This month forty-years ago Blondie released their punk-pop crossover in the danceable “Heart Of Glass”, although eventually reaching the number one slot in both the U.K and U.S charts later in the year along with grabbing top spots in five other countries. The days of Blondie being simply a cult New York act ended and instead was replaced by mainstream stardom.
A perfect slice of disco was the release that would secure the legacy of Blondie, although not a new track its roots hail back to the mid-seventies. Inspired in some way by the dance floor filler “Rock The Boat”, it did appear on the bands seventy-eight release ‘Parallel Lines’, in-fact ‘Heart Of Glass’ was the third release from the very successful album.
‘Heart Of Glass’ was the result of Debbie Harry’s lyrics and Chris Steins experimentation, far from the sound which echoed within the walls of CBGB’s at the time.
Chris Stein:”When Debbie and I were living in our top-floor apartment at 48 W. 17th St., I often messed around on a borrowed multitrack tape recorder. It let me record a rhythm guitar track and then layer melody and harmony lines on top. I wrote and developed my songs this way. In the summer of 1974, I wrote a song and referenced the catchy feel of “Rock the Boat” by the Hues Corporation, which was a big hit then. Debbie and I began calling it “The Disco Song.”
Debbie Harry:”The words I came up with expressed a very high school kind of thing, of falling in and out of love and getting your feelings hurt. But instead of dwelling on the pain, the words sort of shrugged off the breakup, like, “Oh, well, that’s the way it goes.”
Blondie did come under fire for selling out as it was seen, although, they had covered 'Lady Marmalade' and 'I Feel Love' at gigs, even Debbie Harry proclaimed her love for disco's production superhero Giorgio Moroder, in the scheme of Blondie’s music this was a natural progression for the band.
The sound of Blondie hinged very much on the raw punk sound combined with R&B and the girl groups of the sixties such as the Shangri-Las, given the heights which German krautrock had on music in general by crossing that commercial barrier, unknowingly or not, Blondie and the song itself did help pave the way for EDM and the the future.
Lyrics;
Once I had a love and it was a gas
Soon turned out had a heart of glass
Seemed like the real thing, only to find
Mucho mistrust, love's gone behind
Once I had a love and it was divine
Soon found out I was losing my mind
It seemed like the real thing but I was so blind
Mucho mistrust, love's gone behind
In between
What I find is pleasing and I'm feeling fine
Love is so confusing there's no peace of mind
If I fear I'm losing you it's just no good
You teasing like you do
Once I had a love and it was a gas
Soon turned out had a heart of glass
Seemed like the real thing, only to find
Mucho mistrust, love's gone behind
Lost inside
Adorable illusion and I cannot hide
I'm the one you're using, please don't push me aside
We could've made it cruising, yeah
Yeah, riding high on love's true bluish light
Once I had a love and it was a gas
Soon turned out I had a heart of glass [radio version]
Soon turned out to be a pain in the ass [album version]
Seemed like the real thing only to find
Mucho mistrust, love's gone behind
In between
What I find is pleasing and I'm feeling fine
Love is so confusing there's no peace of mind
If I fear I'm losing you it's just no good
You teasing like you do.
Kevin Burke January 2019
Stein/Harry quotes courtesy of WSJ
New York, both the backdrop and inspiration to some of Lou Reed's finest work, from the Velvet Underground's debut and right through his solo work,with the exception of the hard listening,and at times upsetting 'Berlin' album.
In 1989 however, Reed stunned both critics and fans with the release of the loose conceptual album simply titled 'New York'.
This was Reeds finest album as a solo artist and nobody seen it coming,having released albums of moderate appeal but poor reviews in the 1980s.
After his clean up and stint in rehab Reed was written off as a has been, hanging onto the shirttails of cult success with the Velvet Underground, which at this point was at its highest.
As the decade closed however Reed found himself on the cusp of both artistic integrity with mainstream success. The fourteen track album,a journey through the grime and good of New York City, cited as an almost spoken novel weighted in at a little under an hour ,with minimal production to add to the raw sound ,this was Lou Reed at his very best.
A band made up of two guitars,bass and drums,the vehicle he thrived on to snarl his vocals over both sides of the record,indeed ex-Velvet Mo Tucker contributed drums on parts of the album.
The sudden change and obvious maturity that fired Reed can be contributed to by two factors,or two losses rather,the death of Andy Warhol in February 1987 during a routine gallbladder surgery.
Warhols was of course the one time artistic guru of Reeds who not only encouraged his dark , twisted songwriting but influenced it and his ex-Velvets bandmate and muse Nico who suffered a heart attack and died in July 1988 in Ibiza.
These two losses in a short space of time made Lou Reed question his own mortality, instead of grieving he in turn threw himself into his songwriting, evident in the song cycle that this is clearly a man who had seen it and done it all and was now launching himself at the top of his game with an almost rebirth.
The album stutters to a start with one of Reed’s greatest songs,'Romeo Had Juliette', here he clearly sets the scene and prologues all that is to come;
"Caught between the twisted stars the plotted lines the faulty map
that brought Columbus to New York".
This vivid imagery used very easily paints pictures in the listeners mind in almost fictional noir movie.
The second single release ,'Dirty Boulevard’ reached the top of the modern rock U.S Billboard charts, a song starkly pointing the divide between the rich and poor of New York,but again widely praised and receiving airplay both through FM and MTV, this was not selling out however, grunge was right around the corner and Reed was already lighting the fires hailing the clever lyrics and guitar driven raw music which was to come.His friend and one time collaborator David Bowie,was already working in the same direction with the cyberpunk of Tin Machine.
The song subjects are both stark and nostalgic and at times the imagery can become overpowering, he keeps it together however through the pumping sound being delivered,'The last great American whale', Reed hits out at both the NRA and the treatment of native Americans,fearlessly without hiding either fact;
"The mayor's kid was a rowdy pig
spit on Indians and lots worse,
The old chief buried a hatchet in his head
life compared to death for him seemed worse".
Halfway through the album you soon discover that Reeds newfound leather skinned,sobriety suits him,a fact pointed to on the third single release ‘A Busload Of Faith', it's not a song of regret but more so of acceptance and the importance of his own life;
"You can't depend on your drinking,
You can't depend on your dope".
At last Reed was living up to the cult image created through his groundbreaking and highly influential releases with the Velvet Underground, this new found energy would continue right up until his death in 2013, leaving behind a more worthwhile legacy for a man who through his work in the 60's inspired more bands than the Beatles.
Kevin Burke 1/01/19
On this day, 30 years ago, Nitzer Ebb released their second studio album Belief!
On this day, 30 years ago, Nitzer Ebb released their second studio album Belief. On this album, released by Mute Records and produced by Flood, drummer Julian Beeston took over from David Gooday.
The album features one of NEB's most know dancefloor classics, Control I’m Here. This single was released almost three months before whilst the video got frequent rotation on MTV. Later that same year, the singles Hearts & Minds and Shame followed. The track T.W.A. is said to be inspired by the 1985 hijacking of TWA flight 847. While listening very carefully one can hear a crowd chanting ”Marg Bar Amrika' which means 'Death to America”.
Belief
Mute Records - STUMM 61
Released: 9 January 1989
Track listing:
- Hearts & Minds 3:45
- For Fun 3:03
- Control, I'm Here 3:52
- Captivate 3:57
- T.W.A. 5:00
- Blood Money 4:29
- Shame 4:03
- Drive 5:07
- Without Belief 4:16
It is hard for people to comprehend what music would be like without the influence of “The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars”, even harder again to comprehend life simply without David Bowie.
The effect on music that album has had pulses through even today's releases forty six years later.
One compact disc remaster had one of the most honest statements made by a record company, sometimes known to embellish how good a release actually is, it reads: 'Whether you know it or not, this album changed your life!’
On July the 6th 1972, at 7:30 pm, a time before video recorders, without Sky Plus, we can pinpoint precisely what the likes of Morrissey, Ian Curtis, Ian McCulloch,Gary Numan, Johnny Lydon, Boy George and Adam Ant were doing.
They were watching David Bowie on Top Of The Pops performing the song 'Starman', dressed as a Punk-rainbow astronaut with a red mullet, looking like something that arrived from another universe, draping his arm across Mick Ronson's shoulder in a bromance meets almost homoerotic display. This must have sent quivers through the stiff upper lip post war generation.
What the kids must have thought, when Bowie pointing at the camera sang the line;
'I had to phone someone so I picked on you'.
It only took those four minutes to transform David Bowie from a meandering folk style artist to the most scandalous rock star Britain ever produced.
The future had finally arrived, every kid who watched that performance felt their calling to become a musician.
In some respect this was the musical equivalent of a 'JFK' moment, an event which resonated around the world, a time engrained in peoples minds.
The kids who felt like outsiders, bullied or teased, now had their messiah, their role model and their friend when they felt alone.
'Let the children lose it,
Let the children use it,
Let all the children boogie.'
The album itself, “The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars', released a month before the Top Of The Pops performance is an unequivocal masterpiece, one of those rarities where every track could be a single, no filler.
From the slow drum intro of 'Five Years' to the last orchestral breath of 'Rock N Roll Suicide', this is the album which would define what the decade was to become.
Bowies previous two albums with Mick Ronson,the garage rock 'Man Who Sold The World' and the mixed folk-pop-rock of his 'ode to influences' album 'Hunky Dory', were merely paving the way for what was to come.
The lineup of The Spiders made up by Ronson, Trevor Bolder on bass and Mick Woodmansey on drums.
As for the album itself produced by Bowie along with Ken Scott, some complained that it didn't sound heavy enough, the drums flat and the guitar at times not loud enough, without realising this was the intention.
As it was a glam rock album made by Ziggy and the Spiders, not by David Bowie.
The character 'Ziggy Stardust',a composition of two of Bowies influences, Iggy Pop and the musician and LSD lunatic the Legendary Stardust Cowboy(Norman Carl Odam).
Ziggy became Bowie's alter ego and vehicle for the very loose concept album based on a bisexual alien landing to earth, who became a famous rock star and was eventually killed by his fans.
In some ways Bowie saw Ziggy as a mirror image of himself,
“Ziggy played in left hand”-the mirror image of Bowie,a right handed guitar player.
A dangerous mix for Bowie as the line between art and reality would sometimes become blurred and drive him to the depths of insanity. This may explain the short longevity of the Ziggy character.
The song cycle itself is strong and there again is evidence of tributes to other musicians, such as the song “Lady Stardust” a tribute in sorts to Marc Bolan,the pair friends aswell as competitors.
A surreal opener opener in “Five Years”, the time the earth had left before its destroyed, the very reason Ziggy is sent to earth is to save it, but, instead he becomes a rock star.
This flows into “Soul Love”, what the Alien sees his fate as being,and his reasons for his saving the human race. All very sci-fi,and 'Moonage Daydream', a song which describes all parts of the Alien is in fact one of the best examples of Bowies cut and shut lyrics,where he would once write lines out individually(cut them out and arrange them until they formed some sense);
“I'm an Alligator,I'm a mama-papa”.
“Suffragette City”, mixture of themes from the book 'A Clockwork Orange', again the sci-fi future is touched upon, but here he also ask questions of his own sexuality.
But what holds the album together are the steady glam rock songs which lightens the sci-fi themes making the album more accessible, “Hang onto yourself”, “Star” and the cover version “It Ain't Easy”.
These are the perfect non-complicated songs to break the serious mood and prevents the album turning into a meandering concept mess.
The albums closer,and one of Bowie's strongest songs is “Rock And Roll Suicide”, this closes the album by detailing the character Ziggy Stardust's implosion and becoming a burnt out,washed up rock star.
'You're too old to lose it, too young to choose it
And the clock waits so patiently on your song
You walk past a cafe, but you don't eat when you've lived too long
Oh, no, no, no, you're a rock 'n' roll suicide'
All the while the other band members and his ego are trying to tell him how he's not finished, 'You're not alone!' and he reminisces about the legions of fans he once had;
“Gimme your hands,cause you're wonderful'.
The perfect closer, the perfect end to the Ziggy Stardust saga.
David Bowie would continue changing styles from soul to electronic music, he would create better albums but none would ever be as appealing as the one surrounding his first alter-ego character Ziggy.
Kevin Burke Dec ‘18
Norwegian visionary artist MORTIIS proudly announces his return to North America in 2019! The godfather of dungeon synth is set to embark on a 10-date trek from March 28th to April 7th 2019.
After playing in Europe (including several festivals), Russia, Australia, Mexico and South America, MORTIIS will perform his Era 1 material in the USA and Canada for the first time in almost 20 years.
"It’s been almost 20 years since I toured the US under the Era 1 version of Mortiis, so it seems like it’s about time to do it again. I’ve been traveling around Europe and parts of the rest of the world, performing the re-invented ‘Ånden som Gjorde Opprør’ (The Rebellious Spirit) album, and at long last I’m bringing it over to North America as well".
MORTIIS 2019 US TOUR
Mar. 28 - Baltimore MD
Metro Gallery
Mar. 29 - New York NY
Brooklyn Bazaar
Mar. 30 - Worcester, MA
The Raven
Mar. 31 - Montreal QC
Petit Campus
Apr. 01 - Toronto ON
Velvet Underground
Apr. 02 - Joilet, IL
The Forge
Apr. 04 - Seattle, WA
El Corazon
Apr. 05 - Portland, OR
Hawthorne Theatre
Apr. 06 - Oakland CA
Oakland Metro
Apr. 07 - Los Angeles CA
Lodge Room
