MP3: Escort – “Makeover”

Link: Escort on MySpace

I cannot tell you how much I hate the Lipps, Inc. song “Funkytown.” It’s like a splinter in the proverbial finger of the when the ‘80s flipped off the ’70s. A disco favorite, it still burns like a cinder that was set on fire for way too long. You hear it in the supermarket and on those radio stations that now play anything. I would hope that the ghosts of radio DJs past are still grumbling over the thought of having to play that one hit wonder, one…more…time. And then to jab at the ashes further, Pseudo Echo revisits the song in New Wave splendor. Punk is blamed for the demise of the disco scene, but New Wave glimmered from the capitalization of the dance music craze. Say what you will, Ministry’s With Sympathy is a great album, and you can thank your shiny disco balls for any House anthem that came roaring out of the genre.

I was in a Half Price Books the other day and A Taste of Honey’s “Boogie Oogie Oogie” came on like a musak heart attack, I cannot help but be consistently intrigued how disco hangs on to society like this leech. All of you who had a record collection from the ‘80s, or a record collection passed on from someone who had a record collection from the ‘80s, I would wager 90% of those collections have the Saturday Night Fever Soundtrack. Out of those 90%, don’t tell me you did not have the curiosity to play the album alone in your room while pawning it off to your friends as a joke. You secretly liked what the Bee Gees did, just admit it.

Disco never died, it morphed. And as bad as that Lipps Inc. song is, it demonstrates the vibrancy of the Casablanca dynasty, even when all that jive talking began to turn into MTV talk.

So what does all of this have to do with Escort? Everything.

Now that the 2010s have brought about a higher awareness of the synth sound — we can argue how Holy Ghost sounds better than anything Yaz has done — you feel the four-on-the-floor foundations move into a modern context. You can be hip and say that your band was founded on the essentials of Italia-disco and more than likely, you will get accepting nods from your peers, but when it comes down to it…it’s still disco and as much as these songs burn blisters in our head, we have to accept it for what it is.

And that is where Escort comes in. This is a band who has studied the genre, dug in deep and implanted their nails deep into the New York City sound. …And Party Every Night is their bible, and the Casablanca scene is their treasure map, digging into album after album of dance floor power. But they go beyond that. Look back to the Fania Records scene and the Fania All Stars where they had exceptional musician after exceptional musician on stage hypnotized into a latin dance orgy that would not quit even after the sun came up.

Not just that, but move ahead to the early ‘80s and the band feeds off of the spark that led to Lionel Ritchie’s “All Night Long” or what the Miami Sound Machine did to the South Beach scene by the mid-’80s, It all comes together into this party cruise that begins with Escort’s song “Chaméleon Chameleon.”

What starts out like a bad ringtone turns into an escapade of synth dance crazy. It’s one dimension to think of this band as something linear, but with 17 members filling the space, you only wished this all happened 20 years ago. If that was the case, this album as we hear it would not be at this level. I can imagine the band initially sitting down and discussing how they could take all of these elements from the past and plan out how they could do it better.

With having this magnitude of a band, they can explore powerful percussive elements on songs like “A Sailboat in the Moonlight.” But when Adeline Michéle puts her vocals into the tribal sound, it sounds like the Love Boat just set sail and Combustible Edison is your night entertainment. Discount it for its ultra cheese and hate it for what it is, but it will infect you like a disease because when this band breaks into a cocktail of horns and hooks, you will change your mind real quick. As Michéle croons, “Sailing, we’re sailing away,” it will turn any situation —even if it’s in your mind—into a dance party. I want to hate this like I want to hate “All Night Long,” but every time Lionel Ritchie tells me we are going to have a party, I’m hooked every time.

Like disco, that is what this band is good for, escapism. “Cocaine Blues” is a power roll call of disco culture all wrapped up in bad cologne, hairspray, and the streets that surrounded Studio 54. It’s the one easy piece of definitive nu-disco. As fun as that all seems, “Why Oh Why” is more expressive, more soulful, and a great song that does not need to rely on schlock to make this song a success. I’m just curious what Donna Summer would think about a song about “Love In Indigo.” Would she think damn, why did I not write this song, or would she think the neon sounds are discounted as a joke. Sometimes, I cannot tell the difference. Either way, you cannot say these songs have consumed this band and have taken on their own form be it the ‘70s, ‘80s or now.

I have listened to this album over and over again, trying to come into some realization that these instantly gratifying songs are just that and nothing more. But what it comes down to is that these are catchy songs that stick to you from the result of amazing musicianship. I cannot find a bad song on this album or a downbeat to pick at. With that in mind, don’t look at Escort like you would Lipps Inc., consider them more a Gary’s Gang for the millennium.

Links:
ArpLine on MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/arpline
ArpLine on FaceBook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/ArpLine/84247718802

Brooklyn band ArpLine has been making a splash in the city that never sleeps. Over the past several months and several sold-out shows, including the latest at the Mercury Lounge, their powerful blend of electronics, instrumental landscapes and vivid lyrical imagery rings out with the bravado and essence of the late ‘70s and early ‘80s post punk scene.

With a sound that started in the studio and expanded thrice fold on stage, it’s no wonder the kids are scurrying to get their place in line.

“We are really hungry,” said vocalist Sam Tyndall. “Not to sound weird, but we really want the things that other bands have. We want recognition and to get our life the way we want it.”

That vision to work hard and strive to keep pushing as a band tends to be a common trait in the Brooklyn scene as Tyndall describes it as very competing in a positive demeanor.

“Brooklyn is wild, and everyone works really hard to sound unique, and that is why people keep churning out awesome bands here.”

But as much as the band, made up of Tyndall, Adam De Rosa, Michael Chap Resnick, Oliver Edsforth, and Nathan Lithgow, really shine on stage and projects their musical vision to the audience, it is the studio where Tyndall feels the band is most comfortable.

“Playing live for people is fun, but I just really like to write and record.” Tyndall has always been a fan of recording and the feeling of the pleasures of listening to that medium.

The band just finished wrapping up their debut album and will soon be self-released. With money, recording, and scheduling issues, it took them a long time for this album to become reality. But what came out of the sessions and contemplation was a lot of songs written that could stretch beyond this release.

“We didn’t want to make a record until we felt good about the material,” he said.

Don’t chalk it up to inexperience, Tyndall has been a musician and songwriter for a long time. Growing up with the David Bowie, Brian Eno, and Robert Fripp albums, along with the post punk scene like Wire and Echo and the Bunnymen, he always paid close attention to how songs were written.

“Growing up, I wanted to be Trent Reznor. Later, I wanted to be David Bowie or Brian Eno. I wanted to make it so all I do is write music and become an accomplished songwriter. Then I would sit and listen to Low and kick myself. Then I listened to Scary Monsters, and I got bummed out by the sheer genius of that album.”

ArpLine became a gleam in Tyndall’s eye when he met the rest of the band through a mutual musician. Feeling like the new kid on the block, Tyndall came from Bennington College in Vermont while the other members attended NYU.

Starting out their first sets were standard rock and roll, but as they became more comfortable as a group, their tastes began transforming to its current state and they tried harder to consistently outdo themselves.

By the time they made it into a studio, they instantly ran into obstacles.

“Every time we recorded with various people, we immediately threw it in the garbage can. It just did not work out. But we found someone we liked and recorded in a home studio. All we could afford in a real studio was four songs. So the rest of the album is recorded all over the place.”

Even though the spliced together album was a slight concern for the band, it has not deterred the coherency and overall structure of the album as unity was the glue in its successful outcome.

With the intention of being self-released, the band is shopping around for labels in the hopes to transcend their DIY means of doing business to a stronger focus in making music and exploring potential ideas.

There is a degree of poetic justice that comes from the song “Please Send Love.”  It’s a song that defines a post-modern sexual revolution, like art house sterility in a dirty mid-town environment. The bass thrusting, Stephonik X’s gasps and groans accentuated by some brush strokes of guitar noise powered by an echo pedal. Everything about that song screams orgies of rabid sexual desire and a song that imitates the after effect of fingernail imprints on metal.

If teenage sexual rebellion transpired directly from the way it was in the ‘50s and ‘60s with films like Mondo Teeno and Kitten With A Whip, then this song along with Tora Tora Torance! “Hottest Pants” or Sunshine’s “Vampire’s Dance Hall” — both songs explicitly blatant about it’s sexual energy — would be perfect for a 21st century sexploitation soundtrack.

This all sounds wonderful, right? Pair that up with ZZZ’s “Ecstasy” and you have yourself a wild night of hair pulling and teeth biting. However, instead of keeping this level of pleasure, a majority of this album is just noisy art rock fodder wrapped around Stephonik X’s exclamations over even more echo effects. And it gets really annoying when she does that at the beginning of practically every single song, like a kid who cannot sit still and has to walk in circles while blabbering incessant nonsense.

Trying to wrap their minds around the avant garde and blur lines between the noise scene and the New York art rock scene (think Liars and Black Dice), the band ends up not knowing exactly where they exist. And if the first two songs does not immediately turn you off, then you are lucky because that brings us back to the beginning and the diamond in the rough.

But then it reverts to anything pleasurable. It could be Stephonik X’s vocals in the situation of contortioned guitar fuzz feedback, but when it comes to songs like “Action!,” It’s a hard sell when bands like Plot To Blow Up The Eiffel Tower does it so much better.

But before you reach for your coat, there is one last song that reminds us what this band should have been all along. “There As It Bleeds” is an epileptic fit of music if it was behind police tape at a homicide. This is where it should have ended, but they manage to squeak out a few more forgettable tunes before they are done with it all.

Cross-Reference: At The Drive In, The Plot To Blow Up The Eiffel Tower, The Fire Show

Origin: Brooklyn, New York
Style: Indie Rock/Electronic

Monica Rodriguez teeters on the line of aggression and late night bittersweetness. A vocalists who tries desperately to be a pop star in an indie rock shell, her voice carries so much confidence, you end up siding with her whether you acknowledge the music or not.

Instead of military regalia and braces, Rodriguez is PolyStyrene in an evening gown. Her bluntness slices like a knife as she growls out words like “I won’t keep wasting my time. Shut up and decide,” from the song “Decide.” It does not get more upfront than that.

Zigmat’s self-titled release is a nice combination of upbeat dance electronica and jittery indie rock that blend in well together. At first, the pop structure of “So Sure,” a song that could be easily found on an early morning VH1 video show, is a failed attempt at sounding Top 40, but when the chorus kicks in, the song veers away from the slow motion fabricated beat and into a more stabilized environment for the band.

When Rodriguez lets her guard down, she falters. This album sounds best at its angriest. That’s when the emotion explodes and we get the truest form of music this band can make. Sure she sounds an awful lot like Bjork in “Discosuave” and Karen O in “Glowstick” but most times she sounds like an ‘80s New Waver with nothing to lose. Not just the lyrics but the combination of spanish and english, helps Rodriguez create an identity for the band with a cross-cultural bond.

If this band wanted trendy then they wouldn’t be cutting themselves all over the place. And by the end of it all and a couple “spanglish” remixes of songs, the album as a whole is not too shabby.

Cross-Reference: Yeah Yeah Yeahs, VHS Or Beta, CSS

Origin: New York City
Style: Metal

To me, it’s still baffling that this band ever made anything of themselves. Could Rob Zombie have been such a visionary that he foresaw the future’s need to cherish the Drive-In and Grindhouse culture? Did he see the sights of many who would eventually grow up and want to pay homage to the childhood pop culture the ‘60s and ‘70s? It’s why they are bringing back things like The Banana Splits and The Electric Company. Unlike others who bask in the era, Zombie must have just listened to plain old cultural common sense because we all want to hang on to things of the past that are dear to us, even if that something is The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living And Became Mixed-Up Zombies.

During the transformation into the 1990s, a friend popped a crusty cassette into my car stereo with the words Make Them Die Slowly becoming a blur as it disappeared into the deck. Driving around the city on a hot, summer day, the sludge sound of White Zombie spewed out of my speakers. The recording was poor and the production was absolute crap. The drums sounded like cardboard boxes and the bass couldn’t have been muddier. You know, something Killdozer might have done, but actually bad. It could have been the cassette, but hell Sonic Youth’s Confusion Is Sex sounded better in my car. (For an example, here is “Acid Flesh” off of the Make Them Die Slowly album – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LUsYkESA_yo)

Then came La Sexorcisto. The same friend, a huge White Zombie fan for 1992 standards being that no one still really heard of them — he even had the at-the-time rare “God Of Thunder” Kiss cover on vinyl (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mY52HHXPrxU) — tried once again to convert me. I wasn’t going to have it, citing my reasons which were immediately diffused by a his disclaimer that this was indeed a defining album, which is true. It did become a defining album not just for the band, but for the genre. The album reached double platinum status and also reached number 36 on the Billboard 200 for 1993.

The band moved from Caroline to Geffen who must have gave them a more-than-modest budget to create what is now considered their masterpiece, or what my nephew likes to call it the “Yeah!” album because of Rob Zombie’s excessive use of the word “yeah.” The production quality improved leaps and bounds, the mixing was a lot better, and peppered in the release was sample upon sample of B-movies, exploitation film dialogue, and an orgy of schlocky sound effects. It was a “Where’s Waldo” of the Something Weird archive. Now, you can easily get a menu of sample references from Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Sexorcisto:_Devil_Music,_Vol._1).

I think half of the fun was sitting around, listening to the album, drinking beer, and trying to decipher what sample went to what movie. “That radio broadcast was from Night of the Living Dead.” “Did I hear a line from Faster Pussycat Kill! Kill!?” The timing could not have been better, too. Before Tarantino gave us a re-envisioned view of the Grindhouse and exploitation genre, Something Weird was a cult phenomena, making available a plethora of grindhouse, sexploitation, horror, and other types of exploitation films on VHS. It was a charm to be able to watch Herschell Gordon Lewis films, Russ Meyer, Ray Dennis Steckler, Spiderbaby, and other films that influenced Rob Zombie which amplified the prominence of this album.

Sidetrack our way across 1992, and another musician was doing something similar in a much different way. Henry Rollins released The End of Silence as the Rollins Band. A significant and extremely heavy album of his career. What does he have to do with La Sexorcisto? Roughly the same time of both albums, the concept of the consecutive sludge chords guiding a groove rhythm became significant on both albums. You can hear it at the end of “Low Self Opinion” and you can hear it at the end of “Psychoholic Slag.” This sound became a trademark of early ‘90s grunge metal. Think the bane of existence for Helmet’s In The Meantime.

At a time when hardcore punk and metal crossed over, it was not surprising to hear someone like Iggy Pop voice the intro of the hit song “Black Sunshine” or the goth kids, pretending to be Peter Steele, eat up “I Am Legend.” La Sexorcisto was truly an universal album at the time.

And while many people consider the last half of the album less significant than the first half (http://www.metal-archives.com/review.php?id=4973), I say listen again because the true jamming begins with “Thrust!” And the song just feels like it stretches on and on. “Starface” ups the ante like a reprisal to the album. But what I think is completely misunderstood is the finale “Warp Asylum” and the slowed down, chunky hip grinder. But then it transforms into this rolling jam, while transforming one more time into an out of control spiral of guitar solos and smoked-out rhythms.

It showed what guts the band had to be able to wiggle their way on to a major label while still being able to do things their own way and succeed in that gamble. And now look at Zombie and how he saw his vision through for better and for worse.

Cross-Reference: Helmet, Rollins Band, Powerman 5000

Origin: Queens, New York
Style: Pop Rap, Party Rap

For Young MC, real name Marvin Young, it paid to go to school. A student at the University of Southern California, where he received a degree in Economics, music was a hobby until he met two guys that ended up changing his life, Michael Ross and Matt Dike, co-founders of Delicious Vinyl.

When exactly Marvin Young transformed into Young MC is unknown, — his earliest debut came in 1988 with “I Let ‘Em Know” — but thanks to a fascination with Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, as early as 11-years-old, Young began writing and rapping nursery rhymes, in which he later expressed interest in recording a children’s album from these early writings. (Rolling Stone, Issue 572, February 22, 1990, p. 33.) If you want to know about Young in his own words, you don’t have to travel far. The song “My Name Is Young” builds rhymes like an autobiography, “They told me time will tell, and it has told ‘cause I’ve been rockin’ the microphone since I was 10 years old.”

As his life fell into place,Young quickly understood what smash hits were made of by collaborating with Tone Loc on writing “Wild Thing” and “Funky Cold Medina,” a boost to Tone Loc’s career that put him in the Top 20 artists of 1989. It was a year after that when Young created his own place in chart-topping history and saw him on shows from Arsenio Hall (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=stU_2fBlSsI) and Dionne and Friends (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZoj5hv3WaA) to an unusual appearance with Faith No More and a live collaboration on “Epic” (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-7Ys3HGFE40).

In a simultaneous dimension, 1989 also saw The Beastie Boys record their highest regarded release, Paul’s Boutique with The Dust Brothers. Young was able to nab The Brothers along with Mario Caldata, Jr. to assist in the production of Stone Cold Rhymin’. It cannot be denied the essential effect of these people on the album and how the sound was created to be accessible by a universal audience. This was not Ice T making The Iceberg and talking about the realities of South Central or NWA and their extremist Straight Outta Compton. Young was public with his anti-drug and alcohol stance but he also knew how to incorporate his straight-laced ethics into simple party anthems and stylized rapping. From his videos to his live appearance, Young always dressed well, conservative for rap standards, and was out-of-place in the lineup of late ‘80s rap stars.

Although disregarded in the discarded one-hit wonder category, Stone Cold Rhymin’ had all the ingredients for the rap album of the decade and succeeded in 1991, beating out Public Enemy with a Grammy, a first of its kind.

This is not an album to show off how tough he is like he tries to with “Roll With The Punches,” this is an album that shows how intelligent he is, escaping anything political or socially conflicting, except for the Nancy Reagan-esque “Just Say No,” which came a little too late from the heyday of the government-sponsored anti-drug campaign. Young MC sticks specifically with poetics and touts his ability with songs like “I Come Off” and “Fastest Rhymes,” proving his eloquence in enunciation at a rapid pace. Young’s goal is simple, to appeal to a broad audience and give them something to relate to (Bolofo T. and Anderson T., “American Collections. Rolling Stone, September 6, 1990, Issue 586.).

You cannot talk about this album without at least one mention of “Bust A Move,” the song that put Young MC on the road to legend and, at the time, kept him on the charts for 39 weeks. As Run DMC nabbed Aerosmith to record a Hip Hop/Rock version of “Walk This Way” and Anthrax befriended Public Enemy, Young took a more eclectic approach to the cross pollinating of styles by hiring bassist Flea to create the infamous bass line on the song, as well as Stevie Wonder’s recording backup singer Crystal Black to give the song an added element and strengthened melody to its foundation. His lyrics also play like an adult nursery rhyme that plays more like an article in Details Magazine on how to pick up women.

“Principal’s Office,” a second hit for Young, didn’t hurt either, showing a more method-paced storytelling that bears more resemblance to DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince. For a slower tempo’d song, it’s a fair selection for Young to breakthrough with. “Know How” seems like a better choice with its Shaft theme song sampling and the quick licks Young spits out.

Thanks to these songs and the Grammy, NBC tried to capitalize on the rap and rock crossover and aired a half hour special starring Young MC called “Rock The House,” which featured a mix of rap and rock and roll in a high-energy nightclub setting (New York Times, May 13, 1990, p. 31).

Overall, there is no dismissing Young’s talent as a lyricist. His expressive vocals and quick tongue make words slide and transition flawlessly.

Young will never experience success at this level again as he felt the need to change and become more social and political in his works. Pop rap also didn’t have a chance, fading into rap antiquity by the mid-’90s.

Stone Cold Rhymin’ is trapped in time as the effects of this album did nothing to influence the path of Hip Hop through the later part of the ‘90s. But it is still a valid release and one of the more important albums of the style that still can liven up a party or shake up the dance floor. And one thing that Young can feel proud of is that Stone Cold Rhymin’ never became a parody upon itself like his pop rap contemporaries Vanilla Ice or MC Hammer.

Cross-Reference: Tone Loc, Lucas, LL Cool J