The 1981 Listening Post - The Moody Blues - Long Distance Voyager

 Reviewed by Jim Erbe

Released: May 15 1981 The Moody Blues Long Distance Voyager Genre: Fog Rock Allen’s Rating: 4.5 out of 5 Jim’s Rating: 3.5 out of 5 Highlights: The Voice Gemini Dream I had this album. I didn’t remember it until the first song, “The Voice”, started up and even then I didn’t fully believe it until three or four songs in. But I owned it. On cassette. And I either played it until the tape broke or I unloaded it freshman year during “The Culling,” when I learned I could trade in old records for new ones. In either case, I owned it and then I didn’t. And once it was gone it erased itself from my memory. Thoroughly. So thoroughly, in fact, that a couple of years later when The Moody Blues reentered the zeitgeist with “Your Wildest Dreams,” I can recall eyeing that album with a hard-earned distaste for Prog Rock and asking myself if I really wanted to dip a toe into those waters. I didn’t. So, I came at this album with fresh ears and a persistent sense of déjà vu. Here’s what I found: The Voice – This was the second single, but it was the one that topped the charts. Lush orchestration, driving beat, vaguely new-agey lyrics about finding your inner true north…this would have been musical catnip for me back in 1981. It still is. Talking Out of Turn – Strip off the synthesizer bleeps and blorps and this is a better than average acoustic ballad. I don’t hate it. Gemini Dream – If you told me this was early-eighties ELO, I’d believe you. Delightful. In My World – The first real misstep on this album. It’s not terrible, just kind of rambling and it overstays its welcome. There is a fake-out ending at 4:45 and then the song comes back for two and a half more minutes of random noodling. Full point deduction for not bowing out gracefully. Meanwhile – A brief return to form. A very 70’s sounding mid-tempo rocker. Good. 22,000 Days – This reminds me of stoner friends in college who would latch onto something they think is deep and cannot stop talking about: “22,000 days, get it?” “You gotta make it count ‘cause we all die at sixty, right?” “So, you only get like 22,00 days” This is five minutes out of my life I’m not getting back. Nervous – Good. A little too long and way too Renaissance Fair for my tastes. Painted Smile – This is a weird one. I remember loving this song back in high school. The use of a sad clown as a metaphor for someone beaten by life and love appealed to me, because…you know, moody teen. Also, the fact that Ray Thomas’ voice sounded quite a bit like Anthony Newley I found perversely enjoyable. But, man, this does not age well. To make matters worse, XTC would take this same concept and make the vastly superior “Dear Madam Barnum” eleven years later. Reflected Smile – Spoken word. With Napoleon XIV-level audio effects to make it...I don’t know, edgy? This saves “22,000 Days” from being this worst thing here. Veteran Cosmic Rocker – Apparently, “Painted Smile”, “Reflected Smile” and this song are a mini-suite about a rocker struggling with self-doubts, getting his head right and stepping out on stage again. In that context, this song still isn’t great. It sounded dated in 1981 and has not improved with age. This album was a comeback of sorts for the band. After a seven-year hiatus, old keyboardist Mike Pinder out, new keyboardist Patrick Moraz in, lawsuits filed and court cases won; this album arrived in a whole cloud of drama. The fact that this record came out all is impressive. The fact that it’s mostly pretty good is frankly a miracle. For these reviews, I tend to like to listen to the album a few times. I let it marinate in my brain for a day or two and then come up with an overriding theme for the record. It’s what I do. It’s how I work. I prefer to take on each album as an entire piece. I like to pretend it helps me keep the reviews shorter. I chose to leave my track-by-track notes in this time, because I simply couldn’t treat this record as a single piece. It just will not stick with me. Even now, literally five minutes after my eighth time through the album, I am hard pressed to tell you the difference between…say…“Talking Out of Turn” and “Meanwhile.” I’m having a hard time remembering anything about “Gemini Dream” beyond the fact that I liked it. There are multiple songs I can’t even recall the names of at this point. To be honest, aside from the song I loved and the songs I hated, this album is sort of a sea of sameness for me. While this might be a side effect of my general contempt for Prog Rock, I don’t think it is. For one thing, I like to believe I’m better than that. And for another, I genuinely like large swaths of this record, it just doesn’t stick with me. It didn’t in high school and it still doesn’t today. And that seems a shame. I hate that after all the hurdles The Moody Blues overcame to get this record out, that what they came up with is sort of a musical henna tattoo. It’s fun while it lasts, but after a bit it’s like it was never there. Oh well, for what it’s worth, I’m going to go add “The Voice” and that other one to my Apple library.

The 1981 Listening Post - The Moody Blues - Long Distance Voyager

 The Moody Blues - Long Distance Voyager

#231

Jim Erbe

May 15 1981

The Moody Blues

Long Distance Voyager

Genre: Fog Rock

Allen’s Rating: 4.5 out of 5

Jim’s Rating: 3.5 out of 5

Highlights:

The Voice

Gemini Dream

I had this album.

I didn’t remember it until the first song, “The Voice”, started up and even then I didn’t fully believe it until three or four songs in.  But I owned it.  On cassette.  And I either played it until the tape broke or I unloaded it freshman year during “The Culling,” when I learned I could trade in old records for new ones. 

In either case, I owned it and then I didn’t.  And once it was gone it erased itself from my memory.  Thoroughly.  So thoroughly, in fact, that a couple of years later when The Moody Blues reentered the zeitgeist with “Your Wildest Dreams,” I can recall eyeing that album with a hard-earned distaste for Prog Rock  and asking myself if I really wanted to dip a toe into those waters.  I didn’t.

So, I came at this album with fresh ears and a persistent sense of déjà vu.  Here’s what I found:

The Voice – This was the second single, but it was the one that topped the charts.  Lush orchestration, driving beat, vaguely new-agey lyrics about finding your inner true north…this would have been musical catnip for me back in 1981.  It still is.  

Talking Out of Turn – Strip off the synthesizer bleeps and blorps and this is a better than average acoustic ballad.  I don’t hate it.  

Gemini Dream – If you told me this was early-eighties ELO, I’d believe you.  Delightful.

In My World – The first real misstep on this album.  It’s not terrible, just kind of rambling and it overstays its welcome.  There is a fake-out ending at 4:45 and then the song comes back for two and a half more minutes of random noodling.  Full point deduction for not bowing out gracefully.  

Meanwhile – A brief return to form.  A very 70’s sounding mid-tempo rocker.  Good.  

22,000 Days – This reminds me of stoner friends in college who would latch onto something they think is deep and cannot stop talking about: “22,000 days, get it?”  “You gotta make it count ‘cause we all die at sixty, right?”   “So, you only get like 22,00 days” 

This is five minutes out of my life I’m not getting back.  

Nervous – Good.  A little too long and way too Renaissance Fair for my tastes.  

Painted Smile – This is a weird one.  I remember loving this song back in high school.  The use of a sad clown as a metaphor for someone beaten by life and love appealed to me, because…you know, moody teen.  Also, the fact that Ray Thomas’ voice sounded quite a bit like Anthony Newley I found perversely enjoyable.  But, man, this does not age well.  To make matters worse, XTC would take this same concept and make the vastly superior “Dear Madam Barnum” eleven years later.  

Reflected Smile – Spoken word.  With Napoleon XIV-level audio effects to make it...I don’t know, edgy?  This saves “22,000 Days” from being this worst thing here.  

Veteran Cosmic Rocker – Apparently, “Painted Smile”, “Reflected Smile” and this song are a mini-suite about a rocker struggling with self-doubts, getting his head right and stepping out on stage again.  In that context, this song still isn’t great.  It sounded dated in 1981 and has not improved with age.

This album was a comeback of sorts for the band.  After a seven-year hiatus, old keyboardist Mike Pinder out, new keyboardist Patrick Moraz in, lawsuits filed and court cases won; this album arrived in a whole cloud of drama.  The fact that this record came out all is impressive.  The fact that it’s mostly pretty good is frankly a miracle.

For these reviews, I tend to like to listen to the album a few times.  I let it marinate in my brain for a day or two and then come up with an overriding theme for the record.  It’s what I do.  It’s how I work.   I prefer to take on each album as an entire piece.  I like to pretend it helps me keep the reviews shorter.

I chose to leave my track-by-track notes in this time, because I simply couldn’t treat this record as a single piece.  It just will not stick with me.  Even now, literally five minutes after my eighth time through the album, I am hard pressed to tell you the difference between…say…“Talking Out of Turn” and “Meanwhile.”  I’m having a hard time remembering anything about “Gemini Dream” beyond the fact that I liked it.  There are multiple songs I can’t even recall the names of at this point.

To be honest, aside from the song I loved and the songs I hated, this album is sort of a sea of sameness for me.  

While this might be a side effect of my general contempt for Prog Rock, I don’t think it is.  For one thing, I like to believe I’m better than that.  And for another, I genuinely like large swaths of this record, it just doesn’t stick with me.  It didn’t in high school and it still doesn’t today.  

And that seems a shame.  I hate that after all the hurdles The Moody Blues overcame to get this record out, that what they came up with is sort of a musical henna tattoo.  It’s fun while it lasts, but after a bit it’s like it was never there.  

Oh well, for what it’s worth, I’m going to go add “The Voice” and that other one to my Apple library.

https://open.spotify.com/album/4t5Za54Hk2E1vSxvtGoRSE?si=mHEIgnp7RFi637egHczxoQ

The 1981 Listening Post - UFO - The Wild, the Willing and the Innocent

 UFO - The Wild, the Willing and the Innocent

#8

By Jim Erbe

January 6 1981

UFO

The Wild, the Willing and the Innocent

Genre: Hard-ish Rock

Allen’s Rating: 3 out of 5

Jim’s Rating: 3.5 out of 5

UFO, I had heard the name and remember some of the album covers, but this was my first chance to listen to them.  I know Michael Schenker was their lead guitarist before he left to form MSG—this is their second album without him.  I know they put out a BUNCH of albums.  And I know this album is aggressively…well, fine.

Musically, the songs are good.  There’s a minimum of “sex with underage girls” lyrics, which feels like a minor victory for 80’s metal.   Replacement guitarist Paul Chapman, who died earlier this year, is extremely good.  Pete Way and Andy Parker, on bass and drums respectively, hold it down well.  

I lost track of how many times I listened to this album.  I put it on repeat and listened through an incredibly long day at work without stopping.  It was good, fun and energetic (which was great for a fourteen hour workday) and not particularly threatening (great for the office, maybe not ideal for a rock album), but it’s also somewhat forgettable.  

I’m refraining from calling out highlights, because none of these songs stand out from each other.  There are moments throughout that pop—an intro that may have influenced The Outfield’s “Your Love”, a random sax solo that makes the whole thing sound like O.A.R. for a minute—but they bubble to the surface and are almost immediately abandoned and forgotten.  

Overall, this album is pleasant enough.  It’s good but with almost no menace, and while that might have worked for sixteen year old Jim looking for something more edgy that Pablo Cruise…it certainly doesn’t work now.  

To be honest, I feel like these guys set their sights too low.  They set out to make a good rock album and absolutely nailed it, but it makes me sad at what might have been if they had tried to make an excellent one.

https://open.spotify.com/album/1idYXIlJPigVtPI7Bu1rtx?si=TYrFk17gTryspXikJWT1lQ

The 1980 Listening Post - The Birthday Party - The Birthday Party/Hee Haw

 The Birthday Party - The Birthday Party/Hee Haw

#476

By Jim Erbe

November 1980

The Birthday Party/The Boys Next Door

The Birthday Party/Hee Haw

Genre: No Wave

Allen’s Rating: 3.5 out of 5

Jim’s Rating: 3 out of 5

Highlights:

Mr. Clarinet 

Waving My Arms

Requisite 80’s Cover:

Cat Man – Originally a straightforward 50’s rockabilly song about a local lothario by Gene Vincent and His Blue Caps, this version comes loaded with palpable menace and the very real sense that the Cat Man is either a serial killer or a horrifying, hulking hybrid of man and cat.  Probably both. 

There’s a lot that’s confusing about this disc.

In 1980, this band changed its name from The Boys Next Door to The Birthday Party.  Depending on who you believe, that was either a nod to Harold Pinter’s play of the same name; a reference to a non-existent birthday party scene in Crime and Punishment; or because Nick Cave and Rowland S. Howard wanted to give the band a sense of celebration, occasion and ritual.

For whatever the reason, in 1982 the band’s 1980 output was rebranded under the new name and so The Boy’s Next Door’s The Birthday Party and their EP Hee Haw were combined simply as The Birthday Party.  That’s the record we have here.  Full disclosure, I did not parse the album out to separate the two originals.

On top of that, nobody can agree on what genre these guys travel in.  Now, I am not big fan of genres in general.  I find them to be an outdated construct that was useful in the record store days, but are increasingly meaningless in a world where music recommendations are driven mainly by algorithm. To prove my point, various sources list these guys as Alternative, Punk Rock, New Wave, Post-Punk, Avant-Garde, Experimental Rock, Garage Rock, Gothic Rock and Noise Music (that last one seems like they’re not even trying) and there is absolutely zero consensus.

I’m listing here them as No Wave partially because I find them reminiscent of bands like Swans, The Lounge Lizards, early Devo and early B-52’s, but mostly because I was skeptical Allen would accept a genre of “Fuck If I Know”.

Despite all of this confusion, a few things are unquestionable about this record.  The band—Cave, Howard, Mick Harvey, Tracy Pew and Phillip Calvert—know what they’re doing.  These songs are well crafted, genuinely unsettling and, once you get past the tinny guitars and angular percussion, catchy.  They do have a tendency to bleed one into another, but when they pop, they really pop.

“Mr. Clarinet”, the album opener and a song about unrequited love that seems destined to go imminently and violently wrong, is a good litmus test for the album as a whole.  If the atonal singing, chunky rhythms and gothic tone do not work for you, the rest of this album is going to be tough sledding.

My favorite track, “Waving My Arms”, is the closest these guys come to poppy and radio-friendly even though I’m pretty sure it’s a song about a guy who’s drowning and preparing himself to sleep for 50,000 years.

As a whole, I find this record uncomfortable.  Listening to it, I feel like I’m in the sub-basement of an ancient building, next to a boiler with a busted pressure valve.  The music feels oppressive, hot, sweaty and like the entire affair could explode violently at any moment.

That being said, after listening to this record a few times, I find myself humming Mr. Clarinet several times a day.  

I can’t say I’m pleased about that.

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1X8SOjl2G6uUNfKSmlgwn0?si=TwEQtLyiSLSST_eL5aiAyQ

The 1980 Listening Post - The Jam - Sound Affects

 The Jam - Sound Affects

Jim

sent

9 hours ago

#474

by Jim Erbe

The Jam Sound Affects Genre: Mod

Allen’s Rating: 4.5 out of 5 Jim’s Rating: 4.5 out of 5

Highlights: Pretty Green Set the House Ablaze Start! That’s Entertainment The Man in the Corner Shop Boy About Town “You aren’t going to like The Jam,” a new friend of mine told me that on the second day of college. We had known each other for less than a week, but had already become fast friends. We talked constantly. Sought each other out at mealtimes. We were tight. Now I know what you’re thinking, in that time, there is no way anyone could fully plumb the murky depths of my musical tastes, but still I took that advice to heart because: A) She was really cute. B) She seemed to really enjoy my company. C) I was eighteen so A and B were pretty much the only things that mattered. As a result, I have always maintained a fairly arm’s length relationship with The Jam. I’ve loved almost all of their singles but, in the back of my head, I knew The Jam were not for me. Forty years on and knowing half these songs by heart, I finally listened to Sound Affects for the first time. I should not have waited so long. The song writing here is top shelf. All songs are written by Paul Weller (except “Music for the Last Couple” which is credited to the entire band) and they are very strong. They run the gamut from the flashy BritPop of “Boy About Town” to the jangly funk of “Start!” to the old school punk rock of “Set the House Ablaze.” The songs are stylistically all over the map, but virtually all are exceptional. This album does suffer from some eighties production problems. The entire record sounds like the band was sealed in the metal vault, submerged and then recorded by a microphone sitting on the shore. It’s frustrating but not uncommon. On top of that, Side Two begins to feature some strange interstitial soundscapes between songs for <checks notes> no discernable reason. Because the vocal were so buried, I had to look up the lyrics--and an on-line guide to British slang (to figure out what the bloody hell a Fruit Machine is)—and I’m glad I did. The lyrics are very good. Exceptional, really. Divorced from the music, they almost read like poetry. A little bit of research later, that makes a great deal of sense. Weller apparently got very into the poetry of William Blake after the Setting Sons album and that drove his writing for the entire project. Weirdly, in another year Billy Bragg, also inspired by William Blake, would begin busking and calling himself William Bloke. So I guess the early eighties were a good time to be William Blake…except, you know, the whole dying 150 years earlier thing. Reading these lyrics separately, they are clever and welcoming. They have a deftness and nuance that is almost entirely lost under the muddy production. These are the songs of an angry, young Thatcher supporter who matured enough to realize that problems are more complex than he thought and change his worldview 180 degrees. These are the songs of a young man who sees despair and joy in the world around him equal measure. And these are the songs of a songwriter whose talent is pushing his bandmates just slightly beyond their ability. Paul Weller has called Sound Affects the best album The Jam ever produced, and I feel like the wording of that statement is very specific. I think that maybe he realized he had pushed The Jam as far as the idiom of Mod music go. He would try to push them further, with The Gift in 1982, which in retrospect sounds like a prototype for The Style Council. And while those sessions produced “A Town Called Malice” and “Beat Surrender”—two of my favorite singles—the process really frustrated Bruce Foxton and Rick Buckler, they couldn’t wait to return to form. After I listened to Sound Affects the first time, I decided I needed to hear it in context. I downloaded the entire Jam catalog and listened to it in order. Doing that you can hear Paul Weller growing up album to album. You can hear the songwriting becoming more complex. And you can hear that this album is The Jam reaching its absolute peak. You can hear that something drastic will be required for Weller to progress any further. It makes Weller’s move to The Style Council and then ultimately to a solo artist completely understandable, maybe even unavoidable. Also, there are way worse ways to spend an afternoon.

https://open.spotify.com/album/4DkUmnDgrkBTk1RGLCTZcb?si=l1fU21WxQ7GIqcsFk_VKYw

The 1980 Listening Post - Donovan - Neutronica

 Donovan - Neutronica

#335

by Jim Erbe

Donovan

Neutronica

Genre: Lazy 

Allen’s Rating: 1.5 out of 5

Jim’s Rating: 1.5 out of 5

Requisite ‘80’s Covers:

These both feel really obscure, but they are requisite so here goes…

“No Man’s Land,” originally recorded by Eric Bogle.  I had never heard of this song before and it was not included on the Apple Music version of this album, so I tracked it down for the sake of completeness and then listened to the original for the sake of comparison.  My takeaway…Donovan’s version is not as good and is literally endless. 

Also, “The Heights of Alma” is a cover of a traditional Irish song about the Crimean War.  I opted not to track down the original.  It’s better than “No Man’s Land” until it adds dozens of simulated fifes and makes a sharp turn to become the worst thing ever.

I was not prepared for this album.

I know very little about Donovan.  Coming into this, I knew maybe three songs and that he is Ione Skye’s dad.  That’s the sum total of my Donovan knowledge.

But I like folk music…a lot.  I grew up in a household where The Irish Rovers and Peter, Paul and Mary were big, fat, hairy deals.  And nowadays, I am perfectly happy interlacing Good Old War, The Mulligan Brothers and Old Crow Medicine Show in with the rest of my collection.  So, I figured whatever Donovan was up to in 1980 should be right up my alley.

Woof!  Like I said, I was not prepared for this album.

First of all, it kicks off with a disco song, “Shipwreck”.  And not good disco, we aren’t talking “Turn the Beat Around” or anything like that.  Nope, this is the type of disco song you’d expect from an episode of CHiPs where Ponch has to go undercover as a lounge singer. It’s straight trash.

I find myself laughing aloud when we get to chorus and Donovan belts out “Shipwrecked on the ocean of love/Sadness-bound, heartbreak ahoy”; assuming he is leaning into the corniness of the song and wrote the lyrics ironically.  But as the song progresses that phrase is repeated…a lot…and I begin to doubt that assessment.  .

Now, I am lyrics guy, I always have been.  I can appreciate a great hook or solo, but I will always favor a so-so song with great lyrics (I’m looking at you, Decemberists) over a musically outstanding song with uninspired lyrics.  That’s just the way I’m wired, sue me.

So it becomes obvious that Donovan and I are going to have a problem.  Musically, these songs are mediocre at best, the bulk of them are either a single guitar or a keyboard pretty much just plinking along with the lyrics and those lyrics...yikes!  They range from the frustratingly naïve--his protest song, “Neutron”, which is inexplicably a soft shoe number, describes bombs the way a child might “Neutron you’re a real estate bomb/the property stays and the people are gone”—to the just plain frustrating.  

“Mee Mee I Love You”, a song co-written by his eight-year-old daughter (not Ione Skye, the one who sells T-Shirts in Palm Springs), comes off as a song from a second grade musical version of Spike Jonze’s “Her”.   Maybe.  I’m speculating here because there aren’t enough lyrics to really figure out what the song is about.  But that extra “E” and the fact that there are only three lines and repeats them over and over again makes me feel like we’re dealing with a glitching computer.  

This song is the embodiment of what drives me crazy about this album.  Donovan is a talented guy, but this album just feels so…lazy,  The lyrics, the arrangements, all of it just seems like everyone put in the minimum effort required and nobody seemed to care about the results.  As a fundamentally lazy person, I get it…it’s just absolutely no fun to listen to.

In the mid 70’s my brother and his best friend set out to write a pop song that would make them rock stars.  They came up with two lines: “One, two, three, I love thee/Baby, oh, baby, oh, baby, oh.”  It’s not much of a song but it’s catchy as hell and it immediately became the stuff of Erbe Family legend.  We tease him about it to this day.  The funny thing is that that “song” would not feel out of place on this album.  I think there’s an excellent chance it would have actually 

been the lead single.

In summary, I was not prepared for this album, but I probably should have been.  I mean, Donovan himself warns you up top.  Sadness-bound, heartbreak ahoy indeed.   

I couldn’t have said it better myself.

https://open.spotify.com/album/0EJIVcEkteV9TSR4DkYzXo?si=eCpHXk9rTBCB9h2zR0P49w