Heavenly - Shallow

A few kids at Oxford decided to start a band called Talulah Gosh, after hearing a compilation that came with NME magazine, called C86. They got good, and then broke up for whatever reasons, only to reform, after all getting first-class degrees, as more or less the same band, but now called Heavenly. Later, they would be called Marine Research, with a slightly different lineup. All three bands, though, and the members’ other projects, played twee pop - jankly guitars and sweet melodies, with desexed lyrics and haircuts. Heavenly was the best of the three, and the whole album that this song comes from, Heavenly vs. Satan, is great all the way through. Some of the songs are fast and happy on the surface, but they all have the same sadness as “Shallow,” somewhere. I especially like this song, partly because of the Beatles quote in the guitar solo, but mostly because of its peppy loneliness. It’s like Amelia Fletcher, the band leader and lyricist, is saying, “You hurt me and I miss you, and it makes me want to sing, sing, sing!“

Kay Kay, Dominique and Chorus - Tadap Tadap

I saw Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam (We Gave Our Hearts Secretly, Darling), the movie that this song comes from, about four months ago, and since then, I’ve had to listen to this song every few days, sometimes a few times a day. On its face, it’s glossy, ornate, and filled maybe past capacity with instruments and background singers. But these frills don’t weigh the song down at all. The main singer, Kay Kay (sometimes written K.K.), raises his voice however he wants above the percussionists, and they stay out of his way. For a lot of the time, he’s almost alone. The pace stays pretty fast, and it almost sounds like any snappy Bollywood pop song, but when Kay Kay gets up high, he turns mournful.

The sadness of the song is easier to hear when you know what the words mean, so it’s lucky that someone at BollyWhat translated it for us. In the movie, even more, the sadness builds up as the song is worked into the misplaced-love story and repeated, and it winds up being really moving, if you’re liable to get taken up in sad stories. The movie’s worth talking about for a minute. It’s directed by Sanjay Leela Bhansali, and, like his amazing movie Devdas, the music is by Ismail Darbar. It’s about Aishwarya Rai, the daughter of half-Italian Salman Khan’s demanding music teacher, who falls in love with him even though he’s sort of an oaf. She ends up having to marry Ajay Devgan, and is very unhappy about that. Then the second half starts, and a whole lot more stuff happens. Among other excitements, there’s a kite festival, a trip to Italy, played by Hungary, and a charming grandma, Zohra Sehgal, who’s the cute granny in every single Bollywood movie ever, even the ones made in the ’40s. Also Bend It Like Beckham. Salman Khan is way less annoying than usual, and gets pretty infectiously teary-eyed in parts, and Aishwarya is good, as she only is in Bhansali’s movies; like normal, Ajay Devgan is excellent. And the whole soundtrack is nice. Darbar’s music is all elaborate like this, and often as good, but he’s sort of stuck up.
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Hasil Adkins - No More Hot Dogs

There are a lot of good things about this song. The words, about how he’s going to cut your head off at half past eight, and then you won’t be able to eat any more hot dogs, are funny, and it’s impossible to take their misogynism and aggression seriously. The tune’s catchy enough, and the puttering, murky guitar is nice to listen to. But the whole point is the crazed laughter at the beginning. It’s amazing.

Hasil Adkins was a rockabilly, or really a psychobilly, in the ’50s, back when electric guitars was a threat; he just took that threat farther than other people. I don’t know if anyone knew how to handle him then, but they forgot him, anyway, until Norton Records rediscovered him a while ago. Turns out he’s still around, still wacky, and still obsessed with chicken.

This song comes from Out to Hunch. If you listen to vinyl, look for a 45 whose A side is called “Sally Wally Woody Waddy Weedy Wally.” It’s about 5 times as good as this song - just loony. Seems Sally was one of his numerous ladies, aside from his current girlfriend, whose name is Hazel, if you believe him.

UPDATE:
Hasil died on April 25. RIP.

Septeto Habanero - Voy a la Calle Vapor

As everything ever written about Cuban music has pointed out, there’s a lot of old men in Cuba who weren’t in the Buena Vista Social Club, and a lot of them are really good. This particular group of old men, the Septeto Habanero (”Havanan Septet”) is the oldest, and possibly also one of the manliest. It’s also one of my favorites. They were the first group to use the trumpet, without which, as this informative article points out, Cuban music is almost impossible to imagine; especially son, the style that the Septeto play, and that dominated Cuba in the 20s and 30s, when the group was but young. Especially in “Voy a la Calle Vapor” (”I’m Going to Vapor Street”), the hot, effortless trumpet is one of the best parts. The repetitive chorus and percussion make the improvisational verses and tres (guitar, more or less) almost the trumpet’s match. And I love that sliding end.

One nice thing about this album, which is well worth buying, is that it’s apparently the exact same music the band was playing 75 years ago, but it was recorded in 1997, so the sound is good. You can get legit old recordings of the O.G. greats, but the sound quality is usually so bad that there’s not much point in listening. And other old groups, like the Septeto Nacional, almost as ancient as the Habanero, have new albums, too, but every song on their album starts the same way (that is, with the same tuneup that begins “Voy a la Calle Vapor”), although after the first few seconds, they’re all great.

Oh yeah, and obviously I was lying about putting off new posts. I wrote about patent medicines all day today, though; I get to do some music.