Clearance Rack Classics Retro 80s and 90s Dance Mix by DJ Tintin

1. Meant to Be - The Listening Pool

2. Silent Cry - Chris & Cosey

3. Sometimes (Extended Mix) - Erasure

4. Beethoven (I Love to Listen To) (Razormaid! Mix) - Eurythmics

5. She Drives Me Crazy (David Z 12" Version) - Fine Young Cannibals

6. I Don't Want Your Love (Dub Mix) - Duran Duran

7. Secret (Original 12" Mix) - Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark

8. The Blue Sky - a-ha

9. Don't You Want Me (Special Extended Dance Mix) - The Human League

10. True Faith (Shep Pettibone Remix) - New Order

11. Breakaway (Popper Mix) - Big Pig

12. Date Stamp - ABC

13. Dangerous (Hazchemix) - Depeche Mode

14. Possible Worlds - The Shamen

15. Fanatic (Razormaid! Mix) - Claudia Brucken

Notes and other random things: How I'm going to do this write-up when I haven't even finished the last one is a complete mystery. Stay tuned to see whether or not I solve it!

1. The Chase - Propaganda

2. Follow the Rainbow (Razormaid! Mix) - Joe Machine

3. X-Rated (Moonitor Version) - Psyche

4. 19 (Destruction Mix) - Paul Hardcastle

5. Humatic (Razormaid! Mix) - League of Gentlemen

6. World in my Eyes (Oil Tank Mix) - Depeche Mode

7. Situations (Razormaid! Mix) - Cetu Javu

8. Thinking of You - Seven Red Seven

9. Handsome (Psycho-Ray Mix) - Camouflage

10. Komputer Pop - Komputer

11. Heaven (Extended Version) - Until December

12. Spooky (Magimix) - New Order

13. Render - Lassigue Bendthaus

14. W.Y.H.I.W.Y.G. - Front 242

15. One World - Ajax

Notes and other random things:

Update as of (02-01-12):  God golly ... is it already February?!?!

Just realized I forgot to do my notes and random things for this podcast, which was already over a month ago! Jeez. Well, it's on the way, plus a new podcast once I find time to record. New job, new family member, new year and a cross-country move on the horizon are taking up all my time at the moment. Did you notice all the "newness" in that last sentence? Yet here I am dishing out what Bryan Ferry would call "The Same Old Scene" when it comes to reasons why I can't seem to get podcasts up in a reasonable amount of time anymore. Or, like ABC's Martin Frye crooned, "Excuses have their uses, but they're all used up." Seriously, though, I can't recall being any busier in my entire life and I beg your indulgence with my slow updates of late.

Update as of (02-04-12): Let's look at a few of the bands in this particular episode (finally, right!?) I want to start with League of Gentlemen. Funny I want to start with a band I know almost nothing about, but it's really the concept of this song that intrigues me so much. Back in the 80s, there were a lot of industrial-sounding bands that were fascinated with the synthesis between man and machine and what it might entail for the survival of the human race. Mysterious Art, for instance, if you recall from an eariler episode, touched on the theme with Men of Glass. There were plenty of others. This excellent number from 1987 does the same.

On a side note, I have always been fascinated how Eastern Bloc industrial artists could always seem to write cool songs even though they barely knew English. Somehow they take sentence fragments and comma splices, add the letter "z" wherever there is supposed to be an "s", pluralize words like "informationz" and still manage to give me chills. That's talent! Of course, this band only had enough talent to do one song because I haven't, to date, found anything else by these guys ... at least in this incarnation. As we have learned with producers like Morton, Sherman and Belucci they can "seed" an entire genre by doing hundreds of one-off bands to create a scene as those guys did with the Belgian New Beat dance scene years ago. So, maybe the guys in LOG reformed under another moniker. I'll have to look into it sometime.

But there's more to this "Humatic" phenomenon than meets the eye. As with other electronic groups who explored man's servitude to the rise of machines there is an inherent lack of logic there that makes me chuckle. I've played it out for you below, though names have been changed to protect the innocent. (Note: this is a completely fictional account)

Klaus: Hi, Gert.

Gert: Howdy, Klaus.

Klaus: Say, Gert, how would you like to be in a band with me?

Gert: Sounds great, Klaus. But is this another one of your band concepts that requires I wear lederhosen on stage while dumping a stein full of Krautspatzle over my head?

Klaus: No, Gert. This one is much better. I want to explore the relationship between man and machine and how eventually, due to elementary chaos theory, all machines will morph and rise up against their masters and enslave them, breed with them and create a hybrid race of automatons that will exterminate all humanity.

Gert: Count me in!

Klaus: Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go get the drum machines, sequencing keyboards, electronic samplers and Commodore computers that we'll be using. 

Gert: Sounds great, Klaus. I can't see anything that can go wrong with this utterly ironic plan of yours. By the way, do you have a band name yet?

Klaus: I sure do, Gert. I wanted something memorable and easy to recall, so it's come down to either Braunschweiger Umweltverschmutzung or League of Gentlemen.

Gert: Rad.

Update as of (02-17-12): I don't have anymore fantastic re-enactments for the next band in the arsenal. In fact, like League of Gentlemen, I have little to no information at all about Joe Machine either, though I think I came across his social networking page on MySpace ... or at least some guy who goes by the name Joe Machine. Anyway, we have ZYX records in Germany to thank for this release and divinity to thank for the voice that is eerily reminiscent of Daniel Ash from Bauhaus/Tones on Tail/Love and Rockets fame.

As is the case so often with electronic music of this era, "Kraftwerk creep" rears its head a couple of times in this episode. Seeing as how they are one of the most influential collectives in electronic music history it's not surprising that so many others to follow were touched by their genius. From tempo to timbre to replicating the "Musique non-stop" mantra found in the Kraftwerk tune of the same name from the Electric Cafe album, Psyche's X-rated is a delectable morsel of synthetic cyber-porn sleaze that captures the Kraftwerk-ian spirit perfectly and garners this episode an "explicit" tag in the process. Sebastian Komor of Icon of Coil remixed the track. Then, there is the awesome, sub-splitting frequencies of the track Komputer Pop by the band Komputer. If you recall, I mentioned this band when discussing the group I Start Counting several episodes ago as they, Fortran 5 and Komputer are all brain children of David Baker and Simon Leonard. If you haven't done so and you are a Kraftwerk fan, I highly recommend Komputer's first album called World of Tomorrow. It's a fantastic concept album and is about as close to replicating the Kraftwerk sound as you're going to find. There are a bunch of great tracks to boot. And in case you missed it, Baker and Leonard recently released a compilation of tracks spanning all three iterations of their long-time collaboration. Called Konnecting, it contains 15 tracks. For die-hards, they also released a companion 60-track digital deluxe set of b-sides and rarities with tons of remixes. If you have never owned anything by these guys, the new set is a fantastic place to begin and perhaps end if you're not a completist when it comes to music collecting.

More to come ...

Note as of 12-18-11:

Hello, once again! I'm sending out these notes as a way to fill in the long gap left by my lack of posting a recent episode and as a way to keep you up-to-date on my status. For all the gory details of my recent podcasting travails, read the previous two entries in red below. Despite all the seemingly unfortunate news, this note is to let everyone know I have recorded a new podcast and it's ready to post once my bandwidth resets again in just a few days! (For all the gory details about bandwidth, you can also read below.) Anyway, hang tough, gang - the light at the end of the tunnel is rapidly approaching and I think you're going to find the new podcast was worth the wait. In it there are a LOT of great tunes that you probably have not heard before, plus some very different versions of a couple of old classics. Again, thanks for your patience!

DJ Tintin 

Note as of 12-05-11:

Hi, all. Well, what a long, strange hard drive breaking down, no computer for two weeks trip it has been. I am happy to report that I have my computer back and it appears to be functioning just fine. The good news is I can get back to podcasting. The bad news is I have gone over my bandwidth for December already! The good news is I have tracks all selected for my next episode and will record it this week. The bad news I probably won't be able to post it right away. The good news is I will begin work on subsequent podcasts so that when my bandwidth resets once again I can hopefully post several episodes at once. The bad news is I'm hungry so I need to go get something to eat. The good news is you won't have to read anymore of this drivel!

You all are the best audience anywhere and I fully appreciate the support and your saint-like patience. Hell, if I were you I probably would have quit listening to me by now. But then I would have changed my mind and would have started listening to me more than ever! Gee, what a swell guy I'd be if I were you. 

Cheers!

Note as of 11-28-11:

I meant to post a new episode this past weekend. I really did. Unfortunately, the hard drive on my computer gave out and I'm currently in the process of getting it replaced. Installing a new hard drive is no big deal, but it's trying to save all the data on the old one that is taking some time. The good news is I hope to have my computer back today or maybe tomorrow. The bad news is that I'm already halfway to my bandwidth limit for the month and we're only 4 days in. I just have to hope I can find time to record before I reach my ceiling. Again, I apologize to everyone for the lack of a new episode over the past month. Thanksgiving holidays + no bandwidth + broken hard drive = not good. Hang with me just a little longer! Everything should be back to normal shortly.

Cheers,

DJ Tintin   

1. Sea-Missile Motel - Moev

2. New Decisions - Manufacture

3. See How it Cuts (Extended Club Dub Dance Remix Version) - I Start Counting

4. Slave (Extended Mix) - Revenge

5. Das Omen (Razormaid! Mix) - Mysterious Art

6. Opportunities (Ron Dean Miller and the Latin Rascals Mix) - Pet Shop Boys

7. Who Needs Love Like That (The Love That Mix Version) - Erasure

8. Locomotion (Razormaid! Mix) - Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark

9. Our Lips are Sealed (12" Mix) - Fun Boy Three

10. Love Reaction (12" Mix) - Divine

11. Our Love / Lucky (Razormaid! Mix) - Donna Summer

12. Everything's Gone Green - New Order

13. When Smokey Sings (The Miami Mix) - ABC

14. Send Me an Angel '89 (Dance Mix) - Real Life

15. Pretty in Pink (Berlin Mix) - The Psychedelic Furs

Notes and other random things: A couple weeks back I left a note at the top of my podcast explaining my current bandwidth situation. In short, I pretty much use up my monthly allotment within the first couple days of each month anymore ... and I blame you all! No, really. I do. But, as I said then, it's a great problem to have and I'm so very thankful that you guys tune in like you do to hear these classic retro dance tunes on a frequent basis. The only drawback is that PodOMatic has become pretty strict about allowing DJs to post new episodes if they have gone beyond their bandwidth limitations. What does that mean exactly?

Well, first it means I had to change the sub-title of my Podcast. Since its inception I have used the subhead: "An (almost) weekly retro dance experiment." With my current busy schedule, "almost weekly" was a stretch even using a qualifier such as "almost". Now, my window of opportunity is even smaller than before. As such, I altered the subhead to: "80s and 90s retro dance adventures of a boy and a cheap mixer." It's probably a better descriptor anyway as I'm a boy and I own a cheap mixer.

Second, it means unless I can scrounge up the roughly $250 per year PodOMatic charges for the next tier of bandwidth, I'm going to be saddled with this problem for the foreseeable future. 

Third, it means you'll probably be seeing a PayPal donation button appearing on my page very soon. I had the option to remove it in the beginning, which I did, but I'll probably put it back up there in case any of you would like to chip in towards an account upgrade. I don't make any money doing this, nor did I intend to, but I also didn't anticipate the amazing response I've received thus far either.

Fourth, I'm also looking into placing some Google AdSense ads onto my page. I know, I think it cheapens everything and makes me look desperate, but if I can convince you guys to click on them when you visit my page, it might go far in helping me upgrade my account, which means I can provide retro goodness to you on a more frequent basis. I should point out that neither begging for donations nor begging for clicks are desirable options, but doing only one new Podcast per month isn't really an attractive option either.

All in all,  I haven't yet decided how I'm going to handle my current situation, but I'm sure it will become clear as we move closer to 2012. I just wanted you all to be aware of what's transpiring right now. I can say from reading the forum posts that many other podcasters share my predicament and are none too happy because ultimately it's the listeners, the lifeblood of our shows, who end up getting shortshrifted. So, my apologies to everyone on that front. 

Okay, now that that's out of the way, I can catch you up on some of the artists in this episode. In the meantime, I hope to have another new episode up very soon. Hang tight! 

Let's start with Harris Glenn Milstead, better known as Divine. This is Divine's first appearance on CRC. I've shied away from his work over the past year and a half so far because I just couldn't find a good segueway for it. Well, that and his stuff is pretty crappy. It's highly derivative schlock that anyone other than a flamboyant drag queen wouldn't be able to get away with. I mean, this is the same guy who somehow got industrial record label Wax Trax! to release his version of The Name Game song (you know: Tintin, Tintin, bo-bintin, Banana fana fo Fintin, Fe fi mo-minton, Tintin!) But this is Divine we're talking about and you'd expect nothing less from a member of John Waters' "Dreamlanders" troupe  ... and he delivered every time! I guess that sounds a little harsh if it weren't really the point. Heck, it was Waters, the guy who aspired to make the "trashiest motion pictures in cinema history", who gave Divine his name and enlisted him as the lead in several of his soon-to-be cult films. Those appearances piqued Divine's lust for more fame and fortune, which he would find at the start of the 80s when he delved into the club scene. His "act" consisted of yelling "f*ck you!" at the audience and getting into fisticuffs with a fellow drag queen. In a way, Jerry Springer owes his entire television career to Divine!

Pairing up with composer and record producer Bobby Orlando, Divine's live spectacles began to include disco numbers including the song Love Reaction, which appears here. His growing popularity on the club circuit spawned world tours even though Divine admitted at the time not being able to sing a lick as you'll witness first-hand. Orlando had gone about producing an entire album and touring before Divine had even mastered the lyrics. But that didn't stop him as Divine thought that if porn stars could have successful stints in the studio (I'm guessing he meant The Andrea True Connection and that ilk) why couldn't he? Really, though, the music was secondary to the trash, which is perhaps why Divine has been a secondary thought so far on CRC compared to other artists whose focus was the music. Still Love Reaction was the third single to chart on the Dutch Singles Chart and peaked at #25. It also spent 7 weeks on the German Singles Chart peaking at #55. And if you can't quite get enough of New Order's Blue Monday, this is basically the version Divine would have recorded had he been the lead singer, so there's that.  

Next up is Donna Summer. Though I don't like to discount the possibility of any artist showing up on CRC at any point, I can tell you now, with almost complete certitude, that this will probably be her only appearance. It has nothing to do with her persona or a patent dislike for her music, except for the fact the bulk of her career occurred in the 70s and her hardcore disco sound doesn't exactly fit with what I'm trying to do here. Technically though, Our Love was released in '79, but didn't find massive success until the 12" version was released in 1980. From there it sold over a million copies. The track appeared on Summer's seventh album called Bad Girls, which became her best-selling album of all time as it spawned six different singles including the title track and Hot Stuff. One of the key contributors to Our Love and the Bad Girls album as a whole? Giorgio Moroder (of course!) 

Moving from Summer to Sumner, New Order's Everything's Gone Green would seem an odd choice to mix into Our Love until you hear the similar electronic undertones. At that point it becomes more of a logical (and rather nifty, if I may say so) choice. In fact (or factus for you New order junkies), New Order have cited Donna Summer as an inspiration for their own work. According to lead singer Bernard Sumner, Blue Monday was heavily influenced by four tracks in particular: Dirty Talk, by Klein + M.B.O.; You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real) by Sylvester; Our Love, by Donna Summer; and Uranium by Kraftwerk. As for Everything's Gone Green, it was released originally in 1981, peaking at #3 on the UK Independent Singles Chart and #34 on the U.S. Billboard Hot Dance Club Play Chart. It is supposedly the first New Order track to contain computer-generated sounds and the last of the band's tracks to be produced by Martin Hannett. The song is also responsible for a major labeling gaffe. That's because the b-sides, Cries and Whispers and Mesh, were listed correctly on the record, but in reverse order on the record sleeve. The mistake led to several misidentifications on subsequent New Order album releases. For instance, the song Mesh appears as the third track on disc 2 of the Substance compilation, but should be credited as Cries and Whispers. Strangely, the real Mesh does appear on the cassette version of the album. Pretty dorky, stuff, eh? But where else are you going to find this kind of juicy information ... except maybe on the internet.

The lead track, Sea-Missile Motel, by Moev was the first track on their Dusk and Desire album, which was released in 1985. Originally formed in 1981 by keyboardist/percussionist Tom Ferris and keyboardist/vocalist Cal Stephenson, the band released their debut album, Zimmerkampf, in 1982, but was forced to find a new label after San Francisco-based Go! Records went under the following year. Interestingly, in 1984, band member Mark Jowett and manager Terry McBride formed Nettwerk Records in McBride's apartment as a way to release new Moev material. As many of you know, Nettwerk has attained worldwide success in the years since and is home to a musically diverse line-up of artists from Sarah McLachlan to Skinny Puppy. The band went through several personnel changes in the early going, but settled on Michela Arrichiello as lead vocalist during the years surrounding Dusk and Desire and she is the voice you'll hear on this track. Bassist/drummer Kelly Cook, vocalist Dean Russell and keyboardist/percussionist Anthony Valcic would eventually replace many of the early members and would form what is considered to be the classic Moev line-up. In 1988, their highly successful Yeah Whatever album spawned their best-known track, Crucify Me, which, unlike Donna Summer, I can assure you will appear in CRC at some point down the road.   

Label mates Manufacture further exemplify the eccentricity that graced the Nettwerk Records musical stable. Formed in 1984 by Brian Bothwell and Perry Geyer, the group was originally created as a soundtrack company, making experimental music and video. After performing in front of live audiences, the duo eventually became a band. In 1987, they were signed to Nettwerk and were commissioned to make two full-length albums as well as a variety of 12" dance singles. The song here, New Decisions, comes from the second album, World Control. It was a bit more pop-friendly than their debut, Terrorvision, though Sarah McLachlan did perform vocal honors on the great track, As the End Draws Near. Believe it or not, that song eventually was awarded a platinum single in Canada when it appeared on her album, B Sides, Rarities, and other Stuff. For the record, Brian Bothwell continues to work in the film and video field and also works as a Photographer in New York City. Meanwhile, Perry Geyer continues to produce music and owns and operates CyberSound Studios in Boston and New York City.

That's all for this episode. Thanks for listening!

Cheers!

1. The Politics of Dancing - Re-Flex

2. Here Comes the Rain Again - Eurythmics

3. Fools (Bigger) - Depeche Mode

4. People are Still Having Sex - LaTour

5. Thinking of You (Warzone Mix) - Seven Red Seven

6. Ebeneezer Goode (Beatmasters Mix) - The Shamen

7. Doved Up - Sunscreem

8. Round & Round (The Club Mix) - New Order

9. Two Tribes (Annihilation Mix) - Frankie Goes To Hollywood

10. Living on Video - Trans-X

11. Deeper Shade of Blue (Extended) - Red Flag

12. Dust - Boxcar

13. Together in Electric Dreams (Extended) - The Human League

14. Smalltown Boy (Razormaid! Mix) - Bronski Beat

15. Leaving on a Midnight Plane (Razormaid! Mix) - Nick Straker

Notes and other random things: Well, if the new episode hadn't already tipped you off ... I'm back! Please, no applause (surely none of you applauded). It was great to get out of town for a week even though about a third of the trip was spent in the car. Yup. About 2200 miles in total. But if you've been keeping up with these podcasts you've probably come across several posts that discuss road trips. Personally, I enjoy them. There's nothing quite like watching unfamiliar scenery float by in parallax while skirting past 18-wheelers in a downpour. In all seriousness, it's nice to witness different topography, different natural wonders, different roadkill and take in the subtle differences of a McDonald's cheeseburger that was constructed in backwoods America versus that of the big city. In case you were wondering, it tastes like it has better family values ... and a dash more possum. 

But the real point of taking a vacation is to come back re-energized which, if you look at the music selection in this episode, you can clearly see that I have (unless you don't know any of these songs in which case you'll have to take my word for it and then listen for yourself!) This set is positively high energy through and through with a delicate balance of 80s and 90s; major and minor keys; some meat and in one or two cases a lot of cheese (I'm looking at you, Nick Straker ... but don't think I haven't glanced more than once in your direction too, Phil Oakey). But I like cheese, which is why songs like Together in Electric Dreams and Leaving on a Midnight Plane surface in this podcast. And just so you know, Nick and Phil, I'm going to discuss you guys first to show there are no hard feelings.

Nick Straker was originally the keyboardist for a band called New Musik. Formed in 1977, the band was initially called The End of the World and was conceived mainly as a casual jam session outfit for four London-based school mates: singer Tony Mansfield, bassist Tony Hibbert, drummer Phil Towner (who drummed on the Buggles MTV-launching track Video Killed the Radio Star) and Straker. The band was one of the first to blend electronic instruments with traditional ones, creating an irresistible pop sound with superb melodies and unrelenting hooks. Why they were never able to make bigger waves on the commercial scene still baffles many music critics and historians. Mansfield, however, went on to become a big-time producer working with early 80s bands like a-ha, Vicious Pink, B-52's and After the Fire among others. Straker departed New Musik before the release of their first single choosing to pursue a solo career. He scored several hits, including A Little Bit of Jazz, which reached #1 on the U.S. Hot Dance Club Play chart in 1981 and A Walk in the Park, which hit #20 on the UK Singles Chart in 1980. The track here is the excellent (and cheesy!) Razormaid! mix of Leaving on a Midnight Plane. It originally appeared on the A Walk in the Park album and peaked at #61 on the UK Singles Chart in 1980. 

Together in Electric Dreams is an interesting case study in musical perception. Often associated with The Human League, the track is really a Giorgio Moroder creation with lead singer of THL, Phil Oakey, contributing vocals. It's no surprise that THL often gets most of the credit because they were still near the apex of their popularity in 1984 when the song was initially released. The track was written for the film Electric Dreams, the first full-length feature film by Steve Barron. Barron made his mark directing some pretty high-profile music videos during the early 80s, including THL's international smash hit Don't You Want Me. The funny thing is, he intended Electric Dreams as a way of capturing the massive success of Flashdance from the year before. Yes ... Flashdance! Because that film used music from Moroder, Barron decided to employ Moroder as the music director for his new film. He wanted something heart-stirring to run during the final credits and a classic 80s track was born. The song would surface on a collaborative album by Moroder and Oakey the following year. This extended version is taken from an album of THL rarities and remixes, which certainly won't help the perception that this song is not a THL original. The fact that I credited it as THL (since it was taken from a THL album) won't help either. But I'm going to do something about that Giorgio Moroder for the remainder of the write-up Giorgio Moroder. I just hope it will set the record straight Giorgio Moroder about where some of the credit should go. 

I'm still planning to cover one or two more of the bands in this podcast. However, I thought I'd pass this on: it's information about the new Erasure album I hinted at in an eariler episode. The album already dropped in the UK, but for those of us stateside, the release date is Tuesday, October 11. I can't wait!

'TOMORROW'S WORLD' - STANDARD EDITION CD & DOWNLOAD
The standard single CD edition is packaged in a single fold digipac with a light pink background and includes a booklet with lyrics to all the songs that also folds out into a poster.
TRACKLISTING - Be With You / Fill Us With Fire / What Will I Say When You're Gone? / You've Got To Save Me Right Now / A Whole Lotta Love Run Riot / When I Start To (Break It All Down) / I Lose Myself / Then I Go Twisting / Just When I Thought It Was Ending

'TOMORROW'S WORLD' - DELUXE EDITION CD & DOWNLOAD
The deluxe 2-CD edition comes in a double-fold digipac with a light purple/blue background and different artwork to the standard edition, but includes the same poster booklet. The second CD on the deluxe edition contains 8 bonus tracks; extended mixes of 'I Lose Myself' and 'Fill Us With Fire' by longtime Erasure collaborator Gareth Jones; an extra track entitled 'Give Me Life'; demo versions of the songs that eventually became 'I Lose Myself', 'Fill Us With Fire', 'Be With You' and 'You've Got To Save Me Right Now'; and producer Frankmusik's own remix of the current Erasure single 'When I Start To (Break It All Down)'
TRACKLISTING
CD1 - Be With You / Fill Us With Fire / What Will I Say When You're Gone? / You've Got To Save Me Right Now / A Whole Lotta Love Run Riot / When I Start To (Break It All Down) / I Lose Myself / Then I Go Twisting / Just When I Thought It Was Ending
CD2 - I Lose Myself [Extended 'No Self Control' Mix by Gareth Jones] / Give Me Life [bonus track not available elsewhere] / Fill Us With Fire [Extended 'Fired Up' Mix by Gareth Jones] / When I Start To (Break It All Down) [Frankmusik Remix] / Clash (demo version of 'I Lose Myself') / Big Song (demo version of 'Fill Us With Fire') / Major 7th (demo version of 'Be With You') / Save Me (demo version of 'You've Got To Save Me Right Now')

Note as of 10-08-11: Okay, I had planned to write a bit more about some of these bands, but I just flat don't have the time. I guess if it comes down to the writing or the music, I'll err on the side of the music because that's what this podcast is really about. So, I'm going to begin work on a new podcast with the bit of free time I have and end this one here. I'm sure these bands will return in the future and I can write about them at that time. Now, I realize the irony of writing a paragraph to tell you I don't have time to write anymore on this episode, so you don't have to bother pointing that out. Hold tight for another episode coming soon!

Cheers!

1. Rise - Sugar Plant

2. Chromium - The Church

3. Blue - Bark Psychosis

4. Archway People - Saint Etienne

5. Judas - The Charlatans UK

6. Lowdown - Electrafixion

7. Life's an Ocean - The Verve

8. Hooligan - The Heartthrobs

9. Satellites - Doves

10. Out of Hand (Extended Version) - The Mighty Lemon Drops

11. Squeeze-Wax - Cocteau Twins

12. Within the Daze of Passion - Kitchens Of Distinction

13. Sideways Forest - Love Spirals Downwards

14. Paradise - Bel Canto

15. Portrait in Atlanta - The House of Love

16. Ox4 - Ride

17. I Know - Bark Psychosis

Notes and other random things: Okay, gang. I'm getting out of dodge for a few days and I didn't have time to do another dj mix before I leave. So, I'm doing the sixth installment of the mixtape series. As most of you know, these episodes are designed to be more like the mixtapes I used to make for friends way back when. They are a great way for me to relive my past, but also for me to showcase great 80s and 90s bands that don't really fit the dance format.

This particular compilation was an actual "mixtape" I put together five or so years ago, I believe. I'll have to look it up again to make certain. Anyway, I'll possibly put together a little write-up for this when I return. For now, just enjoy the music. There's some great stuff here for sure and plenty to fall in love with if you're not familiar with these artists. Which reminds me ... be sure to support the ones you hear in this podcast.

Cheers, and thanks for supporting me as well! I'll be back with another episode again soon.

Image courtesy of: relamz.deviantart.com

1. American Dream - L.A. Style

2. X, Y & Zee (Sensory Amplification Mix) - Pop Will Eat Itself

3. W.F.L. (Think About the Future Mix) - Happy Mondays

4. Never Let Me Down (Aggro Mix) - Depeche Mode

5. It's Over Now - Cause & Effect

6. Again ('90 Remix) - Do Piano

7. Prisoner to Desire - Psyche

8. Don't Argue (Dance) - Cabaret Voltaire

9. Hyperreal (Remix) - The Shamen

10. Life on Your Own (Extended) - The Human League

11. Hip Hop Be Bop (12" Mix) - Man Parrish

12. State of the Nation - New Order

13. Around My Heart (Razormaid! Mix) - Sandra

14. It's Alright Now (Back to Basics) - Beloved

15. State of Shock (L'Pool Edit) - Revenge

Notes and other random things: Greetings from Charlotte, NC. I'm DJ Tintin and this is my retro podcast. Glad you've found it. Feel free to stay as long as you like.

Sorry for the re-introduction, but I've been away for so many weeks between my last podcast and this one that I almost feel like stranger to many of you. If you're tuning in for the first time, I am. And if you are, in fact, a newbie, I recommend going back and re-reading the first sentence, making sure to apply a tone of sincerity to the voice in your head instead of a sarcastic one. Before you do, however, I need to add a few more adjectives. That first sentence should read: Greetings from bread-less, milk-less, power generator-less Charlotte, NC.

What the hell am I talking about?

Well, for those listeners in the U.S., (and possibly abroad) you are probably well aware of the recent hurricane that hit the eastern seaboard over the past week. (If you're not, may I suggest the internet?) As such, there is neither bread, nor milk, nor power generator to be found anywhere as these are the desirable items for which panic-stricken residents spend hours in check-out lines hoping to buy the week leading up to the event. 

Now, as a mid-west transplant living in the Carolinas for 14 years, I get the fear associated with hurricanes. I do. They are analagous to the fear we mid-westerners have in regards to tornadoes. The difference is you have about 10-15 minutes maximum to prepare for a tornado as opposed to a week or so for a hurricane. What that means is after a tornado passes, I can at least emerge from the twisted pile of tinder that used to be my house, go down to the local market (if it’s still standing) and celebrate my continuing to live with a bowl of cereal. In the Carolinas, that’s an impossibility because the shelves have been completely wiped out.  

If I were a guy who actually bothered to prepare for catastrophe instead of worrying about posting his next podcast, I'd actually scoop up all the lunch meat, cereal and lightbulbs from the nearby food emporium at the first word of impending doom. Surely, someone with bread, milk and a power generator would be willing to barter for shelter should I be left homeless. Methinks the guy with the cache of mustard or mayo would probably be sitting pretty as well.

On to the music …

L.A. Style make their first appearance on CRC. They were a rave group that toured extensively between 1991 and 1995, when they eventually split up. The group was founded by radio host Wessel van Diepen, also the most successful dance-pop producer in Dutch history having assembled the groups Nakatomi and the Vengaboys as well. The band was fronted by Frans Zid Merkx, a multi-tool artist going by the moniker FX. Best known for their huge club hit James Brown is Dead, L.A. Style were the first group to land a rave track on Billboard’s Hot 100 Airplay chart. The song here, American Dream, is the last track on L.A. Style’s self-titled album from 1993. The sample contained within comes from the first inaugural speech of President Richard M. Nixon, delivered Monday, January 20, 1969. See the excerpt below:

“The American dream does not come to those who fall asleep. But we are approaching the limits of what government alone can do. Our greatest need now is to reach beyond government, and to enlist the legions of the concerned and the committed. What has to be done, has to be done by government and people together or it will not be done at all. The lesson of past agony is that without the people we can do nothing; with the people we can do everything.”

Pop Will Eat Itself have appeared a couple times in earlier CRC episodes (#13 and #20) and both times the tracks used were taken from their Cure For Sanity album circa 1990. If you believe the past is a good indicator of the future, you won’t at all be surprised to learn that X, Y & Zee, the track here, also appeared on that amazing album. I say amazing because I have vivid memories associated with it, trucking home from Texas to Kansas over fall break my sophomore year in college. I took my roommate to see the Kansas/Kansas State football game and then we stayed in Manhattan (also called "The Little Apple", which is home to the KSU campus) with friends drinking and carousing well into the night after a KSU victory (though truth be told I’m a KU fan). This album received heavy rotation on that 1200-mile round trip and deservedly so, though you won’t find much agreement among those haters of what was called the “grebo” movement. Mostly a product of the music media who have an unfailing compulsion to label clusters of similar-sounding music, grebo started in the late 80s and continued on into the early 90s before “Brit Pop” took over. PWEI were forerunners of the subculture, which encompassed bands whose sound blended garage rock, hip hop, pop and electronica. Dreads, partially shaved heads and high ponytails, torn jeans, boots, lumberjack shirts, army surplus clothing, and eclectic hats defined the fashion (if you can call it that), a look dubbed by the Trouser Press as “slimy-looking lowlifes playing retrograde raunch”. Ned’s Atomic Dustbin, Jesus Jones, The Wonder Stuff and others were all part of that short-lived movement. The remix appearing here, though taken from the single, also appears as a hidden track at the end of the Cure for Sanity CD. A little PWEI trivia: the band was headed by Clint Mansell, a fine musician who has gone on to score many Hollywood films including the Darren Aronofsky films Pi and Requiem for a Dream, The Wrestler and Black Swan. Music writing credits on PWEI albums are all listed as Vestan Pance, a pseudonym for the entire band. At one time, after the addition of drummer Robert “Fuzz” Townshend to their line-up, they proposed the name Vestan Pance and Socks, which was summarily rejected by their label RCA.

Speaking of heading up an artistic movement, The Happy Mondays would most certainly qualify. Lead by one-time smack user Sean Ryder, the Mondays charged headlong into what would become the Ecstasy-fueled club scene in Manchester, England. Dubbed “Madchester” by those who were there, the Mondays became poster boys for the “haves” of the sonic landscape, diving into excess so severely that they nearly drove their label, Factory Records, into financial oblivion. The whole thing is pretty well-chronicled in the excellent film 24-Hour Party People, directed by Michael Winterbottom, which is sort of a dramatized account of Factory Records head man, Tony Wilson, and the rise of Joy Division, with some attention given to other Factory bands including: New Order, A Certain Ratio, The Durutti Column and, of course, the Mondays. The track here, W.F.L. (which stands for Wrote For Luck) was remixed by Paul Oakenfold and appears on the mini-album Hallelujah. Hallelujah was originally a four-song EP called the Madchester Rave On EP, but was renamed after three bonus dance mixes were added before its release in the U.S. For Erasure buffs, a Vince Clarke remix of W.F.L. also appears on the CD version of the Mondays’ second full-length album called Bummed.

When close-knit bands lose a member to tragic circumstances there exists a time of deep reflection followed by a re-evaluation period where remaining members make the critical decision to fold up the tent or to carry on. After losing singer Ian Curtis to suicide on the eve of their first U.S. tour, Bernard Sumner, Peter Hook and Stephen Morris of Joy Division decided to continue on, though they decided a name change was in order to escape the long shadow left by Curtis. Out of the ashes came New Order. For Rob Rowe of Cause & Effect, the untimely death of friend and co-founder Sean Rowley too put his hopes for the future in serious doubt. The tragic loss in many ways eclipsed the success of their self-titled debut album on Exile Records (which was later re-issued as Another Minute by BMG). That album spawned two top ten dance singles, including You Think You Know Her, which stands as the group’s pop chart high point. Unlike Joy Division, Rob made the decision to move forward under the C&E banner. He enlisted Keith Milo, a California-based electronic musician and, along with drummer Richard Shepherd, the band released their second full-length album, Trip, in 1994.            

“Performing the tribute to Sean at the KROQ Acoustic Christmas Show in LA was a turning point,” explains Rowe in the band’s Offical bio, “The overwhelming support from the fans and audience made me realize that giving up just wasn’t an option.”

“Coming in to Cause and Effect after Sean’s death was a scary thing to do,” adds Milo. “There was so much uncertainty. Sean was a genius with melody, he was irreplaceable. I think there was solace in the fact that we became a very different band at that point and we all felt that we were doing the right thing by continuing on.”

Produced by the great Martyn Phillips, Trip contains the brilliant track appearing here, It’s Over Now. It ultimately climbed to #7 on Billboard’s modern rock charts, and was the band’s fourth release to appear on Billboard Hot 100 singles chart.

The last artist I want to touch upon this go-round is Man Parrish. An Andy Warhol, Club 54 “freakazoid”, Man Parrish is responsible for a couple of the most enduring, innovative and influential tracks in the history of electronic music. I say a couple because as quickly as he arrived he vanished once again into relative obscurity. Arriving right at the juncture of the evolutionary electronic music tree where legendary producers like Arthur Baker and John Robie split from the Kraftwerk-infused trunk to create a portion of the hip-hop foundation with Soul Sonic Force’s track Planet Rock, Manny Parrish would split the other way, building upon the notes of Kraftwerk’s Autobahn that were no doubt trapped somewhere in his brain. Using a Roland TR-808 drum machine and two keyboards, he crafted Hip Hop Be Bop in his bedroom. In doing so, he became one of the early producers-turned-artists on the electronic music scene.

In an interview, Man said of the track, “It was played in a really wide spectrum: in black hip-hop clubs, in white underground places like Danceteria, in after-hours clubs. The radio station pumped it like crazy because I did vocoder spots for them and in exchange for payment, they put my stuff into heavy rotation. When you first hear it, you think, ‘Huh, weird instrumental track.’ But the more you listen to it, it's like, 'This is really interesting.' It even happened to me: I used to hate it at first."

Hip Hop Be Bop went on to sell over two million copies, but Parrish received almost nothing for his groundbreaking efforts. Much like innovation, ripping off artists was commonplace back then. As Parrish explains, “When I first started out I was so broke I made this song called Heatstroke as a soundtrack for a porno movie. Some DJ had sampled it off the movie, made an acetate, and somebody told me, ‘Hey they're playing your music at this club.’ I ran down to the club and all of a sudden my song came on. I asked the DJ, ‘Wait a minute, where'd you get that record? It's my music.’ He told me, ‘That's your music? Come down to the record company, they'll sign you on the spot.’"

He goes on to say, “I got nothing--it was the classic first record rip-off deal. I would go to the label and literally beg for rent. The guy who owned it bought a plane, a house in Vermont, and a Porsche with a hand-carved dashboard. It was how everyone did it back then.”

After suffering so many disappointments and massive burn-out, Parrish ended up a male prostitute for a spell to pay the bills. As many musicians as were influenced by him, Man Parrish inadvertently may have influenced thousands of lawyers as well as his story reads like a textbook case of copyright infringement, an issue which would come to the forefront of music as technology and sampling began to take hold during the 80s.

That’s it for this episode. Thanks to everyone for tuning in and be sure to support the artists as they make this all possible. Barring any more hurricanes, I’ll be back soon with another episode.

Cheers!

1. Tempted - Waterlillies

2. World in My Eyes (Safar Mix) - Depeche Mode

3. Neighbors (Extended Version) - Camouflage

4. So in Love (Brand New Extended Mix) - Orchestral Manoeuvers In The Dark

5. In Love with Love (Razormaid! Mix) - Debbie Harry

6. Always on My Mind / In My House - Pet Shop Boys

7. You Spin Me Round (Murder Mix) - Dead Or Alive

8. Witchcraft (Extended Mix) - Book Of Love

9. Don't Stop (Razormaid! Mix) - The Mood

10. Anvil (Night Club School) - Visage

11. Let's Go to Bed - The Cure

12. The Beach - New Order

13. Chorus (Fishes in the Sea) (Aggressive Trance Mix by Youth) - Erasure

14. Cry Wolf (Extended Mix) - a-ha

15. Hold It (Extended Mix) - Tin Tin

Notes and other random things: I don't know about you, but I've had about enough of the triple digit temperatures. In my part of the world, at least, it's so hot that sweat sweats, stadium vendors are selling "luke warm" dogs and Paris Hilton has changed her catch phrase to "That's cold." And August has just begun! I'm afraid it's going to get a lot worse before it gets better. Thankfully the opposite is true for this podcast.

This week, CRC continues its new wave hangover from the previous episode with great old tracks from The Mood, Visage, The Cure and New Order among the selections. The Mood were from York over in the UK. They formed in 1980 and, like so many other groups, members John Moore, Mark James Fordyce, Steve Carter, John Dalby and Eric James Logan met in a local music store they frequented. This particular establishment was called Track Records. As it was with Fad Gadget, Depeche Mode appeared as The Mood's supporting act for several early live gigs. (Funny how DM eventually surpassed so many of the groups for whom they opened.) The song here, Don't Stop, was released in 1982 and peaked at number 59 on the UK singles chart, but did reach the top spot on the UK dance chart, which had recently been introduced. Between their formation and dissolution in 1984, the band released 5 singles, but none did well enough for their label RCA to support a full album, though a 5-track mini-album was released in the US. A deal with EMI never materialized after the group left RCA and they split up in 1984.    

OMD have appeared several times before on CRC. Though mostly remembered for If You Leave, their bittersweet contribution to the awesome Pretty in Pink soundtrack, Andy McClusky and Paul Humphries strung together an amazing collection of pop hits throughout the 80s. The song here, So in Love, originally appeared on the Crush album, which was released in 1985. The album was the first that producer extraordinaire Stephen Hague (Pet Shop Boys, New Order and others) produced on his own. Though a little nervous, he and the band got along splendidly. The tracks for the album were recorded at Manor Residential studios in Oxford, an isolated locale which led to "long work days and a heroic amount of drinking," according to Stephen. As for the remix that appears here, Andy said that it "... was recorded with some live drums and most of the other instruments were from the Fairlight CMI sequencer, but all put to tape. Therefore, the 12" was made of a series of dub runs of the multi-track onto two track tape, then all spliced together like the good old analogue days." OMD recently released another studio album and have been touring quite liberally over the past year. 

It's not often cover songs show up on this podcast, but in the case of Always on My Mind, I made an exception. Here, the Pet Shop Boys do their thing to Brenda Lee's 1972 country music hit, though Willie Nelson's version from ten years later may be fresher in most minds. Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe released this particular mix of the song in 1988 for their six-song album Introspective. They originally recorded the track for an ITV television special in Britain commemorating the 10-year anniversary of Elvis Presley's death (he covered the song as well). The song was such a sensation that the duo released the track as a single. The version here melds the original track with an acid-house track called In My House, which you will hear in its partiality before giving way to Dead Or Alive. A little trivia: In 2004, The Daily Telegraph slotted PSB's version of Always on My Mind at number two on their list of the 50 greatest cover songs of all time. It is a dandy, indeed. 

Speaking of cover tunes, one of Visage's earliest demos was a cover of Zagar and Evans' In the Year 2525, a haunting tune about man's inquisitive, yet self-absorbed and self-destructive nature. Formed by Steve Strange, the ubiquitous club kid, Visage were a distinctive zag(ar?) to the zigging of the post-punk movement going on at the end of the 70s. With ex-Rich Kids members vocalist Midge Ure and Rusty Egan already in tow, Ultravox's Billie Currie and bassist Barry Adamson, guitarist John McGeogh and keyboardist Dave Formula from the band Magazine joined forces with the group and released their first single, Tar - probably not the best choice, but it was material leftover from Strange's time in his previous band The Photons. Still, the difference between making your mark or not in the music biz often boils down to timing and for the next release, the group, now on Polydor instead of the tiny Radar Records, released their most successful song, Fade to Grey. It went on to sell massively throughout Europe and the single jump-started what would become the New Romantic movement.

A few other notes: In case you hadn't figured it out, The Beach is more or less the instrumental version of New Order's phenomenal dance track Blue Monday; mad props to the guys at Razormaid! for their absolutely killer mix of Debbie Harry's In Love With Love. My advice after hearing this version? Don't ever think about listening to the original on the Rockbird album - it's completely lifeless by comparison; a couple of episodes ago, you heard Snappy, the b-side to the Chorus single from Erasure. Well, here is the actual single, in a trance remix form you may never have heard before; finally, though it's far from my favorite track by Book of Love, band member Ted Ottaviano provides one of the better quotes you'll hear about a song. He said of Witchcraft, "While writing our second album I came up with this unrequited love song. The recipe is pretty clear: 1 part Greek Mythology, 1 part Nick at Night and a dash of JJ Fad." Good stuff!

That's it for this episode. Please support the artists, for they make this all possible. Check back very soon for another new episode and thanks to everyone for listening!

Cheers!

1. Rio (Carnival Version) - Duran Duran

2. White Feathers - Kajagoogoo

3. We Live So Fast (Special Dance Mix) - Heaven 17

4. Always Hoping - Vicious Pink

5. Underneath the Radar (12" Remix) - Underworld

6. Photographic - Depeche Mode

7. Sex Dwarf - Soft Cell

8. Heaven is Waiting - The Danse Society

9. A Day (Remix) - Clan of Xymox

10. Dancing in Berlin (Dance Remix) - Berlin

11. Whip It - Devo

12. I Melt with You - Modern English

13. Just Like Heaven - The Cure

14. Never Say Never - Romeo Void

15. Chosen Time - New Order

Notes and other random things: Every so often, I go real old school with the old school. The multiplier makes this podcast feeble decrepit school in some ways. Everything you hear in this one is roughly 1981-1985, the exceptions being Underneath the Radar by Underworld and club/radio mainstay Just Like Heaven by The Cure.

This episode begins with Duran Duran's Rio, the lead-off track for their album of the same name. The particular version here, the Carnival Version, is very similar to the original, though it contains a few more measures of instrumentation for a nice change of pace to the familiar one any retro lovers will know by heart. Stephen "Tin Tin" Duffy, known for his catchy 80s tune Kiss Me and for his band The Lilac Time, was the original vocalist for the band, though he left after a year figuring they would go nowhere. Simon Le Bon eventually became the frontman and the highly recognizable face of the group, though it's keyboardist Nick Rhodes with his flair for production and keyboard wizardry that really helped define the group's sound. An avid fine artist, he was acutely aware early on of the power that music videos could have on album sales, as any boy on the verge of his teens will recall from the early days of MTV. Though most guys at that age were taunted and teased mercilessly for listening to such flamboyant music, Duran Duran were an early guilty pleasure that found their way into my regular music rotation when I wasn't hanging out with the rabble-rousers.

Speaking of Mr. Rhodes, there is a larger connection between Duran Duran and Kajagoogoo, the second band appearing in this episode, than just the beat matching. It was Nick who discovered them and persuaded them to sign with EMI records despite a bidding war among three other record labels. He also helped produce their first album, White Feathers, along with Duran Duran producer Colin Thurston (who has made several appearances here on CRC doing work for Talk Talk and others). That album contained the title track heard here. An interesting side note: Nick also produced Kajagoogoo's biggest hit, Too Shy, which went on to top the charts in 1983. The kicker is that Duran Duran wouldn't have their own number one until later to the chagrin of Nick. I'm certain there are no sour grapes as Duran Duran went on to have a much longer career when all was said and done.

Over the past two episodes, the summer edition and this week's new wave edition, you may have seen and heard your fill of Modern English for a while. Both Face of Wood and now the heartbreakingly overplayed I Melt With You come from the band's second album called After the Snow. If I may say so, it is one of my all-time favorite albums. Vocalist Robbie Grey, Gary McDowell, Michael Conroy, Richard Brown, and Stephen Walker put together a sound that resonates with me more than any other: guitars, percussion, excellent vocal timbre and just the right level of keyboard accoutrements. I'm pretty sure that is the reason I fell in love with New Order and mid-80s The Cure as well. Produced by Hugh Jones, who did a lot of work with Echo and the Bunnymen, and released in 1983, After the Snow has great melodies, lovely arrangements and every song hits the sweet spot. And though I Melt With You was re-recorded and re-issued in '90, used in a Burger King ad, a Hershey ad, a Ritz ad, a Taco Bell ad and in cover form by Nouvelle Vague for automaker GMC, and overplayed on 80s flashback radio shows everywhere, if you can somehow transport yourself back in time and try to remember how you felt when you first heard it, you'll recall just how amazing this song still is. A little Modern English trivia: The band formed in Colchester, Essex in 1977 and were originally called The Lepers. Thankfully that didn't stick.

Heaven is Waiting from Danse Society represents the pinnacle of the band's early output. Kind of like B-Movie, they suffered from poor timing, ill-conceived decisions from label management and never really were able to capitalize on momentum. While recording the material for the Heaven is Waiting album, the guys sought to work with Ian Broudie, who produced for Echo and the Bunnymen, had his own band Care and later went on to form The Lightning Seeds. Anyway, Ian had other projects in the works and the band instead teamed up with Nigel Gray, who had worked with the Police and Siouxsie and the Banshees. It should have been a good fit, but Gray apparently had a rigid schedule consisting of 10am -5pm sessions. The problem was that even if a session was going well, he would call it a day at 5pm. The result was an album that, according to keyboardist Lyndon Scarfe, "was dull, lifeless, uninspired, and depressed the shit out of us." While the guys did eventually hook up with Brodie to retool the tracks, their Arista label decided to release the Stones cover 2000 Light Years from Home as their third single, something the band fought adamantly to prevent. Despite a video and a huge promotional push, the single failed to chart and it thus began their ultimate demise. Shame, really. 

As founder of 415 Records, Howie Klein brought bands like Wire Train, Translator, Until December and Red Rockers to the fore. He later went on to become the President of Reprise Records from 1989 until 2001. In this episode, you'll hear one of the ultimate sexual equivocations from the 80s in the track Never Say Never by Romeo Void, another one of Klein's finds. Lead singer Deborah Iyall is Native American and if anyone could look less like how she sounds, Deborah would certainly qualify with her half-spoken, half-sung style. Though Romeo Void disbanded in 1985, she did a couple of solo albums and, having teamed up with songwriter Peter Dunne, is still performing live today, though they haven't quite generated the buzz that she and her band did in 1982 with this tune.

That's all for this episode. As always, if you like any of the music you hear, please support the artists. Oh, and in case you were wondering, the image above is from artist Patrick Nagel. His iconic work appeared on the cover of the Rio album by Duran Duran, though an alternate image was used on the 2001 limited edition remastered version. Nagel died in 1984 at the young age of 38. He was found dead in his car after suffering an apparent heart attack. Ironically, he had earlier participated in a 15-minute celebrity Aerobathon to support the American Heart Association. 

So, on that happy note ... but I'll be back again soon with another episode, so there's that!

Thanks again to everyone for your continued support.

1. Sunshine Smile - Adorable

2. Face of Wood - Modern English

3. Here's Where the Story Ends - The Sundays

4. Touched by the Hand of God - New Order

5. See You - Depeche Mode

6. Anitina (The First Time I See She Dance) - M|A|R|R|S

7. There is a Light That Never Goes Out - The Smiths

8. Everybody Wants to Rule the World - Tears For Fears

9. Lemon - U2

10. Wishing (If I Had a Photograph of You) - A Flock Of Seagulls

11. Fascination Street - The Cure

12. Nr 9 - Hooverphonic

13. Machine Gun - Slowdive

14. Dawning - Tamaryn

15. View From a Hill - The Chameleons

Notes and other random things: Once again, summer is upon us, so once again I decided it was time for another edition of the CRC Mixtape Series. These episodes are different from the regular ones in that the format is more akin to the mixtapes I used to make for friends "back in the day". The point of them, really, is that they give me an opportunity to shine the spotlight on excellent 80s and 90s tunes that aren't considered dance tracks per se. I'm not suggesting you can't dance to these songs if you so choose because, like raindrops from a downspout, pneumatic nail guns or utility trucks driving in reverse, anything that provides rhythm is technically dance-worthy. It's just that these tunes are not ones you would typically hear in a dance club. (note: Dancing to the tune of a pneumatic nail gun is dangerous!)   

Because it is now officially summer, I decided to create another mix that has the feel of the solstice. For last year's summer episode, I used only tracks that had the word "summer" in the title, mentioned "summer" in the song or talked about things related to summer (such as Vacation by the Go-Go's). This time, I approached it a little bit differently. All the songs in this podast are ones to which I have vivid summer memories attached. Am I saying this episode is all about me? You bet! In fact, this episode of CRC will probably go down as the most self-indulgent, self-centered one of all-time. Granted, the music is still about the amazing artists, but the write-up here will have so many "I's" that it could be mistaken for a scallop ... because scallops have lots of "eyes". Get it? I's ... eyes ... um, yeah. So, anyway, it's going to be a lot like the show VH-1 Storytellers only I'm telling you stories about songs I never wrote in the first place! Doesn't that sound like fun, kids? Of course it does!

Now, before I begin, I'd like to point out that I'm not going to tell 15 stories. That would take way too long. Instead, I'm going to pick a few of my favorites and focus on those. I'd also like to point out that, for me, like for most of us, music has the power to create strong memory associations. Quite frankly, I had a boombox or walkman accompanying me just about anywhere I went during my formative years, so pretty much any song you can name has some association with it no matter how insignificant. Of course, growing up as a kid from the midwest in the 80s, radio DJs played an inordinate number of Phil Collins and Kenny Loggins songs, which means about 95% of my memories are associated with Sussudio or Danger Zone. For example:

Riding my bike to school - Danger Zone

Mowing the lawn - Sussudio

Eating Cap'n Crunch at the breakfast table while trying to block out my sister's face using the cereal box - Sussudio

Oreo-ing my buddy's new car - Danger Zone

Watching the movie Top Gun - Sussudio

The other 5% of my memories are much stronger because they are much more interesting. And thankfully they have much better soundtracks. Over the coming days, I’m going to post a few of these.

I’ll start with Lemon by U2. The year was 1993. Some friends and I took a road trip from Topeka, Kansas to Chicago. Destination: A New Order Concert. We had the car, the tunes, the Nintendo Game Boy and plenty of beer to tide us over for the 10-hour drive. U2’s Zooropa, having been released that year, was one of the albums we had with us and it received tons of airplay (or carplay as it were).

That weekend, we stayed in a rented house with some friends of other friends. We drank a ton of beer. We did tons of shots. I learned I don’t like cement mixers. On the way to the show, I complained that my meatball sub cost about $12, only to leave half of it uneaten because the meatballs were the size of bowling balls. It was Chicago and I should have known better. At the show, 808 State and The The opened. 808 State were fantastic, but there was still too much sunshine and not enough people in the seats when they took the stage. The The were solid, but I was disappointed when they did a slow, plodding version of Infected. New Order were good, but rather unremarkable as they tended to be live. After the show, I, being the most sober one there drove us back to our temporary home. “Most sober” should not be construed as “well enough to operate a motor vehicle.” I don’t recall much of that drive, only snapshots of lane lines as I tried my damndest to keep the car between them.

When we arrived home, everyone passed out from exhaustion, but mostly from acute alcohol poisoning. As for me, I stumbled to the couch in the living room where I too fell asleep. At some point in the wee hours, I was awakened somehow by a commotion at the front door. Half asleep and still in an alcohol haze, I could make out two silhouettes creeping into the house, carrying some bizarrely-shaped object between them. Rather noisily, they set it down by the front window and skulked off into the darkness. I did not move to investigate, nor did I care to find out what the object was. Shortly thereafter, I passed out once more as if nothing happened. Had the situation been reversed and had the two shadowy figures been carrying an object out of the house as in a robbery, I can honestly say that, in that state, I still would not have cared.

I cannot recall what time I awoke the following morning, but when I finally forced my eyes open, what greeted me was a glint of sunshine coming through the curtain, only it wasn’t a direct hit. Instead, it was a glancing blow from a USA Today paper box. Two of the guys had gone out in the middle of the night and had lugged the thing several city blocks to its current resting spot. Some people get angry when they drink. Some get melancholic. These two knuckleheads became information thieves.

Eventually the fun came to an end and we departed Chicago for Kansas. Only two of us stayed awake the entire trip and we split time in the driver’s seat. While the trip home was mostly uneventful compared to the weekend that was, at one point we nearly ran out of gas because we decided we didn’t want to fill up in a town that had the same name as one of our high school math teachers. Though it was funny at the time, little did we know the next exit was some 20 miles away. We almost didn’t make it, but our derring-do did help us find a hot dog stand that sold 50-cent cylinders of sustenance. Being at the point where hangovers turn to hunger pangs, I think I ate six of them.

The Zooropa album and, in particular, the song Lemon will forever remind me of this great summer adventure.

Rewind 10 years. It was 1983. Nearing teenager status, my world was starting to expand. I had more freedom to hang out with friends. Girls suddenly mattered. I was only six months or so away from arguably the greatest year for album releases in the decade that was the 80s. I was also six months away from seeing if my actual reality was going to be anything close to the one George Orwell had predicted decades earlier. I wouldn’t have that kind of opportunity again until 1999 when Prince’s then future-looking song about parties would undoubtedly have significance. But that day was still 16 years off. It would surely never arrive.

Of greater importance was the fact that I would be entering Grade 7 in the fall … junior high school. I had to act older and look cooler, but I couldn’t drive or get a job so that possibility was moot. I spent the dog days of summer with buddies and all the other degenerates at the public pool, trying to impress 16-year-old girls, who were usually nearby listening to Asia, by cannonballing off the high dive. The other option was to get as far away from home as our bikes would take us, wherever that may be. Some days we explored a quarter-mile long drainage tunnel that ran under the highway next to the cul-de-sac at the end of our street. We had the boots, the flashlights, the backpacks and everything. And we had to scale a chain link fence to get to it, adding to the sense of danger. It was Tomb Raider meets The Goonies before either ever existed. There was no gold or treasure to be found at the end of the trek, but there was a Dairy Queen.   

My buddy John and I were the first two to conquer the tunnel. He liked Dungeons & Dragons and Dr. Demento, and often suffered from spontaneous nosebleeds. He also had cable television. I often stayed over at his place on weekends because of it. We stayed up late into the night. We watched music shows like Night Flight. We watched movies with Pia Zadora and other things we probably shouldn’t have on HBO. It was at his place that we decided it would be a great idea to go out on the balcony at 8 am one Sunday morning with his boombox and blare U2’s War album. Why I’ll never know. I Will Follow was gearing up for the second chorus when John’s mom stormed outside in her bathrobe and slippers, hands on hips, and exclaimed in a hushed maniacal tone, “What the hell do you think you’re doing!?”

Sometimes John came over to my place, but we didn’t have cable. Instead, we listened to music and played Nerf basketball in the hallway upstairs. It was wider than the typical hallway and more like a foyer which gave us ample room to do some creative playmaking. Because the door had to be closed for the goal to say in place, it wasn’t uncommon to smash face first into it when going in for a windmill slam. Those poor doors! Musically, we liked the Go-Go’s. We liked Adam Ant. But we also liked Van Halen and Black Sabbath. Our music supply came from those mail order cassette tape businesses that were popular back then. Buy one cassette at regular price and get 852 free … or something like that. All we had to do was order one more at regular price in the next six months. Of course, the regular price was about $63.45. Every month, they sent you a card. Every month you had to send that card back saying you didn’t want anything, otherwise they would mail you the selection of the month or something else you didn’t want and bill you for it. I wonder if my parents ever sent in those payments.   

One afternoon, after listening to the Surf Punks and playing some Nerf hoop to Black Sabbath’s Live Evil, my buddy was about to head back home when he pulled a cassette from his bag. It was reddish orange and had some strange imagery on the cover. John said the music service had sent it to him, but he didn’t want it, so he offered it to me. The cassette was Listen by A Flock of Seagulls. Their song I Ran had been my favorite song since its release the previous year and, as most of my friends know, it completely changed my musical direction. It was so strange-sounding, but I loved it. I also had two copies of the song on 45 because I thought I had lost the first one at a school dance. I was so upset, I bought a second one with my allowance only to have the first one turn up weeks later.

Needless to say, I accepted the kind gift. The song Wishing was the first song on Listen, which was great because it made rewinding a cinch. I played it over and over again as I didn’t really know any of the other songs. At that time I was all about the hits. Over the years, I learned to appreciate the other tracks. I would also learn to appreciate that the cover image was drummer Ali Score’s silhouetted face overlaid on a circuit board and that Bill Nelson produced (It’s Not Me) Talking. By then, I had also learned that Prince’s song was way off the mark after all.  

Wishing will always remind me of that wonderful summer in 1983.  

Well, I think I've bitten off more than I can chew with this write-up. I have enough time constraints lately trying to post new episodes of music let alone trying to find a block of time to hack up personal stories from my youth. Don't get me wrong: it's a great exercise and perhaps the stories were even mildly enjoyable for many of you, but I think this write-up was a bit ambitious even for someone who can't get his keyboard to shut up. Therefore, I'm going to stop here on the stories, but you'll be glad to know I've assembled the tracks for my next podcast and it's just a matter of finding the time to record it. I'll cross my fingers that I get the chance tomorrow or perhaps Saturday morning.

Before I move onto the next episode, there is one thing you should know: I have once again reached my allotted storage space for this podcast. Those of you who have been here since the beginning know that I upgraded to a PRO account last summer because I didn't want to worry about bandwidth or storage issues. While it was worth the expenditure, I simply don't have the funds to upgrade once more. So, moving forward, I will be removing older episodes as I go to make room for newer ones. I will keep them in my personal archive, but they will no longer be available on my podcast page. So, if you haven't yet downloaded episode 3 or some of the earlier 'casts and you want to do so, now is the time. They may resurface at a later date as a "Best of CRC" episode or something, but for now they will be going away as I have no other choice. The good news is there will always be about 25-30 episodes available at any given time, so you'll have lots of good retro stuff to listen to at your leisure. 

Thanks again to all my listeners for tuning in and check back soon for a brand new episode!             

1. What Time is Love? (LP Mix) - The KLF

2. Make it Mine (v 1.0 Progress Mix) - The Shamen

3. Blue Eyed Pop (S1000 Mix) - The Sugarcubes

4. Love Baby - Fortran 5

5. Break 4 Love (Razormaid! Mix) - Raze

6. The Beginning (Roundabout Mix) - Seal

7. Walking Away (S.M.D. Mix) - Information Society

8. Don't Tell Me (Dance Remix) - Blancmange

9. Snappy (12" Remix) - Erasure

10. Beat of Life - Anything Box

11. Je T'aime (Extended Mix) - Vicious Pink

12. Bitter Heart (Razormaid! Mix) - Seona Dancing

13. Regret (The Fire Island Mix) - New Order

14. So Weit Wie Noch Nie (Erlend Oye Mix) - Jurgen Paape

15. The Caterpillar (Flicker Mix) - The Cure

Notes and Other Random Things: 

Happy Memorial Day Weekend to all my US listeners and happy regular weekend to everyone else around the globe. The occasion here in the states marks a time of sun, friends, family, icy beverages and plumes of smoke wafting from the grills and barbeque pits of backyards everywhere. But it also marks a time of quiet reflection and giving thanks to the men and women in the Armed Forces who have served our country and have, in some cases, given their lives to protect our shores. It is thanks to their bravery and their willingness to put everything on the line that the rest of us have the freedom to over-eat, get sloppy drunk and moon my television while screaming obscenities at whichever NASCAR event happens to be on.

Oh, don't tell me you haven't done it.

Anyway, even though it doesn't seem like nearly enough, a heartfelt "Thank You" to all those in uniform. Heroes - all of you.

On such a patriotic day for us in the states, and with my being one of its inhabitants, I almost feel guilty including songs with foreign lyrics like Vicious Pink's French-inspired Je T'aime and Jurgen Paape's So Weit Wie Noch Nie. The latter song includes samples from an artist named Daliah Lavi, whose lyric appears in a 1972 track called Vielleicht Schon Morgen. Mind you, I have nothing against the French and the Germans. One makes great fries and the other exceptional gummy bears. It's just that on a day like today, I somehow feel like the whole podcast should be nothing but John Philip Sousa samples sprinkled into a mash-up of The National Anthem and Take Me Out to the Ball Game, you know? But because none of those are 80s tunes (or 90s tunes for that matter) that would never happen. Of course, considering that this podcast sort of strayed from a typically unwavering adherence to the 80s & 90s theme anyway, I suppose I could have chosen that path.

For instance, the Jurgen Paape track is actually a 2002 release. It just fit so well with New Order's Regret that I couldn't resist. Also, astute listeners will hear an MC5 sample right at the beginning of the KLF track What Time is Love? Yeah, that's lead singer Rob Tyner screaming, "Kick out the jams, M0+#er Fu(k=r!" And if you listen closely and know well your old people music, you will hear a number of other samples including a highly recognizable "1 ... 2 ... 3 ...4" from the Beatles in the remix of Make it Mine by The Shamen; and "It is time ..." a chopped up sample from Chrissy Hynde of The Pretenders in the track Love Baby by Fortran 5. The original lyric appeared in the song Stop Your Sobbing.

Back to the KLF … James Cauty and William Drummond have appeared in an earlier episode of CRC. At that time, I mentioned how musically irreverent they were and how glaringly insubordinate they were to the music industry as a whole. It seemed as if everything they did was merely to get a reaction out of the public or to challenge the accepted definitions of art. One read of their hilarious and very tongue-in-cheek book How to Have a Number One the Easy Way will support that notion, but it doesn’t mean they didn’t pen some very infectious and highly danceable tracks in the process. What Time is Love?, despite dripping with mid-range frequencies, is one of them. Now, pay attention because here are some names that you should know as they helped make the song what it is:

Isaac Bello: he’s the guy who does the rapping in the song.

Wanda Dee: she’s responsible for the “I wanna see you sweat” lyric

And then there are P.P. Arnold and Katie Kisson, who yell “Mu Mu!” at various intervals. How’s that for a resume builder?

The Sugarcubes make their second appearance on CRC with the excellent remix of Blue Eyed Pop. As most Bjork fans know, the Icelandic collective is where the pint-sized pop star first gained international acclaim, though she had been involved in music from a very young age, even recording her first album at age 11. She has also had a brilliant solo career and contributed vocals to the song QMart on the 808 State album Ex:el. This mix of Blue Eyed Pop was done by S1000. The DJ/production duo consisted of Mike Koglin and Spencer Williams. Koglin has gone on to become a very prominent trance DJ and producer these days, running his own record imprint called Noys Music. To those younger listeners with a larger familiarity with the trance scene, he had a huge club hit in 1998 with a track called The Silence, which was a reworking of Depeche Mode’s Enjoy the Silence. 

Raze were conceived by American producer Vaughn Mason with singer Keith Thompson contributing vocals. Though Break 4 Love was released in 1988, Thompson also did the vocal honors on a track called Jack the Groove in 1986. That song was one of the very first house music chart topping tracks in the UK, creeping into the top 20 at one point. The Pet Shop Boys and Peter Rauhofer, who also performed under the name Club 69, did a cover of Break 4 Love in 2001. Using the name The Collaboration, the track appears on the bonus disc of the album Release and as a b-side to the second disc of their single Home and Dry. The Razormaid! version here is pretty filthy at points, thus the Explicit tag on this podcast. It’s a pretty muddy, steamy affair anyway, but some of the samples might make you squirm a bit if you’re within earshot of your parents while listening. Why on earth you would put yourself into that predicament anyway is beyond me. Then again, as the guy who just admitted he moons his television, I probably don't have much room to judge. You probably don’t want to play this one around your kids either, unless you’re prepared to answer a LOT of questions.

Information Society have appeared on CRC several times in the past and they will appear again in the future. I’ll let the band themselves tell you about this particular track. I’m still trying to figure out what S.M.D. stands for.

“This was the 2nd single released off the ‘first’ album. It did almost as well as What's On Your Mind, getting to #9 in the top 40 in the fall of '88. The video got a lot of MTV airplay. We had a big problem with this one in the studio. When we were mixing, and we got to the vocals, they sounded distorted in a very strange manner. Of course, the first thing we did was to solo the vocals to hear what was wrong with them. Then we couldn't hear anything wrong with them, so we shook our heads and went back to mixing. Then they sounded distorted again. Only WITH the tracks did they sound distorted. Eventually we realised that the super-heavy TR-808 kick drum sound was creating the ILLUSION of distortion in the vocals, similar to the effect of talking into a fan. We had to remove the super-sub-kick during the vocals sections.”

They went on to say, “It was on this single that we began to realise how little control a band, especially a dance band, really has over its re-mixes. We rejected the Shep Pettibone mix outright. It went on the CD anyway. We really didn't like the "The Space Age" samples in the Space Age mix, they stayed.”

Hmmmm. I think I’m getting some pretty good ideas about what the S, M, and the D might stand for now!

Erasure are no stranger to this podcast nor will they ever be with the sheer volume of catchy dance tracks Andy Bell and Vince Clarke have cobbled together over the twenty-plus years they have been together. Snappy is the b-side to the song Chorus, which appeared on the album of the same name. This 12” mix was produced by uber-producer extraordinaire Martyn Phillips. Fans of Erasure (and Depeche Mode for that matter) might be interested to know that an album collaboration between Vince Clarke (an original member of DM) and Martin Gore is forthcoming. On August 27^th of last year, Clark shared via Twitter that he and Gore had recorded a track called “Zaat”, which was to appear on the next Erasure album. The two apparently had enough creative energy together to crank out a full-length. As far as I know, no dates have been set for either release at this point.

Last, but not least, I wanted to write a few words about Seona Dancing (pronounced like Shawna). The knowledge has gained a bit of traction with the success of The Office in the UK and all his other pursuits, but Seona Dancing was the musical outlet for one Ricky Gervais when he was but a skinny little gothy/new wavy-looking kid back in the day. They had two single releases: this song and one called More to Lose, but after both achieved only modest (and apparently unofficial) chart positioning, he and friend/bandmate Bill Macrae decided to call it a day in 1984. Gervais is certainly not regretting that move, though any lovers of 80s electronica might beg to differ. As a side note, if you have small kids, do yourself a favor and don't let them listen to Break 4 Love. Did I already say that? In all seriousness though, get Ricky's excellent Flanimals series of children’s books. I happened to pick up the first one a few days ago and it’s really quite funny. It’s a brief biography of a bunch of non-sensical creatures with non-sensical names along with descriptions of their habits and behavioral traits. It’s a very entertaining read, I must admit. I also must admit I think I bought it more for myself than for anyone else. Hey, I do an 80s podcast. What kind of maturity level do you think you’re dealing with here?

Thanks to everyone for listening. I hope to be back again soon with another episode. In the meantime, enjoy this one and be sure to support the artists you like. Without their efforts, none of this is possible.   

1. Tears are Not Enough (Extended Version) - ABC

2. White Boy - Culture Club

3. Some Distant Memory - Electronic

4. Desire - T42

5. Adonde (Razormaid! Mix) - Cetu Javu

6. Drama (Act 2) - Erasure

7. Gas Stop (High Octane Mix) - Boxcar

8. People are People (Different Mix) - Depeche Mode

9. A Letter From Afar (Big Mix) - B-Movie

10. Lose Him (Original 12" Version) - I Start Counting

11. Play to Win (Disco Mix) - Heaven 17

12. Lifestyle - Elektric Music

13. Round & Round (Merry Go Mix) - New Order

14. Your Love Takes Me Higher (The Pod Went Pop Mix) - The Beloved

15. Falling Rain - Celebrate the Nun

Notes and other random things:

You might be wondering what's up with the cake pic. Well, considering it says Happy Birthday it should be pretty obvious: it's almost Memorial Day here in the U.S. That has nothing to do with the cake, but I just thought I'd point that out. Really, it occurred to me this week that at the time of my last podcast it was almost exactly one year ago that I began CRC.

One year ... hard to believe that much time has elapsed. It seems like just yesterday that today was called tomorrow. You know what they say about time ... that's it's lost a pretty big market share to Newsweek over the past decade. Really though, it apparently sprouts wings and floats about when you're having fun. And doing this show has been a blast thus far. Sure, it took awhile to get the recording process down. And it takes effort to try to come up with totally fresh episodes each week. And sometimes my joints ache when the weather is bad. That last one has nothing to do with the podcast, but it shows you my dedication and the lengths I'll go to get some great music to you, my listeners.

And speaking of listeners, had anyone told me when I started this thing that a guy with a cheap mixer, sizeable retro music collection, faulty joints, inability to do short write-ups and a dream could record a retro mix 'cast from his media room in Charlotte, NC and be listened to in 71 countries around the globe, I would have told them I'm hungry. But after I got some food, I would have said that he or she was crazy.

I want to personally thank each and every one of you for sticking with me this far, but that would take an awfully long time, so I'll just have to do it in this mass message. I hope you'll continue to come along for the ride for as long as I'm willing and able to do this podcast. How long will that be? Well, I admit I can't see into the future ... at least not very far. I do know I will be having a bowl of Lucky Charms at some point in the next half-hour, but other than that, my powers of saying sooth are not all that good. But, with a little luck, some effort on my part to shirk my other responsibilities, and a good comb I hope I'll be celebrating a second anniversary with you all around this time next year.

I think I'm going to skip the band write-ups for this week, though I may cover one or two of these bands over the weekend, since they are making their first appearances on CRC. I just had so much else to write and the pink hearts, yellow moons, orange stars, green clovers and blue diamonds are calling my name. Oh, and I'm about to go get a bowl of Lucky Charms too. 

Cheers to all of you and thank you so much for listening! You all are the best!    

Addendum:

I mentioned that I would probably write a bit about some of the bands in this episode because they made their first appearances in CRC. Well, here it is!

I'll start with Culture Club. Now, you'd have to be very, very young or living in a very remote cave not to know or have heard about Boy George. Granted, those of you who are very young may only remember images of George O'Dowd in an orange jumpsuit sweeping up rubbish on the streets of New York as part of a community service arrangement in regard to drug charges and a false burglary charge. Many of you will remember the crazy outfits and androgynous appearance of the flamboyant lead singer during the group's heyday. What you may not know, aside from the handful of singles and MTV success in the mid-80s, is that the band were really a talented collective of musicians and had a lot of soul about them. The track here, White Boy, is evidence of that. The song was the first single released by the band, though it  was a commercial disappointment despite heavy radio play. That fact doesn't make it any less amazing or addictive. As the story goes, Jon Moss, the drummer of the band, paid a visit to producer Steve Levine and John Howard in 1982 with a demo tape of three songs, including White Boy. Howard immediately pinpointed the track as the standout of the bunch and it was released three months later. If you've ever heard any of CC's early work, you would agree that the track has something about it ... a groove, a lyrical smoothness, a catchy chant-type chorus ala Nitzer Ebb's Join in the Chant - something that sets it apart. So, it was a bit of a shock that the track didn't do better upon its release. A second single, I'm Afraid of Me, was received even more poorly than the first. However, it was the appearance of graffiti on walls around London, stuff like "Culture Club Rule OK" that convinced Howard there was something abuzz about the band. Howard had seen the same thing a year or two earlier with Adam Ant on the heels of a few of their disappointing first singles. The CC camp felt that they just needed to release the "right track" and the dominoes would all fall into place. Interestingly enough, that track would end up being Do You Really Want to Hurt Me, interesting because it was originally added to the their first album Kissing to be Clever as filler material. Crazy how things work sometimes. 

T42 have appeared on CRC once before, the Thanksgiving episode to be precise, but I have to give a shout out to these guys from Texas as they were one of many Dallas/Ft. Worth bands on the rise during my college days. Jay Gillian and Will Loconto were the prime movers of this duo and they released a handful of catchy, electronic jingles that can still motivate dance floors today. The song here, Desire, was produced by Paul Robb from Information Society and became their biggest hit. I vaguely recall going to a record release party for the song. Seems like they played the track just about every hour or half hour in support and while that would seem like overkill, it's just not a song of which you can tire easily. It's one beautiful pop gem.

I want to mention Cetu Javu briefly. If you recall, they are the German band of Spanish heritage who sang the bulk of their tracks in English. They also have appeared on CRC several times in the past, but the track here, Adonde, is an example of their Spanish-influenced electronic pop. The orignal version of the song appeared on the fantastic album Southern Lands. While you can still find the first issue of the album floating around, it was reissued a few years back. If you're a fan of electronic pop music, Southern Lands is a must-have. It's solid from start to finish and includes perhaps their two biggest hits, Situation, which appeared on CRC #1 and Have in Mind, which appeared on CRC #7. 

Finally, I want to mention Elektric Music. If the studio wizardry and bizarre sampling seems remotely familiar then you are probably a Kraftwerk fan. Elektric Music is a not-so-side project of Karl Bartos, the percussionist portion of the classic four-man Kraftwerk lineup. The band was founded in 1992 when Bartos became a little frustrated at the tortoise-like pace Ralf Hutter and Florian Schneider, both founding members of Kraftwerk, had adopted in the studio. Their perfectionist tendencies spurred Bartos to branch out and do his own thing. The track here, Lifestyle, is the fourth track on EM's debut album, Esperanto. My favorite track, TV, which leads off the album is a song I'm dying to include in one of these episodes, but the BPMs are so low that it is going to be a bit of a challenge. Perhaps I'll figure out how to include it in one of my Mixtape episodes. Anyway, Bartos has worked closely with Bernard Sumner (vocalist from New Order) and Johnny Marr (former guitarist for The Smiths and The The), penning songs for the duo's Electronic project and their second full-length album, Raise the Pressure, which was released in 1996. Bartos has also worked with OMD's Andy McCluskey. Their collaborative efforts can be found on the OMD album Universal and on the songs Show Business and Kissing the Machine, both from Elektric Music's Esperanto album. For tech junkies, you might be interested to know that Karl Bartos released an iPhone app called Mini-Composer in March of this year. It's a rudimentary 16-steps sequencer with 4 basic waves synthesizer. It was designed with the help of Japanese artist Masayuki Akamatsu and executive producer Jean-Marc Lederman.

Again, thanks to everyone for listening. I'll be back with another episode really soon. Hang tight!

1. Quiet Room - Images In Vogue

2. AEIOU Sometimes Y - Ebn-Ozn

3. Cars (Razormaid! Mix) - Gary Numan

4. Tears - Psyche

5. You - (Razormaid! Mix) - Axodry

6. U.S.O.E. - C.C.C.P.

7. That Way Again - Seven Red Seven

8. Pineapple Face (Crimson Clover Mix) - Revenge

9. My Heart Goes Bang (Get Me to the Doctor) ( Extended Remix) - Dead Or Alive

10. Destination Eschaton - The Shamen

11. Scream Down at Me (Razormaid! Mix) - China Crisis

12. Girls on Film (Night Version) - Duran Duran

13. One Thing Leads to Another (Extended Version) - The Fixx

14. Tesla Girls (Razormaid! Mix) - Orchestral Manouevers In The Dark

15. That's Love, That it Is (Extended Remix Version) - Blancmange

Notes and other random things:

First, a Happy belated Easter to everyone. Yes, the write-up is a week late, but if I don't say that then the picture of that mushy sugar mess known as Peeps doesn't really make much sense. I apologize for the declining frequency of the 'casts lately and the delayed write-ups, but if the notion of quality over quantity ever needed to be applied, now would be a good time for it. I think it's John Lennon who once said that "Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans." John Lennon said lots of things, not all of which I agree with, but he is quite right about that one. Don't worry: it's nothing bad or foul or vile. Actually, it's quite exciting stuff that I may reveal somewhere down the line, but for now I'll opt to keep some private things private. I know, I know. I'm such a tease sometimes. But let us get to the real reason you're here ... the music.

Images In Vogue have appeared once before on CRC with the great tune Lust for Love. Quiet Room was recorded between November 1981 and February 1982.  As mentioned earlier, the band formed in Vancouver, Canada in 1981 and featured one Kevin Crompton on percussion. You may remember he went on to form the industrial band Skinny Puppy. Interestingly enough, he left Images In Vogue and stayed behind in Vancouver after convincing the group to move to Toronto thinking it would be easier to conduct their business there. Throughout the course of their decade-long career, they went through several line-up changes, but did open for Depeche Mode in 1982, Bryan Adams in 1983, and Duran Duran on the Seven and the Ragged Tiger tour in 1984. The band called it quits in 1991, gathering for a one-off show at Toronto's Opera House in 2002.

Ebn-Ozn's track AEIOU Sometimes Y appeared in an earlier Fun With Retro podcast from last year. The version you heard there was from a retro compilation whereas the version you'll hear in this episode is the album version. Any die-hard 80s fans will love this full-length version as it contains lyrical verses that you never hear on the radio during those retro shows. When you hear them, you'll understand why. Lead vocalist Ozn (Robert Rosen) even dares DJs to play this record, which most never did. Ebn (Ned Liben) was the instrumentalist of the group, though he died sadly in 1998 of a heart attack. Robert Rosen officially changed his name to Robert Ozn and has gone on to become an in-demand script analyst, screenwriter and producer.     

My first ever podcast from last April included Change Your Mind, a track from Gary Numan and jazz fusion instrumentalist Bill Sharpe. Of course the track here, Cars, is probably Gary's best-known song and, unfortunately, one that is overplayed to death not only on the radio, but as bumper music for nearly every damn traffic report known to mankind. Still, it's a classic and deserves an appearance. I've shied away from Gary's music more than I'd like to because, like The Clash, The Cure, The Smiths and other bands, a live drummer causes some problems with beat matching. BPMs fluctuate wildly over the course of an entire song, so as a DJ you really have to pre-plan where you're going to mix out the song. The transition to Psyche's great song Tears, as you'll probably attest, isn't perfect, but it's close. Again, little things like this are just part of the character of this podcast. I'm keeping it real as the kids say these days. (Do kids still say that?)

Axodry was one of the MANY projects by Andreas Tomalla better known as Talla 2XLC. I wish I had more info for you on this release/project, but I don't. I can tell you the song was originally mixed by The Teutons of Fun, F. Poulton and M. Buchel, before Art Maharg of Razormaid! fame got hold of it to make this version. Ha ha ... get it? "Teutons" of fun ... two tons of fun. Um, yeah. Good times.

Seven Red Seven were comprised of Mitchell Adrian and David Michael. That Way Again was taken from their first full-length album Shelter, which was released in 1991. Though they had a sound reminiscent of Cause & Effect and other electro-pop bands of the era, their songs were full of great pop hooks and catchy melodies and very much held their own. The boys did a pretty interesting cover of Stevie Wonder's Superstition and helped out with remix work/backing vocals/songwriting on the 1997 release Hope Springs Eternal by Christian-oriented synth outfit The Echoing Green.

Revenge were one of several side projects by former Joy Division and New Order bassist Peter Hook. The band was sort of a response to the announcement by Bernard Sumner (lead singer of New Order) that he was taking a hiatus after their Technique tour to pursue other things. By "other things" he meant the band Electronic with Johnny Marr from The Smiths and Neil Tennant from Pet Shop Boys. It had been widely suggested that the name Revenge was aimed at Sumner, though Hook reveals the name idea actually came from the word "Revenge" spanning the back of the leather jacket George Michael wore in the video for his song Faith. Pineapple Face was the group's most successful song and a massive club hit. After the dissolution of Revenge, Hook went on to form the group Monaco, whose song Junk appeared on an earlier episode.

Dead Or Alive have been on this podcast a couple times previously. Last time, I discussed their connection with the production super-trio of Stock Aitken Waterman. The track here, My Heart Goes Bang, was remixed by Phil Harding and he offered some reflections on the track and SAW:

"The opening is very reminiscent of the sounds on You Spin Me Round - the slap bass is Fairlight - the main bass was a keyboard that I can't remember the name of ... and the drums were mainly the famous Linn drum machine." (It should be noted here that as a kid, I would have given my left arm, gall bladder, appendix and - get this - maybe even a functional internal organ of some sort for a Fairlight CMI keyboard and a Linn drum machine.) He continues, "Most of those would have been programmed by Stock and Aitken, then the marimba sounding sequence that enters is from the band's original programming. A lot of the tracks on the Youthquake album contained this similar combination of D.O.A. and SAW ideas, which made the final result exciting and full of great ideas."

China Crisis make their first appearance on CRC with the excellent Razormaid! mix of Scream Down at Me. The band originally formed in 1979 outside Liverpool in a township called Kirkby. They were sort of new wave-y, but had distinct elements of post-punk at their core. Their two best-known tracks stateside are probably Working with Fire and Steel and King in a Catholic Style, the former a huge hit in Australia and the latter reaching #19 in the U.K. It was also their last major hit single. Fans of artists like David Bowie, Brian Eno and Steely Dan, the group would end up working with Walter Becker from Steely Dan on their third full-length album circa 1985.

As much as I love the band, this is the first appearance by The Fixx on CRC. I guess I just never found a good moment to include them in the flow of a mix until now. One of the enduring factors about The Fixx's music is the production work by Rupert Hine. His guitar work in particular is always quite haunting and it creates a very solemn feel in much of his music. Rupert has worked with many other artists including Duncan Sheik on his first couple of albums and the band Eight Seconds, whose spine-chilling track Kiss Me When It's Dangerous has appeared twice on CRC (the last being the Thanksgiving episode). I can guarantee it will appear again in the future. The Fixx began their career as Portraits, changing it to The Fix (one "x") after adding guitarist Jamie West-Oram to the Portraits line-up of Cy Curnin (vocals), Adam Woods (drums), Rupert Greenall (keyboards) and Charlie Barrett (bass). After signing to MCA, the label forced the second "x" into the name to avoid any unwarranted drug references. Interestingly, they were largely ignored in their native England and it was America where they first became bonafide stars aided by heavy video rotation during the halcyon days of MTV. One Thing Leads to Another is one of the band's biggest hits reaching #4 on the pop charts. It also remains one of the defining songs of the band and the decade of the 80s as a whole. If you have never listened to the album Reach the Beach in its entirety, put it on your musical bucket list. It is a rock masterpiece without question. In fact, the title track is one of the most beautifully assembled songs you've probably never heard before.

Finally, Blancmange make their second trip to CRC with the extended remix version of That's Love, That it Is. Formed in 1979 in England, they were signed to London Records after their track Sad Day managed to make it onto the great Some Bizarre compilation alongside Depeche Mode's Photographic, Soft Cell's The Girl with the Patent Leather Face and Moles by the group B-Movie among others. Lead singer Neil Arthur recalls the recording of That's Love ... :

"We had this groove going and needed to get the last sequence laid on top. Took forever to sync up - wouldn't cooperate. Then by fluke as the track was starting, someone hit the sequencer in manual and it was perfect. 'Hit the record button!' everyone shouted. Message understood. A random event caught on tape."

Thanks to everyone for the kind messages sent to me this past week. I'm talking real actual messages ... not those suspect ones from that poser Faye Kletter. Your praise and your kind words are what really make doing this podcast so worthwhile. Well, that and sharing oodles of great music with you all.

Until next time (which will hopefully be sooner rather than later), keep supporting the artists you hear as they are truly the ones who make this all possible. Happy listening!      
 

   

1. The Gap (Phil Thornalley Mix) - Thompson Twins

2. Turn Your Back on Me (Extended Mix) - Kajagoogoo

3. Burning Flame (Extended Dance Mix) - Vitamin Z

4. Need You Tonight (Liebrand 12" Mix) - INXS

5. I Touch Roses (Long Stemmed Version) - Book Of Love

6. Heaven (Club Mix) - Camouflage

7. West End Girls (Razormaid! Mix) - Pet Shop Boys

8. Enjoy the Silence (Tintin's Static Dub Bum Mix) - Depeche Mode

9. Fade to Grey (Extended) - Visage

10. Imagination - Xymox

11. Don't Leave Me (Special Radio Edit) - Cetu Javu

12. Bizarre Love Triangle (Extended Dance Mix) - New Order

13. New York, New York (Dancefloor Cut Mix) - Microchip League

14. Quite Unusual - Front 242

15. Smooth (Razormaid! Mix) - Cabaret Voltaire

Notes and other random things: This particular episode has a rather strange musical arc to it. It begins with a very frou frou friendly pop burst, settles into a classic alternative retro groove and then ends formidably with a trio of industrial-tinged beauties. As I've mentioned before, these progressions just sort of happen. I don't really plan them, which might explain away some of the unlikely combinations. Then again, maybe, as Depeche Mode sang, I got the balance right for some of you. Either way, I hope you'll find something to like here because there is undeniably plenty on offer.

Thompson Twins have appeared several times before on CRC, usually at the beginning of these episodes as their BPM counts tend to be on the low side. Nevertheless, this track, like the others, is a classic. The original version of The Gap appeared on 1984's Into the Gap album. It was the first of the band's albums to reach platinum status in the U.S. Hold Me Now, Doctor! Doctor! and You Take Me Up were all from that album and were all massive hits for these guys. Thomas Bailey and Alannah Currie, the two constants in the group, formed the band Babble after the dissolution of Thompson Twins. If you haven't already, you should take a listen to them. It's a much more moody and ambient project compared to their pop stuff, but it's a phenomenal listen.

A couple of episodes ago, I mentioned the name Colin Thurston. He was a big time producer who did work for Duran Duran and Talk Talk in the early 80s. Well, here he is again doing the production honors on this great track by Kajagoogoo. The band will forever be known for Too Shy and for lead singer Limahl's trademark spiky locks with mullet, but they did have many other catchy songs (and bizarre hairstyles) in their repertoire. This would be one of them. Though it didn't chart in the U.S., Turn Your Back on Me reached #47 in the U.K. 26 years ago this past March 13. How time flies.

Vitamin Z were more or less a one-hit wonder and depending on what kind of clubs and radio stations you had access to growing up they may be a no-hit wonder. Despite their lack of hit making, the band is notable on several fronts. Besides touring with Tears for Fears, they were only the second collective of Western Europeans to be allowed to film in Turkey, the first being the crew for the movie Midnight Express. (By the way, a sample from that movie turned up on Nine Inch Nails first album Pretty Hate Machine.) They were there to film their video for the song Circus Ring (We Scream About). Also, for current music buffs, lead singer Geoff Barradale is now the band manager for the Arctic Monkeys. In regards to this mix of Burning Flame, band member Nick Lockwood recalls, "Burning Flame was our first release and indeed the first song we wrote together. When we recorded this song, it was our first time together in the recording studio and for me was the beginning of a very long learning experience, which continues to this day." He went on to say the track has special significance for him marking a period of of "beginnings, innocent times, and high hopes."

I haven't had INXS on CRC at all, mostly because I just don't own many dance remixes by these guys. Without the extra measures of pure beats, it's quite hard to mix as much of their work is in the 3-4 minute range. This Liebrand 12" Mix by Ben Liebrand is one I do own. It's a bit more electronically oriented than the original, but a great mix no doubt. The original version of Need You Tonight was the first single released from the fantastic Kick album, but it was actually one of the last songs recorded. The main guitar riff you hear was written by Andrew Farriss, one of the three Farriss brothers in the band. In the official INXS biography he talks about how the riff came to him while trying to hail a cab. Not wanting to lose it, he asked the driver to wait while he ran back up to his hotel room to get "something". Really, though, he ran back up to quickly record the notes, pissing off the cabbie in the process. 

Truth be told, the Enjoy the Silence mix is not really anything I created. In reality, I merged the Ecstatic Dub Version of the song with the album version. Why? I love the electronic bass line of the song and wanted to hear more of it. However, the concoction still needed a name, so I searched real hard for something clever. Sadly, I didn't find it. So, I combined the two names and you have the Static Dub Bum Mix. In my mind, this was really the beginning of the end for Depeche Mode in my preferred state. The following album, Songs of Faith and Devotion, saw the addition of more guitar work; the subsequent drug problems that nearly killed lead singer Dave Gahan; and the departure of long-time fixture Alan Wilder, who went on to full-time duty in his Recoil project. As much as I love these guys, I contend that Alan's departure took a huge bite out of the musical arrangements that made classic DM so fantastic. It seemed after that a whole new generation of electronic acts were doing DM better than DM were doing DM. It's always sad to see childhood favorites slipping into the musical abyss, though they did briefly crawl back into daylight again with the incredible song Precious about five years back.

Imagination is one of my favorite Xymox songs from the Twist of Shadows album. The song Obsession from the same album really helped the group burst onto the underground dance scene. Band member Anke Wolbert performed the vocals on this song. Though the original lineup of Ronny Moorings, Pieter Nooten, Frank Weyzig and Anke Wolbert were nothing like the Beatles, I always looked upon her as the Ringo Starr of the band. Like Ringo on the Beatles albums, she usually had a token song to sing on every release. Unlike Ringo's campy creations such as Octopus' Garden, her vocalizations are quite haunting and it's perhaps a shame she didn't take the lead a little bit more. Check out the track Masquerade from the Medusa album as further proof. Here she is at her pop best as are the band as a whole. Xymox are sometimes referred to as the Godfathers of Goth and are still creating dark synth dance music today.

Cetu Javu have appeared on CRC previously. You may recall they are the Spanish band who reside in Germany and sing primarily in English. This version of Don't Leave Me will be a real treat for fans and listeners alike as it is actually in English. The original version off their really hard to find (and very expensive!) second full-length called Where is Where is in Spanish. I found this particular track on a remix compilation I recently bought. When I saw this track was not a remix, I figured it was just the album track, but was pleasantly surprised when the vocals kicked in and it was in English. I know that sounds dorky, but would I be doing a podcast full of 20-30 year old tunes and doing long write-ups like this if I weren't an 80s dork? I'm pretty aware that my dork status was cemented the first time I posted on this site.

Bizarre Love Triangle is a true dance floor classic in every sense. The version here was taken from the single and it's called the Extended Dance Mix. To prove my dorkiness, I thought I would mention that it's the same version that appears on the Substance compilation, though on Substance it does not have the dance mix designation. Instead, you have to go to the fine print where the great Shep Pettibone does get the credit for this gem.

Finally, Microchip League make their second appearance on CRC. In dance club circles, people knew them as MCL. When I first began listening to industrial music toward the end of the 80s, I knew this song as having been performed by MCL. It's kind of embarrassing to admit now, but I didn't immediately associate the initials MCL with Microchip League. So, when someone talked of Microchip League I didn't make the connection between the name and this song eventhough it's by far their best known dance hit. It packed floors back then and is still a killer tune all these years later. Though it has umpteen mixes in total, I chose the Dancefloor Cut Mix for this episode. As is the case with a lot of this early German electronica, Talla 2XLC had his hands all over the production of this project. His work has appeared in earlier episodes of CRC with bands like Robotiko Rejekto and Moskwa TV and will, I'm certain, be laced throughout for as long as I continue posting.

I always say I'm going to shorten these write-ups and then I fail. I'll try harder to be lazy in the future. I promise. As always, if you like any of the artists, be sure to support them as they make this all possible.

Until next time, happy listening!

Photo credit: aussiegall

1. XX21 (Remix) - Fortran 5

2. God Tonight - Real Life

3. Brand New Lover (Dust Monkey's Love Bubble Mix) - Dead Or Alive

4. Oh L'amour (The Funky Sisters Remix) - Erasure

5. Hey! Freethinker (Razormaid! Mix) - Voice Farm

6. State Farm (Madhouse Mix) - Yaz

7. Nothing to Fear - Depeche Mode

8. Relax (Ollie J Mix) - Frankie Goes To Hollywood

9. She's a Secretary (Gothic Mix) - Celebrate The Nun

10. Think (Virtual Reality Mix) - Information Society

11. Disappointed (808 Mix) - Electronic

12. Cubik (Kings County Perspective) - 808 State

13. Creation (Ultimatum Mix) - Stereo MC's

14. Behind the Wheel (Beatmaster Mix) - Depeche Mode

15. Subculture - New Order

It occurred to me the other day that I forgot to dip into the mailbag last week as I hinted I would the episode prior. Granted, the fact that I've been absent from 'casting for a few weeks could lead you all to believe I forgot about my listeners as well. Touche. The truth is, though, that is far, far from accurate. I think about my listeners from sunup to sundown and...okay, for much of the day anyway and...all right, I'm no good at deception. I keep my listeners firmly in mind from about 11:23 am to 11:26 am Tuesday mornings. There, you happy? But they are all good thoughts. Nothing bad...okay, maybe the occassional bad thing. Can we just move on now?

So, here is the mailbag for this week. It reads:

Dear Tintin,

I love your show. You play so much great stuff and your mixing is brilliant. Oh how I wish I had your talent.

Signed,

Faye Kletter

Well, thanks for that, Faye. I realize I'm not a household name or anything, but I've been a music collector for most of my life and I try to bring a diverse set of that music to you each week. Thanks for the props.

Oh, wait, there's a post script.

P.S. In case you couldn't tell, I'm being sarcastic.

Okay...that's it for the mailbag this week.

The song selection in this week's 'cast consists mostly of high energy retro dance classics, like Oh L'amour by Erasure and Brand New Lover by Dead Or Alive. Both of those make up the "need more cowbell" portion of the episode. Then there are a few instrumental tracks, like Nothing to Fear by Depeche Mode, Cubik by 808 State and the lead off track XX21 by Fortran 5. That's about three times the normal amount of vocal-less boogie tunes, but the sampling in two of the tracks is sort of like vocals, so it's not so bad, really.

Fortran 5 were a collaboration between David Baker and Simon Leonard. The two orginally performed as I Start Counting, whom you may recall from a previous episode, and will recall from a future episode (that's called foreshadowing, people). The two are currently releasing music under the name Komputer. If you're big into Kraftwerk, you need to check out Komputer's first album World of Tomorrow. It's as close as anyone has come to duplicating their unique sound in recent years. And the tracks are solid for the most part, which makes it even better. 

Dead Or Alive have made one prior appearance on CRC and now make their second showing with Brand New Lover. While Pete Burns and the boys were the soul behind the music, the brains go to a production collective by the name of SAW. Mike Stock, Matt Aitken, and Pete Waterman were responsible for defining much of the Hi-NRG British music scene in the early to late 80s. Acts like Divine, Dead Or Alive, Rick Astley, Debbie Harry and others owe some if not all of their success to these guys. They borrowed heavily from the Motown idea of using "artist development deals" to control all aspects of the music they created. They were also ruthless about protecting their own interests, bringing a lawsuit against the band M|A|R|R|S, for example, for the use of the word "hey" from one of their artists. While gaining early traction in the music press for their forward-looking dance music, they quickly received a lot of backlash for what many thought to be hypocritcal practices. It was claimed some of their artists borrowed heavily from that of their predecessors without giving due credit. Though it's all water(man) under the bridge now, there is no denying the impact these three had on the dance music that was to come later. 

Voice Farm were a collective headed by Charly Brown and Myke Reilly. Originally from San Francisco, they garnered plenty of attention with their ridiculously over-the-top live performances and are still releasing music. Their latest album Super Nova Experts dropped in 2009. The track Hey! Freethinker originally appeared on their album "f" from 1987. There's a line in the song repeated over and over that takes some sleuthing to figure out. Though it sounds like "Not your ridicule" it's actually Nam Myōhō Renge Kyō.  The phrase is a mantra central to the practice of Nichiren Buddhism, which is designed to help attain enlightenment. It's kind of ironic in a sense, because the song truly is on the verge of annoying in many respects, but it's still a classic no less.

The version of Disappointed by Electronic is probably one you haven't heard before. It's not my favorite iteration as I prefer the original, but this mix by 808 State worked better with the playlist, namely because 808 State's own Cubik appears right after making beat matching a breeze. 808 State have appeared before on a few occasions. Born in Manchester, the band took their name from the Roland TR-808 drum machine. Founding member Martin Price originally owned a record shop called Eastern Bloc. It was there he met Gerald Simpson and Graham Massey, who would become instrumental in the group's early success. Simpson left the band after only one year and formed the band A Guy Called Gerald, who have appeared in an earlier episode with the track Voodoo Ray.

Released in 1993, Creation was a track that originally appeared on Stereo MC's smash album Connected. Though they wouldn't do another album for almost a decade, their production work was in great demand during that period, doing remix projects for U2, Electronic, Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy and others under the name...wait for it...Ultimatum. No strange coincidence the version of the song here would be the Ultimatum Mix.

Depeche Mode appears twice in this episode. It's a Cardinal Rule that I only put no more than one DM and one New Order track on each episode, but I'm breaking it here because I couldn't get the Nothing to Fear track out of my brain this week. Appearing on their A Broken Frame album, this song finds Dave Gahan, Andrew Fletcher and Martin Gore in a transition phase. Founding member Vince Clarke left the group after their previous album Speak and Spell and Alan Wilder had not yet become a fully-fledged member, though he was recruited as a keyboardist to tour with DM in support of the album. It was at this point that Martin became the premier songwriter for the band. While Vince was more regimented in his approach, Martin was a little more resourceful, going about his work with just a voice, Casio keyboard and a foot tap. The success of See You from this album helped make them teen pop stars in the eyes of the media. While that song and Leave in Silence did appear on this album, it's not one of their best in terms of hit production, but it's great for those who want to see where the classic line-up began to split away from their beginnings and blaze a new trail all their own. For DM trivia lovers: the marching sound on A Broken Frame's track Shouldn't Have Done That was created by the feet of Blancmange, who were in the studio next door during the recording sessions for this album.

Released in 1985, Subculture appeared in Razormaid! Mix form in an earlier episode. The version here is taken from their Substance album. It originally appeared on the Low Life album, marking the second single released from that project. Peter Saville, the designer credited with all the New Order album cover artwork, claimed that this song was unworthy of his talent, so the 12" single is housed in nothing but a plain black sleeve. This particular version is the 7" edit and features vocals by Ish Ladesma of the 80s band Oxo.

Thanks for tuning in this week. As always, if you like what you hear, be sure to support the artists who make it all possible. I'll be back with another episode again soon.

1. Messages (Razormaid! Mix) - Orchestral Manoeuvers In The Dark

2. Computer World - Kraftwerk

3. Perfect Kiss - New Order

4. Unveiling the Secret (Remix) - Psyche

5. Desperate But Not Serious - Adam Ant

6. Atomic - Blondie

7. It's Called a Heart (Razormaid! Mix) - Depeche Mode

8. Talk Talk (Extended Version) - Talk Talk

9. Space Age Love Song - A Flock Of Seagulls

10. Train of Thought (Extended Mix) - a-ha

11. The Sound of the Crowd (12" Version) (Complete) - The Human League

12. Uncertain Smile (12" Mix) - The The

13. Nowhere Girl - B-Movie

14. Cool Blue - Eurythmics

15. Tainted Love '91 - Soft Cell

Notes and other random things: I decided to go old school with this one and a bit more "fast school" as well. All of these songs fall somewhere between 1981 and 1987 and, in the case of OMD, begin at 130 bpm and climb from there. In the case of Soft Cell's Tainted Love, I included here the '91 mix because, like me, I figured many of you were tired of the original and may not have heard this version previously. It's not that the original isn't a great track, it's just that the song is one of those handful of 80s tunes that the powers that be have decided is playable during those high school flashback weekends on some radio networks. Therefore it gets overplayed to death. It's a shame, really.

OMD kicks off this episode. They have appeared a couple of times previously on CRC. You wouldn't guess it by their pop success throughout the 80s, but Paul Humphries and Andy McCluskey listened to a lot of weird music in their early days and performed under some weird monikers like Hitler's Underpants and The Id. 

The weird music mentioned above included the band in the second spot, Kraftwerk. But, hey, one man's weird is another man's normal and to many electronic music lovers, these guys are pretty much the Holy Grail. Ralf Hutter, Florian Schneider, Karl Bartos and Wolfgang Flur are true pioneers in electronic music and, whether you like it or not, have influenced all electronic music to follow. The four represent the classic lineup heard here. Because OMD were so heavily influenced by Kraftwerk, I thought it would be fun to mix together a song from each band. You can definitely hear Kraftwerk-ian elements in OMD's earlier work, wouldn't you say? I think so too.

I mentioned my apparent aversion to writing about New Order in the last podcast. However, Perfect Kiss has several interesing notes. First off, it is the first New Order song to be released as a single simultaneously with its appearance on an album. The song is also notable for two animal noises: a frog and a sheep. The sheep noise appears at the end of the track so you won't hear it and the mix comes right at the point of the frog, but if you listen carefully you'll hear some of it. Apparently, drummer Stephen Morris was looking for any reason to use that sound because he liked it so much. There you go. Thank goodness he didn't have an affinity for Alpacas or White-faced Saki Monkeys.

Psyche have appeared several times on CRC and will appear again, I'm sure. As if taking your name from the b-side of a Killing Joke track, or galavanting around on stage wearing nothing more than shaving cream as an homage to Fad Gadget weren't cool enough, the track Unveiling the Secret, from the album of the same name, was perhaps their biggest (and coolest) dance hit from the early years. The album, on the France-based New Rose Records imprint, sold well enough in Europe, and the band made a big enough splash headlining for original synthpop duo Suicide that they were able to cobble together the money for a proper tour in support of the album. Though they have gone through several line-up changes over the years, the one constant has been leader Darrin Huss. Twenty-seven years and counting, Psyche are still creating dark synth music after all this time. 

Talk Talk make their second appearance on CRC, with the classic It's My Life appearing in an earlier episode. The band were a strange mix of pop and avant-garde sensibilities, making them an extremely versatile band. Early on they were compared heavily to Duran Duran, having shared the same label and producer, Colin Thurston. After some early success, they added Tim Friese-Green on keyboards, who went on to co-produce Thomas Dolby's Golden Age of Wireless album and later produced Catherine Wheel's Ferment album. You won't see him in any of the publicity photos or videos and such as he preferred not to appear in them.

A Flock Of Seagulls make their second appearance on CRC with Space Age Love Song. Most of you into the 80s scene will know this song, but for me it has great memories. I used to dance to this song at school dances in 6th grade, not to mention it was AFOS' song I Ran that really changed my entire musical direction. Having grown up in Kansas, radio in those days was mostly what is now classic rock. I heard I Ran for the first time as I was getting ready for school one morning and it blew me away. It opened the floodgates to a whole new musical horizon and the rest, as they say, is SCIENCE! Sorry, still stuck on Thomas Dolby from the previous paragraph. I meant to say history.

The The make their debut appearance on CRC with the 12-inch version of Uncertain Smile. Lead singer Matt Johnson has without a doubt one of the most distinctive voices in all of music. The original version of this track appeared in 1983. Guitarist extraordinaire, Johnny Marr, joined The The after the dissolution of The Smiths and remained in the band from about 1989-1993. Interestingly enough, The The opened for New Order on the Republic tour in 1993 when I saw them in Chicago. Because Marr was in the band and Bernard Sumner was in New Order, we all secretly hoped Neil Tennant from the Pet Shop Boys was somewhere in tow so they would play some Electronic tracks. That never happened, of course.

B-Movie make their second appearance on CRC with the great track Nowhere Girl. This is the at-one-time-it-was-hard-to-find version that appeared on the Sire Records compilation called Just Say Yesterday. It's much slicker and better produced than the original. B-Movie never quite found their niche as a band. They could have gone the Soft Cell route, but had their own creative aspirations and they just never fit in anywhere. In fact, they were once described as "out of place as plaster ducks on a high tech wall." They did release three singles on the Some Bizarre label and a bunch of other tunes, but never put together a proper album until 1985. The album on Sire Records was a rehash of some earlier tunes and a new single, but by then it was too late. Not even a tour could sustain them as a band. The band has since been back together touring in recent years and there are several comps out containing BBC Sessions and songs that were originally released on the Dead Good label. They're not the same as actual full-length albums, but they give you a glimpse of what a full-length might have sounded like. If only...

Finally, Eurythmics also make their debut on CRC. Seems like they would have appeared by now, but it just didn't work out that way. Maybe it's because I'm always compelled to write "The" Eurythmics instead of just Eurythmics and leaving out the definite article makes me feel all weird, kind of like the music OMD used to listen to. I'm only kidding. Cool Blue is one of the better tracks from the Touch album that you might not have heard before. Granted, with the hits Here Comes the Rain Again, Right by Your Side and Who's that Girl making up the A-side of the album along with this particular track it would be easy to overlook.

That's it for this episode. I hope you enjoy this trip back through time.  

1. Let Me Go - Heaven 17

2. New Song (Extended Version) - Howard Jones

3. Domino Dancing - Pet Shop Boys

4. Living in a Box (Razormaid! Mix) - Living In A Box

5. I Don't Want Your Love (Curiosity Mix) - Duran Duran

6. What is Love? (Deeeee Mix) - Deee-Lite

7. Pablo - Beloved

8. I've Been Thinking About You (Def 12" Mix) - Londonbeat

9. Ride the Bullet (The DNA Remix) - Army Of Lovers

10. I Say Yeah (Razormaid! Mix) - Secchi

11. Intoxication (Dubfield Mix) - React 2 Rhythm

12. Dirty Epic (Album Version) - Underworld

13. X-ray - Camouflage

14. Russian Radio (Razormaid! Mix) - Red Flag

15. 1963 - New Order

Notes and other random things:

Believe it or not, I get a lot of great email from listeners, so before I get to the music, let's dig into the CRC mailbag:

Dear DJ Tintin,

You're always busy with your pod-thingy. What, you too much of a big shot to call anymore?

Signed,

Mom.

Heh...sorry, mom. Just trying to give people their fill of good retro music. I'll call you next week. I promise.

Okay, that's it for the mailbag this week.

As for the music, most of this episode is rather upbeat and fun with one glaring exception: 1963 by New Order. Regular listeners will notice that New Order turns up a lot in these podcasts, yet I've never really devoted much time to writing much about them. I don't know why that is, exactly. After all, they're one of my favorite bands of all time, so you'd figure I'd give them a ton of column inches in my write-ups. But, everything about the band has always been understated, from their lyrics, to their cover art, and even to their significance in music history. In a weird way, I suppose, my omissions might be a greater sign of respect for a group that managed for so long to conceal itself. I mean, they weren't much for interviews and their liner notes rarely revealed anything about the members. Heck, Bernard Sumner, Peter Hook, and Stephen Morris were sort of unwilling rock stars anyway, their new band coming about after the dissolution of Joy Division and the death of former band mate and lead singer Ian Curtis. There was some serious discussion as to whether or not they wanted to continue as a band after the tragedy. Thankfully, they did continue on. They overcame early criticisms of being a Joy Division sound-alike and eventually developed their own sound, creating some of the most memorable dance music from the 80s. Blue Monday, for instance, is still the top-selling 12" dance mix of all time. (Check out CRC #19 to hear the song.)

As for 1963, there is disagreement about its meaning. A superficial listen to the lyrics reveals a grim scenario whereby a man murders his lover and takes on another. The song is a recap of the failed relationship and seems to be sung from the perspective of the deceased. When taken into account with the date, 1963, however, the song, depending on what you believe, takes on a deeper significance. While much of New Order's music is left for open interpretation, as the band has said, it has also been said that lead singer Bernard Sumner wrote the song about the death of John F. Kennedy. According to some, Sumner had a theory that surmised JFK hired a hitman to kill Jackie so that he could be with Marilyn Monroe. History turned out differently and the bullets found a different target. So distraught was Monroe, she killed herself. The song, therefore, is sung from Jackie's perspective, begging John to spare her life. It's an interesting theory, but history will also show that Monroe died a year before Kennedy. Some have suggested the song refers to a soldier taking on another wife while fighting overseas and killing his domestic lover out of necessity or perhaps guilt. Some have suggested “Johnny” is a reference to Bernard's adoptive father John Dicken. Whatever the case, it's admittedly a sort of a down way to end a podcast lyrically, though the song's producer, Stephen Hague, has pointed out that it's the only song about domestic violence you can dance to. I'll hang my hat on that statement.

New Song by Howard Jones is the first appearance for HoJo on CRC. With few exceptions, his music was always positive, but when you’re a self-described optimist that glove would seem to fit. Listen closely and see if you don’t find similarities between this song and Solsbury Hill by Peter Gabriel. While it’s long gone now, Jones' distinctive Mohawk hairdo was quite the spectacle back in the day.

They were one-hit wonders in the U.S. with their 1987 hit Living in a Box, but the band of the same name had a second album that did quite well in Sheffield, England, their place of origin. The song Blow the House Down from the 1989 release Gatecrashing included Queen’s Brian May on guitar. This particular song is from their eponymous debut.  

After Living in a Box, the podcast took an odd house-y kind of turn. Pablo has a dub feel and comes from Beloved’s remix album called Blissed Out. I’ve Been Thinking About You is the 12” version of the #1 tune by Londonbeat from 1991. The original appeared on their second full-length release called In the Blood. The first time I heard this tune, I thought it was Roland Gift and the boys from Fine Young Cannibals. A reasonable mistake, but a mistake no less. Ride the Bullet is the b-side of Crucified, probably the best-known hit from Army of Lovers. They always reminded me of Dead or Alive with Victorian-era costumes instead of drab-looking gothic clothes. This particular track was remixed by DNA, who has done many remix projects including the classic version of Tom’s Diner by Suzanne Vega (CRC #9)

I Say Yeah is an awesome dance track by Italo-Disco producer Stefano Secchi. This particular song is the Razormaid! remix of the track and features vocals by Orlando Johnson.

React 2 Rhythm grew out of the West London dance scene. The song here, Intoxication, was the second major release from the group, having signed initially to legendary producer William Orbit’s Guerilla Records imprint. This particular mix, the Dubfield Mix, was one of two by techno outfit Leftfield. The other was called the Clubfield Mix. At least half a dozen others remixed this track including pre-eminent 80s remixer Justin Robertson and John Digweed.

Underworld has appeared on CRC before with their track Skyscraper I Love You (CRC #17). Here they return with the album version of Dirty Epic from the same dubnobasswithmyheadman CD. It’s hard to believe the transformation these guys have gone through over the years and maybe even harder to believe Karl Hyde and Rick Smith have been making music together for over 30 years. Though they haven’t yet been on CRC, their early ‘80s outfit Freuer will make an appearance at some point in time.

Finally, there’s the Camouflage track X-ray. This version was taken from their limited, 2-disc, numbered best of collection called Rewind. In case you were wondering, I own pressing #3502. As the band puts it, they “liked the aura of the letters forming this word.” Before shooting the video, they wanted to watch the film The Man with the X-ray Eyes. The main character in the film is named Ray Milland. Because it took them ages to find a copy of the film they had watched as children, they eventually named the bonus track of the X-ray single In Search of Ray Milland. Bet you didn’t know that!

Seems like these write-ups keep getting longer and longer every new episode. I’ll have to work on shortening them. I just don’t want to gyp any of the bands out of their due glory, though I may have to concentrate on the songs that have really neat stories behind them in the future. I don’t know. We’ll see, I guess.

That’s all for this episode. I’ll be back again soon with more mail from the mailbag and some more groovy retro tunes. Until then…be good, everyone.

By the way, the image associated with this episode is Half Face with Collar by Roy Lichtenstein. It is significant not only for the high price it was supposed to fetch at auction (and didn’t), but for the fact it was completed in…you guessed it…1963. Thanks to the website artobserved.com for the great image.       

1. The Echoing Green - Cause & Effect
2. Hanging on a Heart Attack - Device
3. Big in Japan (Remix '88) - Alphaville
4. American Science (Chemical Reaction Mix) - Duran Duran
5. Sweet Harmony - Beloved
6. Alive and Kicking - Simple Minds
7. Sinful (Tribal Mix) - Pete Wylie
8. Iko Iko - The Belle Stars
9. Shout (Dub Mix) - Tears For Fears
10. Dimension X - Seven Red Seven
11. Exposure - Channel 69
12. Romy Haag - Data
13. Senseless (Avalon Mix) - Erasure
14. The Good Samaritan - Counterfeit
15. Lady Shave - Fad Gadget

Notes and other random things: This past week in Charlotte was strange. We had our second snowfall of the year, one that managed to accumulate unlike most of the time when we may get a dusting of flakes. (Why does that sound like a bad Head & Shoulders shampoo script?) Sleet followed, snarling traffic and shutting down businesses for two and, in some cases, three days because we on the eastern seaboard are not equipped with a large fleet of snow removal vehicles. This second snowfall, too, was on the heels of a last minute White Christmas we had just weeks prior. It's a rare thing in these parts, but something that really made it feel like the season for a change. A balmy 48 degrees just never seems like opening present weather, you know?

Shoveling driveways for the first time in eternity and cabin fever aside, there is nothing quite like venturing out of your house the morning after a heavy snowfall. There is no sound whatsoever: no traffic, no rustling of leaves, no birds, no planes, and no Supermen either. Planting fresh footsteps into the drifts of white powder is about the closest thing to a moon landing most of us will ever know. All of it conspired to create a strange mood, which carried over into this mix. There's a remix of American Science from Duran Duran's Strange Behavior compilation. There's Seven Red Seven's Dimension X, which contains curiously strange samples from the intro of the old 60s television show The Outer Limits. There's Data's Romy Haag, an ode to the strange, and perhaps best-known German transsexual to hit the entertainment circuit. And then there is the strange Frank Tovey, also known as Fad Gadget, contributing some of his idiosyncracy and a bit of shaving cream imagery to 1981's Lady Shave. Apologies to Steve Strange and his bandmates from Visage, who didn't quite make the cut for this particular episode.        

Some other strange tidbits you might like to know:

Paul Engmann from Device later joined the band Animotion, who had the huge hit with the song Obsession. That track was written by prolific songwriter Holly Knight, a member of Device and the one responsible for the penning of Hanging on a Heart Attack, which you will hear in this episode. Knight has a ton of writing credits to her name, including 80s staples Love is a Battlefield, by Pat Benatar; Pleasure and Pain, by Divinyls; Love Touch, by Rod Stewart; and The Warrior by Scandal and Patty Smyth.

Echoing Green is one of my favorite tracks from Cause & Effect's 1990 self-titled first album. It was reissued in 1991 as Another Minute, which spawned the hits Another Minute and You Think You Know Her. Though founding member Sean Rowley, who produced the self-titled release on Exile Records, died from an asthma attack while on tour in support of Information Society in 1992, the band continued on and is still releasing great music.

If you haven't seen the video for Sweet Harmony, it's one of the great videos from the early 90s. Beloved lead singer Jon Marsh has continued to carve out a music career, contributing his vocal smoothness to tracks like Bent's Beautiful Otherness, and performing both as a solo artist and DJ.

The 1986 release of Sinful by Pete Wylie reached #13 in the UK. Wylie's band Wah! was one of the darlings of the music press, namely NME and Melody Maker, in the early 80s. In 1977, Wylie, Ian McCullough of Echo and the Bunnymen, and Julian Cope were members of the band Crucial Three, which lasted barely a month. Too many egos in a small room for that to ever survive, but to be a fly on the wall in those few weeks...wow. I'd love to hear something, anything, from that collaboration, though I don't think anything exists.

Iko Iko by the Belle Stars is a cover tune originally done by the Dixie Cups in 1965, though it was titled Jock-a-mo at the time. The song is an old New Orleans tune with West African roots, the term ayeko ayeko being a term meaning well done. The Belle Stars' version of the song appeared on the 1988 soundtrack for the film Rain Man.  

In a previous podcast, I mentioned my Texas connection and talked briefly about some of the bands that made up the local and regional music scene back then. T42 (see episode #21) were one of those groups, but I mentioned Channel 69 and hinted that they would appear on CRC at some point. Well, here they are. While a different version of Exposure appeared on a full-length album, I prefer this version of the song, which is taken from their Serious Rhythm e.p., released in 1993. At the time, the band featured vocals by John Allen Moore and keyboard work by Christian Yadon and Kyle Schember. They were one of the really cool electronic bands performing in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area back in those days and I have only fond memories of my time there.

While you may know Erasure's track Senseless, which originally appeared on their debut album Wonderland, you probably have not heard this modern reworking taken from their 2009, six-song release called Club. It's much moodier than its predecessor, but it has a nice sound. Contained within, you may hear some breathy elements that resemble those heard in Depeche Mode's track Halo from the Violator album. Halo, you may recall, appeared in CRC (episode #10) back in July.

Finally, there is an excellent track called The Good Samaritan by a band called Counterfeit.  This is a new discovery on my part as I found this track on a 1993 compilation I recently bought, but I fell madly in love with it from the first time I heard it. It sounds like it could fit easily somewhere on Camouflage's Voices and Images album. This is the only song that exists from the band, though its primary writer, Lee McFadden, has gone on to do other music-related projects. The track was released on Creation records, a label headed by Alan McGee, who took the name from the 60s band The Creation, and who headed an 80s band called Biff Bang Pow! Not surprisingly, Biff Bang Pow! was also the name of a song by The Creation.

That's all for this episode. The photo by the way, is of the Aurora Borealis or Northern Lights, visible during the winter months in the northern latitudes. It seemed appropriate because of the extreme cold we've had lately in the Carolinas. Credit goes to Peter Lytwyniuk for the excellent shot.

Until next time, happy listening!

1. Unicorn - Bel Canto
2. Darker - Doves
3. Does This Hurt? - The Boo Radleys
4. She's So High - Blur
5. Formulae - JJ72
6. Shortwave - Monster Movie
7. If You Need Someone - The Field Mice
8. Beauty - Malory
9. Green Eyes - Vitesse
10. The Cat - The Essence
11. That Was Another Country - The Innocence Mission
12. Baby in Two - Pernice Brothers
13. New League of Nations - Monograph
14. Fall Down (Like the Rain) (7" Remix) - The Mighty Lemon Drops
15. House with 100 Rooms - The Chills
16. Scars - Moving Units
17. Simple - The Beta Band
18. Damian - Frost
19. San Juan - Daniel Lanois


Notes and other random things: Happy New Year's Eve! It seems like all my episodes are happy something these days. No doubt it's better than being sad, I suppose. The episode here is not the normal dance mix. It's another installment of the mixtape series I began several months back. These episodes are like the mixtapes I used to make for friends way back when people actually still used tapes. They're a nice change of pace from the mixing board and it gives me an opportunity to share other great 80s and 90s music, and maybe some newer or older tunes, that don't fit the dance format.

This particular selection is an actual mix compilation I put together on New Year's Eve 2004. I don't recall my frame of mind or mitigating circumstances surrounding this mix or really why I chose these particular songs other than they're all very good. Much of this stuff is guitar-based, but there are some electronic elements in here too.

Bel Canto's Unicorn is from their album called Shimmering, Warm and Bright. A high school buddy of mine bought the album for this song, but didn't care for the rest of it, so he gave it to me. I quickly developed an affinity for them and bought their other albums. This still stands as my favorite of their work, though Anneli Drecker and Nils Johansen wrote some other very melodic and introspective songs along the way.

In subsequent albums, after Everything's Alright Forever from which Does it Hurt? comes, The Boo Radleys moved away from the shoegaze sound that characterized their early work. It's a lot of fuzz and feedback, but tucked away in the white noise are some great melodies. Malory, on the other hand, sort of channeled and regurgitated one of my favorite shoegaze bands, Slowdive, on their Not Here, Not Now album. Even more interesting, and perhaps not coincidental, is that their record label is called Alison records. Alison is the title of the first song on Slowdive's Souvlaki album.

Speaking of Slowdive, Monster Movie is a side project of Christian Savill, who was the guitarist for the band.

The Doves and Blur represent some of the finer Britpop stuff to come out of the last decade. She's So High is the first track on Blur's debut album called Leisure. For those a bit young, this is the band in which Damon Albarn, whom you may recognize from Gorillaz, cut his teeth. Darker is the first bonus track on the Doves U.S. debut called Lost Souls from 2000. Doves were originally a dance outfit called Sub Sub in the early to mid-90s, and were signed to Rob Gretton's Rob Records label. Gretton was the manager of Joy Division and New Order and a prominent figure in the post-punk scene that blossomed in Manchester at the end of the 70s and on into the early 80s.

Vitesse are a Chicago-based band comprised of Hewson Chen and Josh Klein. While their vocals are very reminiscent of bands like the Magnetic Fields, their electronic experiments were much more in the early new wave vein conjuring up visions of OMD (whom they also cover on their previous album) and the like. On the song Green Eyes, a Husker Du cover track, Celeste Alexander does the lead vocal honors.

If you didn't know better, you'd swear The Cat is a long lost Cure track, but The Essence is the project of one Hans Diener. His vocal resemblance to Robert Smith is uncanny and not just on this track. While we're discussing vocal doppelgangers, at first listen one could easily mistake Innocence Misson lead singer Karen Peris' pixie-like emanations for those of The Sundays' lovely chanteuse Harriet Wheeler. That's definitely not a bad thing.

The Mighty Lemon Drops hail from the U.K. and were one of the darlings of Sire Records in the mid-80s and early 90s. They had a jangly pop guitar sound with a 60s sort of style about them, even covering Roky Erickson's 60s psychedelic outfit 13th Floor Elevators and their track Splash #One.

The Chills were led by Martin Phillips. Originating from New Zealand, they went through an absurd number of line-up changes during their heyday in the 80s and early 90s. Their earliest and perhaps most infamous success came with 1984's release of the song Pink Frost, a beautiful, yet haunting tune about a lover's death, though it is revealed in liner notes from the Heavenly Pop Hit album that the story is rooted in a dream and not reality as is often thought. The song here is the album version of House with 100 Rooms, though it does have a remix that was spliced together by Danny Hyde, who has done extensive remixing for industrial acts like Coil, Psychic TV, Pop Will Eat Itself and Nine Inch Nails.

Finally, there is Daniel Lanois, producer extraordinaire who has worked with Bob Dylan, Willie Nelson, Neil Young, Brian Eno and of course U2 on their Unforgettable Fire, Joshua Tree, Achtung Baby and All That You Can't Leave Behind albums. This lovely, bittersweet track is from one of his solo albums called Shine.

I'm kicking around some ideas on how to add a new wrinkle or two to my podast this coming year because I'm hoping to make CRC better than ever. Thanks to all my listeners as you are the reason I will continue do this. I've always believed that great music is best when it can be shared by many. I used to do that by mixtape, but podcasting reaches so many more people in such a shorter amount of time. I've definitely got some more great music to broadcast to everyone in the new year, so I hope you'll continue to support my efforts. And it goes without saying that if you like any of the artists you hear, please be sure to support them too!

If you go out tonight, please don't drink and drive. Have fun and be safe and here's wishing everyone a healthy and very happy 2011.

1. Modigliani (Lost in Your Eyes) (I Dream of Jeanne Mix) - Book Of Love
2. In the Name of Love '88 (Shep Pettibone Mix) - Thompson Twins
3. Heart Like a Wheel (Extended Mix) - The Human League
4. World Without Love - Anything Box
5. Be Near Me (Munich Disco Mix) - ABC
6. Revenge of the Girlie Men - 808 State
7. Good Life (Indulgence Mix) - Inner City
8. Call Me (Ralphi's Extended LP Mix) - Deee-Lite
9. The Dance Dome (To the Megadome) - Bassrace
10. Pump Up the Jam (Razormaid! Mix) - Technotronic
11. People are Still Having Sex (Remix) - LaTour
12. It's a Fine Day (Razormaid! Mix) - Opus III
13. Halcyon (7" Version) - Orbital
14. Behind the Wheel/Route 66 (Megamix) - Depeche Mode
15. World (The Perfecto Mix) - New Order
16. I Feel You - Schiller

Notes and other random things: Merry Christmas to everyone around the world, though I understand fully that only my listeners will probably see this message. Doesn't mean I can't send out some good holiday vibes to those others who really should be listening to this crazy podcast full of old people music. I can say that because I am old. When did that happen!???

It seems that I've been so busy over the past few weeks that I forgot to go back and finish the write-up for my last podcast. I'll probably just leave it as is since my mojo for that episode has long since waned, especially since I put this beauty together. Before I get to what's in store, I want to give you:

The Top 10 Reasons Why This Podcast is Better Than Anything You'll Get From Santa.

10. Both good and bad boys and girls are treated equally. 

9. No sooty smell.

8. Milk and cookie bribes are not expected in return for work completed.

7. This podcast is a gift from the heart, not a workshop.

6. No pointy-eared, poorly dressed, undersized labor force was used in the making of this podcast.

5. No gift receipt necessary.

4. No rooftop damage or reindeer mess to clean up.

3. Never have to exchange it for a different size.

2. Doesn't need batteries.

1. It just is.    

So, what will you find on Christmas morning when you open up this sound spectacular? We'll start at the start. Book Of Love has made a couple of previous appearances on CRC. This addition was inspired by the movie Planes, Trains and Automobiles, which I watched again during my trip home last week. The song appears in a few different scenes, though the producers chose the Requiem Mass version of the song, which is a lovely instrumental piece. If you haven't seen this Steve Martin and John Candy classic, rent it or buy it. There is a howlingly funny car rental scene that will leave you in stitches. As a side note, the producers also used a snippet of Dream Academy's Power to Believe in the film too.

Next, I want to jump to 808 State for a couple reasons. First, there is a beat matching snafu here. As many of you know I record these in a single take, so little errors need to be considered part of the realness and charm of this podcast, but it's not entirely my fault. Well, yes it is, but there is a split second of silence on the album before the track begins and it slipped my mind before I hit play. My low quality mixer can't cue a hundredth of a second anyway, so in the heat of battle I forgot I had to delay just a smidge before pressing the play button to get it right. Anyway, Revenge of the Girlie men is an appropriate title and they exacted a penance on this mix. Yeah, they caused me to goof, but the rest of the episode, I think, was strong enough not to want to re-record everything just for that minor issue. I think you'll agree.

As much as I hate 808 State for pulling that silent space gag on me, I just love these guys. How they generate so much funkiness out of circuitry and cold machines is quite cool and their textures and sounds and beats were always premium quality. I have just one issue with these guys and it's that I can't remember the names of any of their songs. As the band is, with few exceptions, an instrumental outfit, there is no chorus to help remind you of what their songs are called. You know how a band like Nine Inch Nails says "head like a hole" so often in one song you can pretty much be sure that the song is called Head Like a Hole? Well, it's much harder with 808 State. I hear some of their riffs in my head, but unless it's a popular tune like Cubik or 1 in 10 or Pacific, I have to sift through their albums to match the song title with the noises in my head. Maybe, like in the case of this tune, they should have avoided the Revenge of the Girlie Men title and gone with something a little more accurate like, Muddy Staccato Bassline Overlayed with Warm String Instruments and Portamento Wackiness. Then, I'd know exaclty what song I'm hearing in my brain.

You may have noticed there is a lot about Love and Sex in this episode: Book of Love, In the Name of Love by the Thompson Twins, World Without Love by Anything Box, and one of the great talking songs of the last decade in People are Still Having Sex by LaTour. I really didn't plan to have so much devotion to the topics, it just sort of happened. PASHS and Ebn-Ozn's A-E-I-O-U and Sometimes Y are a couple of the only tunes you'll hear from the era with a spoken word bridge in the song.

Thompson Twins, by the way, took their name from the comic series The Adventures of Tintin, my favorite comics of all time and the source of my DJ namesake as well. The Thompson Twins were a pair of bungling detectives who more often than not did more to hamper cases than help. What's more interesting is that one of the Thompsons spelled his name with a "p" and the other without. So, the band could just as easily have called themselves the Thomson Twins in retrospect, though they are referred to as the Thompsons (with a p) in the comics. Another bit of trivia is that the band references In the Name of Love in their song Love on Your Side.

The Opus III/Orbital mix I have done before on CRC. It occurred in my second episode, though I had to remove it from the archives to make room for new episodes. That was before I upgraded my account to procure more bandwidth. I revived it here because it works so well and it gave me an opportunity to play with loop effects with regard to Opus III singer Kirsty Hawkshaw's wispy vocals.

New Order's World makes a reprise appearance, though the mix here is a Perfecto mix, which to anyone familiar with DJ culture can mean only one thing: the influence of Paul Oakenfold. Perfecto is his brand and he did the honors on this excellent track.

Depeche Mode's Behind the Wheel/Route 66 is a real treat and a rare (and expensive) find. I had the cassette single back in high school and lost it. As with most things at that age you don't see far enough into the future to think you won't be able to buy it again at some date. When they released the single again on CD I was ecstatic. There was only one problem: I could have sworn that there was a track on the cassette that blended Behind the Wheel and Route 66 into a single long track. The reissued CD was an either/or proposition. I was totally annoyed and disappointed. I did what I always do in that situation and consulted the internet - after it was invented, of course. Back then, you had to scour music stores in the hopes of finding what you wanted. Eventually, I found an original release of the CD, which in fact had the Megamix that I sought for so long. I had to pay a pretty penny for it, but it was worth every last one. You get to hear some of it right here.

Finally, as my Christmas gift to everyone, I included a 16th song. I usually do 15, but I really wanted to do something special for this episode. To make it even more special I went outside my 80s/90s comfort zone and tossed in Schiller's amazing track I Feel You. The vocals you may recognize as the one and only Peter Heppner from the electronic band Wolfsheim. I don't know what it is about this song, but I think it is one of the most perfect electronic pop songs you will hear anywhere. Interestingly, Anything Box's World Without Love (also included here) shares that distinction in my view. I Feel You has a gorgeous lead synth and wonderfully simple and sappy lyrics, but it still makes the hair on my arms stand straight up everytime I listen to it. Sure, it was made in 2004, but I simply couldn't resist. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

That's it for now. Please have a safe and very Merry Christmas, everyone!

1. Welcome to the Pleasuredome (Brothers in Rhythm Rollercoaster Mix) - Frankie Goes To Hollywood
2. Kiss You (When it's Dangerous) (Extended Mix) - Eight Seconds
3. High (Higher Mix) - The Cure
4. The Perfect Kiss - T42
5. Situation (U.S. 12" Mix) - Yaz
6. Tired of Getting Pushed Around (The Mayhem Rhythm Mix) - Fine Young Cannibals
7. Keep On (Razormaid! Mix) - Cabaret Voltaire
8. Strangelove (Bomb the Bass Mix) - Depeche Mode
9. Chains of Love (Unfettered Mix) - Erasure
10. The Great Commandment (Extended Dance Mix) - Camouflage
11. In a Big Country - Big Country
12. My Bag (Dancing Remix) - Lloyd Cole
13. Desire (Come and Get It) - Gene Loves Jezebel
14. Send Me an Angel (S.O.S. Mix) - Real Life
15. The Damned Don't Cry (Dance Mix) - Visage

Notes and other random things: Happy belated Thanksgiving to all my listeners in the U.S. and hello again to everyone. It's been a few weeks since my last episode, but the holidays have a way of occupying any free time I might normally have. I know, I know, but we all have to come to grips with the realization that, as untenable as it may seem, at least a couple things in life are more important than retro dance music.

This particular episode is notable for two major reasons. First, it has a couple songs that have appeared on CRC before. Second, it's quite fun. To regular listeners of the show and readers of these silly write-ups, I have mentioned in prior episodes how I don't like repeating songs. Because musicians, for whatever reason, stopped writing retro music years ago, there is a finite number of tunes produced in this era, so you all knew this eventuality would come to pass at some point. Don't worry! There are LOTS more songs to be unearthed here. Remember: this is kind of a whatever-strikes-my-fancy at the moment sort of endeavor. It just so happens I wanted to hear a couple of those already-played songs once again. They are: Kiss You by Eight Seconds and Situation by Yaz.

Now, if you're a stickler for accuracy, then only the Eight Seconds is truly a repeat. It was included in my very first episode, which you might notice is not archived on the site. I had to remove a couple episodes early on to make room for new ones, before I upgraded my account. So, in a way, it's kind of like a new tune for any new listeners. And in episode 7, I used the album version of Situation, whereas here it is the U.S. 12" Mix. That makes it sort of new as well.

Eight Seconds is a band I admit I've only been familiar with for a couple of years. I found this extended version of Kiss You on a compilation and I instantly fell in love with the track. If it reminds you of The Fixx as it did me, then you have a keen ear. The album Almantacar, from which this song originally appeared was produced by the great Rupert Hine, who produced The Fixx albums Shuttered Room, Reach the Beach, Phantoms and Walkabout. His production always uses hauntingly beautiful guitar work and you'll find some of that here. Yaz, of course, was a collaboration between Alison Moyet and Vince Clarke, who was originally with Depeche Mode, but left after the Speak and Spell album. Vince later went on to form Erasure with Andy Bell.

This episode marks the first appearances of a couple of bands: Frankie Goes to Hollywood and T42. FGTH made huge waves on both sides of the pond with their track Relax, not just for its infectious beats and ridiculously memorable hook, but its subject matter, which quickly irritated parents and watchdog groups leading to wholesale boycotts of the band. Nonetheless, it is still a staple of 80s radio stations and retro-oriented dance establishments. This particular track is the 14-minute version of the title track from their first album (not found in it's entirety for obvious reasons!) In all, FGTH did only two albums before contract disputes arising from lead singer Holly Johnson's desire for solo fame collapsed the group.

T42 were a duo from Texas that included Will Loconto and Jay Gillian. I happened to be in college in Texas when these guys were on the verge of making it to the big time. Texas had a great music scene in those days and major label executives were hovering over the area like vultures looking for their next big signing. Interscope Records in particular swooped in and signed bands like Brutal Juice, The Toadies and Deep Blue Something. T42 were part of the electronic dance scene that included other bands like Channel 69, of whom you will get a taste at some point. The Perfect Kiss, not to be confused with New Order's Perfect Kiss, was produced by Fred Maher, though their biggest hit, a song called Desire, was produced by Paul Robb, whose name you might recognize from the band Information Society.

Gotta run for now, but more to come...

Note as of 12-24-10: No more to come after all. It's just one big tease. I've moved on to a newer podcast (see above).

1. The Incredible P.W.E.I. vs The Moral Majority - Pop Will Eat Itself
2. Ascend (Remix) - Nitzer Ebb
3. Head Like a Hole (Soil) - Nine Inch Nails
4. Tranquilized - The Final Cut
5. God O.D. - Meat Beat Manifesto
6. Hallucination Generation (Syametic Nightmare) - Gruesome Twosome
7. Salvation (Razormaid! Mix) - The Hood
8. Passion for the Future - Manufacture
9. Join in the Chant - Nitzer Ebb
10. Rhythmic Vibrations (Razormaid! Mix) - Red Flag
11. Headhunter (v 3.0) - Front 242
12. Evolution (Original Mix) - Nostromo Dept.
13. Fahrenheit (Ultimix) - Umo Detic
14. Hurt - New Order
15. A Daisy Chain 4 Satan - My Life With The Thrill Kill Kult
16. The Snow - Coil

Notes and other random things: This week I decided to do an industrial retro episode. The roots of this decision lie in several pivotal moments from the past. Actually, it's not that dramatic, but I had you going for a second, didn't I? Really it's because I celebrated my birthday this week. As I get older, birthdays seem like more of an opportunity to ponder and reflect, assess and re-assess my current trajectory in life - maybe more so than New Year's, which I've proven over and over again is just a way to formulate unreachable goals and continually break promises to myself. As my sense of nostalgia was quite strong this week, I got to thinking about the music I listened to half my life ago. Most of these songs represent a fragment of the musical expansion of my mind during this period. 

Several years ago, also on the week of my birthday, I decided to do a set comprised entirely of similar music at the retro club in which I performed. In my brief few years as a "real" DJ, I've come to realize you can't please everyone all the time at gigs, especially in the world of iPods where people are accustomed to wholly personalized playlists at the spin of a toggle wheel. But, in this case, I think I got more complaints about the music from patrons, bar staff and owner  than ever before. It was disappointing. Part of the failure can be chalked up to being in a smaller metropolis where there simply aren't clubs that cater to this kind of thing on a regular basis. Part of it was the early time slot and the lack of alcohol in people's systems. And part of it was my fault for doing an hour-long set of wall-to-wall industrial music. I probably should have varied it up at least a little, but it was my birthday so I did what I did. 

Well, as it is once again the week of my birthday, I'm trying the industrial experiment once more in podcast form. With a broader reach at my disposal, maybe the results will be better. Maybe they won't. But, what better way to ponder, reflect, assess and re-assess the current and future trajectory of CRC?      

Whether you like industrial music or not, there are some absolute classics here. Headhunter by Front 242 comes to mind, as does Join in the Chant by Nitzer Ebb. This version of JITC comes from the recently released double album called Body of Work. It's not a remix, but this particular version is different from the one appearing on their That Total Age Album, so you may not be familiar with it. Because NE are one of my favorites, I included a second track, a remix of Ascend from the remixes portion of the collection. Other classic tracks include the Soil version of Head Like a Hole by Nine Inch Nails and God OD by Meat Beat Manifesto, who have appeared in previous episodes of CRC.

On the more techo side of this episode, I included one of the all-time classics, Evolution, by Nostromo Dept. This song has been remixed any number of ways, but here you'll find the track in its original form. The lead keyboard riff about halfway in is identical to the melodic line of Metropolis by Kraftwerk. I also threw in the Jallokin-penned Fahrenheit. Jallokin was one of the primary members of Bigod20, working with mega-producer Talla 2XLC, who has been featured here several times with his band Moskwa TV, and as a former member of Robotiko Rejekto.

Chris Connelly of Wax Trax! fame, who has done work with Revolting Cocks, Ministry, Acid Horse, and many others does guest lead and backing vocals on the great track Tranquilized by The Final Cut from the album Consumed. It's an album that, according to the credits was "produced by everyone, including your mother". Speaking of Wax Trax!, Coil's The Snow comes courtesy of The Snow ep. Coil are remnants from the early Industrial Collective called Throbbing Gristle, which featured Genesis P. Orrdige who later formed Psychic TV, and Chris Carter and Cosey Fanni Tutti, who later formed Chris and Cosey. It is thought that the term "industrial" was adopted from Throbbing Gristle's formation of Industrial Records, whose slogan was "Industrial music for industrial people".

As always, enjoy the music, but a word of caution for extreme road rage sufferers: this episode is not recommended for city driving!      

Motion Gears photo credit: ralphbijker

1. Bloodletting (The Vampire Song) - Concrete Blonde
2. Everyday is Halloween - Ministry
3. Dead Man's Party - Oingo Boingo
4. Devil Inside - INXS
5. All You Zombies - Hooters
6. Psycho Killer - Talking Heads
7. The Witch - The Cult
8. Nemesis - Shriekback
9. The Ghost in You - The Psychedelic Furs
10. I Want Candy - Bow Wow Wow
11. Mars Bars - The Undertones
12. Halloween - Siouxsie And The Banshees
13. Sugar Hiccup - Cocteau Twins
14. Murder - New Order
15. Thriller - Michael Jackson

Notes and other random things: This episode is devoted to all the creepy, crawly and spooky things that make up the Halloween season. This is more of a classic style mixtape like the ones I used to create "back in the day".

In selecting these songs, it became apparent that there were SO many more that could have and, one could argue, should have gone into this mix. It was really surprising, as I rummaged through my music collection, how many songs aligned so well with All Hallow's Eve. It was a much more difficult task to whittle it down to an hour's worth than I would have expected. I went with this list because I felt it stayed, for the most part, in line with what this podcast is all about. Michael Jackson may be the glaring exception, but I couldn't justify leaving that classic off of a Halloween mix.

Apologies to great bands like Skinny Puppy, Psychic TV, X Marks The Pedwalk, The Misfits, Killing Joke and all the others who I was forced to leave off this mix because of time limitations. Perhaps next year, I'll do something a little more bizarre and obscure.

Have a safe and fun Halloween, everyone! 

1. Boss Drum - The Shamen
2. Obsession - Animotion
3. Hit & Run - Boxcar
4. Cheri Cheri Lady - Modern Talking
5. Always (Cappella Club Remix) - Erasure
6. World Without Love - Anything Box
7. American-Soviets (Cameron Paul Remix) - C.C.C.P.
8. Thundershowers (12" Remake) - Psyche
9. All Day - Ministry
10. Fun to be Had - Nitzer Ebb
11. CCCan't You See (Razormaid! Mix) - Vicious Pink
12. Goodbye Horses (Extended Version) - Q Lazzarus
13. Master and Servant (Slavery Whip Mix) - Depeche Mode
14. Insecure Me (12" Mix) - Soft Cell
15. Blue Monday (Razormaid! Mix) - New Order

Notes and other random things: All the world is a synth. Not exactly worthy of Shakespeare, but that's what this episode is all about. You can probably find a guitar sound or two in here somewhere if you keep your ears to the ground, but I felt like going all synthpop for this one.

As for the standout tracks, we'll start with Anything Box. "World Without Love" is far and away my favorite tune by these guys. Quite frankly, it is probably as well-crafted a pop song as you'll ever find. Claude's lilting vocals perfectly complement the string and bass line underpinnings. It has a catchy hook, brilliant melody, and it's another one of those songs that can give you the chills it's so gorgeous. It was taken from their second album, 1992's Worth, which was out of print for a long, long time, though I think it was finally re-issued as Worth v.2 back in 2000. It was produced by Gareth Jones, who did work with Depeche Mode on their Black Celebration album. So, the album as a whole was a bit more darker than its predecessor, but worth the added expenditure to find it.

"Cheri Cheri Lady" is another lovely slice of pop electronica. I came across this band by accident years ago while flipping channels on the television. I happened to catch the video to this song and I was hooked. It's another one of those male, androgynous-sounding vocal leads, compounded with testosteronally-challenged backing tracks that are almost too frou-frou for your own good, but I have a rather glaring soft spot for this kind of digital fluff. What can I say? I'm a sucker for beautiful melodies. You wouldn't guess it, but this duo of Thomas Anders and Dieter Bohlen is the biggest selling German music act in history, selling some 120 million albums worldwide...way more than David Hasselhoff. Fox the Fox, who appeared in an earlier episode of CRC is credited with the inspiration behind the falsetto vocals.

American-Soviets by C.C.C.P. is one of the all-time classic club hits. This particular mix by Cameron Paul is probably the most well-known version, though the original did have vocals. The other dance classic here is a Razormaid! mix of New Order's Blue Monday, a track which is widely recognized as the top-selling 12" single of all time. It is also the longest track to chart in the UK, clocking in at seven-and-a-half minutes. 

I included a remade version of Psyche's "Thundershowers", which appeared originally on their 1986 album Unveiling the Secret. This particular version came from their Club Salvation album, which is a compilation of club mixes compiled from songs that span their entire career. Darrin Huss and Co. are still going strong today, some 25+ years after their inception and should be considered in the same breath as some of the other early electronic pioneers. They have recently released an album called Re-Membering Dwayne, sort of a tribute to the late Dwayne Goettel, who was an original member of the band and who was later in Skinny Puppy. Stop by Psyche's Facebook or MySpace page and check them out. Hell, send Darrin an email. If you're lucky, he may just reply in person as that's the kind of guy he is.   

Psyche also did an amazing cover of "Goodbye Horses", a song appearing here in its extended, but original form as done by Q Lazzarus. Released in 1988, the song gained notoriety in the film Silence of the Lambs as it was a tune sung by sadistic serial killer Buffalo Bill. Though it didn't appear on the soundtrack, it did show up in the soundtrack to Married to the Mob.

Speaking of sadism and possibly masochism, the episode wouldn't be complete without the exceptionally pleasurable brutality expressed in Depeche Mode's "Master and Servant". It's not only a great song with its homage to fetishist tendencies, but the looped Dave Gahan soundbite of "treat me like a dog" presents a nice interplay with the crossfade of "Goodbye Horses". Interestingly enough, horses are a reference to the five senses in Hindu philosophy, so you have the clash of dogs and horses coinciding with the scrum between spiritual transcendance and earthbound depravity. It works on so many levels!

I hope this episode works on many levels for you as well. I need to come up with something better than "Enjoy!" as a closer, but until I do...enjoy!   

My Podcast Alley feed! {pca-69f80174d9baab017378bd9b92f5e909}

1. It's Alright - Pet Shop Boys
2. Help Me Now! (Extended Club Mix) - Cetu Javu
3. Dancer in a Daydream - Ace Of Base
4. United Nations - Seven Red Seven
5. Disintegration - The Cure
6. I Go Crazy - Flesh For Lulu
7. Happy - Public Image LTD
8. Fine Time (Steve 'Silk' Hurley Mix) - New Order
9. Hungry Like the Wolf (Night Version) - Duran Duran
10. Just Can't Get Enough (Schizo Mix) - Depeche Mode
11. Will You Be There? (Razormaid! Mix) - Celebrate The Nun
12. Lucky Charm (Extended Club Mix) - Hard Corps
13. No More Words - Berlin
14. Say it Again (Razormaid! Mix) - Danse Society
15. 5-4-3-2-1 - Real Life

Notes and other random things: After a few weeks of going somewhat deep into my bag of tricks, I pulled back and went a little more mainstream with this episode. Well, as mainstream as you can go while still remaining "underground". New Order's "Fine Time", PIL's "Happy", Depeche Mode's "Just Can't Get Enough", Duran Duran's "Hungry Like the Wolf", Berlin's "No More Words" and "I Go Crazy" by Flesh For Lulu all fall into that category. 

In the case of Duran Duran, it's rather interesting. I remember replacing my completely worn out cassette of the Rio album with the CD after I got my first CD player. I remember how disappointed I was that the long intro was eliminated from the song. Intros don't all have to stretch into territory The Cure occupies on a frequent basis, but pretty much two measures in and the vocals started. Flash forward 20 years. As many of these old bands began releasing box sets and remastered versions of albums I noticed that this particular version of Hungry Like the Wolf was now called the "Night Version". I always thought that was odd, because I'm certain it was not called the Night Version on the cassette. So, how is the long version the regular version on the cassette, but on the CD it is called the Night Version? Anyway, thought you should know that. 

While many of the songs on here will be more familiar to '80s fans, I did throw in one rarity: "Help Me Now!" by Cetu Javu. Released in 1987 as a single, the vinyl is worth a ton of money. Not wanting to spend $100-$200 for the 12" vinyl, I was fortunate enough to find the extended version on a CD compilation. The quality is not perfect and it sounds a little tinny, but it's most likely due to the masters rather than the label that released the disc. Anyway, the song is a great look at a promising band that, when all was said and done, did two albums and released a handful of singles. They weren't original-sounding by any stretch and the lead singer, Javier Revilla-Diez, had a fairly limited vocal range that one could draw parallels with Wolfsheim's Peter Heppner, but it worked well together. It's funny to think about, but Cetu Javu were a German band with a Spanish lead singer, who did the majority of their songs in English. Whatever the case, lots of good memories associated with these guys. By the way, Revilla-Diez is now a geography professor.

Finally, I wanted to mention the lead-in song, "It's Alright" by the Pet Shop Boys. The band is no doubt familiar to fans of this genre, but this song may not be. While it did appear on their Discography album, the version here is the 9 minute 23 second version off their Introspective album. It's a six song album of extended mixes including "Domino Dancing" and a cover of Willie Nelson's "Always On My Mind". The lyrics pertain to everything that music lovers find so transcendant about the medium. It's an amazing, amazing song, enchanced by the gospel style backing vocals. Though I mixed it out about 5 minutes in, I was tempted to leave the entire song intact. The a cappella vocals toward the conclusion are so soaring and uplifting I felt guilty omitting them. It's one of those songs that gives me chills when I hear it, and I hope it will do the same for you too. I should note that, for some strange reason, the digital transfer sort of warps the piano during the intro, but if you download the episode, it should come out fine. Anyway, the slight inconsistency should not suppress the tingles.

As always, enjoy the music!        

1. Voodoo Ray - A Guy Called Gerald
2. Let's Talk it Over (12" Full Version) - Baby Ford
3. Get Your Body (Razormaid! Mix) - Adamski
4. My Heart...The Beat (Razormaid! Mix) - D-Shake
5. What Can You Do For Me - Utah Saints
6. MMM Skyscraper I Love You - Underworld
7. Busy Child - The Crystal Method
8. No Control - U-96
9. First In/First Out - Front 242
10. Count To Three (House Mix) - Red Flag
11. Go (Woodtick Mix) - Moby
12. Stella - Jam & Spoon
13. Plastic Dreams (Long Version) - Jaydee
14. Move Dance Be Born - Yello
15. Confusion (Koma & Bones Vocal Mix) - New Order

Notes and other random things: First, apologies to all my listeners who may have tried to listen or download my newest episode Monday night. After listening to the episode myself, I decided that the recording level was a bit too soft, so I decided to upload the mix a second time. For whatever reason, it took forever to do the format conversion and then everything froze up, so I eventually just had to delete the episode entirely and re-upload everything - track list, image...everything. The result? A couple hours there where my latest episode was unavailable.  So, I'm sorry about that. And after I posted on Sunday too, later than usual. What the hell was I thinking!?!?

All said and all done I think you'll agree that this one was worth the wait. After last week's mid-tempo episode, I cranked this one up with an almost exclusively '90s trip back to the rave/techno/acid house scene. The glaring exception here is "Confusion" by New Order, but this Koma & Bones remix came from the band's box set released in 2002, a nicely updated rendition. You may recall the instrumental of the song appeared in an earlier episode of CRC. Leading off this episode is "Voodoo Ray" by A Guy Called Gerald. This song was featured in the film 24-Hour Party People, a sort of retrospective of Factory Records and Tony Wilson. If you're a fan of New Order, Joy Division and Happy Mondays it's worth a look. Adamski makes his first appearance here on CRC. The artist, whose real name is Adam Tinley, took his stage moniker from a guy named George Adamski, who just happened to be a UFO enthusiast. His biggest hit, the awesome "Killer", helped put Seal on the map musically. This song here, "Get Your Body" is a great Razormaid! version of a track that appeared on his second studio album Naughty. Doing vocal honors is the great Nina Hagen. Utah Saints make their second appearance on CRC, Annie Lennox sample and all, with "What Can You Do for Me". Hey, you wanted the best, you got the best...

Underworld jumps onto the CRC bandwagon with a great track "MMM Skyscraper I Love You" off of their dubnobasswithmyheadman album. Much like The Shamen, who have been featured here several times, this band also went through a transition period from guitars to DJ's and synths. On this track you'll hear the influence of DJ Darren Emerson and you'll get a taste of where the evolution began. Complementing this 1994 track is Busy Child from 1997's Vegas album by The Crystal Method. U-96 makes their second appearance with "No Control" from the same album that produced their massive dance floor hit, "Das Boot". Speaking of massive hits, I threw in Moby's "Go", a song that also appeared in 24-Hour Party People, but not on the soundtrack. Instead, he appears with New Order reprising the Joy Division track "New Dawn Fades". The strings you hear at the beginning of "Go" were taken from "Laura Palmer's Theme" which was featured in the television show Twin Peaks. And, in case you weren't aware, the name Moby is derived from the fact that Moby Dick author Herman Melville is Moby's great, great, great granduncle. Oh, and another thing: his album, Play, is also the best-selling electronic album of all time. To round out this episode, I included Jam & Spoon's trippy "Stella" mostly because it borrows the drum track from Moby's "Go", but also because it's pretty damn cool too. The classic "Plastic Dreams" by Jaydee follows. This is the original ten-minute version, though you won't hear all of them for good reason.

In the immortal words of Yello: Move. Dance. Be born.        

1. Toxical Teutonic - Readymade
2. Tubular Bells/Pretty Boys and Pretty Girls - Book Of Love
3. Can You Forgive Her? (MK Remix) - Pet Shop Boys
4. Happiest Girl (Jack Mix) - Depeche Mode
5. Train in Vain - The Clash
6. Effigy (I'm Not An) - Ministry
7. Sanctify Yourself - Simple Minds
8. Stand Above Me - Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark
9. Doctorin' the Tardis - The History Of The Jams a.k.a. The Timelords
10. Swallow It (Regurgitated) - Fad Gadget
11. Junk - Monaco
12. Until December - Until December
13. The Village - New Order
14. Love is a Shield (12" Orbit Mix) - Camouflage
15. High on Mystic Mountain (Razormaid! Mix) - Mysterious Art

Notes and other random things: I think I'll have to re-think my "Fun With Retro" episodes moving forward. It's not that the music isn't good or that, after years of making mixtapes for friends, I suddenly came to the conclusion that they're just not worth it. Actually, I have a feeling that the answer key post that followed a week later might have something to do with the fact that my last CRC mix (#14) has yet to show up on iTunes, despite the fact that two weeks have elapsed since I posted it. Wouldn't you agree it's too coincidental that a music post doesn't show up right after posting my first (and now only) text-only episode? It's okay if you don't; besides, that was sort of a rhetorical question. Anyway, I hope that it will show up soon. This week's post will be a good test to see if there are other things going on beyond my control.

Enough about that. Let's get to the music, shall we? Leading off this week, is a little pre-fab number by an outfit called Readymade. I'll admit, I don't know much about this group. It's basically a project of one Thomas Fehlmann and he did some production work on a couple of Orb albums. Oh, and I bought the album Urobreaks in college just because the album art looked vague enough to be cool and because it was in the dance section of the music shop I was in. But, that's about it. Until now, despite my having made thousands upon thousands of mixtapes over the years,  I've used only one track on one occasion. Welcome to the second track and the second occasion! I've already thrown the Book of Love track "Boy" onto an earlier episode. This track, "Pretty Boys and Pretty Girls", is not only another great 80s dance hit, but it has one of the longest remixes probably ever. The Regan's House Medley clocks in at about 15 mintues in length. I thought about putting that on here, but it's simply too much for an hour-long episode. It's the In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida of its time, the ultimate, live-DJ-take-a-bathroom-break-and-grab-a-beverage-while-you're-at-it track. This remix of the Pet Shop Boys' "Can You Forgive Her?" is unlike any you've probably heard before and it goes well with this version of "Happiest Girl" by Depeche Mode. The song was released during the Violator era as a complementary track to the "World in My Eyes" single. DM were probably nearing the height of their popularity at that time and they were writing some absolutely sophisticated electronic pop, some of which never made it to the album. This track is easily good enough to have made the album, but if you know Violator well, then you know it probably just didn't mesh with the feel and flow of the album as a whole. "Stand Above Me" by OMD was taken from their Liberator album. Released in 1993, OMD was getting a bit more into the techno side of music, though you couldn't tell with this track. That album heavily borrows riffs from Barry White's "Love's Theme" on a track called "Dream of Me", believe it or not. Speaking of borrowing heavily, The History of the Jams, also known as the Timelords, also known as KLF, also known as the Justified Ancients of MuMu, took huge liberties with Gary Glitter's "Rock and Roll Part 2" for this ode to Dr. Who. The album cover from which this track comes is outfitted with a Ford Galaxie police car that was rigged to speak. The car actually did interviews on the band's behalf. If you have never read the bio of James Cauty and William Drummond from The KLF, you must do so. They challenged the conventions and the definitions of art and music at every turn. A very entertaining read. The track "Junk" is from a Peter Hook side project called Monaco. Though it's more techno-oriented than his previous work as the bassist for bands Joy Divison and New Order, this track still maintains his signature guitar work. The sound is unmistakably Peter Hook. Until December was lead by a guy named Adam Sherburne, who went on to form industrial collectivists Consolidated! An early New Order track from Power, Corruption and Lies precludes the cool remix of "Love is a Shield" by Camouflage, who have made several appearances here on CRC and will make many more, I'm certain. Rounding out this episode in their second appearance on CRC is German dance band Mysterious Art with a very upbeat Razormaid! version of High on Mystic Mountain.

Just so everyone knows, I'm still playing around with settings and recording methods as I do these episodes. I don't have a very complex mixer or anything (read: cheap) and, as I've mentioned previously, I'm using shareware to record all of it, but this week I toned down the mid-ranges some. I hope it won't sound quite so tinny on everyone's iPods or stereos or computers. I'm still pretty new to the podcast thing, so bear with me as I work out any flaws, real or imaginary! And for those of you getting these on iTunes, I'm sorry that the last episode hasn't shown up yet. iTunes can be notoriously finicky about its RSS Feeds, but I still have a sneaking suspicion that my non-audio episode had something to do with that. I hope I have solved the problem by eliminating it from my archives, and I hope #14 and this new episode, #15, show up soon. Enjoy, everyone!         

1. A Knife and a Fork - Information Society
2. Buffalo Gals - Malcolm McLaren
3. The Wildstyle - Time Zone
4. Two Minute Warning - Depeche Mode
5. Sensoria ('92 reworked) - Cabaret Voltaire
6. The Devil You Know - Jesus Jones
7. Human Nature (On the Mix)(12" Version) - Gary Clail/On-U Sound System
8. Anguish - Intermix
9. Walking on Thin Ice (Razormaid! Mix) - Fuzzbox
10. In Too Deep (Off Yer Mong Mix) - Dead Or Alive
11. How to be a Millionaire (Bond St. Mix) - ABC
12. Communicate (Atomic Part Mix) - Microchip League
13. Confusion - Robotiko Rejekto
14. Change (Extended Version) - Tears For Fears
15. The Walk (Everything Mix) - The Cure

Notes and other random things: Last night, I went to see the Tears for Fears show here in Charlotte (see accompanying photo as proof). While I've been a fan for a long time, now that I'm at that age where much of my musical inspiration is older and calling it quits permanently, I was a bit pensive about seeing them live. I've always found it depressing to see a once vibrant band slogging around on stage, a few pounds heavier and a few half-tones off-key, playing their hits for an unknowledgeable or indifferent crowd of quadra (or is it tetra?) and pentagenarians. But, Roland and Curt and their band were affable, extremely entertaining, pitch-perfect and they looked like they had been able to curtail gravity quite well nearly 30 years after their inception. All-in-all a fantastic show.

In anticipation of the event, I included in my podcast an extended version of the song "Change" from their debut album The Hurting. Interestingly enough, they did not play this song at the show. Speaking of change, this week I went a little bit street and added some early boom box era, rap music flair with Malcolm McLaren's "Buffalo Gals" and Time Zone's "The Wildstyle". Mal was the brains and the fashion sense behind the Sex Pistols, Bow Wow Wow and Adam Ant (who appeared in last week's episode). Time Zone was a collaboration between Afrika Bambaataa and a wide spectrum of different artists. "World Destruction" with John Lydon from the above mentioned Sex Pistols might be their best known effort, but the song appearing here was their first single. The song is about 8+ minutes long in its entirety and because there is rapping almost throughout, it was tough to find a proper place to mix in a new song! Intermix is a Bill Leeb side project. He is responsible for Front Line Assembly, Delerium and other projects as well. His band mate Rhys Fulber also has many irons in the musical fire including a band called Conjure One. Gary Clail is known for his work with Tackhead Sound System. The group included uber-dub producer Adrian Sherwood, founder of On-U Sound Records, and the talented Keith LeBlanc, who got his start as a musician doing work with rappers Grandmaster Flash and Melle Mel. The song here contains dub elements of that classic On-U Sound sound. Fuzzbox were an all-female band from England. Their band was originally called We've Got A Fuzzbox And We're Gonna Use It, but was shortened for distribution in the U.S. The track here is a Razormaid! mix of "Walking on Thin Ice" from their second album called Big Bang! I also included the song "Confusion" by frequent Speak and Spell users Robotiko Rejekto. Part of the ZYX family of techno-meisters, Robotiko Rejekto consisted of Kurt Ader, Ralf Henrich and Andreas Tomalla, better known as mega-producer Talla 2XLC. Talla 2XLC left the band after this release. Little known Robotiko Rejekto fun fact: Kurt Ader is often listed as Ramona Ader in album credits.

Photo: Tears For Fears courtesy of DesignSnarr Photography

I didn't have time to put together a mix this week, so instead I did a second mixtape-style episode for you all. But it's not just any ol' mixtape. This one has a theme running through it. What is that theme? Well, that's where the "fun" part of the Fun With Retro name comes in. See, I'm not going to tell you what the theme is. Instead, I'll let you figure it out by deciphering the clues that lie in the artists' names and song titles. The trick here is that I'm not going to post those until next week. You'll have to use your knowledge of retro music to determine the artists and titles. Once you do that, a pattern should begin to emerge, revealing the underlying theme. Regardless of whether or not you feel like playing the game, you'll hear some excellent songs in this one. There are extreme differences in style and tempo throughout, but when you're trying to find songs that pertain to a specific theme, it was bound to happen that way. As always, enjoy the music. And feel free to email me with your guesses. As I said, I'll post the playlist, the clues you should have found and the answer to the theme next week. Have fun!

1. Loved - Propaganda
2. Lie to Me - Depeche Mode
3. Take One - Front 242
4. Technoid (Dub Mix) - Technoid
5. Psychosexual - Pop Will Eat Itself
6. Arts in D Minor/Harry Houdini - Kon Kan
7. Good Beat - Deee-Lite
8. Pump Up the Volume (Remix) - M|A|R|R|S
9. The Bottom Line - Big Audio Dynamite
10. I Don't Want Your Love - Waterlillies
11. The Living Daylights - a-ha
12. Heaven Can Wait (Razormaid! Mix) - Sandra
13. Military Drums (Dance Edit) - Hubert KaH
14. Obsession (Club Mix) - Xymox
15. Original Control (Version 1) - Meat Beat Manifesto

Notes and other random things: I had really hoped to get this mix posted on Friday the 13th. That way, I could write some cutesy little blurb here about luck or no luck or superstitions or safety tips involving black cats and ladders and stuff. But, I missed the midnight deadline. Supposing you're one of those people like me, however, who don't feel as if it's the next day until you physically get in bed and go to sleep for however long, this could still qualify as a Friday the 13th mix. Unfortunately, the time stamp on Podomatic won't ever see it that way.

In regards to the music, I sort of feel like this one is all over the place stylistically. There is nothing wrong with that per se. It's just what came out of my head this week. Leading off is the third song from Propaganda that I've used in my podcasts. If you're paying close attention, only two of them included original lead singer, Claudia Brucken, so for purists it might seem like I've used only two songs from the band. Depeche Mode's "Lie to Me" is one of my favorite, sort-of-unknown tracks by them. It's from their Some Great Reward album. Belgian electro-assassins, Front 242, are very much the epitome of 80s/90s industrial music and are credited as having coined the term EBM (Electronic Body Music), though it is thought Ralf Hutter of Kraftwerk was the first to define the term in 1978. The track here was recorded circa 1983. Technoid is from a long line of New Zone artists who flourished in the Frankfurt dance scene at the turn of the 90s. I included a remix of the classic, all-lawsuit selection "Pump Up the Volume" by M|A|R|R|S. The band was a collaboration between 4AD mainstay A.R. Kane and the band Colourbox. I can't remember how many unauthorized samples appeared in the song, but it was a bunch. Big Audio Dynamite was a product of Mick Jones, once a prominent member of The Clash. I also included a bit of James Bond 007 action with "The Living Daylights" by a-ha, the title track of the film by the same name. With this track, a-ha became the first non-English speaking band to write a Bond theme. The Waterlillies make their second appearance in CRC. If you don't have their album Tempted, get it. Aside from a ridiculous Carpenter's cover of "Close to You" and one other slower tune all the tracks are much like the two you've heard so far. There will be more. Interestingly enough, the last time I put them into an episode Meat Beat Manifesto appeared as well. The Jack Dangers-led outfit makes their reprise appearance with a track from the underrated Satyricon album. And I threw in the classic dance track "Obsession" by a band who could never decide whether or not they wanted to call themselves Xymox or Clan of Xymox. They flip-flopped many times over the years. As much as I love this band, I didn't fall into the same trap. They are filed under "X" in my collection as they always have been and as they always shall be moving forward.    

1. Performance - Tones On Tail
2. Planet Earth (Night Mix) - Duran Duran
3. Quiet Life - Japan
4. Exotika - Chris and Cosey
5. It's My Life (Extended Version) - Talk Talk
6. Lips Like Sugar (12" Mix) - Echo & The Bunnymen
7. Love My Way - The Psychedelic Furs
8. Fall (Abstract Gladiators Remix) - Single Gun Theory
9. Spooky (New Order in Heaven Mix) - New Order
10. Hypnotised (Daniel Miller DOA Mix) - Cabaret Voltaire
11. Bet She's Not Your Girlfriend - Pet Shop Boys
12. Get the Balance Right! (Combination Mix) - Depeche Mode
13. Love Glove (Razormaid! Mix) - Visage
14. Transcendental - The Shamen
15. People Get High - Boxcar

Notes and other random things: So, I've been looking at some of the things I can do with my CRC podcast now that I've upgraded to a PRO account. Turns out I can add chapters, which means I'll be able to basically add images and put markers where tracks end and others begin. It's quite time consuming more than it is difficult, so I may start to experiment with that if I can find the time. I tend to think I have a life outside of living in the past here each week, so I'll just have to play it by ear. Maybe I'll back off to a mix every other week and then add all the cool features and whatnot. I mean, I'm just a guy in Charlotte cranking out this podcast each week from his media room, with a cheap mixer and free audio software. I'm not some big production house with a team of world class DJ's or anything like that. It's totally DIY. I'll keep you posted. In the meantime, my upgrade also means you can listen and download CD quality versions of my podcast too. So, I've got that going for me.

Now, as for the music, there's a lead off tune by Tones on Tail, which is 3/4 of the goth band Bauhaus minus one Peter Murphy. The boys went on to form Love and Rockets as well. Chris and Cosey are fragments of an artsy collective called Throbbing Gristle, which was fronted by cross-dressing vocalist Genesis P. Orridge. Their eventual split spawned Coil, Chris and Cosey as well as Psychic TV, whom you might recall from an earlier episode. Daniel Miller, the founder of Mute Records, chipped in a mix of Hypnotised by Sheffield, England's experimental tape loop gurus Cabaret Voltaire. They are revered as one of the early originators of the industrial scene. Here, you'll get to experience them in their much more polished and commercial state from around the turn of the 90s. It's much more pleasing to the ear than their mid-70s audio assaults, though I like a lot of that early stuff too. I tossed in a great b-side of "How Can You Expect to be Taken Seriously?" by the Pet Shop Boys from the 1990 album Behavior. And I added the awesome track "Transcendental" from The Shamen. If you recall, a Razormaid! mix of Omega Amigo appeared on an earlier episode, but that was The Shamen in their prime. This song appeared on their second album In Gorbachev We Trust. Originally a psychedelic rock band, this second effort started to incorporate elements of house and acid styles. It's one of several tracks on the album that really show the band starting to metamorphose into the "Move Any Mountain" guys we know and love. Last but not least, I included a great track by Sydney, Australia's Boxcar. This track is from their hard-to-find second album, the cleverly titled Algorhythm. It's much more house and trance influenced than their previous album Vertigo. Interestingly enough, Vertigo was produced by Robert Racic, who produced for The Severed Heads (see last episode) and Single Gun Theory, whose track "Fall" appears here in remix form.

One last note: There is a slight beat matching issue right at the first mix. It's one of the pitfalls of doing one-take mixes and I really didn't want to re-record the whole episode for a slight discrepancy. Little quirks here and there will have to be considered part of the overall charm of CRC; I'm not perfect...maybe someday, but not now. The silver lining is that it's a CD-quality goof!

Enjoy the weekend, everyone!

1. Living on the Ceiling (12" Mix) - Blancmange
2. This Time of Night - New Order
3. The Magnificent Seven - The Clash
4. 17 Pens - I Start Counting
5. Humunkulus (Razormaid! Mix) - Mysterious Art
6. Machines (Metal Shop Extended) - Red Flag
7. All Saints Day - Severed Heads
8. World Control - Manufacture
9. White Horse - Laid Back
10. Living in Oblivion - Anything Box
11. Flexible - Depeche Mode
12. Hurt - Re-Flex
13. Cities in Dust (Extended Version) - Siouxsie and the Banshees
14. Wonderland - Xymox
15. Boy '90 - Soho

Notes and other random things: I actually did two mixes this week. I assembled one and was ready to record when I took a moment to mix two other songs that were in my head. An hour or so later I had this mix cobbled together. It's funny how some weeks are a struggle and others are rather prolific. One thing you'll notice here is that there are very few remixes. Most of the tracks are album versions. It just turned out that way; it wasn't by design. Album versions of songs always present a challenge because there are usually shorter intros and fewer instrumental parts where mixing can take place. Sometimes I wish I had more knowledge of the current house music scene, but as "they" say: Go with what you know. All the songs you hear in my podcast I have played or recorded a million times over the years. That's an exaggeration, of course, it's more like two million. But, when you do what you know and love it shines through, even across wires and servers. Digital emotion. Now, as for the songs, a couple of these fall into the "I didn't know they had more than one song" category. Well, feast your ears on Re-Flex and Soho of "Politics of Dancing" and "Hippychick" fame, respectively. Try your ear at the always interesting I Start Counting with "17 Pens", a song that mashes up JFK quotes to sound like he's pitching Cold War ideology. Mysterious Art and lead singer Nicole Boeuf touch on dystopian themes of a synthetic ruling class in their song "Humunkulus". Listen carefully to the lyrics; what was at the end of the 80s just a pipe dream is closer than ever to reality. Despite the band's unfortunate name, Severed Heads created a dance floor beauty with their great track "All Saints Day". I also tossed in Nettwerk label mates Manufacture with "World Control". And what mix would be complete without one of the creepiest retro tunes ever written, "White Horse" by Danish pop group Laid Back. As a kid, I used to hear this track on the radio in the wee hours of the morning sometimes, having been awakened by a vicious thunderstorm. The song frightened me at the time moreso than the thunder. Now you can hear it anytime you want. I'd advise not doing it in the middle of the night during a thunderstorm.