Lost Wax: So Red The Rose (1985)

After skewering a sacred cow with my first ever salvo for Crasstalk, I thought I’d change tack and praise Caesar instead of bury him. Music makes me happy, and I’d love to share what I consider lost, under-appreciated or misunderstood works from great bands. Hopefully, if y’all like it, I could make this a semi-regular thing. With that in mind, the goal of Lost Wax will be to introduce or re-introduce you to songs and albums that time has forgotten. So here are the prerequisites:

It has to be:

  1. a song or an album
  2. panned at the time of its release or critically ignored
  3. due a modern reevaluation

Enjoy!

 

Lost Wax: So Red The Rose (1985)

Cocaine is a terrible drug for musicians. It is possible to work through a healthy heroin addiction and still make an album like, say, Transformer. LSD can lead to some beautiful experimentation, and some truly awful, terrible album covers (Tarkus, Emerson, Lake & Palmer), but cocaine just turns people into assholes and songs into overproduced covers of Bang a Gong.

Tarkus! Ahhh!!! What the fuck is that thing?!?!

When two of the three Taylors in Duran Duran (Andy and John) left to join Robert Palmer, Tony Thompson and a mountain of coke and hookers (not really) to form Power Station in 1985, this left remaining members Simon Le Bon and Nick Rhodes with a critical shortage of Taylors. But instead of panicking, grabbing Chuck and Meshach Taylor and soldiering on as Duran Duran 2.0, messrs. Rhodes, Le Bon and Roger Taylor felt free to indulge in whatever atmospheric flight of fancy their frosted little hearts desired. That flight of fancy turned out to be a band called Arcadia, whose sole output was 1985’s beautiful, strange So Red The Rose.

I know what you’re thinking, it’s a bit of a cheat to choose this album for Lost Wax. It wasn’t a bomb (it went platinum), it wasn’t panned, it put 2 songs in the US top 40 and it contained 3/5th of what was arguably one of the biggest acts in the world at that time. And yet, the album has been largely cast off as just another indulgence from members of a band that had already peaked and was still years away from reinventing itself as the ‘Come Undone’ Duran of the 90’s.

On the face of it, ‘overindulgent’ would seem to fit. The album is as heavily overproduced as Duran Duran’s previous album, Seven And The Ragged Tiger (both were produced by Alex Sadkin), complete with the requisite electric drum kits, keyboards and Cor Anglais one would expect of the mid-80s, and there are more guest appearances on this album than a disaster telethon. Sting, Grace Jones, Herbie Hancock, Carlos Alomar, Andy Mackay and David Gilmour all have a hand in this work. The album art is a lurid mix of Anime, Flamenco and S&M. The songs have titles like ‘El Diablo’, ‘Goodbye Is Forever’ and ‘Lady Ice’. Yes, all the pieces are there for this album to be a train wreck and the apex of mid-80s pretentious excess.

What we get instead is a twisted, dark, mysterious fairy tale, more a musical than album. Listened front to back, a story emerges, something akin to a farm boy coming to the big sinful, corrupt city only to become involved with good women, bad women and the Devil. It’s pretty clear someone wants to screw him, kill him, steal his soul or do all three.

So Red The Rose opens with perhaps the album’s most famous song (and also its only bona fide hit, reaching #6 in the US singles chart), Election Day. With its driving mechanical beat and moody lyrics about ‘shadows and subways’ and entire cities being slaves to a mistress (not to mention Grace Jones sounding like she is ready to raise welts), it delivers an opening number that Sweeney Todd would be proud of.

Listen:  Arcadia – Election Day

The next few tracks modulate between the sweet, bouncy, and upbeat sound of Keep Me In The Dark and the bombastic, black humor of The Flame. The real winner of the album, though, is Missing, the ‘A’ side closer (remember when Albums had such a thing?) which is full of a melancholy and grief that boy bands aren’t supposed to possess.

The B side opens with The Promise, probably the only real clunker on the album, what with its over the top lyrics like ‘The hungry make their stand when they’ll stand for no more’ and Sting’s breathy backup singing, but then everything returns to form with El Diablo, which has far better lyrics (‘only the brightest shine, but not forever’). It’s a fun take on your typical Faustian deal with the Devil, and it ends with the protagonist ruing his fate while Nick Rhodes’ keyboards make a sound similar to a fun house ride spinning out of control.

No Faustian bargain here: Time makes Shatners of us all, Mr. LeBon

The album ends with Lady Ice, not the best track on the album, but a song that is courteous enough to leave the ending to the story ambiguous.

So there you have it. So Red The Rose owes more to the Duran Duran of The Chauffeur than of The Reflex, but this is a good thing. Darker, meaner and more melancholy than anything else Duran Duran (under any name) ever did, this album could really be considered their Blood And Chocolate, if that conceit weren’t the most pretentious fucking thing ever.

And now, here’s a bonus for you all for getting to the bottom: The Russell Mulcahy directed video for The Flame.

Arcadia – The Flame – YouTube

-Baconcat

A brief word about public executions

I’ve been away from my computer for the past few days but I recently exchanged correspondence with Mastro Titta and heard about the mixed public reaction to our first public execution. He said there was much trepidation among the commenters about the reasons for the royal execution. I wanted to clarify a few things:

1. Our first condemned prisoner was executed for breaking the rules. We now have almost 100 authors with full priveleges to write posts on this site. That’s an incredible level of community authorship that, I think, very few websites would ever allow. One of the few rules we have in place is that authors must submit their articles for review before an editor actually schedules it to be published. Breaking that rule is a huge insult to all the other writers who wait their turn to publish articles on Crasstalk.

2. I know Mastro Titta mentioned that “his post sucked,” but let me be clear: We’re not going to publicly execute anyone because we don’t like their article. In fact, to date, we’ve published all but a handful of articles that have been submitted and usually do very little editing to the content. In this most recent case, the author simply copy/pasted a huge amount of text that could have been linked to. That wouldn’t normally be an execution-worthy offense, but apparently Mastro hates reading huge blocks of pasted text. It makes him grouchy before cutting off heads.

3. Executions are not done based on personal grudges or popularity contests. You can disagree with anyone here, on any issue, and you will not be executed for it. No one will ever be executed for disagreeing with Salome or BettyCrocker or Dancing Queen. In fact, all three of them are mostly wrong.

4. To date, we’ve banned exactly ZERO commenters from the site. And we didn’t ban OMGP from commenting, only from authoring new posts. We do reserve the right to execute someone’s author or commenter priveleges or both if it’s a particularly egregious case.

5. The executions are  a tradition we borrowed from our ancestral homeland of Gawker and are done strictly in a spirit of jest. We’re not actually wishing for anything worse than mild teasing/ball-busting. It’s just a bit of internet fuckery, so try to stop worrying and have fun with it. Most of the condemned will probably be allowed back into our good graces with maybe a quick apology and/or a bottle of scotch.

6. Now that we’ve hired Mastro Titta to provide the negative reinforcement, we’re also going to give you some positive reinforcement. We’re announcing a new feature: COTW. I still have to sit down with DogsofWar and GrandInquisitor to work out the details, but we’re going to do a Comment of the Week post where we highlight the pithiest, snarkiest, smartest, most lulzy stuff you come up with. Stay tuned for details.

And as the Wu-Tang Clan once wisely said, protect ya neck.

African Lions On The Verge Of Extinction

With this week’s announcement that the Eastern Cougar is now extinct we need to protect the big cats that we still have left, while there is still time.

According to the Humane Society of the United States:

Threats to the African lion, such as trophy hunting and commercial trade, have resulted in a rapid decline of nearly 50 percent over the past three decades. There are fewer than 40,000 African lions in the wild — some scientists estimate as few as 23,000. And of the remaining populations, two-thirds are neither protected nor viable over the long run.

The African lion is headed for extinction. Its wild population has dwindled by almost fifty percent in only the last three decades. Action must be taken now to save this iconic species. We have collaborated with other organizations to submit a petition to list the African lion as endangered under the Endangered Species Act (ESA).

Even as lion populations plummet, lion trophy imports to the United States are on the rise. An ESA listing would prohibit lion trophy imports to the U.S. unless it serves a conservation purpose, and would raise global awareness about the need to protect lions from this and other threats. We must reverse the decline of the African lion and our petition demonstrates that listing them as endangered under the ESA would help to do just that.

Today, The HSUS and a coalition of wildlife protection and conservation organizations filed a petition with the Secretary of the Interior to list the African lion as an endangered subspecies. You can help by signing on to our letter of support.

PLEASE TAKE ACTION:

Please click the link below to fill out and submit a form to add your name to this letter of support for the Humane Society’s petition. They will deliver the letter to Secretary of the Interior, Ken Salazar, when the public comment period officially opens. Thank you.

Humane Society


Tell Me Sweet Little Lies

 

When I casually spoke the short sentence, it felt true to me. But even though it was “merely” a lie of omission, I still sensed that I was walking on a very fine tightrope.  Before this, I’d always felt certain of my unassailable honesty.

 

“He slept in that bed”, I replied, pointing to the twin futon in my large studio apartment. My response was to my current lover’s query as to where my overnight guest had lain his head the previous evening and night.

 

While it was wholly true that he had slept in that bed, almost immediately prior to that, he and I had had sex on this bed: mine. The fact that he was my most-enduring friend, my first lover, and someone whom I’d only slept with a dozen times over seven years didn’t matter at all to my current beau. Nor did it matter to him that his obvious judgment of me was steeped in unconscious hypocrisy: after all, he was sleeping with someone else as well. Yet somehow to him, I became the betrayer.

 

Sex with my ex had been a clear display of my own immaturity and insecurity. The sex had also been far less mind-blowing than that which I already shared with my current lover. But earlier the previous evening, when I had called my beau, his other lover answered the phone. So I took that as a sign that my twice-yearly reunion with my ex should definitely take a sexual turn. Spite-fucking is rarely pleasurable, but sometimes it feels more satisfying than doing nothing at all.

 

At last, I felt the scales had been balanced, and all was right in my universe. I disagree with the adage ” revenge is a dish best served cold.” I think that sometimes, justice is a dish best served erotically sweltering. I knew that my beau loved me, as I loved him, but until that point, my entreaties for him to be monogamous with me had fallen on deaf ears. Unsurprisingly, not long after my conjugal visit with my ex, my current lover told his girlfriend about me, and they separated soon after. My actions weren’t deliberately devious, but they clearly served a purpose in the grand scheme.

 

“Tell me lies, tell me sweet little lies…” – Fleetwood Mac

Little Lies

 

The Reconciliation of Lucas Lygram: Prologue

Author’s Note: in 1859, Charles Dickens founded the magazine All the Year Round, which published serialized novels in weekly formats. Many of Dickens’ own novels were in this format, but he didn’t write a novel and then break it up, he wrote it as it was being serialized in order to maintain proper deadlines, as well as switch up the story based on what people liked and did not like about the work. I hope to continue the tradition with this series for Crasstalk.

The Reconciliation of Lucas Lygram

Prologue

“Forgive me father, for I have sinned. It has been seven weeks since my last confession.”

“What ails you my child?”

In the past seven weeks, I had committed 89 acts of homosexual conduct. I had lied 897 times. I had stolen 37 grapes from the Trader Joe’s in Union Square. I had murdered twelve flies, seven spiders, and thirty seven cockroaches. I had cheated on my taxes. I had eaten shellfish even though I deplore the taste. and I had sworn exactly 1,432.5 times (the half swear was accounted for in 27 interrupted conversations) to name a few infractions. I knew all this because I kept a daily journal with a daily count on all of my sins so that I might go participate in the sacrament of Reconciliation. I went every seven weeks, in honor of the seven sacraments.

The irony was not lost on me that I, at present, could only partake in six of those sacraments, and, given that I was not dying, the seventh, Anointing of the Sick, could not be performed, thus making the number of sacraments that I could partake in at five. However, in reality, I only partook in four sacraments as I had no desire to be chaste or in poverty (I mean, I already was in poverty, it’s just that I had no desire to be in poverty) which was what would have been required of me had I partaken in the priesthood. How savage it is to be so slavishly devoted to a religion that has sent you to Hell.

I nearly forgot to tell the priest about bedding that lesbian lumberjack. We were both drunk. She had short hair. I shave my body hair. Once we’d realized we were with members of the opposite sex, we just decided that we might as well go with it given we were on a flannel electric blanket in a clearing in a wood upstate. This would have come back to bite me had I not noticed the loose page in the back of the sin book reminding me to tell him since, according to the notes, the original page died in a tragic coffee accident. Oh, yeah. The book. I should probably explain that.

Introductions first. Mother taught me to be the consummate example of a proper gentleman . My name’s Lucas. Lucas Lygram. It’s an awful name. I hate it, but mother would kill me if I changed it. At the very least,  she’d leave me out of the will and has threatened to do so on numerous occasions. I don’t particularly see how that’s threatening since I wasn’t raised in a wealthy household, but, still, she feels the need to make that threat.

The only other things that are relevant at the moment are that I’m currently dating and in love with a complete ass of a human being named Samuel Grey and that I have an obsession. This obsession stems from an emotionally violent incident with my grandmother after my first confession at the age of nine in which she gave me a very graphic description on the consequences of not accounting and atoning for each and every single sin that I committed. Deciding that that certainly wasn’t going to happen to me, that I certainly wouldn’t be a singed, shell of a corpse that Virgil and Dante just happened to come across on their journey to Paradise, I began a quest: to make sure that every single thing that I did that was considered, well, unholy by The Bible would be written down for future reference, and it was. Sam stems from getting drunk at a club. The sin book was truly a masterwork. A series of fine, leather bound notebooks (that I could barely afford), each with the word “Sin” and a number corresponding to their order in the series embossed in gold leaf sat on a bookshelf in my Brooklyn apartment. There’s currently 4,942 of them, but I only keep the latest group in the apartment. The rest are in a storage unit on Staten Island. I just don’t have the space, you know? I head up to Saint Patrick’s Cathedral and take up a few hours of their time every seven weeks before sitting down for Mass. I’m fascinated by the sacraments, particularly Communion and Confession. They say confession is private, but I’m pretty sure they know who I am. Then again, these are the same people who believe in transubstantiation, but I guess that doesn’t really have any influence on their observational skills. Who cares, really?

“My son, you have sinned much. To atone, you must say eighty rosaries, one hundred four Our Fathers and the Act of Contrition, let’s say, thirty times. I’d also suggest going to see Sister Ann about volunteering to help in the Church Bazaar. For the heck of it, toss in a couple creeds. Your choice, Luke.”

I sat in the pews and began to pray. My rosary wasn’t anything particularly special, but I did get it blessed by Pope John Paul 2 when I visited the Vatican as a teenager. I thought I’d start with the Nicene Creed though. That one’s easy. A homeless man had taken sanctuary in the cathedral and sat down on the opposite side of my pew. Mass had already started and he began to sing with the rest of the congregation, until he didn’t. He started throwing up.

We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life who proceeds from the Father and the Son and is worshiped and glorified. We believe in violently upchucking in the one, holy Catholic and apostolic church. We look for the…fuck it.

I proceeded to leave. I could finish that shit at home.

 

Sin Catalogue O6.29

Judgement. One Count 13.28

Swearing. Two Counts 13.29

 

Recipe Sunday: Quick and Easy Greek Salad

Disclaimer: this salad will give you dragon breath for the rest of the day (or the morning after if you choose to have it for dinner). It is still delicious. Feel free to chop the ingredients to whatever size you prefer.

Greek Salad
Prep time: 10 minutes
Serves two

Ingredients
2 plum tomatoes, chopped into large chunks
1/2 cucumber, sliced thick
1 green pepper, chopped
1/4 white onion, sliced
black olives, can be whole or sliced
crumbled Feta (as much or as little as you want)
1/4 cup olive oil
juice of 1 lemon (or 3 tablespoons lemon juice)
1/2 tablespoon dried oregano
salt and pepper to taste

Directions
Combine vegetables in a large bowl. In a small bowl, combine olive oil, lemon juice, oregano, salt, and pepper. Whisk to form dressing. Pour dressing over vegetables and mix together five minutes before serving. Top with lots (or a little) feta cheese, and serve with warm pita or flatbread. If you want, you can add sliced grilled chicken and make a larger meal out of it.

Share your favorite recipes in the comments!

Photo courtesy of Lori_NY

Recipe Sunday: Potato-Leek Gratin

With the (non-stop) snow and cold I decided to treat myself to scalloped potatoes last week. But, then I saw that our grocery store had leeks on sale, only 99 cents each. So, I decided to really treat myself, and make a potato-leek gratin. The main difference between the two, is that a gratin involves a cooked cheese sauce, whereas scalloped potatoes just involve putting layers of potato and onions in a casserole and pouring milk over the top.

Before I got to the sauce, I had a lot of prep to do – and a new toy to cut with. For Christmas my husband bought me a mandolin.  An actual mandolin.

I had wanted one for years, because my knife skills are lackadaisical at best. However: a) I’m ridiculously accident prone; and b) I like to drink while I cook dinner.
You can see how that could be problematic.

But, my husband assured me when I opened the mandolin on Christmas, that it has an excellent safeguard. So, last week I happily went into the kitchen, poured myself a glass of wine, and started prepping potatoes on my new gadget.

The gratin was perfect – cheesy and slightly fruity from the leeks and wine. And the trial run with the mandolin was a success. It was fantastic to not run across randomly undercooked potatoes for once, and (despite my wine consumption) I didn’t hurt myself at all.

Potato-Leek Gratin:

  • 4 medium Yukon Gold potatoes (sliced as thinly and evenly as you can)
  • 2 sliced leeks (white and pale green parts only)
  • 2 cups of shredded swiss cheese
  • 2 tablespoons of olive oil
  • ½ cup of white wine
  • 3 tablespoons of flour
  • 2 cups of warm milk (Heat in the microwave for 2 minutes)
  • ½ cup of shredded Parmesan
  • Black pepper to taste

Pre-heat the oven to 375 degrees.

Saute the leeks in the olive oil and white wine for 5 minutes. Add the flour and stir for 1 minute, then add the milk. When the lumps of flour have smoothed out add the swiss cheese in small batches stirring constantly until the cheese is integrated into the sauce.

Layer the potatoes in a buttered casserole dish and alternate with the cream/leek mixture. When you reach the top layer of sauce on potatoes sprinkle the Parmesan on top. Cover with foil and bake for 25 minutes, then remove the foil and bake until the potatoes are soft and the top is brown.

Stray Tracks of the Week (2/28-3/4/11)

*This is also posted on my personal blog, which features pictures of a hairy, mostly naked man this week.*

I listen to music constantly, and I’m constantly acquiring new things. So much, in fact, that serious evaluation on an album-by-album basis is impossible. To ensure my musical hoarding doesn’t amount to too much waste, I’ve elected to begin picking out choice tracks from my catch and reviewing them, here. I’m hoping to make this a weekly thing, every Thursday or Friday Saturday night, mods willin’.

*** This week saw the arrival of a few packages from Mimaroglu and Boomkat that I’d been expecting for some time, as well as the usual bumper crop of digital music. I’ve got an old track from 13 & God, new stuff from NWG (aka Niggas With Guitars), and a new compilation entry from Subeena.***

——————–


13 & God – Von Gradleute (Hrvatski Remix) (from Men of Station / Soft Atlas on Anticon)

While researching a Keith Fullerton Whitman / Hrvatski split casette I invested in a few weeks ago, I came upon a happy discovery – a set of remixes that Whitman’s “breakcore” guise Hrvatski had created for the great Anticon supergroup 13 & God (a collaboration between “art rappers” Themselves and German art pop group The Notwist) – and I just had to have it. 13 & God was centrally important to my entry into indie music 6 or 7 years ago, when a friend of mine included their perfect pop song “Men Of Station” on a mixtape he sent me, and I fell in love. The prospect of Whitman (my favorite experimental composer) having his way with that song and others was too much to resist.

As a general rule, remixes (and album-length compendiums of them in particular) are a grab bag, as you’ll usually have so many different artists pulling the music in so many idiosyncratic directions that at best you’ll get a few remarkable edits among a number of inessential curiosities. The single format that the Men of Station / Soft Atlas release takes is a lot easier to handle, and it helps that it’s backloaded with the two Hrvatski remixes, one for each song. “Men of Station” was my favorite 13 & God effort, and much to my relief Whitman’s edit does not disappoint. The song’s central melodic motifs are wisely kept intact, and even augmented by swirling harp samples, as well as reverb and delay that are sorely lacking in the original, and Whitman’s frenetic jungle drum programming fits in better than it has any right to. I’m sort of perplexed it took me this long to figure out that this remix was out there – I can only imagine how ecstatic I would have been hearing this when I was first listening to 13 & God and Hrvatski.

Stream “Von Gradleute” on Soundcloud.

(I acquired “Men Of Station / Soft Atlas” on vinyl because I’m dumb like that, and if you’re dumb too KFW probably has a few more copies over at Mimaroglu, but normal people can find it on iTunes, along with the 13 & God full length. Their follow-up LP is due in the next few months, so that’s exciting.)

——————–

Niggas With Guitars – Milky White (from Ethnic Frenzy on Digitalis Vinyl)

This was the other half of my 13 & God Mimaroglu shipment, one that I picked up on a whim based on chatter that I had heard from associate tape collectors I respected. I have no idea who these people are or why they felt like “Niggas With Guitars” would be a good name for their outfit, but their music is definitely interesting. The vinyl was so new when I got it that there was no indication of which side was which, so my naming convention might be way off.

“Milky White” (if that is indeed the name of the song) is either the second or fifth track on the 6-track album, and like all of NWG’s music that I’ve heard, it is quite disarming. It could, one imagines, fit nicely into some odder corner of the “chillwave” scene, steeped as it is in a certain sort of nostalgia – the lilting, gentle synth melodies and horn-like drones call to mind old nature film soundtracks or meditation music ripped from casette (fittingly, NWG kicked around the fringe music casette scene before landing this endorsement from the sterling Digitalis label). But more than anything else, it’s strongly reminiscent of the interlude music that Boards of Canada would insert between its more propulsive songs on their old albums. Lovely, if slight, music. Now if they could just do something about that name…

Listen to “Milky White” on Soundcloud.

(I purchased “Ethnic Frenzy” as soon as it hit Mimaroglu, and your best bet might be finding it there [it’s up there at the top] – if Discogs is to be believed, there are only 200 copies for the world, with the first run of 75 sold out at source. Better hurry!)

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Subeena – Miscalculate (from Super Volume 1 on Super Recordings)

I’ve waited for Italian producer Subeena to go “next level” popularity-wise for awhile now and it hasn’t happened, much to my chagrin. Of all the dubstep(ish) techno-leaning freshman producers to come out of the UK in the last few years, Subeena was by far my favorite, as her love of early Warp records sounds was something that I shared, and she spent some time in the Planet Mu roster, which I’ve always looked to for more forward-thinking trends in electronic music. Popularity’s kind of a relative thing in electronic circles but I’ve always felt like she didn’t get the sort of recognition her talent called for.

“Miscalculate”, which just popped up on her friend Raffertie’s Super Recordings compilation, doesn’t sound like it’s going to break that trend. Overall it takes after some of the more recent work she’s done for her own Opit label, which finds Subeena contributing vocals, and bringing a more rave-ish sensibility to the music. But I feel like this track in particular is a little too reminiscent of “Spectrum”, the b-side from her “Picture” single. Perhaps it’s just the fact that the track feels in general a little too much like a b-side (not that anyone should expect A-material to show up on label compilations, necessarily). The track is still fun enough, but in comparison to Subeena’s best work it doesn’t quite measure.

Saturday Scary Movie Open Thread

Hi gang and welcome to our second Saturday night scary movie screening. Tonight we are watching Francis Ford Coppola’s classic Dementia 13. It involves axe murdering, so I think you will like it. It also contains the line, “… you can tell she was an America girl, raised on promises.” Which makes both Tom Petty and Jonathan Demme more interesting. Note: the film is taken from the Internet Archive and all rights are reserved for the original copyright owners.

Important Message: We are moving servers again this weekend, probably Sunday night. We’ll do our best to keep the downtime to a minimum, but depending on your ISP you might have some issues. I’m letting you guys know now so you can check Twitter and Facebook for our status.

Another important message. This Sunday we will be having another writers work shop to brainstorm ideas and help each other develop stories. It will be a great chance to get feedback or come up with post ideas. The post will go up in the late afternoon or early evening depending on when The Grand Inquisitor decides to get out of bed.

Have a great night.