I'd Love to Turn You On #165 - Deltron 3030 – Deltron 3030

In 2009, I worked with at-risk youth in a public school program in Portland, Oregon. Music provided a touchstone for both staff and students but my coworkers and I often struggled to find music that everyone could agree on that was also appropriate for a classroom setting. My friend and colleague Jim once recommended an album that he found to be a great fit for our unique circumstances: Deltron 3030. Oddly enough, this sci-fi tinged concept album featuring producer Dan the Automator, turntablist Kid Koala, and left-field rapper Del tha Funkee Homosapien proved to work incredibly well in our classrooms. Deltron 3030 dropped in the spring of 2000 but I knew nothing about it until Jim enlightened me and now this post gives me an opportunity to extend this favor to you. Shortly after its release, Deltron 3030 became a cult-classic for underground hip-hop, established a high point for each artist’s career, and just happened to lay much of the groundwork for the next year’s debut album by Gorillaz.

Following a bit of exposition about the album’s vision of the future with “State of the Nation,” Deltron 3030 begins in earnest as “3030” slowly builds steam and evolves into a sprawling-but-fleet seven-and-a-half-minute declaration of purpose, style, and absurdity. Running back to back, “Virus” and “Upgrade (A Brymar College Course)” establish the album’s stride while offering irresistibly catchy choruses, sumptuous sonic textures, and compelling beats. My conversation with Jim about this album actually started with “Upgrade” because he thought its chorus, “upgrade your gray matter, because one day it may matter,” offered an excellent theme song for our classrooms. Arriving about halfway through the album, “Madness” allows our protagonist Deltron Zero to reframe his quest for survival as a battle against the forces of complacency and conformity that doubles as a commentary on the state of hip-hop around the year 2000. With a cameo from Damon Albarn, “Time Keeps on Slipping” unites the team that would soon go on to create the virtual band Gorillaz and unveils the sonic blueprint for that project’s very successful first album. Punctuated by an assertive fanfare and featuring a vocal hook from Sean Lennon, “Memory Loss” serves ably as the album’s final full-length song and functions nicely as a bookend with “3030.” Short interludes, announcements, and advertisements make up nine of the album’s twenty-one tracks and deftly balance Kid Koala and Dan the Automator’s highly evocative, dense arrangements and Del tha Funkee Homosapien’s rambling, verbose, and heroic vocal performance.

While this album shares multiple connections to similar projects like Dr. Octagon, Handsome Boy Modeling School, and Gorillaz, Deltron 3030 stands apart because of the remarkable synergy these three artists achieved. The influence of Deltron 3030’s singular take on Afro-futurism extends beyond the genre of underground hip-hop and the various projects of its members and filters into Janelle Monáe’s music, especially her 2013 sophomore album, The Electric Lady. Two years ago, all three members of Deltron 3030 reunited to release their sophomore album, Event 2, which felt at moments like an attempt to catch lightning in a bottle...again. Intentionally or not, this follow-up served as a reminder that a large part of the first album’s success derived from the fact that at the time very few people had any idea what these three artists could accomplish together. Although I can’t be sure that this is what music will sound like in a thousand years, Deltron 3030 remains certainly well ahead of its time and still feels like a future time capsule just waiting for discovery.

-         John Parsell

I’d Love To Turn You On At The Movies #151 – From Beyond (1986, dir. Stuart Gordon)

In the 1980’s Hollywood rediscovered the horror genre. After several decades of murderers, biker gangs, hillbillies and mutually assured nuclear destruction, Hollywood rediscovered monsters. Special effects were back in a big way, and this last pre-C.G.I. period of make-up innovation is, in some ways the most thrilling iteration of the squishiest art. Riding high on the success of his first major film Re-Animator, director Stuart Gordon re-gathered the same stars (Jeffrey Combs and Barbara Crampton) and some tempting source material in a seven-page H.P. Lovecraft story, and headed to a studio in Rome to make a real old-fashioned monster movie. He succeeded in grand fashion.

The basic premise of the film is a scientific experiment gone horribly awry. Dr. Edward Pretorius (Ted Sorel, and yes, that is the same name as the mad scientist in Bride Of Frankenstein) has invented a machine, the resonator, which, when activated, stimulates the human pineal gland, which grows and becomes a “third eye.” Once engaged, the resonator allows people to see into another dimension - and also allows the inhabitants of that dimension access to ours. Once the veil between the everyday world and “the beyond” is ripped away, things really start to happen. This alternate dimension seems to be the place where the most disturbing aspects of human behavior reside. Not only are there translucent eels with huge teeth floating around in the air, plague-like swarms of flesh-eating bees, gigantic tape worms, and indescribable humanoid slime beasts, but, under the influence of the resonator, people on our side of the dimensional divide experience heightened sexual arousal. Thus the scientists and psychiatrists involved in experiments with the resonator are exposed to the horrors of another dimension as well as their own repressed sexuality: a toxic and highly entertaining combination.

The majority of From Beyond takes place over a couple of nights while psychiatrist Dr. Katherine McMichaels (Barbara Crampton) forces Pretorius’ assistant, Crawford Tillinghast (Jeffrey Combs) to recreate the experiments he and his mentor performed with the resonator. The results predictably get out of control almost immediately…strike that…immediately, and we are exposed to every manner of sliming, oozing, biting, brain-eating (greatest brain-eating scenes ever!), dismembering grotesquerie known to film. The erotic subtext adds an even more enticing/repulsive element to the proceedings as we are treated to some of the best blonde-on-monster sex scenes ever caught on celluloid. The monstrous eroticism of some of the scenes are on a par with those in Alien. Eventually the resonator starts to show signs of sentience, and the opening between “here” and “beyond” is in danger of becoming permanently opened. To save the world, and stop herself from her own basest instincts, Dr. McMichaels destroys the resonator.

From Beyond succeeds so well because it is entirely unflinching in its exploration of the darkest themes. It doesn’t turn away from any of the most disturbing gross-outs. When a film does this it can go one of two ways; either we turn away in disgust and anger, or we hoot in appreciation and wonderment. For me, From Beyond is in the second category. The era of great horror movies that arose in the 80’s is best defined by this very struggle: how far is too far? The deciding factor is, surprisingly, humor. Like Re-Animator, this film also keeps a wink-wink attitude about the horrors unfolding on screen, allowing the viewer to be in on the joke instead of the butt of it. Stuart Gordon helped define where the line was in the modern era, probably to the overall detriment of the craft; however witnessing the cutting edge in its most visceral form is quite a thrill. From Lovecraft’s thought-provoking premise, to Gordon’s unflinching realization, to the over-the-top special effects, to the garish lighting and music, From Beyond is at the top of the heap of extreme(ly) scary movies.

-         Paul Epstein

I'd Love to Turn You On #164 - New York Dolls - In Too Much Too Soon

In 1973, the New York Dolls debuted with their self-titled album, acclaimed as a success by many who loved their live presence on the New York scene and cited as proof that “you had to be there” by detractors who felt that the band’s manic energy was dulled by producer Todd Rundgren. It’s tough, in listening now, to understand what these detractors were hearing – it’s a raw, roaring album, cleanly recorded and yet still a challenging listen because the guitars are so loud and upfront. After the album failed to light up the charts the way the band (and their label) had hoped, they were given another shot, enlisting producer George “Shadow” Morton, best known for his work with girl group the Shangri-Las (especially the sound-effects laden hits “Remember (Walking in the Sand)” and “Leader of the Pack”), but also the early Janis Ian hit “Society’s Child” and albums by Vanilla Fudge. His intermittent work as an outsider in the music industry and diverse tastes (plus his sense of humor) made him an ideal choice to produce the Dolls for their follow up album In Too Much Too Soon. In his words: “The Dolls had energy, sort of a disciplined weirdness. I took them into the room as a challenge. I was bored with the music and the business. The Dolls can certainly snap you out of boredom.”

            Morton did several things in producing that Rundgren didn’t in his approach to recording the Dolls: making their sound poppier (to the disdain of some and the delight of others), moving David Johansen’s vocals up and leveling the still-raw guitars out in the mix, advising the band not to settle with a competent take and to push themselves (this despite his saying “I let them do what they naturally did and merely tried to catch some of it on tape”), and, crucially, bringing his own history to bear on the music, adding sound effects, humor, and his direct connection to 60s classics the Dolls loved and grew up on. So if the band came up short on new material for their sophomore effort, the group and Morton where quick to follow the lead of the first album’s ace Bo Diddley cover (“Pills”) and find another batch of songs that could’ve been tailor-made for them to round out the record to feature length around the reworked demos and new cuts they were recording. And it’s here that both band and producer shine. As good as revived older Dolls songs like “Babylon,” “Puss ‘n’ Boots,” and especially the closing “Human Being” (plus Johnny Thunders’ excellent new contribution

New York Dolls in 1974

“Chatterbox”) are, they’re given a run for their money by the way the band fully inhabits the four cover songs here: “Bad Detective” (originally by The Coasters), “Stranded in the Jungle” (originally by The Jay Hawks), “Don’t Start Me Talkin’” (originally by Sonny Boy Williamson), and “(There's Gonna Be A) Showdown” (originally by Archie Bell). With Johansen up in the mix, he doesn’t sound like he’s trying to outshout the guitars and his vocal flexibility is on display throughout, particularly when he gets into the character of one of the covers. But that’s not to say that the guitars (Sylvain Sylvain and Johnny Thunders (who also takes a great, sneering vocal on his tune)) are pushed down too far – the album still retains a rawness and energy despite the more professional sheen Morton imbues the recording with. And throughout, the band’s writing continues the ideas put forth on the debut in classics like “Personality Crisis” and “Trash” – ideas that put them in line with the coming wave of punk rock. If the rest of society considers them “Trash” who cares? They know that they’re worth a damn and still a “Human Being” who demand your respect – and it’s this all-embracing humanity that powers their music through two classic albums and even into their mid-2000s reunion (but that’s another story…).

Shadow Morton with New York Dolls

            There’s a reason their early albums, after failing to break through as hits, have remained touchstones for decades – mainly because they’re great, but also because Johansen and co. really had something worthwhile to say. On the debut, sometimes this is obscured by Todd Rundgren’s insistence on delivering the raw product he’d seen in the band’s live performance. Here, with In Too Much Too Soon, Shadow Morton finds a way to retain that edge and yet sweeten things enough to make an even more memorable recording. They’re both classics, but for the uninitiated, In Too Much Too Soon is the easier way in and in the long run, it may end up remembered as the better record.

-          Patrick Brown

Concert Review: Lampedusa: Concerts for Refugees 10/6/16 at the Boulder Theater

Emmylou Harris, Steve Earle, Buddy Miller, and the Milk Carton Kids kicked off their 11-stop “Lampedusa: Concerts for Refugees” tour with a tremendous, intimate performance Thursday night at the Boulder Theater. Seated together on stage, the artists swapped stories, played one another’s songs, and joked with the audience giving the show a balanced atmosphere of lightheartedness while still addressing the more serious purpose of the tour: shedding light on the continuing global refugee crisis of over 65 million people forcibly displaced from their homes.  After spending time in Ethiopia last year with the Jesuit Refugee Service, Emmylou Harris took it upon herself to champion this critical cause and even named the tour after the Italian island Lampedusa off the Sicilian coast that serves as a waypoint for refugees from North Africa, the Middle East, and Asia wanting to enter Europe. 

Taking turns playing songs by themselves and at times together, Emmylou Harris was as ravishing and fantastic as I’ve ever seen her, Earle sounded terrific especially in a beautiful performance of “Pilgrim,” Buddy Miller’s guitar playing was magnificent, and the Milk Carton kids were an excellent complement to their storied counterparts, bringing a gorgeous acoustic sound and sprinkling in witty banter that had the audience and fellow artists laughing throughout the entirety of the evening.  Hearing this lineup together on stage was truly a treat and a unique experience that will likely never happen again in quite the same manner.  This short tour through the month of October is surely one not to be missed and is a terrific opportunity to support an organization working to address a serious and deadly humanitarian crisis.

            -Kevin Powers

I’d Love To Turn You On At The Movies #150 – Slam (1998, dir. Marc Levin)

That’s “slam” as in “poetry slam” but it’s also “slam” as in “the slammer,” and this 1998 film that won the Camera d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival (the award for Best first feature) and the Grand Jury Prize for dramatic film at Sundance invests considerable energy in both of those locales. Slam tells the story of Ray Joshua (played by the charismatic Saul Williams), a resident of the projects near Washington D.C. who writes rhymes in his spare time but has no specific aspiration to do anything more than write and remain a low-level drug dealer to make ends meet.

Finding himself in the wrong place at the wrong time, he winds up going to jail, accused of murder, and here the film takes off. Where prior to this we’ve seen him as a gentle soul in a rough area – several early scenes find him reciting his poetry to the neighborhood children and encouraging them to create their own work – he’s suddenly thrown into a very hard situation. As he’s being processed he quickly gets the lowdown on the harsh realities of prison life as he’s brought into the system. The lawyer assigned to his case lays out the options – none of them remotely fair – and sums up his situation with the brutal, direct lines “you’re a victim, brother. You’re black, you’re young, you come from Southeast, you’re in the inner city. You don’t have a chance.” This scene is followed immediately by a similar one with a prison guard laying out statistics of incarcerated black men in the D.C. area and bluntly telling him that he has no friends inside and that he will stay alive only if he keeps his head down and minds his own business. But it’s not all hopeless – after a time negotiating the clutches of rival prison gangs he finds that his words help him out of a sticky situation and into a writing class taught by Lauren Bell (played by Sonja Sohn), who recognizes his talent and encourages him, when he is released, to seek out the slam poetry scene where she’s found her own shot of redemption.

After a deus ex machina gets Ray back on the streets, he spends time with Bell, learning about her own hard past and how she’s used it as material for her present as a teacher and poet and helped vault herself out of the traps in which she had found herself. He’s inspired by her scene and her story – and her. And as the film works toward its climactic poetry reading – how often can you say that this is where the dramatic thrust of a film is pointed? – it dances around the complications of their relationship. What happens if he ends up back in prison on the charges leveled against him? What if he doesn’t? Is she ready to engage in a serious relationship with him? It’s here that the film invests the least of its energy, perhaps because it knew that to make the relationship scenes as serious, as realistic as its prison and poetry scenes it would have to believe in them the way it does in those. And maybe it doesn’t, but it smartly avoids the inherent problems by keeping them ambiguous and offering no easy solutions, even while its optimism and belief in the power of art remain the engine that powers the film.

The film moves from one strength to another, its earnestness worn guilelessly on its sleeve as it transitions from the hard realism of the prison sequence to the documentary vibe of the later poetry slams. And Williams is magnetic throughout, both in his street/gang persona earlier and believable as a man transformed by poetry in the film’s later scenes. Director Marc Levin keeps things simple and mostly lets his actors and the script he co-wrote with Williams (and three others) do the talking – and he’s rewarded with superb performances from Williams and Sohn especially, though other characters filling out the film (many of them acquaintances of Williams through the slam scene) have their shining moments as well. The film is smart in its avoidance of easy answers, it avoids clichéd character progressions and conflicts (even if it sometimes feels less believable as a result – I doubt poetry could end inter-prison conflicts or gang warfare outside) and it knows what its strengths are and puts its energies there to create a bracing, entertaining, and even inspirational film.

-         Patrick Brown

I'd Love to Turn You On #163 - Savoy Brown – Hellbound Train

In 1972, the expectation of most rock groups was that they would produce upbeat, hit-oriented records which record labels could introduce to teenyboppers through radio play. Savoy Brown had succeeded at exactly this formula with their 1971 album Street Corner Talking, with its irresistible radio hit “Tell Mama.” They had transcended their reputation as a serious English, blues-boogie band in the vein of Ten Years After or early Fleetwood Mac, and reached the charts with a killer slide guitar driven floor-filler that never fails to quicken the pulse - even today. So, one would be forgiven for expecting their next (7^th) album to follow this lead with more hits. You would be wrong, because leader/guitarist/songwriter Kim Simmonds instead offers up one of the darkest, moodiest blues rock albums of the entire era. Clearly disturbed by the Vietnam War and the direction of the culture, Simmonds gives us seven visions of a world on the edge of apocalypse.

Musically, Hellbound Train takes a bold step back from the band’s previously guitar-heavy approach. It leans much more heavily on Paul Raymond’s Hammond organ playing, Andy Silvester’s melodic bass lines and Dave Walker’s Fogerty-esque vocals. In fact, more than anything else, Hellbound Train reminds me of a sludgy Bayou Country, with its longish songs that take you to a dark, yet familiar place. Standout tracks “Troubled By These Days and Times,” “It’ll Make You Happy” and “If I Could See An End” advance the themes of societal dread, relationships breaking apart and end times approaching. Simmonds’ guitar playing remains restrained and tasteful, avoiding the heroics he had become famous for earlier in his career. He doesn’t really fully bust out until the 9-minute title track which immediately takes its place among a small group of songs that define a specific genre of rock music. What is that genre called? Fuckin’ Awesome!

The song “Hellbound Train” shares the dais with other songs like “Stairway To Heaven,” “Layla,” “Loan Me A Dime” or “I Want You (She’s So Heavy)” in that it is immediately “epic” in theme, structure and length, lending an air of expectation and gravitas. Savoy Brown does not disappoint as the song slowly rises from a swamp of organ and a plodding drum beat into a frightening tale of a train on an out of control ride to the netherworld (U.S. involvement in South East Asia). Amazingly Simmonds, who was not really known for his restraint as an arranger, builds this song masterfully; first establishing the slow theme before ceding the spotlight to an ominous organ solo, during which there is a sly boost in the overall volume of the track. Throughout the first five minutes the tempo slowly rises until it bursts forth into a frightening gallop as Simmonds finally steps up with an amazing, wiry, echoey, guitar solo that drives the song into an explosive jam. He seems to be getting further and further out to the point of mania when the song falls off the cliff into a black hole of silence - just like the end of side one of Abbey Road. It is a profoundly jarring moment, and an amazingly apt metaphor for the end of the 60’s dream.

Unlike Abbey Road, Hellbound Train is not a brightly polished gem with million dollar engineers and the best possible production. No, Hellbound Train is a unique view of the end of an era through a dark and muddy prism. Savoy Brown was a hard charging blues outfit (still touring with Kim Simmonds in the lead) with a decidedly working class view of the world. It is precisely this non-exalted viewpoint that makes their take on things such a singular one. They were looking at heavy stuff from an average guy’s point of view and somehow they came up with an album that is both heavy and completely understandable.

-         Paul Epstein