This is also known today as The Fugs First Album. These guys weren’t really musicians, certainly not vocalists, they were beat poets and activists that wanted to be musicians. The record was made possible because their friend Harry Smith, curator of the Anthology of American Folk Music, convinced Folkways to let them record in their studio. Thank you, Harry Smith.
A classic. What we have here is not only a genuine artifact from the downtown 60s scene, but actually a pretty listenable record. The Fugs pumped up their line up for this record with Peter Stampfel and Steve Weber from The Holy Modal Rounders (pictured right), and Steve even contributed one of the Fugs most well loved songs, Boobs A Lot. Ed Sanders and Tuli Kupferberg are the real poet masterminds behind the Fugs, however, and their songs are often offensive or hilarious, concerning sex, drugs, and politics.
This album should be viewed along side another album called Virgin Fugs, which is a bootleg containing outtakes from the same recording sessions. Songs vary from stony diatribe drones to loose pop songs like Supergirl, one of my favorites. And I’ve always got a big kick out of Nothing: “January nothing, February Nothing… Reading nothing, writing nothing, even arithmetic, nothing… Harry Smith and Allen Ginsberg, Nothing Nothing Nothing.” The aesthetic of the Fugs is instant punk, not the sound particularly, but the do-it-yourself approach. The sound of Village Fugs teeters between that of a skiffle group and an amateur R&B combo. The percussion is always plentiful and varied, like they raided some restaurant’s kitchen, and Ken Weaver rounded it out on the drums.
It may not be music you put on to relax to, or set the mood, or dare to DJ with… but you have to hear it!
While we’re a little ahead of the era, I’d like to throw in this post-70’s classic from The Soft Boys. Full of great songs, that get to you slowly, and jangly guitars, Underwater Moonlight is their masterpiece 2nd record and (excuse my indulgence) it f*#king rocks.
First off, any album that opens with I Wanna Destroy You would make the cut any day. A serious blast from the speakers and dual guitars stabbing all over the place, a great harmony line sings the title, but Robyn Hitchcock says the “You” part with an ‘F off’ sensibility, and thus bridges the gap between The Byrds and punk rock. By Kingdom of Love, we’re in for the ride. It may take a few listens to get used to these tracks, but they will become anthems to you; each track on Underwater Moonlight is a treat. There are Television-like bass and guitar runs, breakdowns and some gnarly licks like in the bluesy I Got The Hots. Lyrically, Underwater Moonlight is extremely weird and surrealist. Take this bit from Got The Hots for example: “When you see her your eyes awake, electric bulbs on a birthday cake. Would you care for a lump of steak?” But the lyrics never sound dumb and they won’t embarrass you, just don’t try figuring them out.
Insanely Jealous is a powerhouse track with an almost 80’s dance beat sound to its pulsating high-hat pinching rhythm. Tonight and the surf-inspired instrumental workout, You’ll Have To Go Sideways are personal favorites and Old Pervert beats with intense authority, showing some Capt. Beefheart influence. It’s an album that will slowly work its way into your psyche and eventually become a simple classic.
The 2001 Matador re-release includes a 2nd disc chronicling the rehearsal takes leading up to Underwater Moonlight. These are not throw-away tracks by any means (especially Only The Stones Remain) and it’s a beautiful reissue. This may not mean much to you, but this is an album that I carried around with me for a whole summer, dinging up the case, dripping paint on it somehow, and making it all the more VG+++ in my mind.
“In the beginning, there was nothing. And then Black Sabbath said “LET THERE BE METAL!” (had to quote this guy). But considering, before this self-titled destroyer was unleashed, the closest things we call metal are a handful of Yardbirds and Zeppelin tracks and Iron Butterfly, Sabbath really did spawn a whole new genre, in Satan’s name.
Just imagine as a kid in 1970, heavy into tracks with overdrive guitars, you put this on the record player, we hear burning leaves, a distant church bell, a rising storm, the ungodly slow crunch from the band kicks in with scary timing, a whole new sound. We’ve just spun Black Sabbath by Black Sabbath from Black Sabbath. Sick.
The album is rooted in hard rock and the blues still, of course. The Wizard is a smokin’ workout with a harmonica lead and Ozzy’s characteristic vocals. N.I.B. is easily another defining track for early metal. There are some more period piece numbers too, such as Evil Woman. It’s still got the heavy detuned power chords and shredding, but there is a bluesy beat to it with a poppy chorus. They take it down almost all the way to folk on the intro to Sleeping Village, before their instrumental assault extending into the 10-minute Warning.
Black Sabbath would go on to release a solid string of excellent records (their first four the best), including the tour-de-force, Paranoid. I chose to review this one today because it has the scariest cover. Happy Halloween!
Rattus Norvegicus doesn’t have a huge audience in America. It’s a record passed over by a lot of rock aficionados, and swarms of gob spitting punk purists haven’t heard a note of its snarl. How did this happen? It’s got all the right ingredients - songs of alienation, angst, attitude and anarchy archetypes. Hell, it’s even oozing with pre-punk psychedelic rock influences like The Doors, with a Manzarek like organ carrying its melodies along in a drunken stupor. The problem may be that (despite its influences) the album, like The Stranglers themselves, was a little too British. It’s an ethnocentric disease that’s paralyzed American music lovers from the ears down for decades. Groups like The Kinks, The Jam and The Stranglers never amassed the amount of attention from U.S. audiences that they rightfully deserved. Shame. They were talented, hungry and damn fine rock stars.
The record (which is named after the scientific labeling of a type of Norway rodent) is hard to pin down. It has the edge of an expletive laden punk EP and the long sweeping takes of your standard prog-rock concept album. The opening lyrics on their debut track “Sometimes” cuts in on the heavy organ crutch and grinding Peter Gunn style bass with a lip curled, “Someday I’m gonna smack your face. Somebody’s gonna call your bluff. Somebody’s gonna treat you rough.” The beauty of Rattus Norvegicus can be found here, with its ability to simultaneously affront and appease. The band’s sweet and sour take on the burgeoning punk movement would become a calling card for subsequent albums and would set them apart from the cookie-cutter one act groups forming at the time.
The star of the show is easily “Peaches”, a song that drips attitude with a schoolboy’s playful demeanor. The track may have confused some audiences into thinking that, lyrically speaking, The Stranglers were a sexist group of misanthropes who were quick to criticize any and every race, creed and belief structure. In actuality Hugh Cromwell, Jet Black, Jean-Jacques Burnel and crew were amateur satirists commenting on society at a confusing time in England’s history. Had it not been for the run ins with the law and being acquaintances of the notorious Finchley Boys street gang, people might have seen the lyrics for a song like “Ugly” as observant or hilarious.
But when you hear the lyrics “I guess I shouldn’t have strangled her to death, but I had to go to work and she laced my coffee with acid” out of context, you can’t be blamed for your assumptions.
Rattus Norvegicus doesn’t follow a straight and uncompromising journey into the abyss, a point of view that most punks initially adopted at that time. Instead the record is a cornucopia of surprising solos and swells of melody. “Princess of the Streets” seems completely disjointed from entries like “Goodbye Toulouse”, a song that hints at the future sound of the band and a lot of the brilliance they already had as songwriters. Punk was something that can be nailed to a particular style, a particular time and a certain type of attitude. Well in The Stranglers’ defense, Cromwell has been cited as saying that they never considered themselves punks. Their later albums delving into more pop friendly waters (as well as the production of a few concept albums) should come as no surprise then. Why should they be nailed to the punk rock cross when they never considered themselves its apostles to begin with?
