7 Inch Single Collection: Fishmonkeyman - Breathing

Another obscure band with a great name:

FISHMONKEYMAN

A-side: Breathing

B-Side: Chocolate Town

(Furious Fish 1991)


Fishmonkeyman - lovely name for a band, Darwin's theory of evolution summed up nicely in one portmanteau nonsense word. I like that. In fact that's probably the reason I bought this record. I say probably because this is their second single, and I do have their first - so it's possible I bought the first one because of the band name, and I may have bought this one because the first one was brilliant (or more likely fair-to middling - we'll find out when we get there). Anything else about then I cannot say - whether there was an album or further singles who knows. I could probably find out on the internet, but that sounds like too much work - I'm not being paid to write this nonsense, I just some random idiot on the internet.If you're that interested you can go and search yourself. I couldn't even find a video for this on YouTube.

So what is Breathing (the song - not the physical experience) like? Well it's as average as an early 90's indie song gets. All the stuff is there - you can pick it off a list:
Chiming guitars - check
Blokeish attitude - check
Brightly uptempo - check
Catchy with a memorable hook - check
Lyrics infused with nostalgia - check
and so on, and so on.
The story of song is basically one of I'm getting on, but I'm not dead yet. Which, for what I assume is a band of 20-somethings is a bit of a cheek. Obviously it's a commentary on the way times change and the speed of that change, and what was once hot is now cold, but it's still as good as it ever was. I could reach and be all post-modern and say the song is almost commenting upon it's own existence - but it's not quite that clever I'm afraid. Nothing soul-searching or game changing. It does the job - it's yer bog-standard bread and butter of guitar pop tunes. It'll do for now, but something better will be along soon.

Chocolate Town is something better, a more thoughtful, darker piece than the A-side. The intro almost mines the dark velvety richness of goth, until the blokey vocals kick in. This distinguishes itself from the herd a bit more by being more about the keyboards than the guitars. The subject matter - the inherent dangers of parochialism - is a bit meatier and more left of centre than then norm too. The flaw with this approach is that there is a lack of catchiness, and no real hook. So although it's more interesting than Breathing it is ultimately less memorable.

I can do little more than shrug my shoulders, think that was OK, I suppose and cry "NEXT!"

Next time the Welsh wizard of Rock 'n' Roll...

7 Inch Single Collection: Strawberry Switchblade - Let Her Go

Outlandish fashion and pretty pop collide:

STRAWBERRY SWITCHBLADE

A-side: Let Her Go

B-Side: Beautiful End

(Korova 1985)

It's a bit of a shame that one of the first things that I think about when I consider Strawberry Switchblade is not their music but their appearance. That's not to say that their music was of secondary importance, because it's not - it's just that Strawberry Switchblade had such a strong, and engaging visual presence that it is hard to ignore. Especially if you were a teenage boy at the time they were plying their trade! The group was a duo of very attractive women who dressed in the most outlandish of clothes. It said we're pretty but quirky, which was and intriguing combination. It certainly worked to get them some attention, which they could then use as a springboard to unleash their music.

I almost feel like I have to apologise that this isn't Since Yesterday - I don't own the 7 inch of Since Yesterday, which was a fine a piece of pop from the mid-80's as you could wish to hear. I'm afraid that we're left with the follow-up single Let Her Go. It is a catchy enough piece of pop music. Synths tinkle and sparkle along with melody whilst Rose and Jill provide breathy girly vocals. the whole thing is light and airy and floats along quite pleasantly which is odd because lyrically it's a lot creepier than that. It's an urging for someone let their girlfriend go and be free, be free to come to the narrator. The underlying aggression is tonally at odds with music, which adds a depth of interest that would otherwise be missing. It has to be said that Let Her Go shares much in common with Since Yesterday, and so it could be an indicator of a dearth of ideas, or a savvy way of cashing in on their previous hit. Either way that similarity does some harm as it fractional diminishes the charm of this song.

Beautiful End on the other side is much softer and has swaying, almost woozy characteristics of a lullaby. It is gentle and soporific, but hang on is that another lyrical dissonance I hear before me. Yes I think so - it is as you might guess from the title - Beautiful End - about death, or at least that's how interpret it. Not a violent or bad death, but a comfortable and peaceful death. Painful to none but the loved ones left behind. So if it a lullaby it is one for the ultimate endless sleep. The melody is appropriately haunting, and whilst it may be less catchy than the a-side, it is probably the better of the two songs.

Strawberry Switchblade - a band whose outlandish appearance and stylised pop sounds belies a much darker and more thoughtful than you would expect.

Next time another obscure band with a great name from the early 90's

7 inch single collection: Roy Orbison - Drifting Away

The Big 'O' on the comeback trail:

ROY ORBISON

A-side: Drifting Away

B-Side: Under Suspicion

(Monument 1977)

Many exciting and new things were happening in the musical world in 1977 - things like disco and punk exploding, and the early sounds of hip hop starting to emerge. What wasn't happening was a chart career for Roy Orbison. An early pioneer of rock 'n' roll - yet separate from all the rockers, hellraisers, and firebrands because of his drift into the dramatic (and sometimes melodramatic) big ballad. A man with a pure angelic voice, singing big heartfelt emotional songs really wasn't on the musically agenda in 1977. He was pretty much a has-been, an echo from another generation, a voice for for the easy listening crew. They (and by they I mean the record buying public of the late 70's) simply weren't interested in the Big 'O' any more. They, of course, were wrong.

Drifting Away, may not be quite as good as Pretty Woman, or Only The Lonely, but it's definitely playing in the same league.It starts with no pre-amble, and cuts straight top Roy's marvelous voice, which aches with sadness and pain. It's bound too because this is one of those timeless sad love songs about heartbreak and splitting up. The depth of sorrow is enhanced by a country-style melody and instrumentation (country does sadness better than most other genres).  Drifting Away is to be intimate and yet epic at the same time - a feat that few can accomplish with any sort of grace or style, yet here it feels effortless and natural. Furthermore there is more poignancy as you realise the lyrics act as a metaphor. Not only is Roy drifting away from his love he's also drifting away from his audience - people aren't buying his records like they used to, he's a pillar of old-fashioned steadfastness, when we are all tempted away from him by pulsing electronic repetitive beats or shouty sneering kids with attitude and discordant guitars. His voice quivers as he yearns to not be left behind, and you don't know at that point if he's talking through the narrative of the song, or directly at you the listener. This is truly powerful stuff and all I can think of to say is sorry, sorry Roy we should have listened to you more and not as a collective audience drifted  away from your wonderful songs.

Of course if he was mainly making records like Under Suspicion over on the b-side it's no wonder the audience drifted away. This song has none of the timeless charm of the a-side, in fact it's very attempt to sound contemporary is what immediately dates it. There is late 70's feel to the song, there's a whole heap of horns going off in the background, producing a smooth, if soulless, soft funk atmosphere to the tune. It's not suited to his voice, it's better suited to a soul singer. Roy Orbison was not a soul singer, he was a soulful singer, and anything less than a big song could fall flat and fizzle away. Under Suspicion is nowhere near a big song.

Fortunately Roy Orbison stopped making songs like Under Suspicion, and managed to bring himself back into the public eye, and produce the kind of songs that only he could. That he did it just before he passed away is something of a triumphant heartbreak - not unlike the greatest of his songs.

Next time a poppy duo brighten up the place...

7 inch single collection: The Nice - America

Prog Rock starts here:

THE NICE

A-side: America

B-Side: Diamond Hard Apples Of The Moon

(Immediate 1968)

It's an odd thought that what was one of the forerunners of prog rock started out life as a backing to a soul singer. The Nice were created as a backing band for the brilliant P.P.Arnold, but on the condition that they could do their own stuff too. This was apparently at the insistence of keyboard supremo Keith Emerson. Yep, that's Keith Emerson of Emerson, Lake and Palmer fame (infamy?) I know that people who love prog rock really love it, and there are those who find in interminable widdly nonsense - the truth, as always in somewhere in between, and much greatness can be found floating around endless drum solos and weirdness for weirdness sake.

The first track on here is a tearing up of America from Bernstein's West Side Story. Now, I'm quite prepared to admit that I really rather like many musicals, and of the many musicals that I like West Side Story is probably the one I like the most. America is great song too - with it's contrasting optimism for a new life in a free land, with it's sneering at the racism and less pretty aspects of 50's America. It's good stuff - The Nice drop the powerful imagery of the lyrics and replace them with a fierce thrashing of the tune that whirls like a waltzer at the fairground, dizzying and thrilling, and occasionally nauseating. Towards the end of America there's a child's voice briefly spouting of some pompous political rhetoric. I used to really like this record when I first heard it it was vibrant and alive and different take on some thing old. However I feel as that it's one of those records that suffer from the law of diminishing returns, getting more boring and more like a one-trick pony on each subsequent outing. Before listening to it for this blog I haven't heard this record for may years, and I was hoping that that temporal distance may have softened my feelings to this once loved piece. Maybe it did, I still found it a little boring and a chore to listen to, but I also could hear the skill and the passion in the music, and could completely understand what people, including my younger self, can see in this.

Maybe I'll have better luck with the b-side. Considering it goes under the preposterous name of The Diamond Hard Apples of The Moon, and that I couldn't remember how it went from last time that I listened to it I didn't have high hopes., and I'm afraid it lived down to my expectations. There are vocals on this track, but they had some odd treatment put on them. I afraid I can't really make out what they're on about - the title is dropped a few times, considering the incoherence maybe some acid was dropped at the same time. This is very generic hippie psychedelia. The song just doesn't know how to finish, and so it all falls apart in a noisy hazy puff of an ending.

I wanted to like this more - but as it stands I find to be little more than a curious relic of a very specific time and place, and out of that time and place - it's a bit boring with some annoying noisy bits. That probably makes me sound like some old fuddy-duddy - maybe that's what I've become.

Next time a voice from the 50's tries to be heard in the 70's...