T. Valentine's R&B Sleaze; A Greatest-Hits Package from Blur? Solo Music by One of Those Deee Lite Creeps
The history of recorded music is peppered with legends-that-never-were, but few of them are as intriguing as Thurmon "T." Valentine. Like Rudy Ray Moore, also the subject of a recent exhumation by Norton, Valentine was the essence of r&b sleaze in the day and age when the "chitlin circuit" was a reality and black artists?and blacks in general?didn't exactly have a lot of choices. For an artist like Valentine, who, by the sounds of it, really believed in what he was doing?so much so he sounds like a nut on occasion?there was nothing to do but cut a side or two and wait for fame to befall him. When it didn't, it was back to the loading dock.
Like Rudy Ray, his nearest contemporary, Valentine was competing in the r&b stakes and producing and recording his own material. But it was just too raw and eccentric?not to mention underexposed?ever to catch on. Recordings were sporadic, but the ones he waxed were monumental examples of licentious intent and poor taste (the essence of rock 'n' roll, in other words). This compilation collects virtually everything he ever did, right up to some fairly recent recordings. The guy's "career" has spanned more decades than the Grateful Dead's and almost as many as BB King's. How many other artists can you say that about?
The real vintage material was cut in the years 1961-1967, and it's amazing stuff. Like Rudy Ray, Valentine munches on other people's material for breakfast, bastardizing songs like Howlin' Wolf's "Do the Do" and claiming it as his own. But, on the other hand, I think it's safe to say that no one could duplicate Valentine's own unique style. On "Betty Sue," for instance, he yells with the reckless abandon of Iggy years before the Iguana slithered out of the Motor City. And on "Teen-Age Jump" he proves himself as ample an improvising wordsmith as Dylan, with the same kind of wheezing delivery. Every song is basically the same anyway: the same 50s/60s jump blues beat with great rattling piano and T. mouthing a bunch of smut.
A lot of this could come under the category of "novelty" material (like "Little Lu-Lu Frog" for instance). "Massius Ray" poked obvious fun at Muhammad Ali when he was still the champ. Valentine assumes a weird falsetto to mock Ali, and has him eventually pleading with Uncle Sam: "Don't send me to Vietnam! I'll stop talking so much!"
But by far Valentine's greatest "novelty" record?the one that earned him his legend?was "Hello Lucille Are You a Lesbian?" Released in 1985, "Lucille," like a lot of punk records, represents the kind of freedom a recording artist can enjoy if he or she is not tied like a mule to the fascist practices of the modern recording industry. So here was Thurmon driving his van or whatever, delivering photographs, which was his gig at the time, and he heard this song called "Johnny Are You Queer?" by this L.A. new-wave chanteuse named Josie Cotton. He figured: "Hey, if they can get away with that, I can write something similar from the male point of view." (And, like Rudy Ray, the "male" point of view was something T. Valentine always stood for.) So the man sat down and wrote "Hello Lucille Are You a Lesbian?" supposedly about his ex-wife, who actually was named Lucille but was not a lesbian. This is one of the most insane recordings of all time, as T. lays down a laundry list of "symptoms" as if to confirm his worst suspicions: "She always wears pants/I've never seen her in a dress or skirt/When we go out we're like two men together/She don't have any tits!" Etc. Then it gets hairy: "Why you lesbian! You damn freak! I hate all lesbians!"
This was 1985. Can you imagine what the p.c. hordes would say now? If it weren't for this album, we wouldn't even know this record ever existed, and that would be a real tragedy?because it would be just another step toward the pasteurization of everything. T. Valentine cannot be pasteurized! Excellent Nick Tosches liner notes complete the package.
Joe S. Harrington
God, a greatest-hits package from Blur? Can the second British Invasion be nostalgic to anyone yet? Was 1994 that long ago? Have all the fans grown up? In Philadelphia there's a Britpop party called Sorted that I used to frequent last year, and you could always count on a rave-up "Song 2" or "Parklife" after everyone had cashed their drink tickets. It seemed like there was still extension left in the long bones, but a greatest-hits album means either ossification or a contractual obligation to fulfill, and either can indicate a band calling it quits.
Since Blur's been known on these shores only in the wake of the foolishly epochal Oasis, it's easy to forget that their debut album Leisure was released in 1991. They've released five albums since, including the remarkable Parklife and 13, so given the band's relative longevity (remember Shed Seven, another Britpop group tattered on the coral reefs of American radio?) and notable vitality a case can be made for cobbling together some of Blur's best tracks. They've always been much more of a phenomenon in their native country, so The Best of can catch you up on their sleek, angular and creative modern rock if your familiarity with Blur peters after "woo-hoo."
Blur's not a band to build a cult around, and while Bust's Betty Boob pegged it when she said 13 was a superlative breakup album, the band tends to make great isolated songs instead of great cohesive albums. The Great Escape and Blur didn't match Parklife as masterful start-to-finish discs. Blur often seems interested in picking up on different themes in pop effluvia to narrow their focus, and there isn't much logical sinew connecting "Tracy Jacks" to "Music Is My Radar." It took Elastica's Justine Frischmann dumping singer Damon Albarn to give the group identifiable direction. No more weird or kitschy horns, just nicotine breath and unwashed hair. It's too bad 13 songs like "B.L.U.R.E.M.I." or "Trailerpark" didn't make this album, but dwelling on melodrama is unbecoming for a multifaceted rock group.
On second thought, I have to dwell on the absence of "B.L.U.R.E.M.I." Much of what makes Blur a great band is their wry humor, evident on Best of tracks like "She's So High" and "Country House." But the aforementioned song was a perfect kick in the teeth, a joke betraying something sinister. Albarn takes his anger out on Frischmann by making fun of Elastica's Wire fixation, writing a better Wire ripoff than Elastica ever has, and asking for "a loop/from another pop group." Nevertheless, you get piss-takes like "Girls and Boys," "The Universal" and the hilarious "Parklife," where a Cockney slob leads an unexamined life for our benefit.
But subject matter is insufficient for a good song (witness Le Tigre's missed opportunity, "Dude Yr So Crazy"). Blur's a legitimately talented hook band, with Graham Coxon's masterfully infectious guitar leading tracks like "Beetlebum," "This Is a Low," "On Your Own" and of course "Song 2" into the rock apotheosis of car commercials. They also don't skimp on rhythm, letting drummer Dave Rowntree get wicked like few others playing today. Not a band to study, but a solid one that merits repeated listens without feeling stupid afterward?no small compliment.
The second disc gives a forgettable run-through of the live Blur experience, and the poor mix and intercalary banter seem like a cheap promotional trailer for the next time the lads visit your town. But I hope they aren't going to disband before I get to see them for myself.
Spencer Ackerman
Eleven songs recorded in one week. Eleven songs created by schoolyard insurrectionists with one eye on the Huggy Bear action with names like Miss CC Rider (drums), Miss Spent Youth (vocals) and Rock Action (vocals). Eleven songs that all start with lines like "Do you believe in rock 'n' roll/Do you believe that music can save your soul?" and sound like Johnny Thunders if he'd ever swapped the needle for a stylus, or indeed a lollipop. Eleven songs created by wannabe kids with a crush on arch cuties Heavenly, with a crush on that stuttering boy singer from Oakland's PeeChees, with a crush on any 60s girl who ever wore panda mascara and high-heeled boots and sung tales of boyfriends dying in motorcycle crashes. Eleven songs that prove that even in the year 2000 London bands can sneer and pout and pretend to be dead wicked like Iggy's mob being given the once-over by a gang of Teenage Girl Debs.
I like it, but hell, I like any album that boasts a song title like "Mods vs. the Rockers."Versus the World sounds like all of the following rolled into one: Comet Gain, the Shangri-Las, Trixie's Big Red Motorbike, Ramones, New York Dolls...and so on. Only not that good, obviously. The opening, "Soul on Ice," lifts from the Cramps' version of "Surfin' Bird" directly, and singer Jack Duvall doesn't sound like Stiv Bators as much as he does the early camp, soulful mannerisms of Stephan Pastel. "Blues pt. 2" is saddened girl nirvana. There's nothing new here that fans of this music won't have heard a thousand times already, but hey! We all like a little reassurance sometimes, and there's something so comforting about this music, in all the deliberately off-key vocals and jumbled, articulate words. "(We're Just) Killing Time," for example, is a sweet rejoinder to the 9-to-5 work culture, not nasty at all.
The Action Time should be a shoo-in if Nick Hornby ever wanted to front a pop group. They trace a direct lineage between all the Blackboard Jungle bands from the High Numbers to Mambo Taxi, between Russ Meyer and Calvin Johnson, from Josie and the Pussycats to Sabrina the Teenage Witch. This is cult tv transferred to vinyl and given a distinctive International Pop Underground coating. I like it.
Everett True
It's always seemed weird that of the three Deee-Lite musicians it's the charismatic, long-legged Lady Miss Kier who would eventually fall off the face of the Earth while the two immigrant-chic DJ/producers, Towa Tei and Supa DJ Dmitry, would go on to have full-blown solo careers. Since Deee-Lite's demise, Miss Kier has made a few spotty appearances spinning cheesy house records on the B-list club circuit (unfortunately looking rather haggardly, too), but it's been the electronic bossa nova, club-lounge records of Tei and the underground rave party deejaying of Dmitry that's kept the group's legacy alive.
Four years after the breakup of Deee-Lite, Dmitry finally releases a mix LP featuring the hard, uptempo house he spins at parties. The 18 adeptly mixed tracks are deeply indebted to the old school in this teeth-gnashing affair, obviously aimed at those sweating their brains out on E. The journey begins with a Sud & Jacques tribal house tune replete with timbas and an Eastern-sounding flute solo. Sure, it's been a while since tribal house was en vogue, but the intense kick drum and sustained trippiness provided by his record's constant bleeping, chirping and phasing manages to keep things sounding fresh. And the production value of the music has come a long way since the first time we were introduced to acid house, which keeps the Josh Wink/2 Bald Men tandem?in which he bleeds Ursula Rucker's cocky, Chicago house diva discussion of gravity on the "Sixth Sense" into the skittering voice sample and repeating refrain of "acid, acid, acid phonk" on "Acid Phonk"?from sounding embarassingly 1988. And the interspersing of the old-school styles with tracks like Tube Jerk's spastic videogame-noise-flavored "Eight" and the 70s-funk/disco house on "Harvey's Sudden Impact Dub Mix" of Super Collider's "Darn" keeps you on your toes anyway.
Dmitry can't compete with guys like Sasha, Digweed or Armand Van Helden when it comes to spinning the newest stuff on the market. Most of the records in this mix are at least a year old. But the other thing those superstar DJs are known for is having raised the bar for the perfect, seamless mixing of records, and Dmitry rarely keeps a song on for more than three minutes before mixing in the next one, bringing a schizophrenic, rapid-fire feel to the mix and making his clean mixing all the more impressive.
After cranking through about 40 minutes of intense, uptempo dancefloor tracks by the likes of Luke Slater, Dahlback and even a Timo Maas tune, Dmitry throws on some of his own tracks, which unfortunately are the weakest on the record. The only possible reason Dmitry created the ironically titled seven-minute montage-of-styles track "Singularity" was to use it as a vehicle to blend in and out of the extremely boring drum and bass he's created and buried in between the four-to-the-floor rhythms that lead him in and out. Even weaker still is his dance music version of "Space Oddity," which is exactly the stupid mistake you'd guess it is. He wraps things up strongly, however, with the inclusion of his awesome 1990 remix of Deee-Lite's "What Is Love?" which floats Lady Miss Kier's dreamy vocals on top of a whirlpool of swirling house breaks, jazzy bass and analog blurps. Very Deee Groovy...
Mike Bruno