Time, Time, Time!

Well, it's been a while, and I have to be up front with you all – I've been terrifically busy. I married my girlfriend in Australia, and am currently back in San Francisco taking care of business so I can move back to Melbourne and do my damnedest to become an Australian citizen. Holy shit, this is a lot of work; but I'm up to it. I'm also up to sharing electronic music with one and all – so I promise that in the very near future I will continue with (what I hope to be) the pretty cool music reviews, news, and observations that I've been doing over the last year. Be patient, dear readers. There will be more posts, I promise. Expect reviews of new albums by Cut Copy and Art Vs Science, reviews of shows by Meat Beat Manifesto, and a couple of lookbacks at tried-and-true works from the likes of Human League and Simple Minds. I will also be focusing more on the gothic scene, so expect more of that.


So – yeah. Keep tuned, and Happy Valentine's Day, I reckon.

From 1986, here's Depeche Mode with "Black Celebration". Cheers!

Happy Australia Day!

Well, today is Australia Day – and my first one, at that! I've got to give props to my adopted country; everybody has been incredibly warm and inviting for the first four months of my stay. True, the paperwork hasn't gone through all the channels yet, but patience, I'm told, is a virtue. But still – I'm really enjoying it here, and I have been made to feel at home.


That being said, I'd like to showcase some music from the 1986 Richard Lowenstein film Dogs In Space. Set in Richmond, Victoria (an outer suburb of Melbourne), this examination of the 1978 Melbourne punk scene – starring Michael Hutchence of INXS in his first leading role – doesn't, unfortunately, hold much water in the story-telling department. Chockfull of wooden performances, stilted dialogue, and a whole lot of nothing happening throughout its 103 minutes. BUT – and this is a huge 'but' – the music! My gosh, the music gracing the soundtrack, put together by Lowenstein and Ollie Olsen (who was part of the scene back in those days; a member of the post-punk band Whirlywind), is pretty much playing nonstop; so it more than makes up for Hutchence's "acting" (which pretty much amounts to rolling around on the floor in a heroin stupor 75% of the time, all the while "speaking" in hardly anything but barks and grunts). Hutchence: brilliant singer, crap actor. But I digress.

Featuring pulse-quickening tracks by late-'70s acts such as Iggy Pop, Thrush and the Cunts, Primitive Calculators, Ollie Olsen, Gang of Four, Brian Eno, and Boys Next Door (Nick Cave's band before it transmogrified into The Birthday Party), the soundtrack to Dogs In Space is fucking fantastic. And if one is interested in knowing more about the scene personified in the film, one can check out an ABC 1 documentary entitled We're Living On Dog Food, which takes its name from the Iggy Pop track that opens Dogs In Space. So without any further ado, here are some of my favourite tracks from this well-meaning film. 

First up is "Win/Lose" from Ollie Olsen. I love the bit in the film where he sings it in the main house's living room, backed up only by a tape machine!

Here is "Pumping Ugly Muscle" by Fitzroy-based Primitive Calculators. Some brilliant anger going on in this track, with a lot of cathartic screaming and wailing!

What can one say about a band called Thrush and the Cunts? Great hooks, interesting name. Here is their seminal track from the so-called "little band scene", "Diseases." 

Here's "Shivers" by Boys Next Door, which would then become The Birthday Party. Goddamn, look how young Nick Cave is! And dammit, he makes this song fucking ache.

During the closing moments of the film, where Michael Hutchence's character's girlfriend has been buried (she died of a heroin overdose), we're treated to "Rooms For The Memory," a track written and performed by Ollie Olsen, and sung by Hutchence. This collaboration would result in a short-lived side-project called Max Q – which almost broke up INXS, seeing as Hutchence did the recording behind his band's back.

And last but not least, here's "Endless Sea" by Iggy Pop. Now, I know he's not Australian. However, that being said, this song – which plays in the background while Saskia Post's character has her fatal overdose – so completely works in the movie, I just had to include it. And there you go, as I leave you with Iggy. Have a fantastic Australia Day, people.

Christmas Island.

If I had to choose my favourite era of Depeche Mode (and I had a gun to my head, natch), I'd probably choose their "industrial" phase; the one they went through during the mid- to late-'80s. Construction Time Again, Some Great Reward, Black Celebration, and Music For The Masses rank as my favourite works of theirs -- and frankly, it wasn't just the A-sides of the singles that got my blood flowing. Often times during those years, they'd release the single, and then on the B-side there'd be two or three live tracks from a 1983 show at the Hammersmith Ballroom in London, and a "throwaway" instrumental that somehow didn't make it on the album. In 1986, when they released the 12" maxi-single of "Question of Lust" off of Black Celebration, they included for the B-side a most curious track: "Christmas Island," a very odd instrumental penned by both Martin Gore and Alan Wilder (which in itself was very odd; Gore was famously stingy about sharing songwriting credits with anybody).


Beginning with a background television set tuned to some kind of revolutionary recording, with a menacing throbbing synth building up in the distance, "Christmas Island" then proceeds to bust out some serious industrial EMB rhythms, filled with the brim (as was their norm back in those days) with sampled percussion, found sounds, and a distinctly dark overview. Christmas Island itself has been in the news quite a bit these last few months (over twenty-five Iraqi boat-people died horrifically in an incident off the northern coast of Christmas Island just under two weeks ago and set off in the Australian government a major rift over the laws of amnesty to asylum seekers from the Middle East and Asia), and the song is written about the island; but that's one of the things that make this track so listenable. What does it all mean? I'll tell you what: It's certainly not about tinsel and holiday trees.


Here's "Christmas Island" from our favourite boys from Basildon in 1986. Enjoy.

depeche mode

"christmas island"

a question of lust 12"

Album Review: Sigue Sigue Sputnik.

Who knows what was going on in my mind yesterday when, whilst I was in the midst of doing some household chores, I thought to myself, You know what would be nice right about now? Sigue Sigue Sputnik. So, with me being a creature of instant gratification, I cued up their 1986 debut album Flaunt It and let fly! And I got to thinking, Hmm, does it hold up after 24 years? And the surprising answer is -- yes. Yes it does, and funnily enough, it almost sounds more apropos now as when it did back during the years of Reagan, the Cold War, and the burgeoning years of digitalism.


For here is an album that wears its star-fucking soul on its sleeve. It's no coincidence that the first time you hear Martin Degville's voice on album opener "Love Missile F1-11" he's saying over and over again, "I wanna be a star! I wanna be a star!" 


Founded by Generation X and Lords of the New Church bassist Tony James, Sigue Sigue Sputnik (named after a Moscow street gang, whose name translates roughly to "Burn Burn Satellite") was originally a concept borne from a desire to capitalize on the rampant commercialism on display in popular culture -- and make a killing while at it. Choosing the rest of the band pretty much based on their looks (vocalist Degville was a clothing designer whose retail shop, Ya Ya, was ransacked for the band's crazy outfits), the next step was to find a motto. "Fleece the World" seemed appropriate, and then the theme -- "Hi-tech sex, designer violence, and the 5th generation of rock n' roll." Thrown into the mix was a futuristic dystopian world run by multi-national corporations in which instant gratification could be yours with the touch of a button (sound familiar?), and everything was ready to roll!

Tapping Ray Mayhew and Chris Kavanagh for drumming duties, Neil X for guitar, and Martin's co-worker at Ya Ya, Yana on synths and "club effects," Tony James had finally all his pieces put together. Now it was time to put together an album and sell it to the unwashed masses!


Taking their cue from science-fiction films, exotic international locales, video games, sex magazines, high-design, haute-couture, Japanese manga, and the all-mighty dollar, Sigue Sigue Sputnik's sound was all over the map. Featuring heavy-duty rock guitars, heavy and intensive percussion, drone-y insect-like sound effects, vocal distortions, liberal usage of samples from films (Dirty Harry, Blade Runner, and The Road Warrior featured large), and even advertisements for products real and imaginary dispersed between the songs, Flaunt It was (and still is) a wild roller-coaster ride through the fevered imagination of a world in which anything and everything is for sale. Tracks such as "Rockit Miss USA," "21st Century Boy," and "Massive Retaliation" are prime examples of all these disparate influences at work at the same time, and frankly, are just a shitload of fun. "High-tech sex and rockets, baby," indeed, Mr Degville! Does Moscow rock your baby? It sure does.


Highly recommended after all these years, I cannot stress enough how fun this album is. If you haven't already, then check it out by all means.

sigue sigue sputnik

"21st century boy"

flaunt it

sigue sigue sputnik

"love missile f1-11"

flaunt it

Electro Classic Jukebox: Clan Of Xymox.

From the 1986 4AD album of the same name, here is Clan of Xymox and the video for their hypnotic track "Medusa." Can't help but notice, though, that the timing of the lip-synching is vaguely not on track with the actual vocals! Still, it's a bloody great song from the legendary Dutch gloomsters.