Random Record Revisited:

Little Robbers – The Motels [1983]

  In the 1980s, there were a handful of female fronted bands that hit the radio, Three of my favorites were Chrissie Hynde and the Pretenders, Missing Persons [Dale Bozzio] and the Motels fronted by Martha Davis. Chrissie and the Pretenders had that hard edge, Chrissie’s fuck off / fuck all attitude and her oh soooo wonderful vibrato! Dale and Missing Persons [full of Frank Zappa alumni] had a minimalist new wave sound topped with Bozzio’s nasal sometimes squeaky tone. Davis and the Motels were very middle of the road pop with a new wave tinge wit Davis’s sultry, smoky voice.. Three very different styles but all good bands. But I admit, the Motels come in a very distant third in plays.

   The Motels seemingly came out of nowhere in 1982 with the top 10 new wave torch song Only the Lonely [the song that caught my ear] and the equally good but only eh charting [#60]  Take the L. But All Four One was actually the band’s 3^rd album. The band [in its second incarnation] had come up through late70s LA scene alongside X, Los Lobos, the Go-Gos and the Knack. Exene Cervenka of X recalled bitterly that Madam Wong’s owner Esther Wong seemed a soft spot for the Motels. But producer Val Garay had sidelined most of the band for the album, preferring to use session musicians like Waddy Wachtel and Craig Krampf. And with the success of All Four, Garay would do the same for the follow up.

   Little Robbers opens with the upbeat Where Do We Go From Here. The opening has a snaky middle eastern motif that will boil under through the whole song except then it goes into the riffing from the Motown classic Money [That’s What I want] around the 1:20 mark. With the electronic drums and a certain overdriven guitar sound [even though it is mixed very low] it’s definitely an 80s record. Dated, yes but not to the point of being overly cheesy 40 years later. The Motels’ second top 10 single Suddenly Last Summer follows. Suddenly falls between Only the Lonely and Take the L on the scale. It’s slightly uptempo but it’s lyrics are bittersweet. Davis said “…is a reflection on those moments in life when things are changing, like when it’s a beautiful sunny day and a cold wind blows and you know the end of summer is coming." Isle Of You has a reggae beat and a progression and melody that is reminding me of a song that I absolutely cannot place AND IT IS DRIVING ME CRAZY. I can so clearly feel it but I just can’t place it. I checked the Police’s Ghost In the Machine but it’s not there. But I know it is one of those second to last songs that goes into a mourning sounding song like Darkness [from GItM but Ghost’s 2^nd to last is Secret Journey and it is definitely NOT that!]. All of that aside, it’s a good song, obviously familiar and comfortable. Nice double use of a phrase – “I need to escapes from the isle of you / I love you.” Trust Me is pretty stock 80s rock. Monday Shutdown is a nice new wave comment on working. Remember the Nights rides a nice bouncy synthesizer riff similar to the little riff that starts Styx’s Too Much Time on My Hands. Co-written by the ex-Stooges (yes as in Iggy & the… he also played on a few of Iggy’s late 70s albums) / future Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers 2^nd keyboardist Scott Thurston. Nice sax break in the middle. The title cut Little Robbers has a little galloping drum beat  which feels musically like something Iggy or David Bowie [or Bowie producing Iggy ala 1986’s Blah Blah Blah] would be doing about this time. Actually, if this and Bowie’s Blue Jean were played back to back it would be really good on a mix tape / CD. Into the Heartland [co-written by Bernie Taupin] has very Springsteen [or Tom Petty ala Same Old You] lyrics about a coupla working class stiffs getting sick of “taking orders” and “slinging hash” and stealing a Pontiac and “driving that sucker straight into the heartland.” Taupin could always write good characters – check out the menagerie on Elton’s Goodbye Yellow Brick Road. For the record, the Motels predate Born In the U.S.A. by about nine months. Great little Greg Hawkes [The Cars] like keyboard fills and a Gary Numan [Cars] like ride out riff. Even a very good Elliot Easton [The Cars] style guitar work, too. Guy Perry is listed as lead guitarist in the credits but there are three other guitar players listed. Tables Turned rides a riff similar to Journey’s Faithfully and the goes into a stock little mid-tempo tale of “you were mine but you broke it off and now you want me back? Screw you.” Said in a nicer way, of course. Footsteps end the album on another reggae-ish motif with a snaky middle eastern motif. Actually it’s got a really strong Ric Ocasek [The Cars, again] influence.

   Little Robbers isn’t one of the great or important albums of 1983 – a year that saw Talking Heads’ Speaking In Tongues, Tears For Fears’ The Hurting, U2’s War, the Police’s Synchronicity and debuts by Stevie Ray Vaughn, Metallica and Madonna. [Geez, what a spread of styles, huh!?!] No, the legacy of Little Robbers is just being a really nice sorta new wave pop album featuring a female singer with a great voice that gives you a warm feeling when you go “I haven’t heard this for a while” and slip it on.

Just opining for a moment. 

Kamala Harris' [presumptive] nomination has turned the election on it's ear. Donald J. Combover is reeling not having "Old Cooked Joe" to kick around, His whole political stance [so far] remains in personal attacks and telling everyone what's "Wrong" with the country but not a whole lot of anything about how he will fix it if he is re-elected. 

He's counting on an eroding base of uneducated [i.e. no college] white people and his aging ultra-rich allies and he's losing the same middle that turned on him in 2020. Now he's the lost old dude in this race and I personally feel that if people aren't worrying about voting for the infirm Joe Biden, people will start talking about issues again and since Mr. Trump can't stay on message to save his life, that should worry the people trying to ride his coat tails.

If this comes down to a personality contest, Mr. Lightning Rod J. Fear-monger is going to lose. 

Not that I think the Vice President is anything to write home about. In a policy speech Friday [8/16], she spoke of giving first time home buyers up to 25,000 dollars in down payment assistance. I'm sure paid for by additional taxes on top 1% earners. I am not a fan of cancelling student debt unless I get to cancel 10,000 or 20,000 dollars of my debt. I will not be voting for Kamala Harris because I believe in her policy or agenda.

I think there will be significant numbers of people who will be doing the same - holding their nose and voting against Donald Trump. Some will be voting for her because she is black or a woman OR BOTH, which I think is the worst reason to vote for someone - because they check a different box in the gender or race columns. But I will take the win and hope that 2028 sees the political pendulum swinging more towards the middle than the extremes on either side. Can it swing father out? I live in Texas and I see how far out things CAN go. The right wing here has the party so far to the right that they're driving in the grass next to the shoulder of the freeway. They certainly have lock on political moroninsm, cronyism and asshattery, which is saying something given who is at the top of the ticket again this year. So I think that it can go a little farther out nationally before swinging back... but I hope it doesn't.

Which leads me to my final point of the evening: all of this extremist posturing is going to be a thing in the future because neither party really has a clue what the electorate really wants. Both sides are taking the election of "Their Person" as a mandate that the nation agrees with what their candidate is offering up and I'm afraid that it isn't so. Policy has not [really] been the focus of the electorate for  a long time

I hate to say President Obama was only elected for ticking the "not white" box but I think it was part of it. [8 years of George W. and going back to war the Middle East and Afghanistan didn't help the Republicans in 2008.] The nation rejected Hillary Clinton's Iron Lady personality in 2016. [Although I don't think her even farther to the left agenda helped her cause.] 2020 was a rejection of the hard right agenda that played out under President Trump. I think 2024 is going to be a referendum on Donald Trump and ONLY about Donald Trump. I don't think that his pronouncements that he will jail all of his political enemies will help him any. As Powers Booth's character Lt. Col. Andrew Tanner [USAF] said to C. Thomas Howell's Robert Morris in Red Dawn [1984]: "All that hate's gonna burn you up kid."]

But the pendulum is due for a swing back and the extremism war that has left the common sense, willing to compromise moderates [on both sides] silent will end. We will again focus on the things that unite us instead of those that divide us. We will learn again to give a little and take a little and both sides will be left with a little bitter in their mouth. Politicians will have to cut out some of the demagoguery and time wasting investigations and actually get back to  working for The People again.

Please Lord, sooner than later!

 

Random Record Revisited:

The Division Bell – Pink Floyd [1994]

   [No, I did not ever plan to do a second Pink Floyd RRR. Life is funny sometimes.]

   Searching. Searching. Another Chaz mix CD in the making, need the next song, need the next song. Maybe Pink Floyd. Thinking Learning To Fly from 1988’s A Momentary Lapse Of Reason. Maybe something off The Division Bell. God, it’s been a long time since I heard it. I wonder why. Play… next song… next… next song… hmm doesn’t seem that great. The reviews on Rate Your Music seem to be split between “Five Star Aural Eden” and “One Star Nails On A Blackboard.” [https://rateyourmusic.com/release/album/pink-floyd/the-division-bell/] But you know what, you haven’t done a Random Record Revisit / Rewind in a while, let’s give it a deep spin.

   As an FYI: I’m under the headphones. Probably the first time I’ve listened to this album on headphones! HEAD PHONES, not ear buds or Walkman style earphones. Sigh. One of these days these 80s vintage Radio Shock Nova 40s are going to fail and I’m going to be the saddest little rock & roller in the world. But they’re still working for now.

   Cluster One. After a minute forty-five seconds of noise we are finally greeted by something musical. Richard Wright’s lovely arpeggiated chords and David Gilmour working volume pedal / volume knob swells and waves in some classic Pink Floyd interplay. Of course this is what we all came for. About four minutes in it takes a turn into something very similar to Parts 1 – V of the great Shine On You Crazy Diamond [Wish You Were Here]. Finally, it fades down and a bass line comes in, soon joined by Nick Mason’s singularly Nick Mason style drumming and we’re into What Do You Want From Me. This is not unpleasant, now far off anything that we heard on Momentary Lapse. Cooing “oohs” and “aahs” from background singers are well used. Not far off the mark.

   Poles Apart is where things seem to start going wrong. Vocally Gilmour is gushing out paragraphs were sentences will do. The ELO like interlude [2:58 – 4:10] seems totally unnecessary, straining to inject some of the weirdness missing since the early 70s Floyd albums. When the band picks up again they’re in double time. The final two minutes is some stock Gilmour soloing. The whole thing just seems warmed over, uninspired and uninspiring.

   Marooned follows. More great interplay between Wright and Gilmour – I just love, Love LOVE Richard Wright’s playing. Love his phrasing. The Endless River [2014] is supposed to be made of instrumental works from these sessions – maybe worth looking into. Marooned melts into A Great Day For Freedom. This may be the closest thing to a Roger Waters composition in the post Waters cannon. Maybe this is the influence of producer Bob Ezrin [also produced The Wall and Momentary Lapse]. Surprisingly short at 4:17, it feels like Gilmour is just getting warm when it fades out. It feels like this needs that two minutes  that was wasted in the middle of Poles Apart!

   In the vinyl world, this probably would be where you’d flip the record to side 2 although 25 minutes would be a long, long side. Hmmm, Wikipedia says there was a 1994 vinyl pressing – probably Europe only, that clocks in about 8 minutes shorter than the CD. Oh, no a limited-edition US pressing also. Almost 59 minutes for the vinyl, it does not say if it was one LP or two. Discogs says it was 1 LP. That’s pretty damn long given most 70s LPs were 18 – 20 minutes a side. Let’s see Cluster One loses 30 seconds, Poles Apart 90, Marooned another 90, Great Day about 45, Wearing The Inside Out about 15… Oh and the break was after the just mentioned Wearing The Inside Out. So let’s go…

   Wearing is the first Rick Wright composition and lead vocal on a Pink Floyd album in almost 20 years. [Well, technically he wasn’t a member of the Floyd for eight to ten of those years.] Wright’s gentle vocal floats along over one of those lazy river Floyd tracks. Unfortunately, it lacks Wright’s great keyboard work! It must be in there in the synthesizer swells and valleys. There’s a Shine On fanfare here, some organ there, some piano very late. Ultimately and unfortunately though, it’s pretty forgettable.

   Take It Back [first single] is up next, borrowing the pedal guitar feature of Run Like Hell under a much less interesting track. It’s not a bad track but by the halfway point I start wondering how much longer this [both the song and the album] is going to go on. Coming Back To Life was played a bit as an album cut. It’s okay. Talk To Me [second single] is a nice return to a little darker, angrier side of the Floyd. [Another Brick In the Wall, Run Like Hell, Sorrow] Gilmour’s tone on the soloing is just pure Comfortably Numb. At this point [40 minutes in] it’s a shot in the arm for the record.

   Lost For Words [ironically not an instrumentally] is a sharp dig at Roger Waters ala John Lennon’s How Do You Sleep? Oher than Gilmour’s use of the four-letter F word, it’s pretty spare. The uber dramatic High Hopes ends the album commenting on aging and nostalgia, equal parts “Wasn’t that an amazing ride?!?” and “Is this all there is?”

   I’ve pondered before if it is worse to be a truly bad album or a very forgettable album. The Division Bell is not a bad album, there just aren’t a lot of high points to keep one coming back to it.