Demos podcast: Samizdat

[imomus]

I've already posted two podcasts of old demos, Amazing Blonde Women and The Golden Age of Television. Now here comes a third in the occasional series:

Samizdat (stereo mp3 file, 62MB, 68 mins 55 secs)



Samizdat

Righthand Heart
Ballad of the Barrel-Organist
Shaftesbury Avenue
Amongst Women Only
The Girl Who Invented Sex
Dear Boy George
Let's Make a Baby
Advertising
Paolo
Monsters of Love
Kyrie Eleison
Solemn and Cruel
Confectioner
A Dull Documentary
Explicit
The Old Die Young
Let's Start a Trade Union
The Filippino



The songs are mostly from the late 80s, though a couple of them date from 1983 (Ballad of the Barrel Organist, Kyrie Eleison, Solemn and Cruel). There's an overlap with the other demos podcasts, too -- Amongst Women Only and Confectioner have already appeared, though in different versions. Here for the first time are unpublished songs like Dear Boy George (later rewritten as The Cabriolet), Let's Make a Baby, Advertising, The Filippino, Explicit (which became The Emperor of Oranges), The Girl Who Invented Sex, and others. Apologies, as usual, for the beyond-lofi sound.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Thanks, why did you not release "Let's Make a Baby" it sounds like a stand-out track to me?

[imomus.livejournal.com]

At the time I thought it was horribly twee, and perhaps too Prefab Sprouty.

[(Anonymous)]

Grazie mille!

-r

[(Anonymous)]

Oh, I forgot to ask - is the video to "I was a Maoist Intellectual" viewable online? I fail to find it.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

I probably have the only existing copy, a dusty (and so far undigitized) VHS tape of a 1988 appearance on French regional TV. I did I Was A Maoist Intellectual and Sex for the Disabled (miming to the record) and there was a short interview in French about Brel and Brassens ("Je suis, comme lui, en quelque sort, le pornographe du phonographe") and being a chansonnier "a texte".

Maybe I'll dig it out and digitize it un jour.

J'suis le pornographe du phonographe...

[imomus.livejournal.com]

[Error: unknown template video]

[ishinagami.livejournal.com]

If were requesting finished songs id very much like to hear a released 'start at the top'

[(Anonymous)]

You were a rather ugly young man. You're much better looking now.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Ha, thank you!

I tend to think that this sort of thing comes down to lighting and design -- you learn, over time, to appraise your visuals with the cool, objective eye of a designer, and make the best of what you have. Extremists like David Bowie and Michael Jackson won't be filmed without a trusted lighting technician on hand; I just ask people to turn on the flash when they take pictures of me. It takes off ten years.

[(Anonymous)]

There's an element of your having grown into your features as well. Young people tend to look better with fine features. As a young man you look all nose, lips and chin. In an older, more lived-in face, it all gels together better.

[(Anonymous)]

You made my Sunday. Thank you Nick.

[(Anonymous)]

I'll second that. Thanks for this! The very best way to spend a Sunday.

[count-vronsky.livejournal.com]

Milles de gracias Momu. You have made my Sunday as well.



I must have watched this twenty times last night.. for some reason the little gesture you make at 2:06 gives me a small shiver every time I watch it. Damn you get under my skin! And to the anon who called you ugly.. are you kidding me? You are beautiful. Just look at you.

[nagrom-the-pink.livejournal.com]

Ah, those sweet SK1 sounds.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

The Casio SK1 was "reasonably priced sampling", but I had no budget, even for that -- mine was a review copy Casio had sent to Smash Hits. Since I was dating a Smash Hits journalist (now the editor of a British art magazine), I got lots of freebies, not to mention all the anecdotes about Neil Tennant I could eat.

[cap-scaleman.livejournal.com]

That black jacket looks like something you wouldn't wear these days - (because it is black, and made out of leather?) - but what's the story of that jacket? What happend to it? Thrown away?

[imomus.livejournal.com]

It's a black plastic MA1 flying jacket. Yes, I wouldn't wear it now. That was my kind of uniform in 1988; black Levi's 501s, a white polo-neck or shirt, and the MA1 flying jacket. Maybe chinos and a blue shirt (Agnes B, possibly), like the Tender Pervert cover. I can't remember where I bought it, or when I threw it away; possibly when I moved to Paris in 1994.

[Error: unknown template video]

Basically it seems to me that people in the 1980s dressed in a much more American way -- in Europe and in Japan -- than any of us would now. I certainly did. The American Collegiate thing was everywhere (in Japan, with surreal wording). The dominant style was American 1950s, Marilyn Monroe and James Dean. My glasses -- Buddy Holly-style Ray Ban Wayfarers -- were in this style at the time too.

[cap-scaleman.livejournal.com]

I see, something makes me wonder if a small revival of sort is going on for that style. I dunno about Germany but I recon some people go with that style here.

Though, who knows, if you would've come in the types of clothes you prefer to wear present day they might've not been taking you serious. Black and white was the colours of the 80's I suppose.

But did you get a good response at concerts?

[imomus.livejournal.com]

The Ray Ban Wayfarers are currently huge, and Joe's wearing them on the cover of Joemus, of course! Here's me in mine (and that same MA1 flying jacket):

[cap-scaleman.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah! Though they should come in other colours than just black. A blue Ray Ban would've been something, now they're just gimmicky tingle tangles, in my oppinion.

[count-vronsky.livejournal.com]

I wonder if the popularity of the American look in Europe and Asia - chinos, blue shirt, preppy - had anything to do with this (http://acontinuouslean.com/2008/05/19/take-ivy/) japanese book?

I never could pull off the Wayfarers look, the black frames don't look right with my hair, but I have this exact pair of Oliver Peoples (http://creatisphere.wordpress.com/2007/05/17/ritual-music-studio/) glasses. I still get compliments on them.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Wow, that Take Preppy book is very interesting! I didn't know about that. I'm sure it helped build the preppy "keyword", as they call such things in Japan.

[lord-whimsy.livejournal.com]

The Dave Brubeck reference in that book's title is apt for the subject.

I was just on Nassau St in Princeton this week, attending a friend's talk on 18C American horticulture at the Present Day Club. Great macaroons. No preppies under sixty were seen.

[(Anonymous)]

The preppy/collegiate thing's been in fashion for a while now ... skinny straight leg pants, collared shirts and sweaters, floppy hair. Basically what you see in that Japanese Ivy League thing someone posted above. You even see topsiders and moccassins on Italians and the French... they're as American as clothing can get.

[(Anonymous)]

I don't know, I think you were hot then and you're pretty damn hot now. Go Momus. :)

[microworlds.livejournal.com]

SHAFTESBURY AVENUE!!!!!!!!!

[desant012.livejournal.com]

I particularly like these demos. You can't go wrong with lo-fi weirdy pop ballads.

[ahalf-warmedfish.blogspot.com (from livejournal.com)]

I can't get Dracula out of my head, no matter how many times I listen.
Your music, and specifically your knack for making your production always as unique as possible, continually amazes me and inspires my music!
I can't wait to get my copy of Joemus. eeeeeee!
I shall certainly write a (flattering) review of it on my blog when I get it.

-Your #1 fan from Halifax, Nova Scotia
http://ahalf-warmedfish.blogspot.com/

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Thank you, I like your emphasis on production, people don't always notice, or see it as a distraction.

Ballad of the Barrel Organist

[(Anonymous)]

Ahhhhhh, Nick! Great to hear Ballad of the Barrel Organist ( i still have the white label you gave me) and the other songs from the early days! I remember Malcolm Ross' wife Syuzen sending me this version, I loved it, the claustrophobic feel, I also remember from your other blog post, Draycott Place, and coming to see you with Syuzen and David Weddell one Sunday morning, think you played us TPB unmixed tracks and you were very kind and gave us pasta and whisky?! we then wandered around London looking at churches, you then waved me off at Euston!
Hope to catch you next time you are in England.

best wishes, Spencer
PS Daracula is wonderful, as is the production as someone quite rightly stated

Re: Ballad of the Barrel Organist

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Spencer, you had an alter-ego called Alexander Mann, didn't you? That's another tape I listened to recently, and I really love those songs, especially "The Uncertainty of Identity". I made a cover of that one in 1993, though it was never released.

[fluorophoric.livejournal.com]

Wow, Momus. Such a unique look you had in your younger years.

[fluorophoric.livejournal.com]

Also, didn't Mao hate intellectuals? =P