Exit Lines: Off Key

As the Broadway season comes to its end Off Broadway…rolls along, to appropriate the title of one of a trio of shows currently playing away from the Main Stem.

The star attraction is Isabelle Huppert, ranting and raving as The Mother. An actress once noted for her stillness in the films of Claude Chabrol and other European auteurs has been getting her freak on recently, in movies like Greta and the Oscar-nominated Elle. She’s unbound and uninhibited once more in Florian Zeller’s play, a companion to The Father, for which Frank Langella won a Tony in 2016.

In that one Langella, stricken with dementia, was attacked by the constantly rearranging set as his memories faded in and out. In The Mother, Huppert attacks Mark Wendland’s set, which as the show opens is dominated by a long and fancy white sofa that seems to cage her. Anne (listed as “The Mother” in the Playbill) will bust out of its confines over its 90 minutes, as the anxieties of empty nest syndrome take its toll on her mental health. Peter, her husband (aka “The Father,” it’s that kind of show), tries to calm her, but his entreaties, coupled with her suspicion that he’ll be cheating on her during his impending business trip, have the opposite effect. Compared to his petite co-star the solid, sheepish Chris Noth is like an oak tree up there on the Atlantic’s stage, yet Anne cuts him down to size with her withering remarks and erratic behavior. 

As Anne drinks and pop pills “The Son” (Nicolas, played by Justice Smith) arrives, and mom seeks to possess him, or maybe seduce him. “The Girl” (Odessa Young) then slinks onto the scene, and Anne tries to compete for Nicolas’ affections by wearing the same revealing red dress she’s got on. Well, maybe; it could all be one substance-addled dream, and scenes are replayed from different perspectives, letting Huppert flail about as victim or villain. If all of this sounds weird rest assured that it isn’t, or it isn’t weird enough. There’s something very studied about The Mother, and all that eccentricity, even enacted by a master accompanied by clever lighting cues and projections and other production sleight of hand, becomes repetitive. Freud may be dead, but he and his fixations are unkillable. In a humorous irony the strongest and most mysterious element of the play occurs when its star is sitting on the couch, leafing through a book–which is to say, before The Mother actually begins, so get there early.

After 25 years of theatregoing I’ve finally seen productions of all of Stephen Sondheim’s major musicals. A flop in 1981, Merrily We Roll Along, (whose production and reception are recalled in the 2016 documentary Best Worst Thing That Ever Could Have Happened) eluded me despite a half-life of restagings, culminating (for now) in the Fiasco Theatre’s top-to-bottom “revisal” at the Roundabout. True to its title the troupe has, with Sondheim’s blessing, steamrolled over it, reducing it to one act and a handful of performers, making merry on a Derek McLane set that looks like the furniture shop in Arthur Miller’s The Price, now brimming with showbiz tchotchkes.

Not too merry–this is Sondheim, and the standards the show eventually birthed, including “Not a Day Goes By,” are slotted in amidst a funk of dashed hopes and unrealized ambitions. Based on a Kaufman and Hart play (this production pulled from other versions of the book, by Company scribe George Furth), the show begins in 1980, with self-satisfied movie producer and composer Frank (Ben Steinfeld), drunken critic Mary (Jessie Austrian), and others in their professional and personal circle revealed in all their self-satisfied shallowness. The show then goes back in time, ending in 1957, with the same characters (including lyricist Charley, played by Manu Narayan) enjoying the first flickers of hard-won success in the arts and toasting relationships that we know will corrode over the decades. Sondheim’s rueful “Old Friends” is an elegy to what’s been lost. (Backstage the generations have passed the baton: the show’s new orchestrations and arrangements, for an eight-member ensemble, are by Alexander Gemignani, the son of the show’s original musical director, Paul.) 

Under Noah Brody’s direction the show moves quickly–just not fast enough to disguise the thinness of the characterizations, which are at the mercy of the reverse chronology. (Beyond the song “Old Friends” we never get a sense why they were old friends, or lovers; all that registers are the disappointments.) That Fiasco’s players are more aspirational than satisfying as actors and singers magnifies the flaws of this well-meant staging. Sondheim loves puzzles; maybe he’s always intended Merrily We Roll Along to be a musical one, incapable of ever truly being solved. 

Courtesy of Classic Stage Company Marc Blitzstein’s The Cradle Will Rock is another one for my growing Glad I Saw That file. It is not, however, an argument for future revisits. Tim Robbins’ film Cradle Will Rock (1999) celebrated the 1937 debut of the show, which was directed by Orson Welles and produced by John Houseman under the auspices of the Depression-era Federal Theatre Project…and shut down by the Works Progress Administration on the eve of its Broadway bow, allegedly due to concern over its radical content. (The show would go on, with the two forming the legendary Mercury Theatre, and would yield the first cast recording in the bargain.)

Its tumultuous history has tended to obscure this “play in music,” an attack on capitalism run amuck, which is infrequently revived. You can see it in other shows: the more user-friendly Hadestown mixes mythology with politics, and Urinetown borrows its satirical elements for outright farce. But the semi-operatic, largely sung-through piece is something of a slog for much of the way, and casting performers in multiple roles doesn’t help. (It really doesn’t help that the characters represent talking points more than actual people.) Subtlety isn’t its strong suit: Foreman (Tony Yazbeck) arrives in Steeltown USA to unionize the workers against Mr. Mister (David Garrison), who from scene to scene uses his “liberty commitee” to devour all of the town’s enterprises, and principles, with handfuls of cash thrown about. Everyone, from the newspaper to the ministry, is on the take; can Foreman and his few allies, including the hooker Moll (Lara Pulver), save Steeltown’s soul?

In its final, more “musical theater” third, this staging begins to take hold, and I was moved by its close. The posturing, however, is hard to shake off, and for too long fine actors like Yazbeck, Pulver, and Rema Webb (who gets the most galvanizing number, an ode to the callously misused called “Joe Worker”) are locked into two dimensions. True to its origins John Doyle, the master minimalist behind revivals of Sweeney Todd and Carmen Jones, has given the show a threadbare, acoustic rendering, too much so: the actors are in rags and a piano works overtime, grinding out rather than accompanying the songs. Stuck in the muck and too rarely aspiring to beauty, this production of The Cradle Will Rock is so pinched even AOC might object.

Home Video Review: Industrial Accident: The Story of Wax Trax! Records

Starting this weekend, trendy music genres like trap, EDM, trance house, crunk, or whatever the hell else the kids are listening to these days will step aside while their dark overlord, Industrial Music, takes a fast and furious encore in the national zeitgeist. After making its way through the festival circuit for the past year, Julia Nash’s celebrated feature-length documentary, Industrial Accident: The Story of Wax Trax! Records, finally makes its way into home theaters with the official Blu-Ray/DVD release (April 16), and an accompanying soundtrack that’s out this weekend in time for Record Store Day.

Adding to the terror, Ministry will be performing a Wax Trax! era set list at select film screenings in Brooklyn, Toronto, Austin, San Francisco, and Los Angeles; the tour kicks off April 13 at the House of Vans in Chicago. A Q&A with Nash, Al Jourgensen, and other film participants will accompany these events. For people like me who grew up in and survived this era, Wax Trax! tickets are arguably the hottest score of the decade.

While I won’t be in attendance, parenting duties will keep me sleepless in Seattle, I have seen the film and can easily say it is must-see TV – not just for former scenesters, but for their kids who may be shocked to learn their parents were ever this edgy, dangerous, or cool.

Much like how last year’s Bad Reputation told the unlikely (platonic) love story of Joan Jett and her longtime producer/manager/BFF Kenny Laguna; a beautiful love story sets Industrial Accident into motion. The film begins with the discovery of a treasure trove of lost music and artifacts in a run down barn in Hope, Arkansas and steadily makes it way to Denver, then Chicago, and eventually around the world as the relationship between Jim Nash and Dannie Flesher unfolds.

The film nicely fills in a few hundred gaps in my understanding of a scene I was quite obsessed with at the time, but since there was no Internet in the mid to late 1980’s, and acts such as Pailhead, A Popular History of Signs, and Cassandra Complex weren’t splashed on the covers of mags like Smash Hits and No.1, my friends and I pretty much had to rely on fanzines, record store clerks, club DJs, and left of the dial radio hosts to turn us onto these bands.

Were the Revolting Cocks named after a chicken uprising or a nasty phallus? Did KMFDM really have it out for Depeche Mode? Was Wax Trax! Al Jourgensen’s vanity label similar to Prince’s Paisley Park? I need to know! Industrial Accident is the gateway to answering all of these questions and more.

My first taste of industrial music came from WMNF-FM in Tampa, Florida, courtesy of a post punk radio hosts Chris and EJ Ford; I taped their show every week and soon amassed quite the collection of the industrial classics that packed the dance floors on dark wave nights at the London Victory Club and Ybor City ‘s post-apocalyptic Pulse nightclub. By the time I landed at Kent State University in Ohio, Wax Trax! releases were regularly landing on the 1988 and 1989 new release pile at WKSR-AM. The Wax Trax! label alone warranted heavy rotation – if there were radio friendly mixes.

Until this documentary came out, I could not name a single member of KMFDM or Front 242; and while I could name every member of Revolting Cocks, I really had no idea who they were or what they looked like. Industrial Accident puts faces to the names; their first-hand accounts help fully explain how the scene took root and where it all went to hell.

Director Julia Nash (Jim’s daughter) tracks down virtually everyone who is still alive, along with people who inspired Jim and Dannie (members of Dead Kennedys, Bauhaus, and Throbbing Gristle) or those who took inspiration from their store or sonic output (Dave Grohl, Trent Reznor). Reznor, oddly enough, profited most from the scene, harnessing its most visceral and commercial elements into Nine Inch Nails’ debut Pretty Hate Machine.

I went to school with NIN’s founding drummer, Chris Vrenna, and one of my favorite memories was when a bunch of us (I’m pretty sure he was there) went to see Wax Trax! militarist dance band, Laibach, in Cleveland’s Flats district. Word got out in the Slovenian community that a band from the motherland was in town, so peppered into the crowd with the goth kids were elders in authentic garb, ringing bells instead of clapping. Most of them wound up on the dance floor at Lift soon after the show. I am grateful the movie includes Laibach, one of a few Trax-era bands still going strong, for I’ve always wondered just how the hell such a band came to be (Opus Dei is one of my fave albums of the era, featuring “Geburt einer Nation” the world’s most bizarre Third Reich anthem that turns out to be a loving cover of Queen’s ‘One Vision’).

Industrial Accident makes a good companion film to New Order Story and the fictionalized 24 Hour Party People, two movies that told the story of the rise and fall of Factory Records. Sadly, the “we have no contracts” independent spirit of both labels led to their ultimate demise, but this film and its soundtrack remind us of why it all mattered so much anyway.

Ministry’s brief sojourn to Arista Records where they released the dark pop classic, With Sympathy, is briefly alluded to in a blink and you missed it portion of the film – perhaps that story will have to wait for another documentary (suggested title, Without Sympathy: Bat Into Hell). But Uncle Al Jourgensen is front and center in this story, along with former member Paul Barker, to explain how major label money from both that deal and one with Sire Records also gave rise to a ton of the most beloved Wax Trax! acts. One of the most interesting segments in the film tells of a happy accident – collective failure to understand how Al’s pricey Fairlight sequencing machine worked – led to the creation of the propulsive rhythms that made the genre so sinister and danceable.

There’s a quote in the film – I forget who uttered its brilliance – “Nothing ends unless you say its over.” So perhaps, 2019 will usher in a new dawn for Industrial Music. My Life With The Thrill Kill Kult recently dropped a new album (In The House of Strange Affairs) and Meat Beat Manifesto will release Opaque Couché, their second new album in as many years, on May 10. Jourgensen’s metal version of Ministry has been raging against the machines of George W. and Donald J. for two decades now; perhaps this brief tour will re-ignite his desire to produce music angry kids of all ages can dance to. As his acoustic cover of the Dead’s ‘Friend of the Devil’ a while back proved Al can sing as well as he can scream. There’s millions to be made in the sonic ear candy space between Ministry’s early Wax Trax! hits and Pretty Hate Machine, someone’s got to make it, why not the godfather? Side note, writing this up for Popdose inspired me to plunge $80 into Ministry’s 7-disc Trax! Box (worth every penny).

In the meantime, the Industrial Accident soundtrack reminds us why we cared all along. Album highlight “Animal Nation” by Revolting Cocks is given a run for its money by powerful rarities and reissues by Ministry, Mussolini Headkick, KMFDM, Laibach and Thrill Kill Kult. The CD releases promises to include some mystery tracks; I will update this post as soon as I know what they are.

Pick up Industrial Accident: The Story of Wax Trax! Records on Blu-Ray or DVD April 16.

The Popdose Interview with Stine Bramsen of Alphabeat

They may play the bounciest dance pop this side of ABBA, but make no mistake, the members of Danish sextet Alphabeat take their band seriously. They turned down multiple offers that would have raised their profile on the global stage, and to hear co-singer Stine Bramsen explain it, she and her bandmates wouldn’t have done it any other way. Freshly reunited after a six-year hiatus, Alphabeat has signed their first US record deal (a mere 12 years after their debut album), and with Atlantic Records, no less, who promptly flew the band to Austin to showcase at South by Southwest. Popdose’s resident Alphabeat fan boy chatted with Bramsen about conquering America, and the importance of making sure the world knows that your pop band was not created in a boardroom.

 

How was South by Southwest?

South by Southwest was fun, and intense, and rowdy, and everything at once. It was so good to be back on the stage together. We were really nervous for the first time in many, many years, which was also a good feeling.

You also played there back in 2010, correct?

Yes, we did, so it was nine years later.

Have you played in any other American cities besides Austin?

We did have our own show in New York, I think it was the same week as when we went to South by [Southwest] last time. So people had actually traveled from so many different states to come see us, because…we hadn’t even released music [in the United States], so it was the really diehard fans who needed to see that show. Some of them had been on an airplane for five hours. We were very honored, yeah.

I have a two-part question for you. What was the most important thing you learned about yourself in the time between this album and the previous one, and what is the most important thing you all learned as a band between this album and the previous one?

Wow. Speaking for myself, I’ve learned that I can contribute in the songwriting, after practicing a lot with my solo project, and really narrowed down what I think is a good pop lyric, so I really feel much more empowered in the studio now, to write the songs with Anders [SG, Alphabeat co-lead singer] and Anders [Bonlokke, guitarist/keyboardist], and I pitch in much more. And I guess that leads me to what we’ve all learned, which is that right now we’re very focused on being a team, and everyone contributing, and putting something in this pot that ends up being the Alphabeat menu. [Chuckles] It’s so important for that energy, that makes us Alphabeat, that you can feel that we loved recording the songs, and really have fun doing what we do. We really try to put that energy down into the recordings right now.

You actually hinted at what I was about to ask you next, which is that the band has finally signed their first American record deal, but it’s not your first American record deal (Bramsen released an EP on Universal last year). How was your experience going through the American music machine as a solo artist?

It’s such a huge market, when you’ve grown up in Denmark. You don’t even expect anything to happen when you sign something in the US, because it’s just feels so massive. You do feel like you can disappear in a sea of so many talents. And it’s rough, but the UK market was rough as well. You know, if you don’t get your Top 10 single, you’re kind of out. So we got tough skin, I guess, being in the UK, and I think that’s good, now that we’re entering the US as well.

Let’s talk about “Shadows,” the new single. This has a more guitar-driven sound than your previous work.

Hmmm.

Is that a sign of things to come with the upcoming album?

Yeah, you might have a point there, because for us, it’s kind of like back to our roots, making the songs old school, on a guitar or a piano, saying, ‘I’ve got this really rough idea here. Can we try and finish it together?,’ instead of on our last album, where Anders and Anders were so protective of some of their ideas that we didn’t even get to hear them before they were almost done. They were more electronic, and everything made on a computer kind of thing. So this album is quite old school, and back to our band roots, and you will probably hear quite a lot of guitar on all of it.

Do they have a [release] date scheduled? The only thing I’m seeing is the fall.

A date?

Well, do they have a month scheduled for the album?

No, there isn’t a date yet, I’m afraid. I think we’re aiming for October.

When you signed the deal, weren’t you tempted to say, “What on earth took you so long?”

[Laughs] Yeah, a little bit, I guess. We are quite humble people, but I guess in our own little minds, we’d be thinking, ‘Well, it’s about time.’

The band had major label support overseas, and that’s the part I don’t understand. I’m surprised that they weren’t able to secure you an American deal sooner.

There were lots of strange timing things, and we hardly knew all those pieces. It’s something that we’ve talked with our manager about now, ‘What actually happened?’ We almost had a US deal at one point, but for some reason it fell through, because of one person who wasn’t sure, and then everyone suddenly wasn’t sure. And there were two managers, a Danish manager and a UK manager, and they couldn’t quite agree. Sometimes stuff like that ends up …little details like that end of being the reason that something doesn’t happen.

That must have been frustrating.

Yeah, it was frustrating, but at the same time, we stood at a point where we were like…we got asked if we wanted to go on tour with Katy Perry, to support her. And that was a great opportunity to try to enter the US scene, but that would also mean that we had to spend two more years promoting the album that we had already spent three years promoting in different countries. And we just really needed to get back in the studio and write some new stuff, some new material to talk about. We’d been talking about ‘Fascination’ for ages, telling the same stories over and over again, and answering the same questions. We felt that it was very important for our own motivation to get back in that studio. Sometimes timing is just, you know, tricky.

 Here’s the most jaw-dropping thing I took away from your discography: “Chess” was never released as a single. What?

[Laughs] Ah, you like that one.

I have a podcast, and I played that song on my very first show.

Awwww. I’m glad to hear that. That was one of the few songs that I was actually a co-writer on, so I have a special place in my heart for “Chess” as well.

I’m at the point in my questions where I was going to ask you about bits that I saw on your Wiki page, about these massive tours that you never did. You mentioned one of them, which was Katy Perry offering to bring you to the US, but there was another one involving the Spice Girls, which you turned down because you were worried that no one was familiar with the band yet.

Yeah, that was also a matter of timing. We were only just about to begin in Europe, especially the UK, and we just worried that people would misunderstand what we were about. If we started out supporting the Spice Girls, even though I was a huge fan of them as a teenager, they were a manufactured band, and it was so important for us that people understood that we were high school friends who decided to make a band, and we worked our asses off from the very beginning, and took one little step at a time. So yeah, it was tough for me to say no, I adored the Spice Girls. But I also knew that it was a good decision.

That is an excellent point. You wouldn’t want to give anyone even the faintest impression that you were somehow not real.

Exactly. Because that’s what makes Alphabeat unique. It’s pop music, but it’s still, like, a real band.

You will eventually tour the US, I’m hoping?

Yeah, hopefully. That’d be amazing.

I am very familiar with This Is Alphabeat, the international release of your first album, but last night I ordered the Danish version of Alphabeat, the one with the red cover where you all look like you’re about 12 years old, even the one with facial hair.

[Laughs hard]

What can I expect from the original recordings of those songs?

Oh, wow. Well, it’s probably going to sound even more real. We didn’t really know what we were doing, and that’s the charm of that album. We just recorded what we loved, and we didn’t have marketing skills, or any idea of how to promote music. We basically just made music, and loved doing it. And I guess you can hear that. “Boyfriend” sounds different, the first version. It kind of got pumped up in the UK, with [a new version produced by] Mike Spencer. I think there will also be songs that you’ve never heard before. If you want more details about that, I’m just outside the studio, and Anders will definitely remember better than me.

That’s all right. I did notice that there were quite a few tracks that didn’t make the other record. So wait are you recording right now?

Yeah, we’re trying to finish the album, so we meet up most days a week for some hours. And we’re doing a documentary as well.

Are you really?

Yeah, there’s a Danish TV station filming us, like, most of the time at the moment, so every time we do something they find interesting, they are here.

Wow. Well, I really appreciate you taking the time away to talk with us. The last thing I was going to ask you about was the Public Image Ltd. cover, and what inspired that. [Note: the band covered “Public Image” for the international release of This Is Alphabeat.]

Public Image Ltd. cover. I’m going to have to hand you over to Anders, because that was definitely his idea. One second. [Small Pause]

Anders [Note: we are not sure which Anders we are speaking to, but our money is on Mr. Bonlokke]: Hello! Stine was just next door, and you asked her about the Public Image Ltd. cover.

I did, yes.

I think it was because I saw a movie when I was younger, like, 100 times, maybe, that the song was in, and I didn’t really know the band, but I just really liked the song, and for the UK album, we just wanted something that was kind of the opposite of obvious. So we did this cover, and it was weird to do, in a way, but [asking someone nearby] did we play it live, ever? Okay. But on the other hand, the band used to do, more, like, guitar, maybe not like Public Image, but more in that direction, so in that way, it makes sense. It was just a song that for some reason I loved, so we did that.

Thank you for explaining that. I appreciate that.

Sure! [Hands the phone back to Stine]

Best of luck with the record. Maybe if you hit Chicago, that’s pretty close, we will try to make it up for that.

Okay, I’ll try to push that in. I’ve always wanted to see Chicago, so that makes sense.

Soul Serenade: Garland Green, “Jealous Kind Of Fella”

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about Danny White, a southern soul singer who toiled for years looking for a hit that proved elusive. This week, I’ll take a look at a singer who managed to find that hit, even reaching to Top 20 on one occasion, before fading from the memory of most people.

Garland Green was born in Mississippi, one or eleven children. He joined the great northern migration when he moved to Chicago at the age of 16. Green was still in high school when his singing talent came to the attention of Argia Collins, a local restaurateur. Collins became Green’s patron and paid for him to attend the Chicago Conservatory of Music where Green studied voice and piano.

While he was in school Green began to sing in the clubs around town and he won a talent contest at a place called the Trocadero. The win earned him the chance to open a show for Lou Rawls and Earl Hines. Joshie Jo Armstead was in the audience the night of the concert. Armstrong had written songs with Nick Ashford and Valerie Simpson and she saw something in Green. Armstrong arranged for Green to record in Detroit and the resulting single, “Girl I Love You,” found enough local success that MCA Records picked it up for national distribution on their Revue Records imprint.

Garland Green

Green recorded a few more singles for Revue before being moved up to MCA’s most prominent label, Uni Records. “Jealous Kind of Fella” was a song co-written by Armstead and Green along with R. Browner, and M. Dollinson. When the single was released in 1969 it raced up the charts, reaching #5 on the R&B chart and winning a Top 20 spot on the pop chart while selling a million copies. Unfortunately, the follow-up single, the oddly titled “Don’t Think I’m a Violent Guy,” failed to come anywhere near matching the performance of “Jealous Kind of Fella,” not even cracking the Top 100. That put an end to not only Green’s association with MCA but his partnership with Armstead as well.

Green landed at Cotillion Records, an Atlantic subsidiary. He released five singles for the label but only the Donny Hathaway-produced and arranged “Plain and Simple Girl” found any success. The single was a Top 20 R&B hit but again didn’t crack the pop Top 100. The lack of success led Green to depart Cotillion for Spring Records. There he released five more singles including “Let the Good Times Roll” (not the Shirley & Lee song), and “Bumpin’ and Stompin’.” None of the singles found anything more than minor success on the R&B chart which led Green to yet another label, RCA.

At RCA, Green released three more singles and an album that was produced by Leon Haywood. The search for another hit continued to come up empty for Green. He moved to California in hopes of changing his luck. There he recorded for an indie label called Ocean-Front Records. The album that Green released for the label was co-produced by Lamont Dozier but only the single “Trying to Hold On to My Woman,” a song that had been a hit for Dozier a decade earlier, found any traction, reaching #63 on the R&B chart.

There was no quit in Green, however. He continued to record and release his own records until 2011 when he signed a new record deal with a subsidiary of CDS Records called Special Soul Music. The following year, Green released his first album of new material in 29 years, the appropriately titled I Should’ve Been the One. Indeed.

Radio City With Jon Grayson & Rob Ross: Episode One Hundred Five

Radio City With Jon Grayson & Rob Ross:  Episode One Hundred Five

From the duo that doesn’t know when to slow down, Jon and Rob are at it again, with another inspired, interesting and enlightening conversation!  This week’s discussion includes the horrific taping of a man beating a homeless woman on the New York City subway; everyone’s automatic reaction to Robert Mueller’s findings; the complete misappropriation of language due to the semantic drift of the younger generation’s love for buzzwords; the start of spring weather, Paul Weller’s incredible Other Aspects album and DVD and of course, the ever-lovin’ “In Our Heads”.

Another fine time investment; another fun chat between two people who know what’s going on and how to bring it to you with honesty and humor.  So make yourself comfortable and give yourselves over to Radio City…  for another week’s education…

Radio City With Jon Grayson & Rob Ross: Episode One Hundred Five

The podcast will be on the site as well as for subscription via iTunes and other podcast aggregators. Subscribe and let people know about Radio City, as well as Popdose’s other great podcasts David Medsker’s Dizzy Heights and In:Sound with Michael Parr and Zack Stiegler.

Dizzy Heights #54: Watch the World Argue – Songs About Dancing

I’ve been sitting on this idea for about a year. It felt too obvious, but then I ran into a really busy stretch, and then suddenly obvious sounded AWESOME. So here we are.

 

A word of warning: Springsteen, The Bee Gees, The Hooters, Walk the Moon, etc. aren’t here. I even left out Q-Feel, much to my wife’s chagrin. If you’re really jonesing for that one, though, check out Show #33.

 

Second word of warning: there is a four-song block that should come with a Parental Advisory sticker, so if you’re listening to this with little ones around, you might want to hit Pause around the 90-minute mark.

 

Artists making their Dizzy Heights debuts this week: Johnny Rivers, Re-Flex, Leo Sayer, Sparks (I…I have no words), Van Halen (even fewer words), The Wombats, The Holloways, The Black Kids, Bread, Violent Femmes, and Flight of the Conchords.

 

Thank you, as always, for listening.

Radio City With Jon Grayson & Rob Ross: Episode One Hundred Four

Radio City With Jon Grayson & Rob Ross:  Episode One Hundred Four

Now that the boys are back at full throttle, buckle up because this is the 2 year anniversary show!  Rob and Jon made sure they packed this episode with a lot of food for thought so no one would go hungry.  

Some tense topics; some ponderous ones and some downright funny moments, listen in as they dissect the Jussie Smollett pleads of not guilty to 16 felony counts; the laughable college bribery scandal; Bryce Harper to the Phillies; the highly distasteful fait accompli for the construction of a homeless shelter down the street from Rob seems to be going ahead without the consideration and HIGHLY VOCAL protestations of the entire neighborhood and Community Board, “In Our Heads” and still more!

 
Yes, this is one to pour a glass of wine, kick back and get comfortable as you’re going on a ride that you will undoubtedly enjoy, as much as Rob groove on bringing it to you.

Radio City With Jon Grayson & Rob Ross: Episode One Hundred Four

The podcast will be on the site as well as for subscription via iTunes and other podcast aggregators. Subscribe and let people know about Radio City, as well as Popdose’s other great podcasts David Medsker’s Dizzy Heights and In:Sound with Michael Parr and Zack Stiegler.

Soul Serenade: Curtis Mayfield — Keep On Keeping On

Curtis Mayfield was 14 years old when he joined the group that would become the Impressions. He was born in Chicago in 1942 and by the time he was seven, he was singing in the church’s gospel choir with a group called the Northern Jubilee Gospel Singers. Mayfield became friends with Jerry Butler in high school and in 1956, he joined Butler’s group, the Roosters. The other members of the group were the brothers Arthur and Richard Brooks. Two years later, the group changed their name to the Impressions and added Sam Gooden to the lineup.

The Impressions had an early smash with Butler singing lead on “Your Precious Love” and it was enough to motivate Butler to leave the group to start a solo career. Mayfield followed him and co-wrote and played on Butler’s solo hit “He Will Break Your Heart.” But Mayfield wasn’t interested in being a sideman and soon returned to the Impressions who had replaced Butler with Fred Cash. It was the classic Impressions lineup of Mayfield, Gooden, and Cash which signed with ABC Records and released a string of hits which began in 1961 with “Gypsy Woman” and continued with “I’m So Proud,” “It’s Alright,” “Keep on Pushing,” “Amen,” “We’re a Winner,” and “Choice of Colors,” which would be the last hit that Mayfield recorded with the Impressions.

After 14 years with the group, Mayfield left the Impressions to start a solo career. That is where Keep On Keeping On, the new box set from Rhino Records begins. Rhino has lovingly collected Mayfield’s first four solo albums to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the start of Mayfield’s solo career and to mark the 20th anniversary of his death. The set begins with Mayfield’s first solo album, Curtis, which was released in 1970 and reached the Top 20 on its way to becoming a Gold Album. Curtis includes the hit singles “If There’s a Hell Below, We’re All Going to Go,” and “Move on Up.” In addition to its commercial success, Curtis was one of the most influential albums of its time, inspiring later socially conscious work by Marvin Gaye and Stevie Wonder.

Curtis Mayfield - Keep On Keeping On

A year after his successful debut as a solo artist, Mayfield returned with Roots, which reached the Top 10 on the R&B chart. While not quite as successful as the debut, Roots scored with hits like “Get Down,” “Beautiful Brother of Mine,” and “We Got to Have Peace.” Mayfield’s next effort, which is not included in this set because it was not a true solo album, was his incredibly successful soundtrack for the film Super Fly. The album went to #1 on both the pop and R&B charts and pushed two singles, “Freddie’s Dead,” and “Superfly” into the Top 10.

In 1973, Mayfield released his third proper solo album, Back to the World. The album topped the R&B chart and returned Mayfield to the Top 20 on the pop albums chart. The album’s hit singles included “Future Shock,” “If I Were a Child Again,” and “Can’t Say Nothin’.” Mayfield’s fourth solo album and the final one collected in this set was released in 1974. Sweet Exorcist came within a whisker of the top spot on the R&B chart, settling at #2 and also found Top 40 success on the pop chart. The album’s success was driven by two hit singles, the title track, and “Kung Fu.”

Keep On Keeping On ends with the Sweet Exorcist album but fortunately, Mayfield’s career did not. He continued to record into the 1990s and standout albums from this period included Sparkle (1976) and Heartbeat (1979). “So In Love,” released in 1975, was the last Mayfield single to hit the pop chart but records like “Only You Babe” (1976), “You Are, You Are” (1978), and “She Don’t Let Nobody (But Me)” (1981), continued to find success on the R&B chart. In all, Mayfield scored more than 30 solo hits on the R&B chart to go along with a similar number of R&B hits during his time with the Impressions.

On August 13, 1990, Mayfield was paralyzed when a lighting rig fell on him during a show in Brooklyn. The accident ended his career as a guitar player but he could still write songs and sing, something he did to great effect on his final album, New World Order, in 1997. Mayfield died of complications from diabetes in 1999.

Curtis Mayfield is remembered for introducing social activism into soul music. The Impressions hits “Keep On Pushing,” “People Get Ready,” and “We’re A Winner” became anthems of the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s and were often used by Martin Luther King to inspire marchers. Mayfield and the Impressions were inducted into the Vocal Group Hall of Fame in 1995 and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1991 (he was also inducted into the Rock Hall as a solo artist in 1999, one of a handful of double inductees). He received a Grammy Legend Award in 1994 and a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1995. Just before he died, Mayfield was elected to the Songwriters Hall of Fame.