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Pop Rock Nation

Tag: 45 Revolutions Per Minute

  • 45 RPM SPECIAL EDITION: Burn This Disc Out

    The Jackson 5 want you to eat your Alpha-Bits

    I’m suspending my random column this week to share this little tidbit from my (and maybe your) childhood.

    Michael Jackson’s stellar entertainment career all but eclipsed his former life as a child wunderkind.  As soon as Thriller hit, many folks forgot about his previous incarnation as a highly combustible impish pixie, all hot splits and high-tenor vocal explosions, on Motown.  But kids my age will remember that baby Michael and his brothers, as The Jackson 5, were more than just a little family soul band from Gary, IN.  They were real-life super-heroes with a fast-paced Saturday morning cartoon show, fighting supervillains, swearing off yucky girls forever, and making sure we learned our ABC’s and ate our Alpha-Bits.  In other words, they were the COOLEST!

    Now I suppose they still do this sorta thing with downloads, but pffft…gimme a break.  NOTHING was as cool as the free, one-sided, cardboard Jackson 5 record that came pressed on the back of Rice Krinkles cereal.  Yes, Rice Krinkles…you know your Mom bought them, and she also bought Hydrox cookies and RC Cola and you gobbled them up, right?  Anyway, the record had a number carelessly stamped in or near a small circle placed next to the runoff groove, and that number indicated what song was etched onto the box.  First you had to wait to finish eating the whole box of cereal (which was next to impossible; patience may be a virtue, but it’s sheer torture to a seven-year-old), then carefully cut out the record.  I remember not wanting to slice through young Michael’s sternum.

    Needless to say, these were top-quality pressings of the utmost fidelity.  My copy featured “ABC.”  I had to tape a 50-cent piece to the top of the record to keep it from slipping wildly all over the turntable, and it sounded like it was being broadcast over a Dixie-cups-&-string telephone.  But who cared?  My friends & I jumped around like maniacs to the tinny, bassless sound of our boundless hero and his band of brothers.  Kids’ll be kids.

    Thanks for the memories, Michael.  Rock on.

  • FORTY-FIVE REVOLUTIONS PER MINUTE #41: Hooked On Phoenix

    Mac & Katie Kissoon's hit single "Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep"

    MAC & KATIE KISSOON  “Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep”  b/w  “Walking Around” (ABC Records #11306, Fall 1971)

    Pop smashes don’t just write themselves.  It takes actual people with actual brains to conceive of the melodies (with or without lyrical combinations) that will become the soundtrack to our difficult lives, brightening up otherwise cloudy days.  And it can take teams of people, and lots of time and effort, to get that potential hit into the right hands, often after many incarnations:  the right recording by the right artist, the right slot on the right radio station;  these and more factors can make or break a pop song.  It can be a long and belabored process.  Yet when the tunes reach our ears, it all seems effortless, like it was whispered through the airwaves directly at us.  It’s the magic, my friends, that makes it all so attractive.

    Lally Stott's original version

    In its original incarnation by Scottish songwriter Lally Stott, “Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep” is Euro-bubblegum of the sparse variety.  Surrounded by handclaps-with-brushed-snare percussion, clanging Fender Rhodes piano and staccato horn charts, Stott gets his point across by pushing the catchy melody to the forefront .  It was a hit in Europe and Australia, but the recording itself comes off more as a writers’ demo.

    Middle Of The Road's remake

    Appropriately-named English pop-vocal group Middle Of The Road scored huge in Britain with their rendition of “Chirpy” the following year, but one could easily attribute their success not to the clunky backbeat and general “okay-ness” of the arrangement, but to the sheer sex appeal of singer Sally Carr.  Oozing hip Swinging London cool, Carr straddles that forbidden barricade between tambourine-happy Betty Cooper-style band chick and aloof Nicoesque chanteuse, like a strict Bavarian school marm who makes you stay after class then totally fucks you.  Young English boys feverishly masturbated, while a blossoming quartet of guys & dolls over in Sweden carefully took notes.

    (Sick of this song yet?  I’m not.  In fact, I sing this song at work.  Yes, I sing at work…you wanna make something of it?  I didn’t think so.  Furthermore, I’m in the right mind to slap this sucker on my iPod, remove everything else, and set it on repeat with the volume at full-blast, that’s how I feel right now.  Keep your Robert Fripp outtakes and your Albert Ayler box-set and let me wallow in my trashy eurobubblegum compost heap, goddammit!  Anyway…)

    Play (or don\’t…see if I care) Mac & Katie Kissoon\’s hit rendition of \”Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep\”

    Late 1971 saw Mac & Katie Kissoon, a brother-sister duo from Port-Of-Spain, Trinidad, finally push “Chirpy” (incorrectly attributed on this 45 to “Scott”) into the US Top 20.  Katie’s voice propels the song here, ringing bright and clear over a smart and swinging gospel-soul arrangement, replete with Motown-Philly strings and Stax/Volt drum-breaks.  Ditching the European production values and going for a fuller, more American sound proved to be a watershed for the Kissoons’ version, and henceforth “Chirpy,” in one rendition or another, was now a worldwide smash.

    one of Mac & Katie's other hits

    Unfortunately there’s no clip available for “Walking Around,” the strange, off-kilter ska track that makes up the B-side.  With its cut-time snare-n-horn rolls, unpredictable dub-inflected bassline, and unusual vocal melody that shifts jarringly from major to minor, “Walking” is hands down one of the oddest and most intriguing flips I’ve ever heard.  Ten years later, it would’ve sounded right at home covered by The English Beat or The Selecter or Madness.  In this incarnation, however, the Kissoon siblings sound like they’re having a great time, making this complex vocal exercise seem very natural and simple, like a magical, refreshing, effortless Caribbean breeze.

    Mac & Katie continued to make records over the years, and had several more hits, mainly in Europe.  Katie can often be seen and heard singing backup for luminaries such as Roger Waters, Eric Clapton and Van Morrison.

    NEXT WEEK: “Alcohol is/An easy key/Helps you unwind/And dance with me/To a disco trot from Germany”

  • FORTY-FIVE REVOLUTIONS PER MINUTE #40: The Great Popeye Con

    Jesse Johnson (w/Sly Stone)'s "Crazay" 45

    JESSE JOHNSON  “Crazay” (Featuring Sly Stone)  b/w  “Drive Yo Cadillac” (A&M Records #2878, 1986)

    Money Mike might’ve already covered this track a while back in his brilliant Infatueighties column, but given the random nature of 45 RPM, our rich musical history is destined to repeat itself here at Sonic Clash, so here goes…

    Between the scattershot, flannel-clad, pre-grunge indie slop-rock of young, bored, snowed-in white kids like The Replacements, Husker Du and Soul Asylum, and the glitzy, chart-topping new-wave glam-funk of poon-crazed urban youth like Prince and Morris Day & The Time, Minneapolis was providing a fair chunk of America’s musical sustenance by 1986.  And as deeply indebted to reclusive geniuses like Bob Dylan and Black Flag as the former were, the latter borrowed so many pages from the Sly Stone Book Of Brilliance-Smashed-By-Insanity that it was only a matter of time before either certain hermits emerged from hiding, or the scene imploded in on itself in a cascade of ego, drugs and violence.  Turned out all of the above.  But not before one great, though very brief, comeback.

    Shockadelica, on-again/off-again Time guitarist Jesse Johnson’s 2nd solo LP, showcased this self-penned-and-produced single, which features an ebullient Sly Stone making his first major recording appearance after a near-decade hiatus.  Though sung as a duet, Johnson takes a gentlemanly backseat, politely allowing Sly to steal the show.  Which he does, of course.  This is an example of one of those tracks that comes together perfectly, where all the elements are aligned and nothing is missing or out-of-place.  Backstage may have been a cesspool of crack addiction, fatal sexually transmitted diseases, and botched suicide attempts, but on stage was sheer joy.

    Watch the video for Jesse Johnson\’s \”Crazay\” (Featuring Sly Stone) on YouTube

    And for one brief, shining, gorgeously fulfilling moment, it seemed like Sly Stone was back.

    He wasn’t.

    NEXT WEEK: An early World Music smash, courtesy of a duo from Trinidad.