Hall & Oates - Voices (1980)

A recent comment on this blog called me a cross between SR Prozak & an effeminate hipster, which is really cool to me. Also, according to people who I know, "hipsters" are really into Hall & Oates these days. If this is true, this is the greatest thing that hipsters have ever done, because Hall & Oates are the epitome of genius.

This is Hall & Oates's best record, and this is their most "rock" record. Some of this kind of sounds like Buzzcocks and I also hear quite a bit of the power pop of the 70s creeping into these songs. Either way, choruses are super catchy, but the verses and pre-choruses of these songs often offer the most interesting twists, regularly catching me off guard with wildly unexpected melodic phrasing. Check out the aggressively successful hit single "Kiss on my List" for a perfect example. That pre-chorus, man. That pre-chorus makes me want to become a better person.

In a cool "connect the dots" moment, one can see how the chords at the beginning of "Hard to be in Love with You" became "Out of Touch" a few years later. You've gotta lotta nerve, Daryl Hall. (got-ta lot-ta)

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The Shape of Chicago Rock to Come

Merlin Wall is a band about a medical student fantasizing about death via the music of Hall & Oates, Prince and a whole bunch of obscure power pop bands that I've never heard of. Hopefully, Pitchfork gets wise to this freaky dreamy pop music, then some Heaven's Gate type ish goes down.

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Pagan Youth is a band where I steal ideas from artists such as The Zombies, Motown and Hall & Oates while Brandon just wails on the bass guitar. We are more into self-improvement projects than cosmic suicide cults, but really anything that involves the destruction of civilization is cool.

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POSTSCRIPT:

Pink Torpedo is a freaky zeeky psych band with a free demo featuring Pagan Donahue on drums.

Spells are what it sounds like to be a ghost.

"On 1/29, Pagan Youth, The Merlin Wall & Spells will be performing live music at Pancho's in Logan Square due to increasing entropy in the universe. Please join me in attendance." -Douglas Pearce aka Douglas P

Don Cherry - Mu (1969)

Various jazz musicians such as Don Cherry and Ed Blackwell just absolutely freak out on this freak show. Cherry is wailing on that trumpet and that piano while Ed Blackwell switches between legit player nonsense and subdued polyrhythmic games. This whole album reminds me of Sun Ra, in that it's really fucking weird, but in a way that seems like it probably makes perfect sense to someone. However, that someone is not me. I am but a mere white man who cannot jump.

This rip is divided up into several tracks, which is nice because having 40 minutes songs is annoying.

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