzels sexy.

Note: The “Let’s Go Crazy” mix was removed as you can buy that on the Prince compilation Ultimate.

Posted in B-sides, Prince, remixes | 6 Comments »

Remixes from Needless Purchases

Friday, April 15th, 2016

Thanks for all the kind messages celebrating my 10th anniversary, means a lot to me.

Now, onto new and (hopefully) bigger things. It’s been a busy year for me so far. I got a big update to my guide to Tokyo record stores in the works, and I should have another piece of YMO up sometime relatively soon, hopefully by the end of the month. In the meantime, I recently wrote a piece over on my other blog about the insanity of Robot Restaurant which I hope you’ll find fun and entertaining. I also wrote a piece on the current state of gaming, which I hope you’ll find soul-crushingly depressing.

Sorry. Here’s some pop music to cheer you up.

Yellow Magic Orchestra
Haruomi Hosono Special Message
Rydeen (Live 2-6-80 Yoru No Hit Studio)
I have what I would consider to be a rather expansive YMO collection. I have every proper album on CD, as well as more than a fair share of compilations, remix albums, singles and other miscellany. I also own several of their albums on vinyl, some multiple times over. For example, in America I have the regular black LP edition of Service, but here in Japan I have a copy on translucent yellow vinyl. I also have every re-issue that Music On Vinyl have put out to date.

However, that didn’t stop me from buying this.

20160415_225125

That massive box is the YMO LP Box set, a huge 13 LP box set that includes every YMO album proper that was released on vinyl, including both the Japanese and American versions of their self-titled debut and ×∞Multiplies.

I got it for a pretty good deal, less than $100, which is how I justified buying it despite owning nearly everything on it on CD and LP already. It was nice to buy and fill in the remaining holes in my YMO vinyl collection.

To my surprise, when I got home I discovered that it had a bonus record, a bonus record that is literally titled “Bonus.” See?

20160415_225148

Bonus.

What’s the bonus? Well, sadly it’s not much. Most of the record is an interview with Haroumi Hosono. I’d love to offer you a complete transcript of what he’s saying, but my Japanese is garbage, and my boyfriend has better things to do than feed my unhealthy obsession with YMO and translate it for me.

The real treat, however, is this exclusive version of “Rydeen.” From what I read online, it’s apparently a live version that was performed on a Japanese TV show, although to me it sounds more like a remix. Regardless, it’s a pretty radical version, deviating from the original in some subtle, but great ways, such as a slightly more analog-sounding synth and a more pronounced sequencer rhythm. The guitar work is a bit more noticeable too. All in all, it’s a stellar version, and while I wouldn’t go as far to say it was worth the money I paid for the box set, it sure as hell was a pretty nice bonus, so I guess that 13th LP was named properly.

Filter & The Crystal Method
(Can’t You) Trip Like I Do (Danny Saber Remix)
(Can’t You) Trip Like I Do [Instrumental]
This is the second-best Filter song. The first is obviously “Hey Man Nice Shot.”

There is no third-best Filter song as Filter is not a very good band.

I got this off of a strange EP called Spawn The Album 2nd. Obviously a sequel to the fantastic Spawn soundtrack, it also included a remix of Marilyn Manson’s “Long Hard Road Out Of Hell” and a track by Apollo 440 and Morphine that was probably cut off of the original soundtrack because it’s not very good. I’ll probably share these soon though, so all your Apollo 400 and Morphine completists (I assume those groups don’t overlap all that much) take note!

Posted in B-sides, Filter, remixes, The Crystal Method, YMO | 4 Comments »

10 Years Of Being Lost: Gone But Forgotten

Monday, March 7th, 2016

When I started Lost Turntable my goal was to shed light on lost music, but I was primarily concerned about lost songs by well-established bands.  But over the years some of the most fun I’ve had writing has been when I’ve covered acts that have fallen through the cracks completely. Sometimes they were acts that were big for a minute in their native countries and then vanished. Other times they were cult acts with a few minor hits before calling it quits. But every once in a while I’d find an act that seemed completely lost in time, having never scored a hit when they first formed and never found any sort of following since.

I’ve always been most interested in these acts. We all know what life for mega-huge rock stars is like, that’s been covered to death in film, TV and even in songs by mega-famous rock stars (thanks Joe Walsh). We also have some idea as to what life is like for the has-beens and one-hit wonders of the pop world. If it wasn’t for them, the entirety of the British reality TV landscape would dry up overnight.

But we never hear about the never-wases. Makes sense I guess, no one wanted to hear about them when they were attempting to be around, why on earth would anyone care about what they had to say now?

Well, I care! I want to know. I wonder how many people from failed bands manage to parlay their broken dreams into something at least tangentally related to the music biz. A lot of one-hit wonders and cult acts end up working as song-writers. The dude from Semisonic helped write Adele’s 21, y’know. But what about the guys in Radioactive Goldfish or anyone who was in a group like Spizz or Fischer-Z? Maybe they have hella interesting stories too. I bet the saga of nearly making it, while not as personally fulfilling for those involved, is probably more interesting than a lot of the rags-to-riches stories we usually here.

Here are songs by people and bands who never made it, or made it for about five minutes. May they one day be well-known enough to be forgotten.

Apollo Smile
Let’s Rock
When I first posted this track back in 2009, I wondered aloud, “What ever happened to Apollo Smile?” The “real life anime girl” was a mainstay of my teenage years, I frequently would see her name on the guest lists of comic-cons, and she would occasionally pop up on Sci-Fi Channel to host some random anime show. In the late-90s she even made her way to video games, lending her voice to Ulala, the groovy protagonist of Sega’s Space Channel 5 games.

And then she seemingly vanished without a trace. No more anime specials, no more comic cons and no more video games. The scene that she helped to cultivate had seemingly outgrown its need for her. But I wanted to know what the hell actually happened to her. So much so that I even tried to track her down for an interview a few years back.

Thanks to her Wikipedia page, that was actually shockingly easy, as it listed her last-known place of employment as a dance teacher for a small private school. Emboldened with a sense of journalistic desire to share the world the story of what happened to Apollo Smile (I mean, c’mon, this could totally get on A.V. Club today) I sent out a few emails inquiring about the chance of an interview.

Never before had I been shot down as hard for an interview as I was for that one. I’m not going to go into details. But for anyone out there wondering, Apollo Smile does not want to be found.

If she had agreed to that interview, I definitely would’ve asked her if she got clearance to use the Led Zeppelin sample that’s in this song. I bet the answer would’ve been no.

Lisa Dal Bello
Bad Timing
I’m kind of cheating here, because Lisa Dal Bello was moderately famous in her native Canada, but for the rest of the world she’s probably a complete unknown. Fucking shame.

When I wrote about Dal Bello back in 2011, I focused on her 1984 powerhouse whomanfoursays, which was produced and co-written/performed by Mick Ronson of Ziggy Stardust fame. I still stand by that record. It’s great, and now that you can get it digitally on Amazon and iTunes, I suggest you do. It’s an amazingly unique record. And while parts of it sound dated, some of it still sounds remarkably ahead of its time. Her voice is really off the charts, and the songwriting is top-notch.

Whomanfoursays was a bit of a re-invention for Dal Bello. In the late-70s Dal Bello was a pop star with a disco/dance bent, kind of like a Canadian proto-Madonna. She had some success with that formula, got a Juno Award (Canadian Grammy) for her first record, but didn’t have much success in terms of sales. And by the early-80s I suspect that she was getting fed up with the pop world, letting her dissatisfaction manifest itself in this blistering track that takes aim on the facets of the music industry that screwed her over hardest. I hope someone sends this track to Kesha.

As I said before, Dalbello managed to salvage her career with whomanfoursays. It wasn’t a massive smash, but songs from it got covered by Queensryche and Heart, and she went onto record two more very well-regarded albums before moving on to what is no doubt the much more lucrative commercial jingle market. Utterly fascinating, and anything of hers you can find is totally worth checking out.

Havana 3 A.M.
Blue Gene Vincent (Live)
The big Clash side-project/off-shoot is of course Big Audio Dynamite, and I’ll be writing about them sometime this month. But there was also Havana 3 A.M., the oddly-named project featuring Paul Simonon, bassist for The Clash. Havanna 3 A.M. only released one album, and I’m going to level with you right here, it’s not particularly good. It’s not bad, but it sure as hell ain’t memorable.

Except for this track, a tribute to the late-great Gene Vincent, which is about as perfect an amalgamation of rock, country and rock-a-billy you’re likely to hear.  The album version is good, but this live rendition is even better, and injects an intensity and energy that the studio version is lacking. I found this on an I.R.S. Records promo cassette tape, a find so incredible that it single-handedly made buying that cassette deck worth it.

And it’s sure as fuck better than The Good The Bad and The Queen.

Slow Bongo Floyd
More Than Jesus (SBF Mix)
More Than Jesus (Irresistible Force Mix)
Open Up Your Heart (11 O’Clock Mix)
Open Up Your Heart (Piano Mix)
So far the acts I’ve featured tonight have some sort of following. Apollo Smile may be nearly forgotten today, but there’s a “nearly” there. Someone out there still cares about her. Lisa Dal Bello had a live album come out last year, so however small, there’s still a market for her work somewhere. And sure, Havana 3 A.M. might be the lesser of Clash off-shoots, but they’re still a Clash off-shoot, a fact that will forever grant them at least the curious Google search from time to time.

But Slow Bongo Floyd? No one gives a shit about Slow Bongo Floyd. They have a poorly-managed Facebook page, and it has a single, solitary “like” that was no doubt given by the person who created it. Slow Bongo Floyd is about as forgotten as a band can get.

And that’s a real bummer. While their album isn’t great, their singles sure as hell should’ve been more popular than they were. “More Than Jesus” is an especially awesome tune, and how it didn’t manage to at least be a minor hit during the time of The Stone Roses and the Happy Mondays is anyone’s guess. It’s a great psychedelic dance/rock tune, madchester all the way. It’s groovy as fuck, and “I Love you more than I love Jesus” is a hell of a line to build a track off of.

From what I can gather, Slow Bongo Floyd was really just one guy by the name of Michael Patrick Jones. As that’s about one step away from “John Smith” in terms of name popularity, I can’t find a single thing on the Internet about his post Slow Bongo Floyd work, so if anyone would like to enlighten me I’d be forever grateful.

Posted in Apollo Smile, B-sides, Dalbello, Havanna 3 A.M., remixes, Slow Bongo Floyd | 4 Comments »

10 Years Of Being Lost: The 12″ Single Remix

Friday, March 4th, 2016

I thought long and hard about what I would do for the 10th anniversary of this blog. While I’ve never been a big fan of self-congratulatory retrospectives, I am unabashedly proud that I’ve managed to keep this site going for 10 damn years. As I mentioned a few weeks back, nearly every single MP3 blog that inspired me to create this site no longer exist. A few of them, like Lost Bands Of the New Wave Era are still up in some sort of archival form so you can at least read about the bands in question, but most have been scrubbed entirely from the Internet. I can’t even remember the names of most of them.

But it’s not just the Internet that’s changed in 10 years, my life has been crazy. When I started this site I was working for a crummy online DVD retailer and living in a junk apartment in Pittsburgh. Since then I went back to college to get a second degree, went through about a billion other jobs (freelance and permanent), saw myself printed in a major international music magazine, bought a house, sold a house, MOVED TO FUCKING JAPAN, begin a new career as a teacher (which I love) and meet a wonderful man who I am so happy to call my boyfriend. Life’s been crazy.

Makes me wonder what the hell I’ll be doing ten years from now! But no matter what that is, I suspect I’ll still keep this blog going. I like writing it too much to quit.

Maybe one day I’ll even update the layout.

Well, let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

Anyways, tonight I thought I’d kick off the celebratory flashbacks by looking at what I’ve probably dedicated more time to on this site than anything else, the obscure 12″ remix. It’s safe to say that Lost Turntable would not exist if it was not for the 12″ single. Actually, a more accurate statement would be that it’s fair to say that Lost Turntable would not exist if it wasn’t for the continued neglect of songs that were exclusive to 12″ singles. In the late 70s and up to the 90s, many great acts saved their best B-sides and remixes for the 12 incher. But in the 2000s, when many artists had their catalogs re-issued for inclusion on iTunes and other digital music storefronts, a lot of those remixes, B-sides and other tracks got lost in the shuffle.

I first started this blog, you could barely find any vintage New Order, Depeche Mode, Pet Shop Boys or Erasure remixes on CD, let alone digitally. Those oversights gave me plenty of content in the early years of Lost Turntable, which nearly became a purely 80s-focused blog because of it. Things are better now, and you can at least find most of the best remixes and such by these artists on CD and digitally, thanks to box sets and deluxe re-issue campaigns.

But not every band can be New Order or Depeche Mode, and aren’t even lucky enough to get their entire album discography remastered and put up for sale online, let alone their non-album cuts. And others just don’t seem to care. So here are some of my favorite 12″ remixes that have yet to be re-released.

XC-NN
Lifted (Industrial Mix)
Lifted (Industrial Mix Instrumental)
Lifted (Alternalift Mix)
Lifted (Alternalift Mix Instrumental)
Lifted (Funk Mix)
Early in my collecting days, I basically bought any 12″ single I could find that had any name on it that I found the lest bit recognizable. That name in question was rarely the artist, more often than not it was the remixer or producer associated with the track. That was certainly the case with this single, which I bought only because it featured remixes by The Dust Brothers.

The Dust Brothers aren’t very prolific as performers, but they’re studio gods, working behind the scenes as remixers, producers and engineers with some of the greatest acts of the 80s, 90s and 2000s. They produced Paul’s Boutique, Odelay and the soundtrack to Spawn (underrated). They also produced Hanson’s breaktrhough record which, say what you will about, certainly sounds quite good from a technical and production standpoint.

They’ve toned down their output as of late, I don’t see many new credits by them on Discogs, but I’m still a fan and will buy any remix I see them credited on. They really have a knack for layering effects and instruments, almost like a modern-day Wall Of Sound. I’ve always been impressed with how they can stack so many samples, effects, vocals and instruments together without making it all sound like indecipherable garbage. I think more modern-day producers could learn from their work.

Their remixes of “Lifted” serve as a good example of their remix work that I’ve discovered, mixing together the big beats and crisp production of mid-90s electronic music (think Fatboy Slim) with the dirty, scuzzy guitars of the then dying alt-rock scene. They know how to mix a sequencer and a distrotion pedal better than anyone.

But who are XC-NN?

Yeah. that’s a good question. I guess.

I knew nothing about them when I bought this record nearly a decade ago, and still don’t know much about them now. I know they formed in the mid-90s as CNN but had to change their name when the network CNN was like “yo dudes that’s not going to fly.” They released an album no one cared about, followed that up with a sophomore effort even less people cared about, and then broke up. After that, Tim Bricheno, formerly of Sisters of Mercy, then formed Tin Star with fellow XC-NN member David Tomlinson. They apparently had one hit single in the states by the name of “Head.” I’ve never heard of it, let me check YouTube. I’m usually good with my forgotten 90s acts. I’m sure I’ve probably heard this tune.

Nope. I got nothing.

Anyway, they couldn’t follow up that track’s limited success I guess, they broke up again and that was it for that. No idea what they’re up to now, although Tim got together with another old group of his, All About Eve, for a reunion stint in the mid-2000s.

I tried to get into other XC-NN tracks after listening to “Lifted,” but I couldn’t do it. Sadly, they’re entirely deserving of their (lack of) reputation. Their blend of industrial electronica and rock music sounded fresh for about 10 minutes in the mid-90s, but that sound has not aged well, and became saturated not soon after. The people may had developed a taste of industrial rock in the wake of Ministry’s and Nine Inch Nail’s success, but that taste didn’t last long. And if there wasn’t enough of an appetite for angry electro-rock to keep acts like Filter and Stabbing Westward (underrated!) on the charts, there sure as hell wasn’t enough to sustain XC-NN. That being said, I’m going to stand by “Lifted.” Dust Brothers remix or not, this should’ve at least been a minor hit single. If the pop charts had room for Gravity Kill’s “Guilty” then I don’t see why they couldn’t have fit “Lifted” in there as well, at least for a short time.

If I would’ve heard “Lifted” when it first came out in 1995 I would’ve certainly loved it, and not just for it’s of-the-moment electronic/rock style. its vague angry lyrics would’ve fit my particular brand of teen angst perfectly.

You didn’t raise him
He just grew
You should have known him back then
Before he knew you

Those four lines are the best lines of the song, even better than the chorus, which works more on attitude than anything else. As a whole, the song is pretty obtuse, but I think these lines in particular read them as an attack on an absentee dad. My own father was certainly not absentee, and I think he’s usually tried his best. But in the mid-90s I sure as fuck had plenty to be angry about with him, so when I hear songs touching on that topic I sometimes find myself transplanted back to my pseduo-negelected teenage self and really identify with the track more than I actually have any right too.

“Lifted” isn’t a lost classic. But it’s certainly a lost also-ran, and a prime example of why I started Lost Turntable.

Now for some lost 12″ single remixes from bands you’ve actually heard of. Sorry if the audio is a little hit and miss, I recorded some of these years ago on old equipment.

Dan Hartman
I Can Dream About You (Extended Remix)
Dan Hartman’s lone hit came from the soundtrack to an absolute bomb of a flick, Walter Hill’s epic rock ‘n’ roll fable Streets Of Fire. I fucking love that movie. I love it’s insane alternate reality that combines a post-apocalyptic cityscape with the greatest stylistic hits of the 50s and 80s. I love its over-the-top performances by everyone from Michael Pare to Rick Moranis. I love the fact that it ends with a fucking steel sledgehammer fight. But most of all I love its epic soundtrack.

Strangely, Dan Hartman’s version isn’t in the movie proper. Instead it features a version by a made-up Motwon-style vocals group (which features Robert Townshend and the dude who played Bubba in Forrest Gump). This extended version isn’t as good as that one (damn I wish they’d release that somewhere) but it’s a pretty great version of a pretty great piece of 80s pop.

Don Henley
All She Wants To Do Is Dance (Extended Dance Remix)
I hate The Eagles but I love a lot of solo work by Eagles members, from Joe Walsh’s lovely “Life’s Been Good” to Glenn Fry’s “Smuggler’s Blues” to a hell of a lot of Don Henley’s solo work. You say you don’t like “Boys Of Summer?” I say you’re better at denying utterly catchy pop tunes than I ever hope to be. This track is no “Boys Of Summer,” an honest-to-goodness classic, but it’s great in its own right. Again, I’m shocked this remix hasn’t been re-issued anywhere recently.

Madness
Yesterday’s Men (Demo)
I usually hate it when demos are included as B-sides, it always feels like filler to me, and I’m rarely curious as to how an unfinished version of a song sounded. A rare exception to this rule would be this beautiful version of one of Madness’ best tunes, which strips what was already a pretty sparse song until it sounds less like a demo and more like a purposely lo-fi home recording that was recorded in someone’s closet with a cheap microphone and a store bought Casio. It’s like if Lou Barlow went ska. It’s almost intimate, and it really makes the lyrics hit even harder. Just beautiful.

Ready For The World
Oh Shelia (Extended Remix)
You can go to iTunes right now, do a search for the 12″ remix of this song and something comes up. But don’t believe the lies. That version is not the real 12″ remix. It’s a re-recorded version.

Re-recorded versions are blights on digital storefronts, and need to be wiped from this planet. They usually exist as a means for the artist to get royalties without having to pay the original record companies. And I get that, but they really do the fans a disservice, as they never ever sound as good as the originals. And even if they are technically better in some way or another, it doesn’t really matter, because people don’t want a technically better version of the song they know and love, they want the version they know and love! At least the original album version is on there.

Elect me for president and I will make it my first executive action to strip all re-recorded versions off digital storefronts and replace them with the originals. First on the plate, Def Leppard.

Yeah, it’s a stupid political platform, but it is any stupider than Trump?

Sade
Smooth Operator (12″ Version)
There’s this weird mall in Tokyo called Nakano Broadway that mostly focuses on geek culture stuff like figures, manga and old video games. Tucked away in a far off corner on the third or fourth floor of the mall is a really tiny movie store that focuses on weird cult flicks and art-house films. If you want to score Criterion blu-rays in Japan, that store is your best bet.

Whenever I go in there that dude is rocking out to a Sade blu-ray. So he knows what’s up.

Expect a few more posts like this for the rest of the month, with some regular posts with new rips interspersed. Thanks again to everyone who’s kept up with me over the years.

Posted in 10 Years Of Being Lost, B-sides, Dan Hartman, Don Henley, Madness, Ready For The World, remixes, Sade, XC-NN | 12 Comments »

Let’s All Go Back To LiveJournal and Listen to Madonna Together

Saturday, September 5th, 2015

Okay so I need to rant about something and I really can’t do it on my other site because less understanding family go there and I can’t do it on Twitter because it would be about a thousand tweets. So congrats, you all win.

Like, what the fuck is wrong with Facebook?

What is it about Facebook that brings out the absolutely shittiest forms of expression in people? Facebook should be awesome, especially for someone like me, an expat who has friends on multiple continents. But it’s not. It’s a wasteland of horrifically unfunny plagiarized memes, anti-science babbling and racist bullshit.

Why? Why do people feel the need to contribute to that festering stew? Who clicks “like” on something that says “click like if you remember [NOSTALGIA]?” Why do that?

Ugh. It’s disgusting. And seeing a sizable minority of my friends recently speak out against #blacklivesmatter as something that’s allegedly racist just makes my head want detach itself from my neck and crawl itself up my ass just because it might find less shit there.

If your natural response to seeing someone post something related to #blacklivesmatter is to say “hey all lives matter” then shut up. Just shut up. Google “All lives matter” and see the racist mountain you’re willing to die on. Shut up. It’s not about you. Shut up and listen. I’m willing to bet you don’t do that a lot.

I’ve given up all hope that we’ll ever live in a “post-racial” society but I’m counting down the days and praying that we someday live in a “post Facebook” one.

There should be a social network dedicated to only sharing original content. Of course, if there was no one would bother to use it, because writing original content is hard and scary and omg look at this Minions meme.

Here are some Latin interpretations of Japanese techno songs performed by a German DJ. And Madonna because I’m gay.

Señor Coconut and His Orchestra
Limbo (instrumental version)
Behind The Mask (Original Hamster’s Yellow Miami Magic Sound Orchestra Machine Remix)
The Madmen (instrumental version)
Ongaku (instrumental version)
Simoon (instrumental version)
I could have sworn that I posted some Señor Coconut before. Huh. Strange. Maybe it was attached to one of the very few posts I’ve had flagged for DMCA violations before (upside to maintaining a woefully unpopular blog on my own server is that I don’t get a lot of those).

Anways, Señor Coconut is the alter ego of one Uwe Schmidt, a German DJ based in Chile. As Mr. Coconut, Schmidt takes classic songs and reimagines them as bossa nova dance jams. It’s a solid concept.

In 2005 he dedicated an entire album to bossa nova covers of Yellow Magic Orchestra songs and called it Yellow Fever. I found a vinyl copy of it last year and fell in love with it. But I was extra elated to pick up a used copy of the Japanese CD edition last week, as it contains a shitload of bonus tracks, all of which I’m including here.

Strangely, on the CD itself the remix of “Behind The Mask” is included as a “secret track” attached to the instrumental of “Ongaku.” As to make things a little less confusing, I went ahead and separated them into two separate tunes.

Madonna
Give It 2 Me (Eddie Amador Club)
Give It 2 Me (Fedde Le Grand Remix)
Give It 2 Me (Eddie Amador House Lovers Remix)
Give It 2 Me (Oakenfold Extended Remix)
Give It 2 Me (Tong & Spoon Wonderland Mix)
Give It 2 Me (Jody den Broeder Club)
Give It 2 Me (Sly and Robbie Ragga Mix)
Another product of the great Madonna singles buying marathon of April. While “Give It 2 Me” is not a bad song, I’m going to go out on a limb and say that it didn’t deserve this multitude of remixes.

Posted in B-sides, Madonna, remixes, Senor Coconut | 5 Comments »

Nostalgiagenre

Tuesday, August 18th, 2015

I went to Summer Sonic this past weekend. It was pretty rad and I plan on writing about it sometime this week or the next. I won’t have much to say about the actual festival, but the entire experience did make me think about the state of rock music, what makes me identify with music, and the growing trend of pastiche as a genre.

I think it’s going to be rather wordy. So I apologize in advance for that.

Now music.

N.E.R.D.
She Wants To Move (D.F.A. Remix)
She Wants To Move (Mac & Toolz Extended Remix)
“Her ass is a spaceship I want to ride.”

“HER ASS IS A SPACESHIP I WANT TO RIDE.”

Fuck the “Happy” song, that line right there is the most life-affirming shit Pharrell ever wrote by far.

I love this song, much like I love nearly everything off of the first two N.E.R.D. albums. It’s such a great song that it can even overcome the lackluster DFA remix, that tries way too hard to make it into a krautrock song. You can’t do that to a song that has the line “her ass is a spaceship I want to ride” goddammit. The Mac & Toolz remix works far better, and instead re-imagines the song as an 80s funk jam with plenty of totally radical synths.

Big Country
Wonderland (Extended Mix)
Heart And Soul
Lost Patrol (Live)
Giant
I posted a bunch of Big Country a while back and have been repeatedly (but politely) requested by one incredibly persistent Big Country fan to repost them. Here are a few of them. I’ll try and put the rest up in the next few posts. Spoiler: “Wonderland” is one of the greatest songs ever written and you should like it.

Madonna
Celebration (Benny Benassi Remix)
Celebration (Benny Benassi Dub)
Celebration (Oakenfold Remix)
Celebration (Oakenfold Remix Dub)
Celebration (Johnny Vicious Club Remix)
Continuing in what will most likely be a multi-month/year posting spree of Madonna remixes. These are all from a 2×12″ single I picked up earlier this summer.

In additional Madonna news, I’m still working on part two of my guide to Madonna singles. It’s proving to be daunting. She put out a lot of freaking singles in the 90s you guys.

Posted in B-sides, Big Country, live, Madonna, N.E.R.D., remixes | 3 Comments »

Remixes From The Far Side (also, Pharcyde)

Monday, March 23rd, 2015

So a lot of people seemed to be interested in what it’s like to be gay in Tokyo, so I wrote about it. Read that if you’re interested.

And I got music here for you! Sorry for the lack of updates this month. Moving into a new apartment this month and things have been crazy busy.

The Pharcyde
Drop (Beatminerz Remix Instrumental)
Runnin’ (Jay Dee Remix)
Passin Me By (Video Instrumental)
Passin’ Me By (Acapella)
Pork (Instrumental)
I have a lot of Pharcyde remixes but it turns out that almost all of them are on their remix and rarities collection that you can buy on Amazon, so I’m not sharing them. Too bad, they’re really good! You should buy that remix collection. In fact, you should buy most Pharcyde albums – The Pharcyde is dope.

Sebadoh
Slinstrumental
A lovely quiet instrumental from a 10″ single I bought a few weeks back.

Big Audio Dynamite II
C’mon Every Beatbox (Extended Vocal Version)
So my boyfriend had never heard reggae before so I played some of the soundtrack to The Harder They Come From and then I remembered that this song sampled that movie and it got stuck in my head even while I was listening to “Many Rivers To Cross” because that’s how my brain works.

I am absolutely positive that I’ve posted this track many times before. But it’s one of my top ten favorite songs of all time so that’s going to happen.

Posted in B-sides, Big Audio Dynamite, remixes, Sebadoh, The Pharcyde | No Comments »

Prince San

Friday, January 16th, 2015

I bought another Hulk Hogan album. At least, he’s on the picture disc. Stay tuned for the horrors I might find within.

Prince
Mountains (Extended Version)
Alexa De Paris
Whenever I buy a Prince single I end up being entirely blown away by the everything of everything on it. I really need to buy more Prince albums.

This remix of “Mountains” is ten freaking minutes long. That’s 10 minutes of Prince at peak funk. Be careful while listening to it, that much Prince peak funk has been known to cause injuries.

“Alexa De Paris” is a guitar solo by Prince. If you need more information that to download it then I don’t know what the fuck is wrong with you.

Ryuichi Sakamoto & Robin Scott
The Left Bank
The Arrangement
Just About Enough
Once In A Lifetime
I’ve talked at length about Sakamoto on this blog before, so I’m not going to say anymore about him. But I assume most of you don’t know who Robin Scott is. At least, you probably don’t know him by his actual name.

Robin Scott is the dude behind the group M, meaning he is the person who brought us “Pop Music.” And now that song is stuck in your head and I apologize.

I don’t know how this collaborative effort with Sakamoto came to be, but I do know that it birthed a complete album, and not just the 12″ single from which I grabbed these tracks. I’ll have to find that sometime, as these songs are quite good. They kind of sound like mid-era Japan, which is not surprising at all, as Scott is doing his damnedest David Sylvian/David Bowie impression on these tracks.

Posted in B-sides, Prince, remixes, Robin Scott, Ryuichi Sakamoto | 4 Comments »

Transcontinental Remixes

Tuesday, December 16th, 2014

I’ve bought so much music the past two weeks I don’t know what to do with it. I mean, besides listen to it. I know I should probably listen to it. But you know what I mean.

Busy times! Apparently Japanese people want to learn English before New Year’s. At least that’s what it feels like, as I am hella busy with work at the moment. There was also an election this past week, so everyone was talking about it.

And when I mean “it” I mean they were talking about the “big erection.” I heard how the “erection is mostly for show” and that “older people mostly care about the erection.”

Pronunciation is important people! Just last week I was trying to teach how to schedule meetings and one of my students kept saying “I have a slut available around 1pm.”

The best is when their English is good enough so I can actually explain what they’re saying, then they get a laugh out of it too. While those kind of mistakes are fun, I do remember that these people can speak English far far better than I can speak Japanese, and that I can make my own pronunciation mistakes as well. For example, last week I was trying to say “you are good looking” in Japanese, but instead I ended up saying “you got a nice pussy.”

So yeah, mistakes happen.

Speaking of mistakes, I wrote about Seven Mary Three and Paw last week.

Björk
Bachelorette (RZA Remix)
Bachelorette (Mark Bell “Blue” Remix)
Bachelorette (Mark Bell “Zip” Remix)
Bachelorette (Mark Bell “Optimism” Remix)
My Snare
I got these mixes from a CD-single/VHS tape box set that I bought for about three bucks. That means that since I arrived in Tokyo I’ve bought CDs, LPs, VHS tapes and even a pair of cassette tapes. I know it’s just a matter of time before I go full dumbass and buy a freaking laserdisc or betamax tape. Sigh. Someone stop me before it’s too late.

Madonna
Bye Bye Baby (N.Y. Hip Hop Mix)
Bye Bye Baby (Madonna’s Night On The Club)
Bye Bye Baby (Tallahasee Pop)
Bye Bye Baby (Rick Does Madonna’s Dub)
I own over 60 Madonna singles now. Japan’s been a great place to find some of her lesser work, like this forgotten single from the Erotica album. I really love the effects they put on Madonna’s vocals for this tune. She sounds like she’s singing through a tin can, but in a cool way. I enjoy the club mix the most, although all the dance beats and effects layered onto it really make the vocals sound out of place.

Yellow Magic Orchestra
Firecracker (Main Mix)
Firecracker (Beats Mix)
Technopolis (The Readymade Darlin’ Of Discotheque Track Dub Version)
Okay, real talk. These remixes aren’t that great. But I was really committed to this “three continents of remixes in one post” idea that it got the better of me. Sorry.

Kinky Go
Gimme The Love (Vocal Version)
Gimme The Love (Instrumental)
Gimme The Love (Radio Version)
Special italo disco request for the Pope. Well, a dude named Pope. Not the pope. At least not yet.

Posted in B-sides, Bjork, Kinky Go, Madonna, remixes, YMO | 2 Comments »

Bad English and PWEI

Monday, July 21st, 2014

It was a three-day holiday weekend here in Japan – which means extra work for me. Yeah, I know it’s counter-intuitive, just roll with it okay?

As such, I’m beat, and I really don’t have a lot to say about tonight’s music other than that I like it, you should like it, and I hope you enjoy it. So instead, here’s a collection of bad English I’ve heard from students since I started working as an English instructor in January

  • “My daughter loved school, she pleasured herself.”
  • “I find pleasure in your lesson.”
  • “How long are you?” (I HEAR THIS EVERYDAY AND IT’S ALWAYS FUNNY)
  • “How much height do you have? I don’t have much height.”
  • “I am a trick!”
  • “I like to watch football, the play is very HOT!”
  • “I potato dinner.”
  • “I like black music!”

And the best things I’ve heard:

  • “You are big like Totoro, you are big and soft.” (AW FUCK THAT’S SOME CUTE SHIT)
  • “You are so great!” (He meant tall, but I didn’t stop him)
  • “I want to hear what you say about all music.”
  • “I need you to tell me what these Meat Loaf song titles mean.”

That last one was from a 68 year old woman by the way. Wagnerian rock lives in Japan.

Pop Will Eat Itself
Wise Up! Sucker (7″ Version)
Orgyone Stimulator
Can U Dig It (Riffsmix)
I can dig it. These come from the 12″ single to Wise Up! Sucker. The 12″ mix is on that, but you can get that on just about every digital music store, so grab it there instead.

New Order
New Order Megamix
Off a bootleg 12″ single. Don’t remember any of the details sorry.

Posted in B-sides, New Order, Pop Will Eat Itself, remixes | 2 Comments »

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