music – Page 22 – Crasstalk

Music to work out at the gym to

So maybe you have a new morning workout routine. Great! Except it’s hard as fuck to get motivated to exert energy first thing in the morning. That’s where your workout music comes in.

I make no bones about loving club music. I know most people consider it vapid and cheesy. And, well, it is. Most of it is made by the absolute worst sorts of trashy perverts.

None of that matters. All that matters is that it makes you want to (in the immortal words of Big Daddy Drew) run through a brick wall.

So on that tip, here’s some music for your next workout. For each track below, I’ll list the artist (or “artist”), title of the song and the superpower that each particular song will give you.

“Get Down” by Groove Armada
This song is makes you feel like you can now: Proclaim yourself King/Queen of All Bunnies.

“Superdelight” by Heikki L
This song is makes you feel like you can now: Punch a giraffe in the nose.

“Bodymotion” by Way Out West
This song is makes you feel like you can now: Slide across a frozen lake with rockets tied to your shoes.

“Return to Life” by Adam Rickfors
This song is makes you feel like you can now: Die and then come back to Earth as Patrick Swayze so that you can make pottery with that funny-nose girl.

“Unleash My Love” by John de Sohn and Nick Wall ft Christina Skaar
This song is makes you feel like you can now: Use electric eels as weapons.

“Dancing On My Own” (Fred Falke Remix) by Robyn
This song is makes you feel like you can now: Burn people with your laser vision.

“Feel the Hard Rock” (Heiko and Maiko electro mix) by Hardrox
This song is makes you feel like you can now: Use actual ROFLcopters to kill leprechauns.

“Alive” by Mondotek
This song is makes you feel like you can now: Drink 18 cans of 4LOKO without making a fool of yourself.

“Push Up” by Freestylers
This song is makes you feel like you can now: Do those pushups that only insane Marine drill sergeants can do, where you clap in between each pushup.

“My, My, My” by Armand Van Helden
This song is makes you feel like you can now: Throw sharks at the bad people.

“What I Want” by Bob Sinclar Ft. Fireball
This song is makes you feel like you can now: Win a staring contest against Clint Eastwood.

In defense of disco

7 comments

Before I say anything else, I just want to include this disclaimer: No matter how open-minded a person is and no matter how great the music is…. some people just will NOT EVER UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES EVER be able to tolerate disco. I accept that. Those people are lost causes. For the rest of you, read on…

I know that when you hear the word “disco” you instantly think of the Village People and Abba and maybe Donna Summers and definitely polyester suits. There is an undeniably cheesy side to disco that never seems to die off. So fine, I’ll concede that some aspects of disco are absolutely awful. That said, most people don’t realize that disco also had a grittier, deeper side that didn’t get the radio airplay. Instead, it got played in legendary clubs like the Paradise Garage, where Larry Levan held court and more or less all modern dance music was first truly conceptualized.

So Levan and others like Francois Kevorkian were mixing these crazy, long-form funk records into a nonstop dance workout… and they were YEARS ahead of their time. They were doing things like mixing synthesizers with Afro-Caribbean rhythms 20 years before M.I.A. ever picked up a mic.

I once heard disco described as “blue collar party music,” which is just about perfect. So let’s give credit where credit is due and check out some choons….

“Give Me Love” by Cerrone.
Marc Cerrone is a French drummer and producer who had a serious knack for coming up with catchy songs that still had that hard beat. This song has been remixed about a billion times by house producers in the last few decades.

“I Don’t Want to be a Freak” by Dynasty
I am in love with these girls. They don’t want to be freaks… but they just can’t help themselves. Sad really.

“I Don’t Wanna Lose It” by Bambu
Ok, here is some intense club disco that was clearly made for people consuming massive amounts of cocaine. The tempo is just ridiculously fast… at least 10 or 15 bpm faster than almost any other tracks you’ll find. The cocaine… there’s no other explanation. It’s downright disorienting, but then the vocals come in and everything settles down nicely.

“We’re On Our Way Home” by Brainstorm

Not a lot of people realize this, but ANY song that starts with a slap bass intro is required to be a KICK ASS SONG. It’s a rule. Look it up. In a way, you truly hear the first 80s pop coming through, but then it goes back into full 1970s string orchestra mode. I love it.

“Jingo” by Candido
That evil organ sound at the beginning was sampled by DMX. This song came from Salsoul Records, a hugely influential New York label that was known for using a lot of latin percussion in their tracks. To this day people love scouring old record shops for Salsoul vinyl because it’s such versatile deejay music.

“Deputy of Love” by Don Armando’s 2nd Avenue Rumba Band
If you ever walked into a club and saw that tonight’s act was “Don Armando’s 2nd Avenue Rumba Band,” is there any way you’d be anything less than excited?

“Do It Again” by Easy Going
Here’s an example of what’s called Italo-disco… disco from Italy. We guineas just love our disco. Not even living on different continents can change that. It’s our bond that unites the guido diaspora. Also… nothing homoerotic about that cover art. Nothing. At. All.

“Hot to Trot” by Alfredo de la Fe
Disco was really the first music that mashed up genres in exciting new ways. This tune starts off with a HEAVY samba beat straight off the streets of Rio, then breaks into a jazz violin explosion and then levels out into a straightforward funk jam. The drumming is incredible.

“Time Warp” by the Coach House Rhythm Section
This was a b-side on Eddy Grant’s Electric Avenue record. Eddy Grant is the man. If you put this song on Beatport today, no one would bat an eye. It’s computer music made with synthesizers and drum machines yet it sounds so human.

“Flight to Jamaica” by The Crashers
I’ve never been able to find out ANYTHING about The Crashers other than that they made this song. I don’t know how the hell it’s never been used in a movie soundtrack. Maybe it has, but it’s still got to be one of the all time great long lost disco songs. Reggae and disco… two great tastes that taste great together.

“I Hear Music in the Streets” by Unlimited Touch
That crunchy funk beat. The great vocals. That thumping bass. The handclaps. The fantastic guitar playing. If you’re ever in a bad mood, treat yourself to this song. It’s pure joy in sonic form.

Peter “Sleazy” Christopherson, 1955-2010

1 comment

Peter Christopherson died today. He was a founding member of several seminal industrial / avant-garde groups of the 70’s and 80’s, including Throbbing Gristle, Psychic TV and Coil.

If I were to choose just one band that I would be forced to listen to for all eternity, to the exclusion of all else, I would choose Coil. They started out making very harsh industrial music in the mid-80’s, influenced as they were by the AIDS epidemic that was killing so many of the band’s friends. Into the 90’s and ’00s the band started experimenting with acid house and neo-folk, and were heavily invested in a stark sort of dark ambience by the time of Jhonn Balance’s death and the dissolution of the band. I keep my set of Ape of Naples vinyl away from everything else on my mantle because it is something approaching a sacred object to me.

Everything that Sleazy participated in, from TG all the way up to Threshold Houseboys Choir (his de facto solo project), was brilliant, and his music was changing and evolving throughout his career. I was looking forward to more decades of beautiful music from Sleazy, but sadly he has been taken from us too soon. I haven’t been this devastated over the death of an artist since Jhonn Balance, the other half of Coil, fell from his balcony to his death in 2004.

I was meaning to send Sleazy an email — he apparently would respond in full to every fan email he receieved and have extended conversations with writers – but somehow I slept on that and now I’m obviously kicking myself pretty hard. RIP.

The Quietus has a brief remembrance from Chris Carter and Cosey Fanni Tutti here. No word as yet from Genesis P. Orridge, who left the reconstituted TG a few weeks ago.

Coil – Who\’ll Fall?

Come with us now on a journey through time and space

15 comments

I don’t just surf the internet, I travel it. One second I’m looking up Jude Law’s IMDB profile and the next I find myself reserving a book at the library on religious asceticism in the Middle Ages.

My travels have a soundtrack that is just as hyperkinetic in its apparent lack of theme. I make lousy mix-tapes because of this.

This was my most recent collision of internet searching and music:

~~I can’t upload the video by any method, so go to the link at Buzzfeed and watch it. It’s worth it. I promise.~~
(Edit: FIXED! ~BMCFC)