Creator note: This was an old LiveJournal Meme from 2007. I decided to keep it here at The Theme Show archives, because almost all of my answers to the tagged items were music related, and reflective of my tastes around the time I brought the show into podcast format.
Tagged by meganquinlan
Rules: tagger will choose seven interest from your profile and you will explain what they mean and why you are interested in them. Post this along with your answers in your own journal so that others can play along.
10CC -10 CC is an English band from the 1970s. Their name, interestingly enough, comes from the metric measurement of semen ejaculated from the average male during sex. Despite this rather crude band name, they are most famous for their soft-rock ballads. “Donna” is a throwback to 1950’s falsetto-voiced pop (think Frankie Valli & The Four Seasons). “I’m Not in Love” is a technical achievement musically: using a whopping 256 different vocal dubs to provide the backing melody and recently ranked on the recent VH1 countdown special “VH1’s 40 Most Softsational Soft-Rock Songs”. The band eventually parted, but members Kevin Godley and Lol Creme continued as Godley & Creme and made some more albums, finally going into video direction and production. Godley won a Grammy in 1986 for his work on The Police Synchronicity Concert (Best Video, Long Form). When writing my profile, I concentrated on bands of the ’70s, particularly original glam rock, and discovered this band quite by accident on a compilation via their song “Rubber Bullets.” That song was a partially controversial song considered a protest to an incident between the British Army and rioters in Northern Ireland. “Rubber Bullets” was produced featuring a double-tracked solo, the first being the original solo. The second track, the solo, slowed down to half speed and re-recorded (giving it a high-pitched fuzzy sound). As a music fan, I appreciate small details like this in music production, which is why you would also find me to be a fan of the Blue Man Group (the PVC plumbing pipes used as instruments, ingenious!). Other well-loved musical inclusions are the Lowrey organ arpeggio effect Pete Townshend does at the beginning of “Baba O’Riley” and the band Einsturzende Neubauten’s use of everything, including the kitchen sink as the instruments. (The song “Intermezzo – Yu Gung” features a rhythm section of razorblades on mirrors, while a jackhammer accompanies the piece “Kangolicht”).
Kula Shaker – Kula Shaker is an English band from the 1990s (still active). The lead singer Crispian Mills is the son of actress Haley Mills and spent some time in the early 90’s backpacking through India. Upon returning, he created the band and eventually incorporated the sounds and teachings that Crispin had acquired during his travels into the music. Kula Shaker is one of several “fusion” bands that I enjoy (the other semi-famous one being the Canadian band “The Tea Party”). Their albums are great in that they are an amalgam of different styles; one song might sound very much like you’re listening to “The Beatles,” while another will sound like the “Grateful Dead” or “Jimi Hendrix .”They also have an eclectic mix of traditional Indian worship songs set to rock music, the most famous of which “Tattva” became a minor hit for them in 1996. The albums are better when listened to from start to finish than individual tracks. Much like the spiritual journey one takes when reading the works of India’s prophets and gurus, Kula Shaker’s albums are a journey musically through different styles and sounds.
Throwing Toasters – As fun as it sounds, but probably not in the way you thought. Throwing Toasters is the band/guise of my friend Grant. He is a fan of parodies, comedy, filk, etc. He is sometimes a teacher (substitute) as well. I began my foray into his music with his third album, entitled “Chrome,” which features some of his biggest hits to date “NRL (The Nursery Rhyme Lawyer Song” and “Bad Influence” (both inspired by his experiences as a teacher). Grant is hilarious, so he even opened for “Weird Al” Yankovic during the most recent tour.
:wumpscut: – Surprise, it’s another band! This time it’s a 90’s Industrial Band from Germany. I like this band partially because it was the band that introduced me to industrial that wasn’t Nine Inch Nails, Ministry, or KMFDM (and helped me discover other bands like Haujobb and Covenant). I also can’t think of too many other bands that sound too much like them. I appreciate them because of their cunning use of sound clips. I have no idea why this is, but I have always liked songs with sound clips. My personal favorite is during the song “Thorns.” A very excellent piece using a Medieval style in harmony with the electronic sound; it features in the dead center of the song the line “Tonight You Sleep In Hell” as spoken by The Kurgan in the movie “Highlander .” As expected the song, “Soylent Green” features dialogue from that film (only in German). While I admit that a few of their songs are too noisy to listen to them, there are several shining gems, most of which feature fusions from other countries or styles. “Funeral Diner” features a Guqin {or similar instrument} sample from an episode of the X-Files. “Black Death”‘s use of the French language almost makes it sound romantic until you begin translating it, realizing it is quite literally the symptoms of the disease itself. A point was driven home by its unrelenting heavier chorus of “make my body burn.”
Apoptygma Bezerk – I bet you didn’t see this coming or anything. YES, It’s a band! Another industrial helping from the ’90s (still active) from Norway. While I am currently not as into this band as I was, it was another band that appealed to me during my club years because it was different from the same old usual stuff I heard week to week. One of my favorite songs is “Love Never Dies,” which starts with a sample from bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D Minor and then slowly drifts into the modern, more industrial music. It also features the chorus surrounded by Carl Orff’s “O Fortuna .” It’s a bit of a creepy love song in a kind of stalkerish “I love you so much I don’t want to let you go” kind of way. My second favorite song is called “Kathy’s Song,” and I particularly like the VnV Nation Victoria Mix (which is how I discovered that particular band). Anyways it’s another love song (in the way that industrial songs can be both technological but love songs at the same time) but not nearly as creepy as “Love Never Dies.” I particularly like the beginning, with a female vocoder doing the story of “Genesis.” Yet after God creates man, the man then creates a machine and the machine to make music. Aside from the fact that I like the song, the mechanical part interests me on some other level, based on an interest in technosexuality. No, I don’t want to have sex with robots or anything. Still, for some reason, the aesthetic of that type of fetishism is attractive (i.e., Sorayama artwork {though I prefer the ones where the private bits are actually inside the metal}).