New Wave for the New Week #104 BONUS ENTRY! BY REQUEST!

[All throughout the month of November, all NW4NW entries are based on requests made by you, dear readers. Because of the amount of requests received, there will often be more than one entry per week during this month - I recommend signing up for email alerts on the left-hand side of the screen so that you don't miss any of the fun! I cannot take anymore requests for this month, but please always feel free to suggest bands you might like to see featured in future NW4NW posts. You may do so either in the comments section of this post, on Twitter, or on the Facebook Fanpage.]

This entry in the New Wave for the New Week Series marks a departure from the usual: today's is the first post in the series to feature a movie instead of a band.

My old friend Gil Smart reviews both national and local politics in his always excellent Smart Remarks column for Lancaster Newspapers, as well as authoring the blog of the same name. While Gil and I seldom agree politically, we often find common ground when it comes to music.  It surprised me, then, when Gil admitted to never having actually seen the New Wave era's equivalent to the movie version of Woodstock, the cult classic concert film Urgh! A Music War! 

Urgh! is as perfect a time-capsule of the New Wave as could be created.  30+ bands recorded live in 1980, presented in seemingly random succession with no narration, no explanation, and no context save for the immediate comparison to the other bands who appear in the film.  Each act is seen performing one song except for The Police, who open the film with a gripping version of "Driven To Tears" and end it with a sing-along medley of "Roxanne" and "So Lonely."  Indeed, at the time of the movie's 1981 release, The Police were likely the most well-known group in the lineup (the only other "name" act at the time would have been Devo; The Go-Go's and Joan Jett & The Blackhearts had yet to break big).  Their featured status in the film had less to do with that, however, than it did with who produced the movie.

Urgh! was the brainchild of Miles Copeland, brother of Stewart Copeland, drummer for The Police.  Miles Copeland had founded the influential indy label Illegal Records in the UK, which soon was renamed I.R.S. Records in the States.  I.R.S. had a distribution deal with A&M Records, which in turn meant that the artists featured in Urgh! were largely plucked from the I.R.S. and A&M rosters.  The bands ran the gamut from big name (Wall Of Voodoo, Orchestral Manouevres In The Dark, The Cramps) to no-name (the mysterious Invisible Sex is a band that no one seems to know much about outside of their appearance here); from the laid-back reggae of Steel Pulse to the hardcore punk of The Dead Kennedys; from the piano-bar standard of Jools Holland to the avant-garde loopiness of Pere Ubu.  In each case, the music is left to speak for itself, and certainly some performances have aged better than others.  What stands out is that everyone was so young at the time, and full of enthusiasm.  If there is any throughline tying it all together, it is that combination of energy and naivete that exudes from each band.  This was yet another generation who thought they could change the world with music, captured here before being jaded by the realities of the business.

The film itself exists in a few different forms: when originally released for its brief theatrical run, the movie clocked in at 94 minutes.  The VHS and Laserdisc (remember those?) releases to the public include ten additional performances cut from the theatrical release, bringing the running time up to 124 minutes.  During the 1980s, Urgh! was shown with some regularity on the USA Network's old overnight music and pop culture program Night Flight; the version USA aired was sometimes padded with even more footage that had not been originally filmed for the movie. 

For many years, the movie was unavailable unless you either owned (or were willing to pay big bucks for) the VHS release or you still had a working Laserdisc player.  It simply was not to be had on DVD, no doubt due to licensing issues (recent occasional theatrical showings have had to excise Gary Numan's performance of "Down In The Park," as he has apparently not been forthcoming with a signed release.)  Finally, in late 2009, Warner Archives gave the film a legitimate, if lacking, DVD release: it's actually a DVD-R burned to fill each order. The film was not remastered or cleaned up in any way, nor are there any special features beyond the original trailer for the film.  Worse, the DVD chapters are not synced with the performances, but rather only serve to fast-forward ten minutes at  a time. On top of all that, the performance by the UK band Splodgenessabounds is inexplicably cut from the DVD version.  Purchase at your own risk.

Rumors persist that, in actuality, three songs were filmed for each act, and that this footage is collecting dust in a vault somewhere.  If this is true, consider the incredible DVD box set that could be put together by the proper curators!

In addition to the film variations, a soundtrack was released, originally as a two-record set, in 1981, featuring all but 8 of the VHS version's performances.  The vinyl can still be found affordably on eBay and Amazon; the briefly issued and now out-of-print CD release fetches huge dollars.

Urgh! A Music War! was an important film if for no other reason than to serve as window to a time when, as one friend of mine likes to say, New Wave really was a wave.  Both the VHS and the soundtrack are well worth digging up.  To give you a taste, I've chosen four of my favorite performances from the movie.  Rather than tell you about them, I'll just let you watch and let the clips speak for themselves, as the movie intended.   Gil, thank you for an outstanding request!

R.I.P. Michael Been (1950-2010)

Michael Been, lead singer of The Call, passed away yesterday after suffering a massive heart attack backstage at the Pukkelop Music Festival in Hasselt, Belgium.  He was only 60 years old.

At the time, Been was working as a sound engineer for his son's band, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, but his greatest fame came as the frontman for a band that more than one critic described as an "American U2."   While always respected from within the music industry (Peter Gabriel, Robbie Robertson and even Bono himself were counted among their fans), The Call never quite reached the level of commercial success that their potential seemed to warrant.  They touched the brass ring a few times, however: bolstered by heavy airplay on MTV, 1983's classic "The Walls Came Down" reached the lower rungs of the Top 40; during the 2000 Presidential Campaign, candidate Al Gore used The Call's 1989 single "Let The Day Begin" as his theme song.

Been also dabbled in acting, most notably playing the role of the Apostle John in Martin Scorsese's 1988 film The Last Temptation of Christ.

Among my circle of friends, The Call did achieve their rightful status as superstars.  I was only a sophomore in high school when "The Walls Came Down" hit the airwaves, but from the start it found a home on my short list of all-time great songs.  With its hummably insistent riff (da-da-da-DA, da-DA-da), great lyrics, and four-note guitar solo, the song became a favorite among not only my clique, but most everyone I know who has ever heard it.

The album from which it came, Modern Romans, is as good an introduction to the band as you'll find.  Side One is nearly perfect, with "Walls," "Turn A Blind Eye", "Time Of Your Life" (Been does a scarily accurate Jim Morrison on that one), the title track, and the stark "Back From The Front," its a flawless setlist.  Side Two starts to show evidence of The Call's fatal flaw: they tended to load their LPs front-heavy with the best material, with the weaker tunes closing out.  Rather than mixing the filler in to allow context to bring the best out of it, this approach tended to underscore the lesser songs.  The lone exception was 1986's Reconciled, which found that proper mix (although it still led with its strongest track, "Everywhere I Go.")

When they hit their mark, however, no other band could hold a candle to them.  They released eight albums in total, calling it quits after 1990's Red Moon.

In honor of Michael Been, I've chosen the clip for "The Walls Came Down."  (The clip cannot be embedded here, so please follow the link to YouTube when you click on the image below.) You'll spot The Band's Garth Hudson guesting on keyboards here, and you'll be singing the riff in your head for weeks. Goodbye Michael. You will be missed.

New Wave for the New Week #32

Image via Wikipedia

Like so many of the New Wave acts who became big crossover pop stars, The Human League had actually been around for several years before achieving international chart success with 1981's million-selling "Don't You Want Me?" single. Although that song essentially set the template for mainstream synthopop to come, (can you imagine Men Without Hats existing without having heard that dun-dun-d'dundun keyboard riff?), it had taken Phil Oakey three years of studio noodling, tape manipulations, and electronic experimentation, as well as a complete overhaul of the band's lineup, to find that sound.

And, like so many of the New Wave acts who became big crossover pop stars, The Human League managed a few more enjoyable tunes before succumbing to the Music Industry's demand for another massive hit single and sliding into MOR pop schmaltz (remember their last hit, "Human"?)

Their early work remains fascinating, and at times difficult to listen to. Beginning as a rather somber trio of Oakey, Martin Ware and Ian Marsh, they created a claustrophobic, Kraftwerk-inspired drone out of early synthesizers and processed recordings looped endlessly on tape machines. They were a studio-only band for a long time, as their electronic din was difficult to recreate live with no overdubs; in fact, their first single hit the shelves before the band ever performed in front of a crowd.

This version of the League delivered two full albums before disintegrating amid creative differences, with Ware and Marsh splitting off to form Heaven 17, leaving Oakey to remake The Human League into a more radio-friendly product. While Heaven 17 had their UK hits and achieved minor airplay here in the States, it was Oakey's revised League who found the magic sound that led them to global success.

While I've always been a fan of The Human League, I've grown particularly fond of their early work over the years. This week's NW4NW entry is the earliest incarnation of the band performing their first single, "Being Boiled," on UK television in 1978. Enjoy!

New Wave for the New Week #21

Cover of Mood Swing

Boulder, Colorado's contribution to the New Wave scene, The Nails, are another one of those one-hit New Wave wonders. They were the band that gave us the wonderfully salacious, just-this-side-of-vulgar "88 Lines About 44 Women," a song that has become something of a staple of retro New Wave playlists over the past two decades.

Propelled by an insistent bass line and what sounds like a pre-programmed Casio keyboard rhythm track, "88 Lines About 44 Women" is exactly that: a series of descriptive couplets about the women in the singer's life. Some seem forced to keep the rhyming scheme in place, but most are skillfully written, funny, and so descriptive that you may find yourself saying "I KNOW a girl like that!" Indeed, back in my college days, it was something of an amusement to come up with our own "88 Lines" couplets about the women we knew.

There never was a proper promo video for the song, although one of the original band members, singer Marc Campbell, created his own clip for the song just this year. You can see his creation on The Nail's official website here. For the purposes of this post, since there was no clip at the time, you can listen to the song here:



The Nails were not without videos, though. Their wonderful 1984 album Mood Swing spawned two clips, one for "Home of the Brave" and this one, for their spot-on cover of The Hombres' 1967 hit "Let It Out (Let It All Hang Out)." The Nail's version uses only the parenthetical title, "Let It All Hang Out," but otherwise stays true to the original.

So here is The Nails' video for "Let It All Hang Out," and, as a bonus, a chance for you to hear the original to compare. Enjoy!

New Wave for the New Week #20

The Members via last.fm

Most people in the US who know of The Members know of one song, "Working Girl," which was a heavy-rotation clip in the earliest days of MTV. The scenes of a poolside party with band and guests being shoved fully-clothed into the water were used in numerous station promos, and the ultra-catchy chorus made it a minor hit.

It was also the last release for a band that had been around since 1976, when Nicky Tesco formed The Members with some of his buds in Cambridge, England, during the early days of the Punk Rock scene there. From the start, the band was fraught with internal dissent and external apathy. A churning lineup of musicians and a decent but not particularly individual sound saw the three albums they released during their six year lifespan sell much more poorly then hoped for, despite the fact that the band had delivered a couple of ace singles, including the aforementioned "Working Girl," the reggae-influenced "Offshore Banking Business," and this week's New Wave for the New Week Entry, 1978's "The Sound of the Suburbs".

"The Sound of the Suburbs" flew up the UK singles chart, reaching #12, a success they would never again match in their homeland. It's a wonderful slice of early pre-hardcore, pre-Oi Punk, and sounds not just a little bit like early Clash.

Tesco quit the band in 1983, and that was it for The Members. Recently, the band reformed without Tesco, and have recorded a new single, a rewrite of "Offshore Banking Business" with lyrics dealing with the current state of the world economy, retitled "International Financial Crisis." Leaning more heavily on a dub-reggae sound and without Nicky Tesco's input, it falls a little bit flat to my ears. Apparently, a tour is in the works.

Here, then, is the performance clip for this week's NW4NW entry, "The Sound of the Suburbs" by The Members:



BONUS CLIP: Their best known song in America, 1982's "Working Girl"

New Wave for the New Week #19

Back in 1997, the folks at Volkswagon put together a commercial that used a very simplistic plinking melody and a monotone nonsense vocal as its jingle. The first time I saw the commercial, I did a double-take: I couldn't believe what I was hearing being used to sell cars to mainstream America! I remember some friends of mine at the time, who did not share my tastes in music, laughing and saying "imagine if that was a real song!"

I invited those friends over one evening, went to the record wall, pulled out an EP by the German band Trio, and watched their jaws drop as I played "Da Da Da (I Don't Love You You Don't Love Me Aha Aha Aha)." It WAS a real song, and in fact was 15 years old by that point!

I didn't think, after that, that I could ever be as shocked by the song in a commercial again. Then, this past week, I saw the new commercial for the Palm Pre smartphone. Again, I did the double-take, this time for an intricate, ethereal, delicate melody that I hadn't heard outside of my own music collection in almost a quarter of a century.

Palm Pre is using Freur's 1983 single "Doot Doot" to sell smartphones!

Freur was a relatively obscure Welsh art-wave band that began life with a name that was an unpronounceable squiggle (years before Prince stole the idea). Of course, no record company is going to stand for that! After all, how can you sell records if the radio DJs can't say the band's name? So in the interest of commercialism, the band came up with the only slightly more pronounceable Freur, and saw their first single, "Doot Doot" receive enough airplay in the UK to reach the lower tier of the singles charts there; and enough airplay on college stations and even MTV in the USA to at least garner some attention.

Freur's original unpronounceable squiggle
It is a beautiful recording, soothing and melodious, soaring and majestic. Nothing else they ever recorded came close to this level of songwriting, and after two albums, they were gone, apparently banished to the forgotten dusty corners of the collective New Wave memory bank, until the folks at Palm Pre decided to revive it.

Kind of ironic, the band whose original name was so utterly uncommercial winds up being the focus of a commercial 26 years later. Still, it's great to think that a whole new generation is getting to hear this song.

So, if any of your friends mention the tune in the Palm Pre commercial and wonder what it would be like if it was a "real song", send them the link to this post, because here is this week's NW4NW entry, Freur's "Doot Doot". And, as a bonus video, an early recording of the song with the original Welsh lyrics. Sing along:

New Wave for the New Week #18

Cover of Desperate

Some bands are fated to toil away in obscurity making wonderful music, to have their only taste of mainstream success come in the form of a song so unbefitting it's almost comically sad. Such a fate was that of Australia's Divinyls.

To most people, if they even remember that band name at all, the one song that they know is the shock-hit "I Touch Myself," which was their only visit to the American record charts, climbing all the way to #4. It's an OK, if too-purposefully titillating, single - but for that to be all Divinyls would be remembered for is a disservice to a solid band with a number of very good records under their belt.

Based from the start around the duo of Christina Amphlett and Mark McEntee, Divinyls first made noise in their native land around 1980. Their first release, an EP of music created for the movie Monkey Grip, included two wonderful singles. "Boys in Town" and "Only Lonely" got the band noticed quickly, both charting in the top 20 in Australia. Both songs were included on their debut album, Desperate, the following year, along with their third single and this week's entry, "Science Fiction."

The band continued their Australian success with two more albums and a few more charting singles, including "Pleasure and Pain" (1985) and "Hey Little Boy" (a 1988 reworking of The Syndicate of Sound's 1966 garage stomper "Hey Little Girl").

Despite their growing reputation and a fair amount of play on MTV, their breakthrough seemed like it would never happen until that 1991 smash. Another record followed with little publicity, and Amphlett and McEntee went their separate ways.

This week, enjoy Divinyls as they should have been remembered with their entry in the NW4NW series, "Science Fiction," which was named one of the top 30 Australian songs of all time by APRA (Australian Performing Rights Association).

New Wave for the New Week #17

Image by zioWoody via Flickr

I recently finished my first read-through of Isabelle Corbisier's exhaustive and wonderful Music for Vagabonds: The Tuxedomoon Chronicles, as thorough a history of the ex-San Franciscan European art rock collective as has been written about any band. I say "first read-through" because this is a book that will take several readings to consume and digest properly. The detailed annotations and footnotes alone form almost a second book within the main work, and the very European writing style Ms. Corbisier employs demands close attention from a Yankee reader such as myself.

This is not merely a recitation of names, dates, places and events, however; this is a diary, compiled of band member reminiscences, comments from contemporary spectators, and real time concert and record reviews, woven seamlessly to tell the story of the evolution of Tuxedomoon from its beginnings in post-Haight San Francisco, to its relocation across the pond in the hopes of finding acceptance, through its collapse and eventual reconstruction. For fans of the band it is a must-read; for those unfamiliar with Tuxedomoon, it will be a fascinating doorway to an often misunderstood and sadly under-appreciated group of musicians and performers.

I discovered Tuxedomoon in high school via my fascination with The Residents, and by extension any band that released material on that band's own label, Ralph Records. The two-record set The Best of Ralph is a highly recommended label compilation from that early '80s era; on it you'll find Tuxedomoon's wonderful "What Use?" and somewhat sinister "Incubus (Blue Suit)." As good an introduction to the band as any, as this is Tuxedomoon at perhaps their most accessible.

The NW4NW entry this week is a recently created video for their first single, 1978's "No Tears." Easily one of my favorites from their catalog, the sound here indicates why they were quickly, and perhaps too hastily, lumped in with the Punk/New Wave scene. Plaintive vocals screamed/sung over a skittish melody create an almost other-worldly sound. This however is not meant as an overall illustration of the band's sound or style; no one song from their catalog could be chosen as a "stereotypically Tuxedomoon" song. Over 30+ years they have explored areas of the musical spectrum that many other musicians have assiduously avoided, but they have also fashioned some very likeable, melodic, almost pop music as well. They are a band well worth your time and effort to get to know.

To start with, though, here is this week's New Wave for the New Week, "No Tears" by Tuxedomoon:

New Wave for the New Week #15

There has always been a kinship between New Wave and good old-fashioned '60s Surf Music. Bands like Agent Orange, The Raybeats, and The Surf Punks made (and, in some cases, are still making) music that would make The Ventures and Dick Dale proud. In fact, those and many like-minded bands often chose to cover the original classics from such revered surf artists in addition to pounding out their own updated take on the style.

One would expect such bands to have formed on California beaches, and in many cases that was so. There was one glaring exception, and they may have been the best - if least heralded - of the bunch.

The Insect Surfers were formed in 1979 in - of all places - Washington, DC. Their influences were quickly made clear by early covers of The Nazz's surfy 1968 hit "Open My Eyes" and Wire's dour 1979 post-punk single "Ex-Lion Tamer". The band chugged along for a few years, releasing a handful of really fantastic records before their wave crashed to shore in the early '80s.

The band reformed in 1986 and has been playing and recording ever since, with a sound hewing a bit more closely to the traditional Surf Music style Check out their MySpace page here to hear some of the more recent material and, if you like what you hear, support the band by picking up a CD or two.

For our purposes here, however, we look back fondly on the original incarnation of the band. Their vinyl debut was a 1980 single, "Into the Action," and is our New Wave for the New Week entry this time around. Granted, the sound is somewhat dated (not as much as the fashions and the neon though!), but it still sounds great to these ears. You can see and hear the enthusiastic amateurism here, and if you compare to the clips on their MySpace page, you'll appreciate how far they've come in 30 years while never really ever leaving their own little rift in time.

Here's the clip - enjoy!

New Wave for the New Week #12

Last week we featured Split Enz; this week we feature the band that resulted from Phil Judd splitting away from Split Enz.

The Swingers were formed in 1979, two years after Judd left the Enz. Their initial release was the single "One Good Reason (Gimme Love)," which reached Top 20 status in the band's native New Zealand. Within a year they had relocated to Australia where folllow-up single "Counting the Beat" quickly topped the charts. A third single, "It Ain't What You Dance, It's the Way That You Dance It," and a full album soon followed.

The band was given a showcase in the 1982 Australian comedy Starstruck, for which they rerecorded "One Good Reason (Gimme Love)" with much more production and polish, and the Counting the Beat album appeared in America. Internal tensions within the band were too great, however, and the story of the Swingers ended there. Really a shame because the album is excellent.

"One Good Reason" remains their best-remembered song. For this week's New Wave for the New Week, I give you both versions: the original, rawer 1979 single and the later, more polished version from Starstruck. Compare and decide:

New Wave for the New Week #11

Split Enz
via last.fm

New Zealand's Split Enz were among the most popular of the MTV-era New Wave acts, scoring video hits with songs like "I Got You", "History Never Repeats" and "One Step Ahead." Their two early 80's LPs, Waiata and True Colors, are must-haves for any fan of the New Wave.

But few of those early '80s fans realized that Split Enz were no newcomers to the scene. In fact, by the time those two classic albums hit the shelves, Split Enz had already logged ten years of recording and a slight rethinking of their approach.

The band was formed in New Zealand in 1971, and first appeared on vinyl with a 1973 single, "For You." In those early days, they were Split Ends, and were a band greatly influenced by British prog rock. Comparisons to bands like Traffic and Peter Gabriel-era Genesis were not uncommon, but the band toiled away in obscurity. A change to the more familiar phonetic spelling of the band name did little to bring them much attention.

Founding member Phil Judd left the band in 1977, and would go on to form The Swingers (who will be featured next week). He was replaced by Neil Finn, brother of original member Tim Finn. This new lineup embraced the emerging Punk and New Wave sound, and combined it with the overblown theatrics of the Prog Rock scene to create their own niche. A move to England helped them reach a wider audience, and soon they were embraced by an initial cult following that quickly grew into more widespread acceptance.

Among the earliest of the New Wave-era Split Enz singles is the slightly odd but goofily enjoyable "Bold As Brass", a 1977 single that is this week's New Wave for the New Week. Enjoy!

New Wave for the New Week #9

Image via Wikipedia

Andrew Chinich and Pal Shazar formed Slow Children in the early '80s LA New Wave scene. Together they released two albums, a self-titled debut in 1981 and a follow-up, Mad About Town, a year later. Songs were apparently written and recorded for a third LP that never happened.

Their one great claim to fame was the wonderful single "President Am I", from the debut album, and its accompanying video. Those of you who, like me, religiously watched the early days of MTV will recognize the scene of Pal Shazar submerged in a giant glass of vodka - it was used in several of MTV's station promos during the first year or two the channel was on the air, and the clip itself saw light-to-medium rotation early on as well.

Pal's pouty delivery of highly literate lyrics and her ecclectic phrasing which focused more on the rhythm and sound of the words than on correct grammar or inflection bounced over bubbly keyboard and guitar that had not yet devolved into what would come to be known as synthopop or technopop, creating Slow Children's highly identifiable and enjoyable sound. It's a sound that may seem a bit dated today, but still never fails to put a smile on my face when their songs turn up on my iPod shuffle.

Pal Shazar has gone on to release five solo albums, in addition to being a painter, t-shirt designer, novelist, and blogger, and shows no signs of stopping - thankfully!

I give you this week's New Wave for the New Week, Slow Children's "President Am I":

New Wave for the New Week #8

Image via Wikipedia

I have always thought it a great crime that, for most people, the only thing they see in their minds' eyes when they think of Wall of Voodoo is Stan Ridgway's face emerging from a pot full of baked beans as he warbles on about being on a "Mexican Radio." This band was so much more than just a one-hit wonder!

When you talk about Wall of Voodoo, you really should talk about two bands: Wall of Voodoo with Stan Ridgway and Wall of Voodoo without Stan Ridgway. WoV's history can be traced back to Acme Soundtracks, a mid-to-late '70s company dedicated to creating film scores, founded by Ridgway. The company did not do well, but the location of its offices - across the street from The Masque, a revered punk club in Hollywood - helped Stan drift into the New Wave scene. With a few changes in lineup from the musicians he employed at Acme, Wall of Voodoo was born.

Those film-score roots are audible in this first version of WoV: spaghetti-western guitars, moody effects, and Stan's knack for storytelling. However, herky-jerky rhythms and Stan's sing-speak vocal affectations saw to it that they were lumped into the "New Wave" category. Their songs were intelligent, witty, and oddly catchy; their sound was unique and earned them praise as "the thinking man's Devo." This version of the Wall released a fantastic self-titled debut EP in 1980, followed by two excellent albums, 1981's Dark Continent and the following year's Call of the West, from which their lone "hit" came.

Ridgway left the band in 1983 to pursue a fairly successful solo career, and it seemed that would be it for Wall of Voodoo. It wasn't.

In 1985, a revived version of the band released Seven Days in Sammystown with new lead singer Andy Prieboy. The album is incredibly good, largely because Prieboy was wise enough not to try to mimic Ridgway's style. The sharp angles in the band's music were now sanded off, although that spaghetti-western feel remained. The Devo comparisons no longer held sway; if anything, the sound now veered closer to the recently successful Athens, GA sound of bands like R.E.M., Pylon, and Love Tractor.

Sadly, this version could not keep up the quality of work of the original band. In 1987 they released Happy Planet, which had a cover of a Beach Boys' tune and not much else to offer. Two years later, a live album appeared and disappeared just as quickly, and the Wall crumbled.

For those who only ever knew "Mexican Radio," I recommend getting any of the three Ridgway-era records, as well as Sammystown. All are fascinating, challenging albums well worth your time. As a sampling, I present this week's New Wave for the New Week, a clip from each version of the band. From the Dark Continent album, "Call Box 1-2-3" features Stan Ridgway's yelping song-talk. Andy Prieboy leads the band through a dissection of assassins Mark David Chapman and John Hinckley Jr., the excellent "Far Side of Crazy." Compare and decide:

New Wave for the New Week #6

Following up on last week's entry, here's another from the "where'd they go?" file. Horizontal Brian released one top-notch album, Vertical, in 1983 on the Gold Mountain label. From it came this fantastic single, "Practicing First Aid."

A witty, hooked-filled confection with some sly wink-wink lyrics, "Practicing First Aid" bounces along, giddily stringing out it's lyrical euphemism ("playing doctor" didn't scan as well, I guess). And just in case you don't follow the metaphor, the video's imagery underscores it plainly enough.

The rest of the album stays pretty much in the same ballpark as the single, which is in this case a good thing. But Vertical remains Horizontal Brian's lone artifact. Indeed, finding information about the band is no easy task - the long-out-of-print LP was not ever reissued on CD to my knowledge, the Gold Mountain label morphed into Gold Castle by the end of the '80s before disappearing altogether, and the only band bio I've found online is this brief entry at Trouser Press.

So, not much else to tell you - just sit back and enjoy a true cult classic - this week's New Wave for the New Week, Horizontal Brian's "Practicing First Aid":

Find more videos like this on www.truveo.com.

New Wave for the New Week #3

Lene Lovich (via last.fm)

For this week's NW4NW entry, we're back to 1979 and one of the godmothers of the New Wave scene, Lene Lovich.

For the uninitiated, Trouser Press provides the best description of Lovich's place in New Wave history in her entry on their site:

"Lene Lovich helped pave the way for female vocalists to use as many vocal eccentricities as their male counterparts, to be unafraid to play a solo instrument (Lovich's is sax), and — as important as anything else — to feel free to adopt and project personae that are obviously feminine yet not socially stereotyped."

Vocal eccentricities indeed! Lovich is famous for her occasional yelps, gulps, yodels, chirps and gurgles with which she conveys as much of the feeling of her songs as she does with her lyrics. Her longtime collaboration with husband Les Chappell (he's the bald dude in the clip) has given forth only limited fruit - her records have been few and far between - but what is there is wonderful. Her cover of Dutch band The Meteors' "It's You, Only You (Mein Schmertz)" was a standard in the early days of MTV; songs like "New Toy", "What Will I Do Without You", and "Say When" are bona fide New Wave classics.

Her grand work, though, was her first single, 1979's "Lucky Number". In this one song all the pieces of the Lene Lovich puzzle were strewn out and pieced back together: the vocal hiccups, the driving yet danceable beat, and the very visual aspect of her personality and performance. The clip is not without its humor, both intentional and unintentional. Just take a gander at the hair and clothes of the mall crowd!

So friends, here is your New Wave for the New Week for this week, Lene Lovich's "Lucky Number":

New Wave for the New Week #2

Top o' the mornin' to ya!

St. Patrick's Day is Tuesday, so I thought it only fitting that this week's clip should come to us from the Emerald Isle. In fact, the luck of the Irish shines upon you: this week I thought I double shot was in order!

First off, the band that Trouser Press once dubbed "the best band ever to come from Northern Ireland," The Undertones. Starting with 1978's "Teenage Kicks", The Undertones put together a string of fantastic punky/power-poppy records that swiftly earned them the nickname "the Irish Ramones." While you can definitely hear that influence in their earliest material, by 1980 they had settled into a moodier, almost neo-psychedelic sound (check out 1980's "Wednesday Week" or 1981's "Beautiful Friend" to hear for yourself.) Sadly, the ride was over in 1983 when lead singer Feargal Sharkey left to pursue a solo career. The Undertones have reunited a few times in recent years for the occasional shows, but the magic of their moment is captured best where and when it started - in 1978, with "Teenage Kicks":

Find more videos like this on www.truveo.com.

Now then, no St. Patrick's Day is complete around my house without a good bit o' The Pogues! Also rising out of the Irish punk scene, The Pogues (shortened from Pogue Mahone, or "kiss my ass" in Irish slang) combined the energy and attitude of the era with traditional Irish folk music. 1986's Rum, Sodomy and the Lash brought The Pogues to most people's attention, and it is simply a stunning album. In honor of St. Patrick's Day, lift a mug of green beer along with Shane MacGowan and his band (who, in this clip, looks as though he's had more than a few - it's one of the most classic examples of drunken lip-syncing you'll ever see!) and sing along with "Sally MacLennane"



Again, if you have suggestions for clips for future installments of NW4NW, please let me know in the comments. For now, a Happy St. Patrick's Day to you all, and may you be half an hour in heaven before the Devil knows you're dead!

New Wave for the New Week

Plastics (via last.fm)

Happy Monday, everyone. Sorry to go through another posting dryspell - nothing is catching my eye or ear to rant about lately. But, I don't want to leave you unentertained, so I have come up with a few regular features to begin debuting on the blog. This is the first of them: New Wave for the New Week will be a regular Monday feature, where I will dig up some long-forgotten new wave video clip to help get your week started out on a good note. Suggestions/requests are welcomed - leave them in the comments, and I'll see what I can do.

The clip I've chosen for the first post of this series is a bit of a rarity. The only place I have ever seen the Plastics' video clip for Top Secret Man was on the old and fondly remembered SCTV; indeed, the clip you see here is cut from that show (hence the very un-PC opening bit). The video and song are from 1979, the very height of the New-Wave era.

The Plastics' two Japanese albums, 1979's Welcome Plastics and 1980's Origato Plastico are leaps and bounds better than the watered down American release Plastics (also known as Welcome Back), where the key songs from the original LPs were actually rerecorded to better suit "American musical palettes." While this may have resulted in slicker production, the quirkiness and angular DIY feel of the original recordings was lost, along with much of their personality. All three are worth picking up if you can find them, though. They have all been issued on CD, but have gone out of print and now fetch a pretty penny on Amazon.com.

The clip used the original Japanese version of the song. It is obviously dated, using early video techniques, but that is a large part of its charm. You'll hear echoes of The B-52s, Devo and Suburban Lawns here, so if you like that sound, this will be right up your alley. The darn thing just makes me smile, which is why I picked it.

So, without further delay, here is your New Wave for the New Week: Top Secret Man by The Plastics:

Top Secret Man - The Plastics