Moonshake - "Girly Loop"
(Too Pure Records [U.K.], 1993 / Matador Records [U.S.], 1994)
This song absolutely has to be listened to on a good stereo, or in a car, because the dynamics are just amazing, and computer speakers can't really reproduce the deep bass notes. Even a mediocre car stereo provides a surround-sound listening experience, and the empty spaces inside a car's panels / hood / trunk etc. become makeshift resonators. Hence why you'll hear a lot of bands or producers say "After finishing up the latest batch of songs in the studio, I threw it in the tape deck in my car as the ultimate test of whether it sounded any good," or just "I wanted to see if could pass the 'car test.'" Anyway, much like Minutemen's "Anxious Mo-Fo," this song has several different mind-boggling basslines, enough to make the average funk band's bass player quit his instrument and go become a monk in some remote, cliff-laden dictatorship. Just check out the different bassline that bassist John Frennet casually throws in at the 1:40 mark. This EP is one of the most dazzling bass tours-de-force ever recorded, and my hypothesis is that Moonshake were trying to incorporate the then-nascent drum & bass / jungle sound, but using actual instruments rather than drum machines and samplers. In other words, a few years before d & b hit U.S. shores, Moonshake were already blasting past it and trying to reconfigure it in a rock format. Truly one of the most envelope-pushing bands ever, which is befitting of a band named after a CAN song. Oh yeah, the tropical drumming is nothing short of jaw-dropping too. I already showed the video for this EP's track "Capital Letters" in my other post about Moonshake. You will see that Frennet was sporting shants (super-long shorts) way before they were cool. "Flow" is a rubbery, passive-aggressive ode to fellatio. "Séance" is probably the best song on the EP, and could've been a hit single. (No singles were released from this EP, unless you count the "Capital Letters" video which MTV probably showed somewhere between 0 and 1 times.) I would've rather posted "Séance," except that I already posted a Dave-sung song in my other post, and I wanted to do a Margaret-sung one this time. Pretty much every Moonshake song was written by one or the other of them, and they only sang together on one song that I can think of. So the band basically had "Dave songs" and "Margaret songs." She and Frennet left to form Laika this same year, and Moonshake was never the same again. Polly Jean Harvey and Stereolab's Katherine Gifford took over vocal duties for her on Moonshake's next album, which had a very different sound, mainly because it had zero guitars.
Sunday: Went to a Metairie parade (Corps de Napoleon) with my dad; the grand marshalls were, I kid you not, those bozos from the TV show Swamp People, you know, the ones with the catchphrase "Choot it!" We stopped by Mr. Gyro's for a pita, but found it had sadly gone out of business. Picked up some pizzas at Reginelli's instead. The three very young (white) girls working there all started singing along and shimmying as the end of "Baby Got Back" played over the stereo; FWIW, I was about to ask one of them if she was offended by that song, but I obviously got my answer.
Monday: Went to a far superior New Orleans parade (Orpheus) with Emily, Tace, Alex, and Vanessa. Before the parade we walked around the Julia Street arts district, but the galleries were all closed due to Mardi Gras. Got a spinach & feta croissant and iced coffee at PJ's; I'm not a coffee-shop person at all, so I had to pause and think for a moment when the redheaded girl asked me what kind of milk I wanted. After thinking about all kinds of impressive Italian terms I was probably supposed to use, I realized I could just say "2%." She was super-cute and I'm sure I did not impress her. We (not me and the coffee girl, unfortunately) hung out at the upstairs bar (called the Polo Club or Polo Lounge) at the very posh Westin for a while, then stopped briefly in a few bars in the Quarter (Old Absinthe House and some new place). Then went back to the Polo bar and had an amazingly chance meeting with a smugly funny doctor who had delivered Whitney Houston's baby(!) He informed us, by using medical jargon that my doctor companions (E, T, A) were able to decipher for me, of a crotchal disease she (Whitney) suffered from, and I might be sued for libel for saying it, so I won't. I'll just say that upon learning this, my first thought was that Bobbi Kristina must've been born by C-section, in order to protect her from it, but the doc said she was born normally. The Orpheus parade was good, and I think this was my first time ever seeing it. Cyndi Lauper was the grand marshall, but I didn't see her. We got four mini pizzas and it rained a bit. Afterwards my sister made us all watch Rihanna videos as usual; this time it was a countdown of her top 20 sexiest videos as decided by the Fuse network, but we skipped past most of them. I went to see Khris Royal & Dark Matter as the opening act at a free show at The Howlin' Wolf. I only caught their last song, which incorporated the synth line from Kraftwerk's "Trans-Eurpoe Express." I think they also did this, as well as a Tears For Fears cover, when I saw them at Jazz Fest last year. Jazz Fest stalwarts George Porter Jr. & The Runnin' Pardners were headlining, but I skipped them.
I decided to crash at my parents' house closer to the Lake so as to avoid the crushing Fat Tuesday traffic downtown the next day. I realized that the Mushroom was open 24/7 during Mardi Gras, so I stopped in there at 1AM and bought Moonshake's "Secondhand Clothes" CD single for $2, even though I already had all three of its tracks as bonus tracks stuck onto the end of Eva Luna. While leaving at 2AM, I finally asked the girl working there, the one who had said hi to me at the Boris concert, her name. She said it was Sam and we talked for a few minutes. I forgot to ask her how True Widow was or what her favorite bands are. It was a good end to a strange day. I only wish I had stayed and gone to Zulu the next morning, since the last time I went to it was probably at age 14 or 15.
Wednesday: Bought a sweet bookcase at Office Depot because I figure it can hold LPs, and I need to start getting mine out of their randomly-scattered plastic milk crates. It's called the 4-Cube Bookcase by RealSpace (Magellan Collection), in cherry finish, $80. I will probably buy a few more when they go on sale. Linsanity continues unabated, with an incredible (unprecedented?) two Sports Illustrated covers in a row, and a book scheduled to come out in May. Speaking of that mag, its idiotic swimsuit ish cover girl Kate Upton was on Jimmy Kimmel last night, responding to the millionth question about the YouTube clip of her doing the Dougie. She made a point of repeatedly mentioning Cali Swag District in order to appear knowledgable about the subject, but when Kimmel asked rhetorically if the dance was inspired by Doug E. Fresh, she developed an even-blanker-than-usual look on her face and said she didn't know who that was. Awkward. I laughed.
Thursday (today): I embarked upon filling in the Nielsen survey for the next week. They pay you $35 cash to do it, so it's a no-brainer, and it'll be interesting to see just how much TV I really watch. I can tell already that MSNBC is gonna wind up being my most-watched station. I watched an interesting documentary called The Loving Family. I had no idea until the end that it was their marriage that led to the Supreme Court legalizing interracial marriage nationwide in 1967.
Planets with similar climates: The Pop Group - "Colour Blind" (~1980), CAN - "Vitamin C" (1972), The Make-Up - "I Want Some" (1998), Enon - "Murder Sounds" (2003), Talking Heads - "Once In A Lifetime" (1980), Long Fin Killie - "Cop" (1996).
Currently eating or drinking: Xingu Black beer (from Brazil; awesome, like a lighter Guinness Draught); Elmer's Chee Wees cheese curls; Alessi Eggplant Appetizer (Sicilian caponata); Al Fresco tomato & basil chicken meatballs (amazing); Killian's Irish Red lager (okay); Abita Amber lager (bad).
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