A while back I posted on the Alarm as part of my ongoing series on bands of the 1980s. A friend of mine, Tony, commented that he remembered a recent incident involving a Milli-Vanilli-like “scam” of sorts in connection with a come-back of the Alarm. Now another reader (Jeff Fulton) of that post has supplied enough information that I could find some articles.

It turns out that, in an attempt to be heard as fresh blood and not as old-folks, the reincarnation of the Alarm (still with Mike Peters at its head) sent a single titled “45 RPM” to high-profile djs in the UK under the band-name “the Poppyfields” (in February 2004). The single began to get significant play as a lively, new, young, retro-punk band. As the following articles also mention, there was a video shot with young fill-ins to accompany the single, which ultimately did hit the UK charts. I couldn’t find that video online, but I did find a video of the Alarm performing “45 RPM” online that you are now listening to (if you clicked play above). Here are a couple of relatively reliable looking pages about it:

Wales Music: In the Poppyfields review

Babble and Beat: Interview with Mike Peters of the Alarm.

The official Alarm site has a few of the news reports about the 45 RPM “scam” posted, including two from Skynews here and here.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5HM0b_M-ToU

The first time I heard the band The Call, it was a tape of Modern Romans (1983) that my friend Sue lent to me. The tune you are listening to now, if you pressed play above, is “The walls came down” from that second album (and, yes, that is Garth Hudson, seated, on keyboards). I remember thinking how raw, direct, and (often) angry the album sounded, and I was intrigued enough to start listening to more (I was about 16 at the time).

I still listen to The Call’s albums and wonder why it is that, unlike some of their contemporaries, the band has been largely forgotten. Clearly they were talented, and their brand of alternative rock involved an interesting combination of musical influences. They also evolved over their career, shifting from this more basic and direct sound to a more mature and well-constructed musical style.

There were also clear signs that a good number of musicians appreciated The Call. Peter Gabriel liked them enough to ask them to open for his “Shock the monkey” tour, as the Wikipedia article points out. Gabriel, Bono of U2, and Jim Kerr of Simple Minds all offered backing vocals on certain albums. Garth Hudson of The Band played keyboards on thefirst few albums, and Robbie Robertson played guitars on the Reconciled (1986) album, which is among the best contributions of The Call.

The album Modern Romans (1983 [out of print and never released on CD]) was a politically charged album about the decadence and decline of western society using the image of debauched Romans (see cover) as the analogy. As a student of the Roman empire, I would not exactly subscribe to this picture of the actual Romans (see the post Golden rule: Do unto others according to the “pagans” or Apart from vomitoriums and orgies, what did the Romans do for us?). But as an album concept and critique of western society, it works. The song you are listening to offers a critique of militarism and Cold War politics in particular with an allusion to the falling walls of Jericho built into the song title and chorus:

Well they blew the horns
And the walls came down.
They’d all been warned
But the walls came down.
I don’t think there are any Russians
There ain’t no Yanks
Just corporate criminals
Playin’ with tanks.
(by Michael Been, 1983)

Although the first three albums have not been released on CD and are out of print, The Walls Came Down: The Best of the Mercury Years (out of print), which can still be found, gathers together the best of these first three.

After a slightly disappointing synthesizer-heavy Scene Beyond Dreams (1984), several excellent albums were to follow beginning with Reconciled (1986) with the better known “Everywhere I go”. There is a sense in which this album represents the maturation of the band. The quieter and more atmospheric Into the Woods (1987) is also a favourite of mine. The lyrics here are still quite serious, intense, and, at times, introspective, as in “It could have been me”:

It could have been me
Lying in that jungle
Out in that heat
Fighting for my life
Dying for nothin’
Feeling a bullet
enter my soul
It could have been me
It could have been me
It could have been me
Living in that prison
Locked in a cage
Damning the walls
Damn the division
Wondering why it had to be me
Well, it could have been you. . .
(by Michael Been, 1987 Neeb Music / Tarka Music).

The follow-up, Let the Day Begin (1989) brought the band momentarily into the spotlight with the title-track, which was number one for a while. However, I find the final album of this era, Red Moon (1990), among the best by this largely forgotten band.

The Band and Robertson also have an important page in the history of rock and roll due to their work with Bob Dylan during the tomato-throwing switch-over to electric in the tour of 1965-66 (following on Highway 61 Revisited, with “Like a Rolling Stone”). Also legendary are the tunes they recorded with Dylan in The Basement Tapes (1975), which were recorded in the same era as Dylan’s Planet Waves (1974), also with The Band.

Secondly, Robertson’s first solo piece is significant for collaborations with two soon-to-be superstar icons and a then up-and-coming Canadian producer. In 1986, Peter Gabriel was recording the most popular album of his career, So (1986). Gabriel’s backing vocals for “Fallen Angel” on Robertson’s album made this one of the most memorable pieces on this release. Also in 1986, U2 was recording its monumental The Joshua Tree (1987), and U2 joined Robertson on two main tunes: “Sweet fire of love” and “Testimony”. The collaboration of both Gabriel and U2 likely had something to do with the fact that Robertson’s album was co-produced with Daniel Lanois, who was the main producer for both So and The Joshua Tree. Lanois left his mark on all three albums, which do have the bass-heavy and atmospheric feel characteristic of most Lanois productions (which I like).

“Sweet fire of love” is the better of the collaborations with U2, I would say. The song is heavily marked by the presence of U2. The song opens with the clear, syncopating echo of The Edge’s guitar and Bono soon starts to supply a counterpoint to Robertson’s intense musical cries. It’s not long before Bono is the lead and Robertson supplies the counterpoint. Throughout, the drumming style of Larry Mullen is unmistakable, and the walking bass of Adam Clayton is noticeable as well. Very well done is Robertson’s own guitar playing as the song closes, which complements and duels with the Edge. Bono’s cries of “sweet fire of love” help make this song what it is.

Read more about Robbie Robertson and about The Band (the photo of Robertson above is from that excellent site).

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The release of the remastered edition of Joshua Tree (original 1987) is coming up in a few days and the 2 or 3 disc editions (“deluxe” and “superdeluxe”) include the original B-sides, along with a few previously unreleased songs. One of these songs is “Wave of Sorrow” which, as Bono explains, is based on Bono and his wife’s time working in Ethiopia during famine. In this video (from ILike.com) Bono explains the song and even does his own impromptu performance of it!

I’m looking forward to the remastered edition. The Toronto Exhibition Joshua Tree tour performance is still burned in my memory, so this will all bring back very good memories. It’s hard to believe 20 years have passed! I think I’m still 18.

A 1982 live version of Rhythm of the Heat from YouTube

By haunted, I don’t mean in the halloween sense, but in the sense of losing your self entirely to the spirits, of losing your very soul. One of the most haunting and experiential songs I know of is Peter Gabriel’s “Rhythm of the Heat” on his fourth album (also known as Security; © 1982 The David Geffen Company). The low quality live version are listening to now may not do justice to the song, but it is better than nothing. You’ll have to listen to a high quality version of the entire piece (preferably on your own in the complete dark and with the volume considerably high) to understand the full emotional effect of Gabriel’s brilliant work here.

The complete tune opens up slowly with an initial cry by Gabriel and some mysterious distorted voices. The drum beat begins to slowly build at this point, moving towards the first climactic cries of “The rhythm is around me. The rhythm has control. The rhythm is inside me. . . The rhythm has my soul!!” (© 1982 Peter Gabriel Ltd).

Now the drums are incredibly heavy but still slow, backed by a repetitive chant of “the rhythm of the heat” that evokes spirits, or is it demons. The bass and drum combination is now so intense that it brings chills. There’s a hesitation in the song as it quietens, seemingly bringing relief from the intensity. Quietly: “Smash the radio. . . smash the watch. . . smash the camera (cannot steal away the spirits). The rhythm is around me. The rhythm has control. The rhythm is inside me. The rhythm has my soul!” Following on this second wild, piercing, sustained cry, the song now breaks out into an onslaught of African style drumming (by the Ekome Dance Company) that seems to never end. You cannot escape it. The rhythm has your soul.

In some ways, the Surdo and Ghanaian drum sections in this piece indicate Gabriel’s future direction into world music, which would climax, in a way, in his soundtrack, Passion (1989) for The Last Temptation of Christ. That album is saturated with the sounds of the Middle East in particular, but also Africa. Gabriel ultimately founded a record company and studio, called Real World, devoted to promoting bands and music from around the globe, particularly from “developing” countries.

Where did this haunting song, “The Rhythm of the Heat”, come from?

Gabriel’s song is based, in large part, on psychologist C.G. Jung’s autobiographical description of a nocturnal ritual dance (the n’goma) among villagers in the Sudan (in Africa). Carl Jung (1875-1961), as you may or may not know, was an influential psychologist and student of Sigmund Freud. In the autobiographical interviews collected in Memories, Dreams, Reflections (New York: Vintage Books, 1961), Jung outlines his own fears of the local villagers in a particular area of the Sudan, that, to him, seemed less welcoming than those in previous African villages.

Sixty men, along with women and children, gathered together and lit fires before beginning what Jung labels “savage singing, drumming, and trumpeting” (p. 271). Jung expresses that “I did not know whether I ought to feel pleased or anxious about this mass display”, a statement which reveals a tension to which I turn below. So the uncomfortable Jung decided to join in the dancing, however hesitantly, and was somewhat comforted to notice the approval he received from the villagers for doing so.

As time passed, Jung reports, “the rhythm of the dance and the drumming accelerated” (p. 271). Here Jung begins to reveal his fears in noting that “the natives easily fall into a virtual state of possession. That was the case now. As eleven o’clock approached, their excitement began to get out of bounds. . . The dancers were being transformed into a wild horde, and I became worried about how it would end” (p. 271).

In reading these autobiographical remembrances that inspired Peter Gabriel’s song, I was struck by the tension within Jung’s own description of his experiences in the Sudan. On the one hand, his trip was ostensibly one of studying the human psyche in what he considered its more “primitive”, not-yet-conscious form, something he describes as a “primal darkness” that will only meet light with the dawning of psychological consciousness (something he believed was possessed by the psyches of Europeans). And so Jung seemingly explains away his fear of the possessive tribal dance as a fear of dying by being accidentally stabbed by the swords of the fully involved tribal members in their ecstatic, “possessed” stage. It is a down to earth fear, so he claims.

On further investigation, on the other hand, it seems that his fear may be a fear of becoming part of this collective psychological experience, a concept that he himself had developed in reference to some supposed universal human psychological makeup, and a fear of losing his soul to the possession of the tribal beat. This, I believe, is what Gabriel saw as well. For Jung concludes his story of the tribal dance with a statement of his own profound, personal experiences in Africa. For, as Jung states:

“I had undertaken my African adventure with the secret purpose of escaping from Europe and its complex problems. . . The trip revealed itself as less an investigation of primitive psychology. . . than a probing into the rather embarrassing question: What is going to happen to Jung the psychologist in the wilds of Africa? . . . It became clear to me that this study had been not so much an objective scientific project as an intensely personal one, and that any attempt to go deeper into it touched every possible sore spot in my own psychology” (p. 273).

Here, then, was the “advanced” European academic in fear of having his soul stolen by the “rhythm of the heat”, and yet unable to come to terms with his own fear and unable to analyze himself fully, let alone the supposedly “primitive” villagers.

Happy Halloween.

Peter Gabriel’s official website can be found here. Real World Records can be found here.

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One band that very few seem to remember (at least in North America), even if they were teenagers in the 1980s, is The Alarm (full discography). The Alarm was a contemporary of both U2 and Simple Minds, and there was a fair bit of interaction among members of all three of these bands in the early 80s. Bono was known to appear on stage at Alarm concerts, and vice versa for Mike Peters, the lead singer of The Alarm. The Alarm opened for U2′s War tour in 1983. There was a sense in which The Alarm was Wales’ U2, Simple Minds was Scotland’s U2, and, well, U2 was Ireland’s U2.

All three bands were punk-influenced (as is clear in the Alarm tune you are listening to now and the cover of Declaration [1984] to your right) with a touch of new wave and a Joy-Division-like somberness at times. All formed and began recording in the late 1970s or early 80s. All were played on “alternative” stations, such as CFNY (now “the Edge”) here in the Toronto area.

By 1983, both U2 and the Alarm were known for their politically-charged anthems. U2 and the Alarm were also known as excellent, lively concert performers. I can remember how overwhelmed I felt at one particular Alarm concert at Massey Hall when I was about 16 or 17. The energy at an Alarm concert was hard to match!

Although there are similarities among the three, each nonetheless had its distinctive character (and I’m not just talking about the Alarm’s regretful hair-dos). While U2 went on to mass stardom and Simple Minds continues to have radio play (on retro stations) as a result of their hits (such as “Alive and Kicking”), The Alarm is largely forgotten here in North America. This is the case even though Mike Peters has continued to record both under his own name and with bands such as Coloursound, along with members of the Cult (Bill Duffy) and the Mission (Craig Adams). Most recently, Peters has now formed a new Alarm (official site here — a video will start playing), called “Alarm MMVI”, which charted in the UK with “Superchannel”. The loss of memory of the Alarm is unjustified in some ways.

Listen as you read: “Eye of the Hurricane” (audio snippet)

The Alarm quite quickly progressed from the very basic, punk-influenced marches (and, yes, you can march to just about every early Alarm track) of 1983′s self-titled EP to a more well-refined alternative sound by 1987′s Eye of the Hurricane (© IRS). There are also continuities, though, in the sense that from beginning to end the Alarm had an intriguing sound marked by a combination of both acoustic and electric sounds (harmonica was not uncommon). The new incarnation of the Alarm XXVI harkens back to the 1983 sound more so than 1987, by the way, with its more direct, garage-band sound.

In some ways, the Strength (1985) album was a clear transition from the earlier, more basic sound which was still heard in “Sixty-Eight Guns” (on Declaration [1984]), to the more refined and produced sound of Eye of the Hurricane. This fourth album seemed promising in breaking the band to a larger audience, and it did so to some degree. The single “Rain in the summertime” which you are listening to now did get considerable radio play at the time and hit #6 on the US charts, according to the Wikipedia article. It was a bit harder to get Alarm concert tickets as a result. The album is an interesting combination of acoustic and electric as expected, and yet synthesizers were added and stand out quite prominently here (understandable for 1987). Two more, commercially less-successful albums followed (Change [1989] and Raw [1991]) before the group disbanded. As mentioned, Mike Peters continues to record but is basically unknown in North America, and he has remixed all of the Alarm CDs, adding b-sides and other rareties to each.

UPDATE: Little did I know, but it seems that there have been two, recent documentary-style reality shows by the BBC that follow the daily family life and struggles (including the struggle with cancer) of Mike Peters and his wife and two children. Go to the Alarm “news” section: The Peters’ Family BBC Documentary.

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The times they are a changin’ endin’: Bob Dylan’s apocalypse

Satanic conspiracies of the 1970s and 1980s (dealing with the supposed and real cases of back-masking)

“Me and the Devil Blues”: Robert Johnson and the crossroads

Pink Floyd, Pompeii, and the Mysteries of Dionysos

I was lucky enough to find one of Peter Gabriel‘s lesser known albums at the local record store in Waterloo (“Orange Monkey”). After leaving the then well-known Genesis to pursue his solo career in the mid 1970s, Gabriel went on to create a number of interesting and somewhat experimental albums. For full discography and other info, visit Peter Gabriel’s own official website www.petergabriel.com.

Gabriel’s experimentation went beyond many other contemporaries in that he decided to release his third album (known as “Melt” — none of Peter Gabriel’s first four albums had a title) simultaneously in both English and German, with the subtitle “ein deutsches album (a german album)” (© 1980 Charisma Records Ltd.). This was to be the first of two albums released in this way (the second is known as “Security” 1982).

The German version of Melt is especially interesting if you are familiar with the already excellent album in English. Suddenly things sound new and more intriguing again with the German lyrics. The famous “Games without frontiers” becomes “Spiel ohne Grenzen” and, appropriate to the song, “Du bist nicht wie wir” sounds a little more intimidating in German than “Not one of us”.

With this first German album, Gabriel stuck with the same basic musical tracks and made only modest adjustments here and there, so that the instrumentation sounds mostly identical to the English version. One change that was made is in the song in honour of the anti-apartheid activist Stephen Bantu Biko (who died in police custody in September 1977). Here Gabriel substituted a different African song as the lead-in. You can listen to a cleaned-up snippet of this tune here, which will also give you a taste for the German: “Biko” (audio snippet) There are other audio samples from the album on Peter Gabriel’s own site here.

In his next German album of 1982 (Security), however, he was to rework arrangements of the music more considerably. That one’s harder to find in vinyl and I’m anxious to get a hold of it soon. Don’t you dare buy a copy in the Toronto area!

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