Today 80 ago Jim Morrison (December 8, 1943 – July 3, 1971) was born , his life like his music is very well documented, instead of running through his list of activities and of course each of the albums we can look at the last breath of greatness The Doors delivered.

LA Woman, the artistic height of the original Doors line up, whether at the time it was known or not, they had reached their height and before the wagon of fame rolled down hill, turning the band into a facade of what they originally were, there was one last album of splendor left in them and was to be a blues based affair with the twist of Morrison's lyrics and delivery.

Morrisons voice was strained by the alcohol abuse and the hefty lifestyle which had left him sounding three times his 27 years, like an old blues man hollering in a bar;
'I've been down do goddamn long...'

Looking at the front photo of the album a dead giveaway is noticed as this was the true group effort, Morrison in height looks less than any of his band members, bearded and blended into the album where the focus was not entirely on him, unlike the debut album and subsequent releases.

The journey to this point had only been a mere four-years, the same time most modern bands leave between albums, but The Doors managed to tour, write and release five other albums, this was to be their sixth and this is where it had all been leading, the compass of their art had led them to this very point.

A workshop was built for the recording, a two-story building at 8512-Santa Monica Boulevard.
Long time producer Paul Rothchild walked out early on in rehearsals, as legend goes, describing the studio rehearsal of 'Riders On The Storm' as cocktail music and a step back from all that was accomplished on Morrison Hotel
With Bruce Botnick now at the helm, recordings began at the workshop in December 1970 and would last right through until January ‘71.

The added in-house bass player for that extra live dynamic whereas guest bass players were nothing new to Doors albums, LA Woman was no exception.
For that one Jerry Scheff rounded out the band and played on every song, giving it that live as possible feel and adding to the roundness of the overall sound.
The blues numbers grooved and listening back now you hear the sound of musicians and the height of their game, effortless music flowing making every melody line memorable.

This raw sound created by the band made the final mix with very little overdubs used, except for keyboard lines and of course the thunder and lighting affect on “Riders On The Storm” the second single released, the first was the keyboard driven rocker “Love Her Madly”.

Both were well received as was the album in its entirety, the maturity and Morrisons deep immersion in the blues on tracks such as “Crawling King Snake” and of course the title track, this was the record to end on, to bow out with the same style that had steered their career.

While the mixing took place in February '71, Morrison went to France to take time out, there was going to be no tour for this album, morning he never returned, he died as mysteriously as he lived, found in a bathtub on the third-of July 1971 and buried three days later in division-six of Père Lachaise cemetery in Paris, sharing space with Oscar Wilde and Edith Piaf.

“Lions in the street and roaming
Dogs in heat, rabid, foaming
A beast caged in the heart of a city
The body of his mother
Rotting in the summer ground
He fled the town

He went down South and crossed the border
Left chaos and disorder
Back there over his shoulder

One morning he awoke in a green hotel
With a strange creature groaning beside him
Sweat oozed from it's shining skin
Is everybody in?
Is everybody in?
Is everybody in?
The ceremony is about to begin!”

DISCOGS

On 7th December it is 31 years ago that Nine Inch Nails released their Fixed EP (HALO6). Fixed is the sequel (remix) disc to the Broken EP (HALO5) which was released on 22nd September 1992. Guest remixers include Danny Hyde from Coil, J. G. Thirlwell (Foetus), Butch Vig (Garbage) and Chris Vrenna and James Woolley who both were members of the live band at the time.
The different, unusual, harsh and eclectic remix techniques used on this EP makes it sound like ear-candy for the noisy industrialists amongst us but it's also aneasy listening EP for the hard of hearing!

DISCOGS

Today, 5 ago, Pete Shelley the punk troubador left us.

Born Peter Campell McNeish in Lancashire, England he became central to the formation of the punk and new-wave movements.

Shelley formed Buzzcocks with Howard Devoto after the two met at Bolton Institute in 1975 and Buzzcocks debuted the following year in Manchester.

They released their first well received EP, “Spiral Scratch” on their own label, New Hormones. With a few false starts and Howard Devoto leaving the group Shelley was forced to take over duties as lead vocalist, main songwriter and main focus.

Buzzcocks soon became one of the most important bands on the late-seventies punk scene, releasing a dynamite fueled bunch of singles such as “Orgasm Addict", "What Do I Get?", and "Ever Fallen in Love (With Someone You Shouldn't've)".

The three long-players released are blueprints for the eighties new wave sound, “Another Music in a Different Kitchen” and “Love Bites” both in 1978 and “A Different Kind of Tension “ released the following year.

The most common album and most people’s audio entry into the world of Shelley and Buzzcocks was the compilation and punk masterpiece “Singles Going Steady”, though this was also the cause of friction between the band and publishing companyl Virgin, the band threw in the towel initially in 1981 although reuniting several times over the years and most recently with the 40th-anniversary shows on 2016

Shelley's debut solo album “Sky Yen” was recorded in 1974 but remained unreleased until early 1980 when it was released on 12" vinyl on Shelley's own Groovy Records, it remains an impressive dive into electronic music.

In 1981, Shelley released his first solo single “Homosapien", an almost autobiographical tale of his life, following on from this with the album of the same name along with follow-ups “XL1” and “Heaven and the Sea”.

He still remains an important figure of influence and will be sorely lost by a world who dance to “Ever Fallen In Love”.

Homosapien
Pete Shelley
I'm the shy boy, you're the coy boy
And you know we're Homosapien too
I'm the cruiser, you're the loser
Me and you sir, Homosapien too
Homosuperior in my interior
But from the skin out
I'm Homosapien too
And you're Homosapien too
And I'm Homosapien like you
And we're Homosapien too
And I think of your eyes in the dark
And I see the star
And I look to the light
And I might wonder right where you are
All the Gods in the sky, way up high
See the world spinning 'round
But the sun and the moon
And the stars are so far from the ground
I'm the shy boy, you're the coy boy
And you know we're Homosapien too
I'm the cruiser, you're the loser
Me and you sir, Homosapien too
Homosuperior in my interior
But from the skin out
I'm Homosapien too
And you're Homosapien too
And I'm Homosapien like you
And we're Homosapien too
And the worlds built of age are a stage
Where we act out our lives
And the words in the script seem to fit
'Cept we have some surprise
I just want this to last
Or my future is past and all gone
And if this is the case
Then I'll lose in life's race from now on
Homosuperior in my interior
But from the skin out
I'm Homosapien too
And you're Homosapien too
And I'm Homosapien like you
And we're Homosapien too
And I just hope and pray
That the day of our love is at hand
You and I, me and you
We will be one from two, understand?
And the world is so wrong
That I hope that we'll be strong enough
For we are on our own
And the only thing known is our love
I don't wanna classify you
Like an animal in the zoo
But it seems good to me to know
That you're Homosapien too
I'm the shy boy, you're the coy boy
I don't wanna classify you
Like an animal in the zoo
But it seems good to me to know
That you're Homosapien too
I don't wanna classify you
Like an animal in the zoo
But it seems good to me to know
That you're Homosapien too
I don't wanna classify you
Like an animal in the zoo
But it seems good to me to know
That you're Homosapien too

Kevin Burke 6/12/18

This day 47 years ago Jean-Michel Jarre released the electro-ambient masterpiece known as Oxygène (5 December 1976, Les Disques Motors / Polydor).

It was the French-composers first release which was not intended as a soundtrack, a front-runner in electronic music, the album which brought Jarre into the mainstream almost overnight was also overlooked in certain parts of the world upon release, as it coincided with the surge in the punk-movement but unmistakable in the delivery and synth advances.

Though it did go on to sell fifteen-million copies, a remarkable feat for an album without a singer, lyrics or even a guitar, in the nineteen-seventies this was almost unheard-of, Kraftwerk had incorporated guitar, drums and violins into their work as to did Tangerine Dream, then again these are bands and Oxygène was composed, constructed and produced by a single individual.

The modern-day Mozart created a landscape of sound embedded with his own unique charm, created through the VCS synthesizers, mellophonium, mellotron and programmed rhythms it was a complete electronic production unlike those of his counterparts such as Mike Oldfield, this was a record relying solely on technical advances. However, the studio used to record the album was Jean-Michel Jarre’s own kitchen in his apartment using an eight-track recorder,

Without a track-list as such only a breakdown of six-segments (Parts I-VI) the most famous of course the dance-floor filling “Part IV” released as a single in 1977 and going top-ten in most European-territories, this joyous crescendo is another instantly recognized piece of music.

The inspiration for the album came from a painting by Michel Granger, that painting adorns the album cover, instantly recognized , a precursor to the climate-change movement revealing death as the earth is ravaged, as resounding an image as it is, Jarre also foretold the future in the very-fresh sounding album.


Oxygène (Original 1976 Track List)

Side One
Oxygène (Part I) – 7:40
Oxygène (Part II) – 7:39
Oxygène (Part III) – 3:20
Side two
Oxygène (Part IV) – 4:03
Oxygène (Part V) – 10:26
Oxygène (Part VI) – 6:22

DISCOGS

45 years ago, on the 4th of December 1978 Industrial music pioneers Throbbing Gristle released their second studio album D.o.A: The Third and Final Report on their own label Industrial Records. Although, like the previous album The Second Annual Report, this album is also a mixture of recorded live and studio material, albeit more stylisticly varied.

From the first pressing of 3000 copies, the first 1000 mail-order copies came with a wall calendar featuring a little girl sitting on a bed (IR0004). In 1979 there was a reprint of another 1000 copies that were recut in such a way that it looked as if the album seemed to have 8 tracks of equal length on side one and 7 tracks of equal length, plus a very short eighth track, on side two. But patterns that appear in the groove do not match the actual song beginnings and endings so it was nicknamed ‘The DJ Confusion edition”. However it’s has been called 'Structuralist Spirals' edition in TG's official discography.

Another striking example of TG's contrarianism and anti-commercial attitude is that they put their first, and also one of their most accessible and successful singles, “United” on this album... but applied fast forward making the song last barely 16 seconds.

Nevertheless, the overall reception was positive and the album got from 3 to 4 star ratings by most renowned music magazines like, for instance, All Music and even a 9.5/10 score from Pitchfork Magazine. The album was also included in the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die.

D.o.A: The Third and Final Report (LP - IR00004)

Throbbing Gristle:

Genesis P-Orridge (†14.03.2020) – vocals, bass guitar, violin, effects, production

Cosey Fanni Tutti – lead guitar, effects, tape, production

Chris Carter – synthesizer, electronics, tape, production

Peter Christopherson (†24.11.2010) – tape, electronics, production

DISCOGS

FG 2021