Oingo Boingo: Just Another Day!

Written By Matthew Meichle

I have always been a huge music fan. The first album I remember getting was an Aerosmith live bootleg. It had 3 albums in one and it was amazing. I also got a Shawn Cassidy album, and yes, I am comfortable in my heterosexuality. ‘Da Doo Ron Ron Ron’ was a classic song, and for all of you homophobes it was about a girl (DUH!). Then, as I started to get older and the seventies were winding down, I got into the 80′s. And wow, what a weird time. Now, I wasn’t old enough to go to clubs or do cocaine and drive a Delorean, but I listened the shit out of the music from that era.

From the glam metal bands like Motley Crue, to the pop hits of Culture Club and Kajagoogoo, and all the ones in between, I loved all genres; from heavy metal, to rap and pop (but not country). A couple of bands really got my attention: Devo and Oingo Boingo. Now Devo did a little better than the latter band, but I am here to clear the air. Oingo Boingo is the most underrated and ignored band of all times. In my opinion, they are one of the forefathers of Skaw, or the ones who helped shape it. The horns are amazing and the groves of Steve Bartek’s guitar, and John “Vatos” Hernandez on the skins and John Avila on bass. Their songs might seem a little strange to some of you, but to me they were pure genius.

I really don’t understand how or why Oingo Boingo were not that successful. They had a few songs in some very popular movies, like Back to School and Weird Science just to name a few. Devo had “Whip It” as their number one hit; I’ll bet there are a lot of people who only know Devo from that one song. Don’t get me wrong, I love and still listen to Devo on a regular basis, but to me Oingo Boingo is one of the end-all, be-all bands of all time.

With me, I listen to some bands and I just get burned out, and won’t listen to them for what seems to be years. But with Oingo Boingo, I never get sick of their songs. And it saddens me to know that I will never hear a new Oingo Boingo album ever. A reunion tour is out of the question as Danny’s vocal cords are becoming shot, and he is busy making awesome movie scores (for Tim Burton mostly, but he has done other movies as well; he is a highly sought after composer).

I will get right to the point. As music fans, we all know music from earlier decades comes full circle, and new bands come out that sound like old bands. I know there are a lot of bands that popped up in recent years that sound a lot like 80′s transplants, but none of them will ever sound like Oingo Boingo. Their awesome brass section, Danny’s amazing voice, and his weird but unique lyrics make Oingo Boingo one of my favorite bands of all times. I know there are a few bands that cover some Oingo Boingo songs, but you don’t hear about it, at all. And that makes me mad; how did this band not achieve greatness? With all the one hit wonders out there, Oingo Boingo had hit after hit.

Everyone makes fun of the 80′s. You know what? So do I, and I grew up in them. But to me, the 90′s were just as bad, if not worse than 80′s. I mean, the 90′s had a lot of one hit wonders. Where is Marcy Playground? Did they have too much Sex and Candy? And what about Breakfast at Tiffany’s by Deep Blue Something? More like Deep Blue Nothing. And the list goes on.

Sure, some of these bands are probably still successful in their own countries. But why for f*ck’s sake is Oingo Boingo never mentioned at all? I ask all of you to just grab an Oingo Boingo album and let me know what you think. I think you will be amazed at their sound, a sound that should come back soon. In closing, to me Oingo Boingo is like Wyld Stallyns: their music could bring peace to the world if we all just give it a chance.

 

One Way

Ryan Adams | Wonderwall (Oasis Cover)
PJ Harvey | Angelene (from Lamacq Live)
Chromatics | Into The Black (Neil Young cover)

Walk in Silence: Remembering Ian Curtis 32 Years Later

Written by David Campos (@magicdave1983)

IAN CURTIS: July 15th, 1956 – May 18, 1980

On May 22, 2011, my brother and I were in Manchester, England, one of our stops in our European trip that year.  One reason we traveled to that city was for a classic football match between Manchester United and Blackpool. The other reason is the rich, musical history that city has etched in its building, street corners, alleyways, and everywhere else in between. This city gave the rest of the world the sounds of the Smiths, the Stone Roses, Oasis, Happy Mondays, Inspiral Carpets, and New Order.  Before New Order, the city gave the world their sounds in the band’s previous incarnation known as Joy Division. The foundation of Joy Division’s sound was lead singer Ian Curtis.

Photo by Kevin Cummins, Joy Division, Rizzoli New York, 2010

Being the band’s only lyricist, classic songs like “Love Will Tear Us Apart”, “Shadowplay”, and “She’s Lost Control” demonstrate themes of sorrow, loss, crisis, solitude, and coldness that were unique to Curtis’ lyrical writing talent. Tragically, those themes took hold and manifested themselves into reality. On May 18, 1980, Ian Curtis took own his life, leaving a void in the heart of his band mates, family, and Manchester. Even in death, his enigmatic and ghostly mythos lives on in the city the bore him as well as in the fans that discovered him in the years after.

Photo by Kevin Cummins, Joy Division, Rizzoli New York, 2010

Today, on the 32^nd anniversary of his tragic passing, I decided to go back into the archives of videos from that trip and recover a moment that was recorded. My brother and I visited Ian Curtis’ grave in Macclesfield, where we humbly laid roses in honor of our friends and family who love his music as we do, we humbly laid roses at his grave.  Just as we shared it with them, I want share it with all of you. I hope to put together more moments from the rest of the music tour we took in the near future. In the meantime, I hope you all enjoy this.

I want to give a special thanks to Craig Gill, drummer of Inspiral Carpets, who was our guide and who led us on a historical and memorable tour of the Manchester music scene. He was very understanding and patient with us in our request to purchase roses as well as gladly filming this moment.

If you are a music lover and travel to Manchester, look up Craig Gill and Manchester Music Tours. His music tours take you to all the places made famous by Joy Division, The Smiths, The Stone Roses, Oasis, etc. His passion and real life memories of the Manchester music scene from its early beginnings make the tour truly unforgettable.

MANCHESTER MUSIC TOURS
Website- http://www.manchestermusictours.com/
Email – info@manchestermusictours.com
Facebook – http://www.facebook.com/#!/groups/manchestermusictours/
Twitter – @GillyMMT 

Gold : EP

Ben Folds {Golden Slumbers (The Beatles Cover)}
The Asteroids Galaxy Tour {The Golden Age}
Klaxons {Golden Skans}
The Chemical Brothers {The Golden Path}
Lupe Fiasco {Gold Watch}
Beck {Gold Chains (Previously Unreleased)}

>> FMD <<

#tuTicket – Charly Garcia: Living Dead Legend

Written by David Campos (@magicdave1983)

Live at the Fillmore Miami Beach: (Miami, FL – 4/28/2012)

In March of 2000, in the most bizarre of circumstances, a man in Mendoza, Argentina jumped from a 9^th floor hotel balcony straight into a pool below. Any person who witnessed this moment surely believed this man killed himself. When reporters rushed to the scene, they found the man swimming around nonchalantly and unharmed. This man just happened to be one of the fathers of Argentine rock, the very much revered Charly Garcia. Being a musical child prodigy, he graduated as a Music Professor at age 12. An artist whose career spans an impressive 40 years, his influence on rock music not only in Argentina, but in all of Latin America is unquestionable.  It’s a feat of sheer talent as a living legend to remain as relevant and influential as culture changes decade after decade. I witnessed this truth first hand as the crowd faithfully waited for him at the Fillmore Miami Beach during his 2012 US tour promoting his latest release 60 x60, a massive retrospective of his career spanning three CDs and three DVDs. He has been known to be an interesting and controversial character both musically and personally, and one can only see that in person.

The respectfully sized crowd was already pumped by the time I entered the venue. For the first time in a long while, I actually was not near the front of the venue. I actually sat back near the back doors, which granted, it did give a wide view of the stage, but it was still a little too far than what I’m used to when I’m  at the Fillmore Miami Beach. When the lights finally dimmed, the crowd exploded in anticipation of seeing their idol. Still, he did not appear on stage immediately. There was a quite lengthy video intro at first. It was an audio/visual timeline of his entire musical career. The screen would show the artwork of an album with an audio sample of a memorable hit from that album. It started in 1972 and went year by year for about 5 minutes until it reached the present. The slideshow ended up being interactive in a way since during all the random audio samples, everyone sung along unison. No matter what part of the song the sample landed on, everyone knew it. It was actually quite impressive.  Suddenly, at long last, the lights came up and the show began with 10 people on stage. I was quite taken by surprise since I had trouble locating Charly was on stage. I first thought he was the guy on the xylophone. After a few minutes, I noticed the piano on the left and the rather still gentlemen sitting at it who promptly began to play. Given the aged, raspy voice and the familiar unison sing-along of the crowd, I knew this was Charly Garcia. As I have become a fan of documenting the performances of artists I see in concert, I began to normally take some video when I was promptly reprimanded by a member of the venue staff that video recording was not allowed. I was staunchly upset at this. While she did the same for those around me, there were hundreds of cameras still recording, especially those who were up front and bunched into a huge crowd. The consequence of my seat was that I was not able to record a single song on video since I was in the staff member’s line of sight the whole night.

For a 60 year old man, he’s still gets around stage pretty enthusiastically. He shuffles his feet in a very cartoony way. His wardrobe was quite out of sync with what one may think a man of his age should wear. Yet, that his exactly the style his famous “I-don’t-give-a-fuck” personality has always portrayed. It consisted of a generic, black t-shirt, a somewhat long, creepy trench coat, sunglasses, and these skin tight red pants that grafted itself to his lanky frame. Add his signature curly hair and half black/half grey mustache, he made me chuckle at the silly thought of him being a cousin to El Loco Hugo, a lunatic character who would flash woman on the famous Venezuelan comedy sketch show Bienvenidos. After jamming for a good hour, Charly’s off-beat personality led him to declare to the crowd that he is going to take a break and have some wine. He left and some experimental-type film appeared on screen with some eyeball being sliced open. Once again, in unison, everyone audibly cringed at what had just been witnessed. After his wine break, he came back to lead the crowd though hit after hit of his long discography. Like the Music Professor that he is, he would sing ballads on his grand piano, or switch to cheap-looking keyboard at center stage, or lead the 10 members of his band, which were named the Prostitution, like an orchestra conductor, or just prance around to the beat of some his classic dance hits.

Being this the first time I ever see him, my personal experience was that the show overall was a like an educational field trip to a music exhibit at a museum, where you come to learn and appreciate the accomplishments of an artist who laid the foundations of influence for so many other across Latin America, some who were probably not even born yet when he was starting out. The only difference is that I wasn’t looking at some wax figure. Charly Garcia is still very much alive and jamming. Like at any museum, I needed to leave with something. With video out of the question, I experimented and recorded some audio with my Blackberry voice recorder. The sound that came out wasn’t the best by any means, but it does have an old, scratchy, bootleg charm to it, which kind of amplifies Charly’s age and historic mythos. The fans embrace that mythos as their own.  Just as much his devoted fans sing and adore him, he repays them exactly with the same respect and good times. Despite his apparent kookiness and moments where he seemed like he was not there, he was very attentive and affectionate to everyone who came to see him.  My highlight was that I did learn something new in my Spanish language that night. It is essentially the Argentine version of encore. The crowded shouted the following: “Una mas y no jodemos mas!” In English, that translates to the following:  “One more and we won’t bother anymore.” When he finished his encore, once last time, in unison, the crowd kept their promise and happily didn’t bother anymore.

Los Smokings get a little high with Paracetamol, but not enough

Taking influences from punk and alternative subgenres (ranging from pop-punk to old school to modern punk and post punk), “Paracetamol” finds Los Smokings as a quite imperfect, yet sometimes promising alternative rock outfit. While delivering some thrills and memorable moments, there are many aspects to keep working on.

The punk influence in the sound and vision of the band is most visible, although not always with good results. The heavier tracks (“Cabron”, “Welcome to the club”, “Maldita represion”) reflect more traditional punk attack, sometimes with a bit of modern post punk rhythms and flourishes (“Welcome to the club”, “Estrella de rock”) and somewhat-virtuous touches in the guitar. However, while the rhythms and melodies might be somewhat catchy (especially “Cabron”) or at least rousing, the lyrics and the singing on these tracks veer into very juvenile punk angst, which derails them completely. The singer’s voice, which isn’t the best and has got an annoying inflection to it, is also affected by unnecessary production and manipulation.

There are bright spots on the record, though. The second half of it is slightly more melodic and less angry. The lead single, “Suicida”, is a very effective piece of modern indie pop-punk, the hooks and ringing riffs combined with the more serious, yet not juvenile lyrics. Same happens for the title track, a bit surprising with its slower, bluesier tempo and sound; this one is inferior, though, because of its unnecessarily prolonged length and not-so-inspired lyrics. Perhaps the best and catchiest tracks are the last two, “Pilar” and “La vida cambia”, which even feature keyboards and refreshing indie and jangle pop touches while still having serious lyrics.

Overall, “Paracetamol” is somewhat of an enjoyable record, although it has its flaws. On one hand, it has sometimes too much juvenile angst in sound, lyrics, and singing. On the other hand, the band can be melodic and sometimes very catchy, and if Los Smokings grows up it will be able to capitalize on this.

Stars: ★★★☆☆
 

Review of the album “Paracetamol” by Los Smokings, written by Carlos Navia.

Remember You (From The Future)

Calendar : Castles of Sand
Morrissey : When Last I Spoke to Carol (Toy Selectah Mix)
Surfer Blood : Swim
John Frusciante : Invisible Movemant
Michael Riesman : Bryars: Jesus’ Blood Never Failed Me Yet (No Strings)

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