Also not sure where I heard "60s pop" in that Hanne Hallar schlager song; its melody, I guess. But the production is more modern, in a piano woman way.
Anyway, my wife says the schlagers are starting to drive her crazy, and she may well murder me if I play another album around her, but here's one more:
Hit Parade (K-Tel West Germany, year unknown)
HEINO "Und Sie Hiess Lulaei" (Hawaiian-German hybrid. Lots of aloha's and hula-hula's. GITTE "So Schon Kann Doch Kein Mann Sein" (horn-happy girl-schlager pop) BIMBO JET "El Bimbo" (Quasi-tropical Eurodisco, not schlager. French musicians. #1 in six European countries, #43 in the U.S. I've had the 45 for decades; even put it on an all-time Top 100 singles list once. No idea if they ever made a whole album, but some band called Los Bomberos covers "El Bimbo" on a 1975 Quebec Polydor compilation I've got called Magic Bimbo. Here is a video from 1974):
Back to Musik Laden, ever since Ned said above that he thought Lio had some connection to Sparks, I keep imagining I hear some Sparks in "Amourex Solitaires," but it reminds me more of Les Rita Mistouko (who I don't think existed yet)
More Gold Hits notes:
-- Opening section of Slik's otherwise wimp-rock "Forever And Ever" sounds really art-rock; maybe a foreshadowing of Midge Ure's Ultravox future?
-- One of the repeated guitar hooks in Hank the Knife and the Jets' "Stan the Gunman" may or may not have later been stolen outright by the Stray Cats (in "Rock This Town," I think.)
-- "Motorcycle Mama" by Harpo turns out to have fairly wacky history-of-hippie-rock lyrics I hadn't noticed before:
I remember in '65 when Jimi Hendrix was still alive Before we went to the Woodstock scene And turn on to the rock-machine We rode a red Harley Davidson as we tried to follow the sun. . . . I remember in '67 we were into the flower-power heaven Riding up the silvery coast highway riding up in the Frisco bay Like Ravi Shanker I played his sitar And Maharishi Yogi was my Guru Star. . . . Do you remember about Fritz the Cat And Dylan's Leopard-Skin Pill-box hat Sergant Peppers Lonely Heart Club Band He is a rider through the desert sand
― xhuxk, Wednesday, 21 January 2009 16:28(3 years ago)Permalink
I had the Slik record. Bay City Rollers without the tartan, actual Bay City Rollers and sing-along hits. Ure's next band, Rich Kids, were much better. "Ghosts of Princes in Towers," the album and single are great.
The Sirens covered the John Kongoes thing on their last album.
― Gorge, Wednesday, 21 January 2009 18:07(3 years ago)Permalink
"Tokoloshe Man"? Or "He's Gonna Step On You Again"? I don't see either title listed on the two Sirens CDs I've got. Did they call it something else? (Or is there a newer Sirens album I didn't know about??)
High Life notes:
-- Clout and Luv both sing in REALLY BIG voices; Clout's "Under Fire" is as much proto-Flashdance as post-Abba, and Luv's "My Guy" and "Eeny Meeny Miny Moe" have them yelling out English nonsense words they barely seem to understand in an almost ridiculously excited way. Sounds excellent, needless to say; no wonder Metal Mike luvs them.
Wooagh, turns out Clout were South African, not to mention a totally foxy all-girl disco-rock band:
This is the best Clout song:
Disco Explosion notes:
Racey's superpop "Boy Oh Boy" turns out to be, well, rather gay: "Oh boy, the first time we danced...and boy, when the night was over, I walked you home."
Promises of "Let's Get Back Together" fame were not only high-pitched, but also apparently Canadians (and -- holy shit, only George will have any idea how awesome this is -- their girl singer is Leslie Knauer, later of the great '80s L.A. bubble-glam girl band Precious Metal! Yep, that's her alright. Youtube teaches me something new almost every day):
Hit Saison '79 notes
I am increasingly starting to believe that the songs that I said upthread merely reminded me of the Eagles' "Lyin Eyes" and Chris Rea's "Fool If You Think It's Over" are actual cover versions instead.
Reto & Toni's Heinzelmanchen, the apparent kiddie act featuring puppets, sound something like a duet between the munchkins from Oz and Yoko Ono, doing a drinking song with lots of "hey hey hey"'s in it.
― xhuxk, Friday, 23 January 2009 03:49(3 years ago)Permalink
That Promises clip is very strange. They look like a typical American pop-rock band, but they are doing the European glam bounce dance move.
JULIANE WERDING "Oh Mann, Oh Mann Wo Hat Der Mann Ur Seine Augen" has a woman starting an ending with a talked part whose rap flow for some reason reminds me of Ian Dury (circa "Reasons to Be Cheerful") and/or Tim Curry (circa "I Do The Rock"), but a more country-and-western-German version of course; at one point, she mentions both Einstein and Dr. Hook!
Gunter Gabriel's "Komm Charly, Fang Mich Charly," the countryish rap-schlager I compared to Johnny Cash above, also sounds kinda proto-Falco in a way.
The Latin/Brazilian/Afro-Caribbean counterrhythms -- from drums, whistles, horns, partying background vocals -- in a bunch of songs here (Roland Kaiser "Sieben Fasser Wein", Lena Valaitis "Iche Spreche Alle Sprachen Dieser Welt," Pepe Lienhard Band "Monika, Du") is actually less rigid and more accomplished than I gave it credit for above, and also reminds me that certain kinds of disco were basically a mix of German and Latin-American ideas, so maybe there's some connection to that here. (Roberto Blanco's "Wer Trinkt Schon Gern Den Wein Allen" is more obiviously Mex-polka, but good, too.)
Kaiser, among a bunch of German drinking people:
Music Power (K-Tel West Germany, 1974)
Man, this album pretty defintively demonstrates glam rock taking over the sound of the U.K. charts. It's not so much that there are great stomping songs by hard rock bands like Slade ("Bangin' Man" -- AC/DC prototype, almost, with an awesome cowbell opening, and what is it about, a horny sewer worker or somebody banging "down in that hole"?) and Nazareth (killer screeching Joni cover "This Flight Tonight") and Gary Glitter ("Always Yours") and ANGEL ("Good Time Fanny," total Slade -- how much stuff did they do this great? And is this even the same band with Punky Meadows -- because their debut LP didn't come out until 1975, right?) It's that bands and singers you always thought of as wussy seem mysteriously grow some 'nads here -- SHOWADDYWADDY ("Hey Rock'n'Roll," w/ fist-pumping chorus closer to Slade than Sha Na Na), THE GLITTER BAND ("Angel Face" -- what was it with glam bands and angels anyway? -- with a ram-jammy riff that keeps mechanically leaving and coming back like some progentior of big-beat techno almost -- did they do other stuff this good?), John Kincade from all those schalger comps ("Til I Kissed You" -- didn't like the 45 on that Metal Mike 45s thread, but even then I liked the crunchy opening riff and now the rest is growing on me), DANIEL BOONE ("Love Spell," really proto-METAL, with tempo slowdowns into parts that sound almost doom-rock-like, wtf?) Plus the Rubettes do their aforementioned high-falsetto doo-wop bubble- rock "Sugar Baby Love" on here. It all adds up.
Also like:
BARRY BLUE "Miss Hit And Run" (maybe he's mentioned among the sub-glammers upthread or maybe not; anyway, this is a really sweet Beach Boys rip.) THE JAMES BOYS "Hello Hello" (more bubble-glam, from squeaky little kids -- the Jonas Brothers are pretty good, but they'd be even better if they sounded like this...or at least like they do on the K-Tel album -- voices seem a little thin and strained in this vid):
Yes. "Angel Face" was about their best. I have a 'best of' album. It's solidly fair, not much more. Put them and Mud together and you still don't have Sweet or Slade competition. Maybe Suzi Quatro though.
― Gorge, Sunday, 25 January 2009 00:07(3 years ago)Permalink
Hit Parade notes
HENRY VALENTINO "Ich Hab Dein Knie Geseh'n" (Okay, didn't really notice this one before. Valentino sings in a really gruff music-hall voice atop lots of tubas and Johh Philips Sousa-type march rhythms, and there are scratchy voices behind him that sound like taken from an Irish American 78 from the turn of the century, which I assumed was just my imagination running wild until I noticed that Valentino was saying things about "neun-zehn-hunderd-zehn" and "gramophones", "stereo" and "discoteche." So maybe the scratchy voices are meant to sound like 1910 gramophone voices? Non-foot-fetish parts of vid below suggest I'm on to something.)
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