Jive Time Turntable

Elvis Costello and the Attractions “Blood & Chocolate” (1986)

Gotz ‘dem ol’ mean woman blues again, brother? Sometimes when the fairer sex brings you down into a pit of despair and world-is-crashing helplessness, you gotta put down that never-ending bottle of Jameson and saunter into the studio with your best dudes and pulverize that anguish into something worthwhile. This is Declan Patrick at his most vitriolic, spewing venom and catharsis, ripping apart low-down, no-good rotten women while his uncharacteristically raw sounding, yet always reliable Attractions whip up a frenzy. the record is admittedly top-heavy, but what a fucking tremendous Side A, from the vindictive, organ-fueled anthem “I Hope You’re Happy Now” to the drunken 3 a.m. sad-sack ballad “Home is Anywhere You Hang Your Head.” But it’s all foothills to the Mt. Everest of Costello’s career: the caustic, languishing, incomparable “I Want You.” this one track, with its slow build-up and quietly intense vocals, captures all the contradicting feelings of anger, disgust, disillusionment, and futility, and the searing, unrelenting pain that comes with that horrible, carnal knowledge: yep, it happened, and yep, it was THAT asshole. And the most horrifying part: it ends not in murder or heartbreak like other paeans to adultery, but in begrudging and hopeless acceptance. Perhaps because “I Want You” raises the bar so exponentially high, what follows pales in comparison and is almost entirely forgettable, though “Poor Napoleon” has one hell of an addictive chorus. to me, an idiosyncratic artist with a long career is always the most compelling at his or her meanest and nastiest, and this record – at least the first half, anyway – exposes all the darkness stirring underneath that bespectacled veneer. —S Paul Brown

The Cure “Disintegration” (1989)

Though he may despise and disdain the term, Robert Smith, with his pot kettle black eyeliner, moussed, tousled hair and dour almost-dopey mopiness, will always be the archetypal goth, the poster boy for bedroom gloom and overwrought, affected misery. The Cure was far from a one-trick pony with a limp, but angst and depression are stamped repeatedly on the forehead of Disintegration, the crowning achievement of Smith’s career. His moody contemplation and inner turmoil goes Technicolor Cinemascope on this record; the guitars, flanged and phased beyond recognition, chime and soar, the vocals and drums reverberate through the cavernous bunker of the production, while layers of synthesized strings and weeping keyboards supplement the texture. These songs are sweeping and tenaciously grandiose – stadium-sized music for sun shy shut-ins and poetry scribblers. Opener “Plainsong” announces the record’s sound, with Smith’s voice echoing desperately across the freezing Wuthering Heights moor, while the “shimmering” (definitely among the most overused words in pop criticism) bells on “Pictures of You” underpin the longing of the tea-soaked madeleine cake lyrics. The straightforward, sullenly heartfelt “Lovesong” is the most accessible track, while “Lullaby” is the sexiest, with a near-funky stop-start rhythm, punctured guitar jabs and whispered vocals. The desolate essence of the album can found within the watery twins “Prayer for rain” and “The Same Deep Water as You:” plodding, winding requiems of remorse and reprehension. Though it nearly runs out of momentum by the time the wistful pump-organ of the untitled final track materializes in the haze, Disintegration is an elegy to loneliness, a bombastic display of histrionic pomp and the uncontrollable circumstance of just feeling sad, a true fucking epic blurred by flowing tears. —S. Paul Brown

The Beatles “Beatles for Sale” (1964)

I bought my first Beatles record (Help!) at age nine, barely tall enough to see over the cashier’s counter at Record Town, a now long-defunct shopping mall record store in the western Massachusetts town where I grew up. Nearly 30 years later, I plunked down $250+ for the remastered stereo box set shortly after the Beatles’ catalog overhaul in the fall of 2009. In between those two milestones, my Fab Four fandom has been constant, obsessive, and undying, yet my album preferences have been inexplicably capricious. But one area where I’ve never wavered concerns an album, little discussed, that the band put out at the tail end of 1964. It is called Beatles for Sale.

A cursory glance at the cover and a light listen to the record don’t immediately reveal its brilliance. This is early Beatles, for sure. Cover songs abound, representing almost half of the album’s material. (They would significantly tone down this practice on their next album, Help!, and completely abandon it for good by the time of Rubber Soul.) But a closer listen to the album’s opener, “No Reply”, informs us that we are venturing into new territory. A beautiful study in contrasts between thundering drums and wistful acoustic guitars with hints of bossa nova, the song denotes a sound that’s more accomplished, more sophisticated, than anything that has come before. As an added bonus, we have only one overplayed track, “Eight Days a Week”. These days, I can barely listen to this song whenever it comes on the radio, but here, as a part of  larger musical statement, it never gets old.

Though Beatles for Sale is in all aspects a group effort, it’s Lennon who provides its show-stoppers. His interpretation of Chuck Berry’s “Rock and Roll Music”, like his earlier renderings of “Twist and Shout” and “Money”, continues to establish him as howler without peer; it easily blows the original out of the water. With songs like “I’m a Loser” and “I Don’t Want to Spoil the Party”, he begins to lay the template for the confessional songwriting that he would explore much more deeply later, but seldom while rocking this hard. But for my money, my favorite Lennon moment on Beatles for Sale is “Mr. Moonlight”. Some fans and critics think this is one of of the worst Beatles tracks ever, but I love it! Lennon’s crazed gospel preacher vocals launch it into the stratosphere. The chorus is almost dirge-like, and the loungey organ solo only adds to its weirdness. In some ways, it’s more out there than anything on Revolver or Sgt. Pepper’s; they’d certainly never record anything like it again. Though McCartney also gets in a good rocker with his cover of Little Richard’s “Kansas City”, his overall contribution is a bit more understated than Lennon’s. Still, it’s no less important. He really only takes lead vocals on a couple of songs, but “I’ll Follow the Sun” is one of his early masterpieces, one that hints at the A-list tunesmithing that people would soon take for granted. The album’s unsung hero, however, is George Harrison. Though relegated as usual to his one token spotlight moment (a cover of Carl Perkins’ “Everbody’s Trying to Be My Baby”), his fingerprints are all over everything. Often accused by “serious” musicians of being a mediocre guitarist, here he proves all of these Philistines wrong. Effortlessly shifting between elegant country picking and precision power-chording, what his playing lacks in technical prowess is more than made up for with vibrant and highly evocative tones; in fact, a large part of Beatles for Sale’s success can be attributed to its Big Guitar sound. Then there’s Ringo. His noble back-beat carries the music through no matter what the situation demands. There’s not much more to be said about that, except that he’s just always awesome.

This was the record that UK punters got. In the states, much of this material was spread out among a pair of shorter Capitol Records releases (Beatles ‘65 and Beatles VI), a double-dipping practice that the label found lucrative but which drove the Beatles themselves crazy.  Arguments could be made for all versions, certainly. But the fact is, this is how John, Paul, George, and Ringo wanted you to hear these songs. They were probably right; it all just seems to hold together better here.

We all know what happened next. The Beatles would discover marijuana, Dylan, and eventually LSD. They would take their music to hitherto unimagined artistic heights and become a four-headed spokesman of a generation. But I ask you this: As a stripped-down and no-nonsense rock and roll band, did the Beatles ever kick this much ass? I think not. —Richard P

Small Faces “Ogdens’ Nut Gone Flake” (1968)

Ogdens’ Nut Gone Flake is a work of pure genius, from the title of the album, through the seemingly mish-mash blend of rock, psychedelia, music-hall and ridiculous fairy tale back to the music of the title track. Side one knits together some classic rock songs, my favourites being “Afterglow” (which manages to give me goose bumps) and “Song Of A Baker” (as close to a pastoral song as East End boys are going to get) – two great rock songs, with the instrumental title track, psychedelia and music-hall (“Rene”). All good pieces. An unlikely mix, but they pull it off. The genius is that they manage to mirror this strange mix of styles on side two, while incorporating it into a fairy tale told part in song and part in gobbledegook by a narrator. And it works well (contrast the artistically less successful Beach Boys’ fairy tale EP Mt. Vernon And Fairway). It works because they don’t take themselves too seriously. A masterpiece! –Jim

Everything Scatter: A Guide to Afrobeat 
and the Music of Modern Nigeria

Nigeria has one of the richest musical histories of any country on the African continent. Considering the competition, that is really saying something. A country wracked with centuries’ worth of war, poverty, and countless other social ills, music has remained a constant unifying force, and it is the lifeblood of its peoples. For Nigerians, music is not a huge part of life—it is life. In fact, it is said that every Nigerian boy is given a drum before he learns to walk.

The evolution of Nigerian music can be traced back thousands of years, but it was its more modern forms that made the country a major player on the world music stage in the second half of the 20th century. It didn’t hurt that by this point the country already had a rich base shaped by a cross-cultural pollination dating back to the early days of colonization. Much of this occurred in the Nigerian capitol and busy port city of Lagos, where the heavily-rhythmic yoruba form dominated. Beginning in the 1900s, a plethora of musical influences, among them ragtime, calypso, meringue, blues, and even some Celtic forms, would join the mix, over time giving birth to a sound that was truly pan-global in every sense of the term.

But perhaps the most significant event in the evolution of modern Nigerian music was the arrival of highlife from neighboring Ghana in the early ’50s. A form with a resemblance to Trinidadian calypso and the American big band sound of the ’30s and ’40s, highlife would evolve and truly come into its own in Nigeria. Heavy on the brass, Nigerian highlife bands slowly began to emphasize the electric guitar, an instrument with widespread availability all over the world by the early ’60s. Vibrant, rhythmic, and extremely danceable, highlife became a major touchstone of Nigeria’s modern cultural identity, which in itself had taken on a whole new meaning following the gaining of the country’s independence from Great Britain in 1960.

Highlife continued to evolve throughout that decade, occasionally even leaving the confines of its national borders to enjoy some niche popularity in some western countries. One of its prime exporters was a young multi-instrumentalist by the name of Fela Anikulapo Ransome Kuti. In the early ’60s, Fela’s gifted musicianship landed him a spot at the prestigious Trinity College of Music in London, a city that at that time was experiencing the rumblings of a musical revolution of its own. Fela returned to Nigeria in the mid-60s and formed the band Koola Lobitos. His growing demand as an international performer would eventually bring him to Los Angeles in 1969. There he would become heavily steeped in the Black Power movement and also become exposed to the work of the soul music giants of the era, most significantly James Brown. When Fela returned to Nigeria at the end of the decade, he did so with his own musical and political agendas. Nigerian music would never be the same.

As monumental as Fela’s impact was, its downside was that it overshadowed the work of his Nigerian musical peers. While some were certainly influenced by Fela, many were innovators in their own rights. Fela might have coined the term “afrobeat” for his own music, but the term has since become synonymous with the immensely rich and diverse sounds that emanated from Nigeria in the 1970s and beyond. It has influenced artists from the Talking Heads to Vampire Weekend, and it can be heard today in the samples and beats of hip-hop and electronica and on the floors of dance clubs the world over. But as pervasive and ubiquitous as it has become, Afrobeat stands alone. It is the sound of modern Africa, but one where also can be heard the heartbeat of a culture whose history can be traced back to the birth of human civilization. Like a visit to Nigeria itself, fully exploring its music is a challenging, but rewarding, endeavor. Here are some places to begin the expedition.

Orlando Julius & His Modern Aces Super Afro Soul (2000) While Fela would become Nigeria’s most recognizable musical icon, Orlando Julius was the country’s first true pop superstar. A major purveyor of hIghlife in the mid-60s, Julius diverted from the rest of the pack by incorporating Stax and Motown influences into his sound, creating an infectious hybrid of highlife and soul. Though revered by many musicians outside of his homeland, Julius never found the massive international audience that he deserved. Fortunately, British label Strut Records sought to remedy this by reissuing this album, which highlights this fertile period of his career.

Fela Ransome Kuti & Ginger Baker Live! (1971) Cream drummer Ginger Baker was rock royalty’s earliest adopter of Nigerian music. Building a state of the art recording studio in Lagos in the early 70s, he is widely credited for introducing the music of Nigeria to western audiences. Baker and Fela met in London in the late 60s, resulting in a lifelong personal and musical friendship that would benefit both of them. This recording, made in a London club in 1970, showcases the two icons joining forces to deliver a killer set. Baker’s drumming not surprisingly sometimes gives it a more rock-like feel, making this a unique entry in Fela’s catalog.

Fela Anikulapo Kuti & Africa 70 Gentleman (1973) When confronted with the bewildering size of Fela’s catalog, many people often ask the same question: “Where should I start?”. Really, pretty much any of his studio albums released between 1971 and 1978 will make anyone a fan for life. But this album is where the template for Fela and Africa 70’s incendiary brand of afrobeat was truly established. Its title track, with Fela’s blistering sax (an instrument that he allegedly learned and mastered in just a few days following the departure of Africa 70 tenor saxophonist, Igo Chico), is worth the price of admission alone.

Peter King Shango (1974) A classically trained composer and saxophonist, Peter King is yet another criminally overlooked master of afrobeat. In the 70s, he recorded a handful of records containing a winning mix of jazz, funk, soul, blues, salsa, and, of course, rhythms from his own homeland of Nigeria. This can be heard in all its hip-shaking glory on this record, which unfortunately to date remains his only one to be reissued.

The Daktaris Soul Explosion (1998) You would never know it, but this album was actually recorded in the late-90s by a bunch of guys from Brooklyn, many who would go on to form Antibalas Afrobeat Orchestra soon after its release. So convincing was its vintage sound and packaging, however, that many collectors were sure that they had stumbled upon a long lost afrobeat classic. (One of the evil geniuses behind this ruse was Gabriel Roth, eventual founder and boss of Daptone Records.) Despite the gimmickry, it’s the music that has to deliver in the end, and it does so in spades. Dedicated to Fela, the album kick-started the afrobeat revival. thereby keeping his torch ablaze while proudly carrying it into the 21st century.

Further listening: With growing interest among DJs, crate-diggers, and world music aficionados, the aughts saw an explosion of Nigerian music compilations. Strut records has done for afrobeat what Trojan Records did for reggae. Its 2000 release, Nigeria 70, provides an outstanding primer to afrobeat and its related forms. (Original pressings contained a standalone disc containing an excellent aural documentary of Nigeria’s musical history, which was unfortunately omitted from the recent reissue.) If you’re looking for highlife, seek out the Vampi Soul label’s Highlife Time, a collection with some of the best examples of the genre. Finally, the Soundway label’s in-progress “Special” series probably digs the deepest into Nigerian music of the ’60s and ’70s of any releases thus far; Nigeria Rock Special, which highlights the more psychedelia-influenced sounds of the period, is a great place to start. The music of modern Nigeria still remains a relatively untapped resource. What’s available now is only the beginning! —Richard P

Nico “Chelsea Girl” (1967)

O Nico! Demure melancholic, wanton femme fatale! Warbling siren of ennui and hopelessness! With the defeatist longing of an Old World aristocrat, the deadpan sexuality of a courtesan, and the glazed-eyed fragility of a junkie, Christa Päffgen cultivated an impressive cult of personality. She gallivanted around an abandoned castle in La Dolce Vita, fraternized with the scenesters and freaks at the Factory, and briefly fronted the Velvet Underground. She didn’t conform to any presubscribed roles for female musicians; she wasn’t an earth mother, a self-righteous folkie, or a wide-eyed innocent teen temptress. If anything, she was an ur-goth, an artist plagued by darkness and haunted by her insecurities. Chelsea Girl, her debut as a solo artist, is Nico at her most vulnerable and sad. With her inimitable near-baritone, baroque orchestral accompaniment, and help from talented songwriters (mainly former bandmates Lou Reed and John Cale, and also a pre-California Jackson Browne), she inhabits emotions rarely explored in pop music: heartbreaking, immobilizing indecisiveness in the soaring “the fairest of the seasons,” world-weary detachment in “these days,” and seasonal affective despair in “winter song.” The most explicitly experimental track – “it was a pleasure thing” – is a Celtic death ritual with Nico moaning ethereal high notes over a din of feedback and lacerating guitar. Dylan’s “I’ll Keep it With Mine” – one of the few tracks with no minor chords – serves as a rousing counterpoint to the dour misery mire that surrounds it. Though Nico would later delve into more abstract territory, this record captures all the tragic, twisted beauty that defined one of pop’s most compelling figures. —S Paul Brown

Nazareth “Hair of the Dog” (1975)

In 1975 the Scottish Hard Rock band Nazareth released their masterpiece, and what is one of the greatest Hard Rock albums ever recorded, Hair Of The Dog. This album is simply amazing from first to last and doesn’t have anything resembling a weak song on it. What it does have is one hard hitting earth shaking song right after another. And they are all perfectly balanced by Danny McCafferty menacing, growly Vocals and Manny Charlton snarling searing Guitars.

This album stands tall as one of the greatest Hard Rock icon albums of the 1970’s and of all time. –Karl

Record Store Day Sale

Join us this Friday and Saturday, April 15 and 16 for our annual Record Store Day Sale! ALL records, CD’s and DVD’s at Jive Time will be 20% off with new arrivals added throughout the sale! Our Sidewalk Sale (weather permitting) will feature an additional 1000 bargain priced LP’s and CD’s!

Plus: spend $25 or more and receive this limited addition, hand-screened poster while supplies last!

Jive Time Records thanks you for supporting all of Seattle’s independent record stores year-round. Our city had more shops in Rolling Stone’s Top 100 record stores than any other city in the US. Brick and mortar (and music) is alive and well in Seattle!

Premiata Forneria Marconi “The World Became the World” (1974)

The World Became The World opens with a prehistoric monster in the 10 minute apocalyptic epic “The Mountain”, a chilling choral intro giving way to the menace of the main riff before proceeding to explore PFM’s penchant for constant development and change over the course of a song. The fact that the vocals (sung from the point of view of a mountain on a dying planet) are sung in English through a thick Italian accent, and have been mixed low and soaked in reverb, makes them nearly unintelligible, yet it only serves to heighten the otherworldly tension. The vibe of this song sets the template for this album – toning down the wide scope of their earlier work, with tracks that feature more repetition and have a foggy sonic character, notably featuring a fair amount of coarse mellotron chords. “The Mountain”‘s shadow looms over the delicate ballad “Just Look Away”, and the title track, which closes the first side recalling early King Crimson in it’s marriage of soft passages with a doomy, mellotron infused chorus. Side two opens with a bang, again, in the form of “Four Holes in the Ground” and follow up track “Is My Face on Straight”, two intense, rhythmically complex, yet occasionally playful tracks that keep moving in new directions throughout their duration. Great stuff. A bass solo opens the instrumental “Have Your Cake and Beat It”, a track that wanders around in jazz fusion territory before out of nowhere, a huge cathedral organ emerges, with a beautiful, simple guitar melody on top closing out the album on a grand scale. —Ben

The Band “The Band” (1969)

A sepia-toned album that, above all, creates its own space-time, I wouldn’t normally award points for escapism, but this one manages to bring its historical reference points into a rock ‘n’ roll context, which is the best trick they pull off on this tricky little gem of a record. This is funkier than their debut, and funkier than most albums that attempt to be funky. It’s also a lot squarer than most albums, which is a neat trick for an album so funky. Great production, as well. And fantastic use of horns, evokes ol’ time rural America and ’60s soul in equal measures: another neat trick. Another one of those groups who manage to pull off the on-the-verge-of-falling-apart thing with aplomb. That’s enough praise for this Band. –Will

Joni Mitchell “Don Juan’s Reckless Daughter” (1977)

After plowing through the budget bins one weekend, I decided to spend five dollars on five Joni Mitchell albums and see what the hype was all about, and of the five I brought home, “Don Juan’s Reckless Daughter” was the one I found myself going back to. It seems that most of the people who fell in love with the radio-friendly, “pop” Joni thought this one was too random, weird, and abstract. I find it clever, wandering, curious, and self-indulgent in the best way possible. I love the production, super clean and bright, and every so often… When Jaco Pastorius hits those notes… It’s totally rich and full in the low end. But what I love the most is the experimentation on songs like “Paprika Plains” (which eats up a whole album side), and “Dreamland,” (featuring Chaka Khan) which ditches her traditional acoustic guitars for just drums and chants. The title track is my favorite song with it’s explosive bass drops and wandering lyrics. When you think you’ve heard all Joni has to offer, find this one! –Cameron

Wu-Tang Clan “Enter the Wu-Tang” (1993)

The RZA and GZA both were dropped from their label when their A&R influenced debuts bombed. So what did they do? They recruited 7 others of Staten Island’s finest (or as they say Shaolin) and got together to release their first single “Protect Ya Neck”. An impressive posse cut that included all but one member where every MC delivered. So in 1993, they planned to take over hip-hop and the east coast in specific with their debut, Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers) and they really succeeded. This album is a classic to the fullest and features 9 different voices throughout. Each MC delivers at every chance they get and their energetic battle raps never get old. There’s so many excellent tracks to choose from, this album never bores. RZA is the mastermind of this ambitious project and he handles all the production. To say he changed the direction east coast producers took is an understatement. He brings a fully new production style which has some dark soundscapes that is simply excellent. RZA is one of the greatest producers ever and his work on this and the many Wu-Tang solo albums that followed in the five years after are proof. His production work is magnificent in here and you have to hear it to believe me. In addition, there’s some small amount of variety with “C.R.E.A.M.” which features an excellent, legendary hook by Method Man (the most commercially visible member) and two classic verses from Raekwon and Inspectah Deck about the ruff, fast lifestyle in the streets of New York. Although the interludes where the members are talking get annoying real fast (except the intro for “Method Man”, that one is a classic), the beats and lyrics are too good to be brought down by their retarded act when they talk. Oh yeah, RZA is also innovating new sampling sources by getting a bunch of kung-fu samples, most notably on the first few seconds of the album when “Bring da Ruckus” starts. 36 Chambers is simply a classic and words can’t justify how good it is, really. This album along with Da Beatminerz’ work on Black Moon’s Enta Da Stage and DJ Premier on Jeru the Damaja’s The Sun Rises in the East pretty much defines the beats of hardcore hip-hop in the east coast. —Prt Cpt