#blake xolton | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

mywifeleftme · 9 months

Text

138: Various Artists // Experiments in Destiny

Experiments in Destiny Various Artists 1980, BOMP!

BOMP! is a venerable Los Angeles-based indie label, founded in 1974 and would you believe still going to this day. Experiments in Destiny samples 28 bands either signed to or distributed by the label, and it’s a who’s who of “Who?” with a few starrier names scattered in. They specialized in New Wave, homages to ‘50s and ’60s rock, and springy power pop. I wrote this intro after deciding to do a track-by-track recap below, so uh, let’s get to it because there are too many words as it is.

Side One

Stiv Bators: First time hearing the solo work from the Dead Boys’ Stiv Bators, and it turns out he’s… Tom Petty-ish?

The Real Kids: Pitching this here with no real forethought, but you can divide power pop bands by whether or not their singers sound like their throat is dry. Boston’s The Real Kids are great, great dry-throated power pop, and probably one of the better-known acts here thanks to “All Kindsa Girls” showing up on a lot of compilations. They’d already broken up by 1980, so we get an unreleased demo that probably wasn’t easy to find elsewhere at the time.

The Dadistics: Somewhere between the Slits and Rough Trade, a little Pat Benatar in the vox—puts me in the mind of the similarly cool and obscure Mo-Dettes. The first third of the song is a no wavey fakeout, then it goes into a kinda Feeliesy riff. Extremely cool! And vocalist Audrey Stanzler went on to be part of the original lineup of… Ministry?!

Blake Xolton & The Martians: Tasting notes: Maybe Magazine at their most electronically disassociated? Blake Xolton was a producer with a very sparse discography, who may also have been part of the phony International Society of Poets who set up the controversial Poetry.com, a “poetry shearing site” per Wikipedia.

Jimmy Lewis & The Checkers: Pubby cover of the Aretha Franklin chestnut “Think.” Probably a little too close to Huey Lewis & the News for my taste.

The Nuns: Blondie-esque New Wave, with some very cool guitar and backing vocal effects that make it sound like the action is taking place in a futuristic resurrection chamber.

Gary Charlson: A smooth Kansas City pop rocker—his vocals strongly remind me of some minor prince of '70s classic rock radio, but all I'm coming up with is the guy from .38 Special, and I know that's not it. His sole EP covers a number of the titans of power pop (e.g. the expected Raspberries, Byrds, and Badfinger, the at the time obscure Big Star, the eternally head’s only Crabby Appleton and Vance or Towers), but he somehow never ended up cutting an LP despite a very radio-ready sound. Self-produced wonder? Nice bit o' Middle American flavour to it.

Side Two

Rodney & The Brunettes: Cutesy one-off cover of the surf rock classic by LA DJ Rodney Bingenheimer, who gives a respectable effort.

The "B" Girls: Toronto girl group who might've been able to get some of that Go-Go's money with a little polishing. Good harmonies, lead singer had a nice voice on her.

The MnM's: Excellent shake and pop, written by Paul Collins of the Nerves and the (American) Beat, and featuring the latter band's Steve Huff on bass. Vocalist Marci Marks is the kind of diminutive punk girl I’d probably have been crazy for at the time.

youtube

Paul Collins: Speaking of Collins, this is a second reminder in a row that I really need to get around to listening to his post-Nerves material, because this is a great sub-two minute blast of punkified Merseybeat.

Nikki & the Corvettes: Three-piece girl group from Detroit that sound strikingly like Tweens, a 2010s pop punk fav of mine. I'm addicted to this particular kind of snotty/bratty femme vocal, love how much room the single guitar gives to hear the bassist noodling around. Somehow I think this is the first time I’m hearing these guys.

Kathy & the Lawnmowers: After five straight '60s revival songs, we take an abrupt detour into Devo world. Kathy & the Lawnmowers were produced by the notorious Kim Fowley, who provides a blurb in the liners explaining that the mysterious bandmembers arrived at a session wearing masks having never met before, cut some tracks, then removed their masks, didn't like the looks of one-another and split for good. That's obviously baloney, but I prefer it to the version where Fowley did something terrible to them, which would not be uncharacteristic. They’re also credited as Jukebox Rebel Queens on the back cover? Anyway, fun trash sci-fi ramble about green children.

Side Three

The Sonics: "Up (to) the Junction"—sadly not a Squeeze cover, but pretty fetching stuff from the legends nonetheless. The bluesy rocking side of the Sonics (as opposed to the frothing proto-punk side), nice biting guitar tone.

The Weirdos: Per the liners, allegedly LA's first punk band, a claim I can't dispute because I continue to not know much of anything about LA punk, this is fun rockabilly style fair, like a less stylish Cramps. Good stomping beat.

The Zantees: A Gene Vincent cover in a Stray Cats vein, with a guitar player who can really go in that zippy old school Scotty Moore style.

Jon & the Nightriders: A surf rock instrumental cover—I wondered if "Super Jet Rumble" might've been by the Jet-Tones (of "Jet Tone Boogie" 'fame'), but no, seems to be a tune by The Breakers. Anyway, this sounds like every surf rock song, which is to say it rules but not in a way you'll necessarily remember.

The Lipstick Killers: High energy Australian garage rock that the band apparently called "straight edge music"; presumably Ian MacKaye had to go down to the Yabba and win a few rounds of the game from Wake in Fright to win the rights to that term. While we're at it, the song's called "Hindu Gods (of Love)"—Warren Zevon and R.E.M., you've got some explaining to do! Presumably on the B-side of the original single they also coined the term 'hyphy' and invented Lou Barlow.

The Hypstrz: A Minneapolis band with a legendary live reputation, but I can't really fuck with bands whose main gimmick is garaged up versions of old R&B sides. They probably absolutely crushed it live, but this version of "In the Midnight Hour" just kinda exists for me.

The Last: Clearly a last-minute (not a pun, fuck you) addition as it's not listed on the back of the sleeve or in the liners, the Last's "She Don't Know Why I'm Here" is a slashing piece of Anglophile psych-pop and one of the best things on this entire comp. It stuffs a remarkable number of twists and turns, false finishes, and secondary riffs into its three-and-a-half-minute runtime. The Last have a small cult following for their run of singles and debut LP LA Explosion! My only regret is that they didn't include the original single version of this one, as it elevates a groovy jam into a thrashing raveup.

youtube

The Dead Boys: Stiv Bators' second appearance on the comp; the Dead Boys were an almighty force in their day, but there's something kinda funny to me about ol' sloppy Stiv being the centrepiece of any label's roster. A good-enough take on "3rd Generation Nation" from their live LP Night of the Living Dead Boys—RateYourMusic reviewer mofoking shares some interesting backstory on how that LP came to be distributed by Bomp! and why nearly all of Stiv's vocals had to be overdubbed.

Side Four

The Crawdaddys: Perfectly competent Velvets cover, though the vox sneer their way past Lou into a Dylan impression.

The Martians: Previously appearing on this comp backing up "Blake Xolton" on a weirdo New Wave Christmas song, their own sound is traditional Merseybeat stuff. This isn't a classic, but it's a damned fine pastiche. Apparently they were a pair of record producers who joined together for this project, sharing lead vocal duties and playing all of the instruments themselves. No wonder it sounds great.

Pete Holly & the Looks: Heavy New Wave from Boise, Idaho, sporting a hilarious watery vocal filter and waka-waka guitar riffing. The chorus conceit is goofy ("Look out! Below!") but the Boiseans acquit themselves well. Somebody had to hold down the fort between Paul Revere & the Raiders and Built to Spill, so my thanks to Pete Holly.

The Wombats: Not the ’60s Wombats from Illinois or the ‘90s Wombats from also Illinois or the ‘00s Wombats from Liverpool, but rather a fourth Wombats from Cleveland, presumably the marsupial capital of the Lower Midwest. This (“Utter Frustration”) is sloppy and great and went by very quickly while I was trying to research whether Ohio's indeed part of the Lower Midwest, so I had to listen to it again.

Rainbow Red Oxidizer: A former sideman for the Seeds' Sky Saxton (presumably around the time he was fucking around with the Source Family), Rainbow Neal is accompanied by members of Focus, Spirit, Captain Beefheart's Magic Band, and even Mars Bonfire from Steppenwolf. I've got like six tabs open trying to figure out what this guy's deal is--love when a compilation sends me down a research hole like this. I'm sampling the Oxidizer LP now, and despite its New Wave window dressing, it's viciously sarcastic garage rock with the occasional jangly gem—if anything Rainbow's voice reminds me of Wire's Colin Newman. What a great song "When You Walk in the Room" is!

youtube

Cheek: Okay, these guys are Australian, covering an old Easybeats song, and are even produced by Vanda & Young, who give them something like a vintage AC/DC production sound, though these guys are considerably poppier than Angus and company. Vocalist does have a faint Bon Scott keen to his voice at times though.

The Romantics: Detroiters best known for "What I Like About You" (one of those songs I have heard ten thousand songs and never questioned the provenance of) turn in a rarity in "Running Away," a slab of pristine midwestern power pop that was apparently intended to be issued as a single with BOMP! but ended up seeing its first release here. They'd lose the Romantics to the Atlantic-distributed Nemperor Records right before they blew the fuck up, which has gotta be a label owner's nightmare.

Well, that took goddamn forever. If you’re still around, the tracks I most recommend fishing out are the Real Kids, Dadistics, “B” Girls, MnMs, Paul Collins, Nikki & the Corvettes, Last, Martians, Wombats, and Rainbow Red Oxidizer tunes. Not a bad haul!

138/365

0 notes

randomvarious · 5 years

Audio

Martians - “Baby Hold On” Straight Outta Burbank: The Bomp! 25th Anniversary Collection Song released in 1976. Compilation released in 1999. Power Pop / New Wave

The Martians, also known as Stars in the Sky, were a fantastic and very fleeting LA power pop duo consisting of Dan and David Kessel, sons of famous jazz guitarist Barney Kessel. Barney Kessel was a member of Phil Spector’s Wrecking Crew, a collective of session musicians whose work can be heard on literally thousands of recordings from the 60s and 70s, many of which made the top 40.

Spector knew Dan and David since they were small children. Their relationship led the brothers to work with Spector for decades, beginning in 1973, when John Lennon was working on a new album titled Rock ‘n’ Roll and gave Spector free rein over production duties. What eventually happened to the master tapes from Spector’s sessions is a wild and divergent story, but, on the first day of recording, drummer Jim Keltner was running late. Dan Kessel happened to be in the studio and Spector enlisted him to replace Keltner for the time being. After that day’s session, Spector invited both Dan and David back for the next day, telling them to bring their own instruments. As Discogs puts it, “the Kessel brothers would play on all of Spector’s sessions (except Starsailor’s work), help him with pre-production, be privy to his business deals and be his most constant companions.”

In 1976, Dan and David Kessel made their only release, a two-song 7-inch single, under the name Stars in the Sky and the Milky Way Band. Despite having a name that suggested a bunch of musicians taking part in the recording, the Kessel brothers are said to have been responsible for writing, producing, arranging, playing all instruments, and providing all vocals. On subsequent compilations, the songs are credited to the Martians, a name the brothers donned when they released a Christmas 7-inch with pop rocker Blake Xolton. They also had a small record label called Martian Records.

Although “Baby Hold On” is a tragically underrated, definitive mid-70s LA power pop tune, it does have a bit of a relaxed country / rockabilly vibe to it, with jangling guitar chords and a bouncy drum beat and bass rhythm. Reverbed, multitracked vocals with harmonized backup singing on the chorus (again, all provided by just two men), reveal what experts the Kessels were at production, which they doubtless picked up from Phil Spector. Not to mention their ability to play all instruments, although the drums and bass are pretty simple on this song. Regardless, Dan and David Kessel knew how to make great, catchy pop music and make a duo sound like a quartet or quintet. “Baby Hold On” also has a pair of nice, dirty, and scratchy, reverbed psychedelic guitar solos to contrast with the saccharine 60s pop rock-sounding chorus. The approach to the song is reminiscent of the late 70s and early 80s British mod revival sound that would follow not too long after this song’s release.

A great and catchy piece of mid-70s power pop courtesy of two brothers who were considered some of Phil Spector’s closest musical confidants.

2 notes · View notes