The Cure’s Fascination Street is Inspired By Kool and the Gang’s Fresh; Radiohead’s The National Anthem Inspired By the Cure’s Fascination Street

**UPDATE** See the video which demonstrates how The Cure’s “Fascination Street” is based on Kool & The Gang’s “Fresh” in this post: The Cure’s “Fascination Street” is Based on Kool & The Gang’s “Fresh,” and The Dazz Band’s “Let it Whip” is Based on The Sweet’s “Love is Like Oxygen” (See the videos!)

Kool and the Gang–Fresh. Check out the bassline, some of the changes, the guitar, etc. Then check out The Cure’s Fascination Street…definitely inspired by Kool and the Gang’s Fresh!

Cure–Fascination Street

For those of you doubting this, here’s a less controversial one: did you ever listen to The Cure’s Hot Hot Hot (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1sJovcqtdh8) and then Chic’s Good Times (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8g6bUe5MDRo)? The bassline, guitars, and drums are very similar; i.e. the songs are very similar. The Cure liked to make their own version of disco/funk songs. there’s nothing wrong with that, musicians like to make their own versions of hit songs, it’s just what they do.

I always thought the bassline of Radiohead’s The National Anthem was kind of in a similar vein to the Fascination Street bassline, but just in terms of mechanics, not the melodic component. Kind of sounds like Can too.

Here’s a cover of Joy Division’s Ceremony by Radiohead..

Radiohead-Ceremony

Here’s an original Radiohead song I think is really good

Radiohead–Weird Fishes/Arpeggi

Radiohead’s Scotch Mist live DVD is amazing!

Can and Red Krayola/Red Crayola

Ah, the wonderful world of psychadelia and krautrock! These people did in the 1960s and 1970s what so many postpunk and new wave bands tried to do in the 1980s and indie bands tried to do in the 1990s and 2000s. Those musicians could all have gotten PhDs and cured cancer and brought world peace if they only knew the music they were trying to make had already been made 20, 30, 40 years earlier for them!

Can–One More Night
Awesome drums, harmonics, etc. Can’t beat trippy jazz dance drums with experimental guitar and bass and electronics and English-speaking native Japanese lead singer living in Germany. Can ends up sounding like trippy German Japanese experimental hippies channeling James Brown via Pink Floyd a lot of the time, the drums sometimes end up sounding like some Manchester songs from the 1990s but much better. There’s some Can song that’s quite like the Stone Roses’ Fools Gold.

Can–Halleluwah
I’ll bet Grateful Dead and Phish fans would really like Can. American Beauty is one of the best albums ever made BTW.

Can–Moonshake
Sounds like 1995 and 1981. Pretty sure Joy Division listened to a lot of Can–what’s that one Joy Division song that sounds like this?

Can–Paperhouse
God, this song is so beautiful!!! WTF??? Indie rockers gave up the term “post rock” after they discovered that Can and Brian Eno basically did all that stuff in the 60s/70s.

Can-Vitamin C
Yup, here it is: Pink Floyd meets James Brown. Hey you, you’re losing your vitamin C!!!!

Red Crayola-Hurricane Fighter Plane
What??? It’s new wave postpunk in 1967. That’s BEFORE Captain Beefheart’s Troutmask Replica!!! The same year as Pink Floyd’s Piper at the Gates of Dawn.

Ah, there aren’t really many YouTube videos of the Red Krayola/Red Crayola songs I’m looking for. You can preview them/download them on Amazon:

Red Crayola-Jewels of the Madonna
This really sounds like fucking PAVEMENT! Steve Malkmus!!! Jeez!!! It’s crazy that this was from the 1960s. What?????
Red Crayola-Green of My Pants
Red Crayola-Leejol
Red Crayola-Dairymaid’s Lament
Red Crayola-Sherlock Holmes
Red Crayola-Listen to This

Red Crayola-
Former Reflections Enduring Doubt
This is just a noisy freakout.

Great Christian Vander Trio Live Show

There’s this great Christian Vander Trio live show floating around, awesome piano, bass, drums:

Paris, 01-31-1990

-The Night Has a Thousand Eyes

-Day After Day

-Like Sonny

-My Favorite Things

-Equinox

-Chim Chim Cheree

Anyone have a link?  Of course, this is the amazing Christian Vander of Magma fame.  Magma and the Christian Vander Trio, you must come play in the United States!

The Stranglers–Do You Wanna–The Root of Every Jesus Lizard, Birthday Party, and Scratch Acid Song Ever Written

The Stranglers — Do You Wanna. This came out on the Stranglers’ Black and White album in 1978. Yes, that’s right, 1978. That’s two years before the first Birthday Party album (1980), Scratch Acid (1984), Jesus Lizard (1990). That’s one year before the first Joy Division album (1979).

Listen to the crazy Jesus Lizard bass line, the crazy Jesus Lizard guitar part, the crazy Jesus Lizard drum part, and the crazy singing. Except it’s the Stranglers and it’s 1978.

Steve Albini attests to early Stranglers adulation (the Stranglers even pop up in the Atomizer liner notes “Santiago Durango… Stranglers impersonation”)

What a great song!

They’re also underrated as a new wave band:

Stranglers–Bring on the Nubiles (released 1977).

Stranglers–European Female (released 1983)

Stranglers: Baroque Bordello (released 1979)

Stranglers: Shah Shah A-Go-Go/Ice (released 1979)

George Hirota — Ancient Consciousness of Evil Spirit, Sahasurara album

George Hirota – Sahasurara album (mp3s)
George Hirota – Ancient Consciousness of Evil Spirit (mp3)

This was being saved to be put on as a Bumrocks guest DJ, we’ll see if that happens. Anyway, enjoy, it’s from the vinyl of the George Hirota Sahasurara album. George Hirota is the same as the Joji Hirota who made the amazing Wheel of Fortune album. It’s all incredible sample-ready jazz fusion prog rock. Check out the amazing funky flute especially! Another highlight is Point of Contact–check out the funky prog rock drums, and the great latin-tinged piano.

Check out the link to the whole George Hirota-Sahasurara album. Hopefully they’ll rerelease this to CD! For fans of Mahavishnu Orchestra, Return to Forever, Tony Williams, Gentle Giant, King Crimson, Arthur Verocai, Joji Hirota, Magma, etc.

Out on Blue Six–Obscure New Wave

Here’s some obscure but good new wave: Out on Blue Six – Party Moods (mp3). Nice frenetic female-fronted new wave, with that great jangly angular guitar and kind of dub influenced bass and drums. There’s a really great keyboard/synth part towards the end of the song. Kind of superficially reminiscent of the Delta 5, but not really. Kind of also like the great female fronted stuff on the first Flying Lizards record and on their Fourth Wall record.  They had at least seven inch and a cut on a 1980s compilation that I’m aware of, and this song was re-released on some more recent compilation. The bass player I think was also in this band Shriekback.

The Best Heavy Metal Pre-Punk Postpunk Garage Rock Psychadelic Classic Rock Song Ever: The Troggs “Come Now”

Last.fm: The Troggs: Come Now

The best The Best Heavy Metal Pre-Punk Postpunk Garage Rock Classic Rock Song Ever. There’s always debate over pre-punk, proto-metal, etc. The Kinks? Black Sabbath? Blue Cheer? Sir Lord Baltimore? Deep Purple? The Sonics?This is my favorite so far. Enormously heavy with crazy post-punk Sonic Youth and Mudhoney-like guitar. The slide part of the guitar sounds like Mudride or Sweet Young Thing by Mudhoney or something. Of course the Troggs also did a famous version of Wild Thing…but Come Now takes the cake!!! Wow!

Here are the lyrics. Pretty racy for the 1960s!!! Or maybe this was made in 1970? With shades of Touch Me I’m Sick and Mudride!

Hold me, you’ve got to hold me.

Touch me, come on and touch me.

Kiss me, you’ve got to kiss me, because you’re mine.

Come now, you’d better come now.

Take me, come on and make me.

Love me, you’ve got to love me, because you’re mine.

Come now, come now. Come now, come now.

(French interlude).

Feel it, you’ve got to feel it.

Stronger, it’s getting stronger.

Longer, it’s lasting longer, because you’re mine.

Come now, come now. Come on, come on, come on.

The Other Best Intergalactic Soul Song Ever Made: Gabor Szabo – Keep Smilin’

Gabor Szabo – Keep Smilin’. This song is crazy good. So soulful. More proof the 70s were the best era ever in music. Amazing blend of drums, percussion, analog synths, bass, horns, jazz guitar, etc. When people made music with full bands. Reminiscent to me of some Arthur Verocai like his song Bis.

Review from AMG via discomusic.com:

“Philadelphia soul meets European-born jazz guitarist Gabor Szabo, who plays with so much sensitivity it makes you cry. The break offers Szabo‘s surprise vocal of the chorus from William Devaughn‘s “Be Thankful for What You Got” — “rabbit in the back, sunroof top, digging the scene in (with?) a Philly lean.” The tune is an unlikely collaboration of Szabo with Philly songwriter/producer “Bunny” Sigler and was written by Sigler and Alan Felder; the rhythm players are the regular Philly session guys. The LP that spawned this song is panned by critics but was the Hungarian-born guitarist’s most significant album on soul radio and remains a favorite of many soul/ jazz fans. Instead of judging this song and the album from which it came to classic jazz pieces, both should be judged for what the producer and artist were trying to do, which was to make a European jazz guitarist palatable to urban/ soul audiences, which they succeeded in doing. “

Best Intergalactic Soul Song Ever Made: Rotary Connection — I am the Black Gold of the Sun (Minnie Ripperton)

Love the percussion, fuzzed out psychadelic guitar, chant-like vocals…one of the best songs ever. The 70s RULE, best music ever. From the great city of Chicago (“the jewel of the midwest”)…neighbors to Ides of March just a few miles west over in Berwyn. Singing by Minnie Ripperton, Maya Rudolph of Saturday Night Live’s mother. Tragically Minnie Ripperton died at the young age of 31 from cancer…where’s that cure for cancer ??? (RIP Tony Snow).

The Best Drum and Bass Song Ever Made

mp3: L &S- Run That One By Me Again

This is the best drum and bass song ever made, hands down!

Also check out this crazy hip hop/funk/soul/library music mix featuring Francis Lai, Brian Bennett, etc…

mp3: L &S – Redlining (remixing Francis Lai, Brian Bennett, Steve Gray, etc)

mp3s: L & S–Race to Space album (italo, electronic, disco, new wave)

Killer space plants illustration by Doug Cummings (looks like my backyard); more plants.