whisper sweet surprise

On the outside, this unassuming metal box may look like yet another means for Andrew to earn a row of stitches and a tetanus shot, but inside...

...is a veritable treasure trove of 7" wonders from the Me Decade, providing an interesting cross section of funk, rock, and disco flavors of the moment.

It's another one of Maura's estate sale discoveries, purchased a decade ago, then pushed to a corner of attic due to my lack of a functioning turntable. The organization and selection of the singles in the box makes me wonder if it wasn't part of an actual or aspiring DJ's collection, as it contains all the up-to-the-moment tracks one would expect to hear at any given booze-and-artificial-fabric-fueled wedding reception thrown during the wild years of the Ford Administration.

The only turd in the punch bowl regarding this astonishing acquisition was that the previous owner took rather poor care of the collection, and removed the individual singles from their sleeves and let them rattle loose between cardboard inserts. While some miraculously managed to remain pristine despite the abuse, most have skips, scratches and pops.

I usually take such eccentricites of wear and tear in stride, as they are part and parcel of what gives vinyl its unique charm. I was not thrilled, however, when I discovered that the two b-side tracks by the Buckeye funkateers (a.k.a. the Ohio Players) I had planned on posting today turned out to be sonically mutilated beyond recognition.

Oh, well. There's always Option B, which is sweet indeed...

Sweet - Burn on the Flame (the b-side to the 1974 "Fox on the Run" single) - Nothing like a little classic bubbleglam to kick the summer off on the right rockin' note. I think of it as the Platonic ideal behind the 1980's glam metal scene's host of imperfect shadows.

und wenn ich heute

B-Side Sunday is back, and featuring 100% more Falcotropic goodness than ever!

Falco - Maschine Brennt (12" Remix) (the b-side of 1983's "On the Run" 12-inch single)

Don't look for an explanation, because there is none -- just some plastic new wave disco from the finest rapper ever to emerge from Austria.

There was a German woman in my extended circle of college acquaintances, and I once asked her if she'd was familiar with the late Johann "Falco" Hölzel's body of work.

"He's Austrian," she answered in voice thick with Teutonic disdain. "I'm German." Before I could apologize for the affront to her heritage, she quietly followed up with "It was the worst concert I ever attended."

x marks the dance mix

Punky meets funky in this week's Sunday b-side selection ripped from the flip side of X's 1984 "Wild Thing" 12-incher:

X - True Love Pt. #2 (Club Remix)

It's more reminscent of the B-52's than the Bukowskian punk rock sound the legendary L.A. quartet was most famous for, but that's the mid-1980's for you. Things were different then.

Even though I was a fan of the X before I even met Maura, I can't help but think of them as one of "her" bands, partly because she was the one who instituted the mandatory X requirement for in-car mix CDs (before Super Lumina's CD player shit the bed and we switched to using a Zune for driving music). Maura got a chance to see the original line-up of the band during the Boston leg of their 31st anniversary tour a couple weeks back, a performance she succinctly described as "awesome."

She also got the opportunity to add the following photo featuring X guitarist Billy Zoom...


...to her small collection of "Maura hugs her punk rock heroes" shots. (See also.)

too fowl for words

You know what contemporary superhero comics are sorely lacking in?

Duck-themed vengeance.

If the Spectre had been feeling especially vicious that day, he could have opted to inflict today's b-side offering upon his victims instead...

Rick Dees and His Cast of Idiots - Disco Duck (Part II) (the b-side of 1976's "Disco Duck" 7") - Because an instrumental version of a novelty song predicated on a sub-par Donald Duck impersonation makes perfect sense. Then again, we are talking about the 1970's; I doubt anyone looked up from their gold-plated coke spoons or custom-made bongs long enough to notice the absurdity of it all.

...and because one waterfowl-related musical travesty deserves another, I might as well lob this rotten egg into the ring, too:

Thomas Dolby, George Clinton & Other Folks Who Really Should Have Known Better - Howard the Duck (from the Howard the Duck OST, 1986) - There are certain cinematic stinkers from the past -- Xanadu, for instance -- that have improved with the passage of time. Howard the Duck is not one of them.

desire to be repeated as often as desired

As this weekend has turned out to be an unexpectedly and unpleasantly stressful one, I decided to make use of this b-side Sunday to take a deep breath and relax a little...

Frankie Goes To Hollywood - Relax (Instrumental) (the b-side of 1983's "Relax" 12" single)

...though perhaps not in the manner Frankie suggests.

Depending on what story one chooses to believe, wouldn't the instrumental version of "Relax" actually be a Blockheads, Art of Noise, or Trevor Horn track? (Actually, considering the amount of production spit and polish Horn lavished on the recording, the latter essentially applies regardless of the version in question.)

The single wasn't so much a pop record as a meticulous marketing stratagem calculated to maximize publicity, and therefore sales, through the MacLarenesque technique of epater-ing the bourgeoisie. While the psuedo-decadent sexual window-dressing seems transparently pretentious and absurd in hindsight...


...it did pay off very handsomely for a short while, at least.

everybody says it's so

Another Sunday afternoon, another set of b-sides plucked from the grooves of Armagideon Time's shared archive of vintage vinyl. Today's featured tracks come from a couple of 12" singles purchased by my wife in her younger days. They were chosen on the basis of shared excellence, as well as the fact that Maura's stack of records were easier to get at in our attic's uncontrolled chaos than mine were.

Nina Hagen - New York, New York (German Version) (the b-side of 1983's "New York, New York" 12") - The record purchase by which a young Maura crossed the Rubicon into punk rockitude. Though my wife has a fierce devotion to Frau Hagen and her body of work (which is why our first daughter shall be named "Nina"), I've never been able to develop the same level of appreciation. Perhaps I'm allergic to Teutonic new wave space valkyries.

Depeche Mode - Any Second Now (Altered) (the b-side of 1981's "Just Can't Get Enough (Schizo Mix)" 12") - Instrumental a la Mode. Maura refers to this track as "The Goldfish Song," based on an interpretive dance routine set to it that her teenaged self and a friend came up with during one of their many silly moments. The bleep-bloops represent bubbles, apparently.