Friday, August 18, 2017

Chaos/Confusion: Someday August 29 1968



purchase [Chicago Transit Authority] (because the whole album is a classic, not just this song)


Chicago, at one one of their more political moments (68-69) used the sound-track from a street protest where the discernible chant in the background is "The whole world is watching". Those may not be the actual words heard on the streets today, but it is certainly no less true.


The effect of the chaos, cacophony that acts as the intro to the song carries with it images of confusion, chaos, hate and fear ("... faces full of ...")

Typical of Chicago's style, the song makes great use of horns: there's an in-built urgency/blast behind any horn section, and it does a lot for this piece: kind of a punctuation at just the right time - a punch to add an element of urgency to the chaos.

In light of various points of chaos around the world, it might be best to consider a line or two from the lyrics:



Someday you will see how long we've waited for the time ... show you how we've got to get together with you all...

Someone once said "Those who cant remember the past are doomed to repeat it."

Tuesday, August 15, 2017

Chaos/Confusion: Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll & Chaos


Ian Dury and many others: Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll & Chaos
[purchase]

Aaah, synergy! Over at Cover Me, I have a piece about early Stiff Records artist Wreckless Eric, featuring covers of his most famous song, “Whole Wide World” (although maybe not so famous, because my wife claims never to have heard the song before reading my post). In the course of that article, I mentioned the “Live Stiffs” tour from 1977 which featured Wreckless Eric and other Stiff artists of the era. (I’ve written about the tour here, too.)

Originally, the plan was for all of the acts to rotate in the running order, but it soon became clear that the clear choice for ending the show was Ian Dury & the Blockheads, and the obvious choice for the encore would be their anthem, “Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll,” which would include the other members of the tour.

The version that appeared on the Life Stiffs album was titled “Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll & Chaos,” because, well, it pretty much devolves into chaos. The song begins with Dury introducing the performers while the band vamps, before he yells out “Cut out the fucking spitting,” presumably to the audience, but it might have been to his fellow musicians, I guess. He brings on a few more people, apparently calling for more cables, before saying, “OK, we’ll bring a few more out in a minute, we’re going to start the fucking thing.”

Dury starts singing the song, occasionally ceding lead vocals to others. At one point, he yells out “Nick Lowe, Nick Lowe,” presumably because the Basher came on stage, but another singer, maybe Wreckless Eric, echoes it, as if it was a call and response lyric. (Sort of reminds me of one of my favorite moments from Life of Brian). Dury then changes the lyrics to replace the phrase “cake of liberty” with “cake of Wreckless Eric,” before a wailing sax solo by Davey Payne. At which point, the song turns into a jam, with the singers basically chanting the title, before a big finish.

There were probably 4 drummers, a bunch of guitarists and singers, one sax player, and some keyboard and bass players, all packed on what is likely a small club stage. In a word, it was probably chaos. And probably an enormous amount of fun, except for the fucking spitting.

The song was, not surprisingly, popular, when I was at WPRB in the late 1970s-early 80s. One Saturday morning, my parents were driving down to Princeton to go to the football game, so I arranged to be on the air so that they could hear me. Being the cheeky lad that I was, I made sure that “S&D&R&R” was played, and I wished that all my listeners would partake in the titular items. My father never let me forget that.