Dire Straits: Brothers in Arms

Dire Straits: Brothers in Arms

1985

Warner Bros. Records

Format I Own it on: Vinyl

Track Listing: 1. So Far Away  2. Money for Nothing  3. Walk of Life  4. Your Latest Trick  5. Why Worry  6. Ride Across the River  7. The Man's Too Strong  8. One World  9. Brothers in Arms



Welcome to another fine episode of 1985 Theater...Today's episode details the trials and tribulations of an everyday Yuppie set against the backdrop of the CD Revolution...It's called "CD or Not CD"...Enjoy....

Yuppie: Hey, honey...I'm gonna drive my Beemer down to Fretter's and pick up one of those new CD Players...

 My portfolio performed quite well this week and I think I'm going to splurge a little...Pick up a bit of coke from Julio, maybe a couple of Bartles & Jaymes from the party store and listen to some Compact Discs...I don't really like music, but CD's are a thing now, so I guess I better throw away my dusty old vinyl copy of "The Eagles Greatest Hits Vol. 2"...Goodbye outdated old records...

 *SMASH!!!*

(smashes vinyl record, pisses on the shattered pieces, curses Thomas Edison's mother)

RECORDS??!!?! HAHAHA WHAT'R THOSE?!?!?! I ONLY LISTEN TO COMPACT DISCS!!!!

 
What if  Marlene finds out about my affair?  Play it cool, hotshot...Like Tom Cruise in "Risky Business" (flips up collar, puts on shades)...Maybe she doesn't know... 

(Pulls into Fretter Appliance)

Salesman: Welcome to Fretter's Appliace...This week we have the semi-annual "Try to Better Fretter" sale, where we take 25% off the leading competitor's...

Yuppie: LAY OFF ME, MAN!!! I'VE GOT A LOT OF HEAVY SHIT ON MY MIND!! I'M ABOUT TO LOSE MY SHIRT ON THE BULL MARKET AND MARLENE DOESN'T EVEN KNOW!!!  SHE'S PROBABLY BOOKING A $10,000 WEEKEND AT CAPE COD AS WE  SPEAK!!!! I"M FUCKED, MAN!!! FUUUUUUCKED!!!!  I was interested in a CD Player, actually...What do you suggest?

Salesman: Well, we have the Phillips CD650, which is one of our most popular models...This particular machine features digital filtration to enhance sound reproduction, ultra high-speed track-to-track access,  personal programming features, plus I hear that if you take it apart you can turn the laser into some sort of death ray, which may come in handy when you're battling mutants for gasoline after Gorbachev decides to drop the big one...

Yuppie: I'll take two...Oh, and what are the hot CD's now?

Salesman: Lessie...If you're into rock, we have Phil Collin's "No Jacket Required"...

Yuppie: I don't agree with his politics...I personally believe a jacket should ALWAYS be required...What else you got?

Salesman: If you're into the heavier rock, we have "Songs from the Big Chair" by Tears for Fears...We have Whitney Houston if you like more ethnic, urban, soul music..."Brothers In Arms" by Dire Straits is pretty hot too...Although, if you're really into having your skull blown off in an ear-shredding orgy of lysergic bliss we have "Bring Me the Head of Yuri Gagarin" by fucking Hawkwind, dude...

Yuppie:  Wait, wait, wait...What was the one before that?

 Salesman: Oh, Dire Straits..."Brothers in Arms"...Yea, me and the old lady fuck to it all the time...Hot, hot album...Clean, man...Clear...You get some good coke and you can just blow to this all night...

Yuppie: Sounds fantastic, Al...Wrap it up for me...

 Salesman: But, but...My name is Kevin...

Yuppie: Just ring it up, Shit-Fer-Brains...

Salesman: Alright, that'll be Nine Thousand Dollars..

Yuppie: No sweat...Put it on plastic...

Salesman: All right, here you go, Sir...

                                                (hands over 9-foot long CD longbox)

(Drives home, hooks up CD Player...Puts on "Brothers in Arms")

Yuppie: My God!! Listen to that! The crystalline sound quality really brings out the empty, hollow, plastic production...It's like Mark Knopfler is noodling away right in my living room...No annoying scratches, pops  or warmth...Just pristine digital flatness as far as the ear can hear...

Hey, honey...

Yes, Dear?

After hearing the Dire Straits song "Brothers in Arms," I decided to start worrying about wars and stuff...

Oh, that's great...

I think I might even buy the "We Are the World" album...Y'know...Make a difference...

Before you do that, I want you to know I know all about you and your Secretary. I want a divorce...Give me half and we can mostly keep this out of court...

 THE BITCH WANTS HALF?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!


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Alright...That's all we have today for 1985 Theater...Hope you enjoyed today's episode...Oh, yea I might as well devalue the penny and toss in my two-cents on Dire Straits monster breakthrough "Brothers in Arms"...

A few days ago I talked about how boring I thought this album was when I first laid ears on it somewhere in the 90's, but now it's probably my favorite album by the band...This might be attributable to the fact that the vinyl version I have is edited down from the bloated CD track-listing...So endless, sprawling fuckarounds suddenly become succinct pop...And  Mark's finds a way to make his vocal melodies actually go somewhere,  front-loading the album with a big ol' pile of classic 80's pop singles...It takes my ears a minute to adjust to the big, empty soundscape but once I'm acclimated, "So Far Away" reveals itself as endlessly catchy subdued pop and "Walk of Life" has that life-affirming organ hook going for it...

But the big hit here was "Money For Nothing" which was inescapably huge at the time...Probably due to the video which was the first time a lot of folks really got to see some computer animation...

"Woah, it's so amazingly...square!!!" Anyway, as a kid watching it on Friday Night Videos, I was sure as hell sold....

Or it might have something to do with Sting...Who knows...Nonetheless, it's an 80's landmark...With the driest guitar tone possible and the memorable lyrics where Mark assumes the character of a blue-collar working man, talking trash on the strange new breed of MTV superstars that were emerging at the time...The right sound and the right subject matter at the right time...Lightning in a bottle...

The rest of the album reverts back to the band's default mode of moody, slow-mo atmospherics but there's some really varied and enjoyable stuff... "Your Latest Trick" is awesomely cheesy with that David Sanborn-esque smooth-jazz sax riff...Real dentist chair pop...It's also interesting to hear the band tackle world-music on "Ride Across the River"...It's really no surprise this thing shot to the top of the charts...Dire Straits always had an interesting sound and Mark had an interesting way of painting detailed landscapes with his lyrics, but their melodies almost always tended to be a bit amorphous or blurry...But everything is in sharp focus here, as Mark decides to throw radio programmers a bone for once...(Well, twice if you count "Sultans of Swing" seven years earlier)...I say start here unless you're a real atmosphere/guitar-noodle head...

Anyway, here's that "Money For Nothing" by Dire Straits...Enjoy....

Dire Straits: Alchemy

Dire Straits: Alchemy

1984

Warner Bros.

Format I Own it on: Vinyl

Track Listing: 1. Once Upon a Time in the West  2. Romeo and Juliet  3. Expresso Love  4. Private Investigations  5. Sultans of Swing  6. Two Young Lovers  7. Tunnel of Love  8. Telegraph Road  9. Solid Rock  10. Going Home


I think I've talked about this in the past, but I love double-live records...Love everything about them...The sprawling gatefolds, the live energy, the extended guitar/drum solos...Listening to a live album should be an event, where by the time you reach the run-out groove on side four you're both satisfied and slightly exhausted...A marathon listen...And no double-live record makes you feel every one of those 80-plus minutes than "Alchemy"...

It's almost as if time itself stops while you're bumping this thing....Slow, ponderous songs routinely stretch past the 13-minute mark, moodily noodling away into infinity as Mark Knopfler fingers new-agey, Spanish-tinged guitar solos and  mumbles in the distance...The Rock and Roll equivalent of one of those CD's of nothing but recordings of rainfalls...It's all beautifully performed, though. They have a highly-developed knack for dynamics. Just when you're about to nod off during "Private Investigations," suddenly they toss in a thunderous DAH-NAH that brings you back in...This sense of dramatic timing is ultimately responsible for this album falling under the "relaxing and immersive" category and narrowly avoiding the "boring" tag...

They toss in a few rockers though...Of course, "Sultans of Swing" is on here, in a sprawling 10-minute arrangement (although Mark sounds like he's about to fall asleep on the mic (which is somehow compelling))...The "rock" is somewhat muted by the interesting choice of mixing Mark's guitar 10 times louder than everything else...

Disc two is definitely the superior experience...It doesn't seem quite so bogged down...Tracks like "Solid Rock" and "Two Young Lovers" (swingin' 50's rock in the style of Jerry Lee Lewis) get the adrenalin up enough that when you get to the finely detailed epic "Telegraph Road," you can fully enjoy the view, as opposed to Disc One's approach of lulling you into a stupor with all the languid atmosphere...Or maybe my ears finally adjusted by that point (Remind me to listen to the second disc first next time...Maybe that will change my view)...Anyway, after a few listens I realized "Telegraph Road" is some ruling shit...I'd always heard the title and immediatley thought of the road in Detroit (in my beautiful original home state of Michigan)...

But nahhh, he couldn't have been talking about Detroit...There was probably a Telegraph Road in England or something...It was hard to make out the quietly rasped lyrics...But on closer listen it's got to be about D-Town...A cold, hard portrait of closed factories, rivers of headlights and terminal unemployment...Yup, that's Detroit all right...They could have worked in a verse about random gunshots and pantsless bums for added authenticity, but it's evocative as is...Still, I wonder what would happen if someone wrote a song about Detroit that wasn't all doom and gloom...Would the world explode? Who knows...

I think they put out a video of this full "Alchemy" performance...I haven't seen it, but I'd absolutely be interested...These old Dire Straits guys weren't so bad...Still this is one of those albums I have to  reeeeeaaaaaaalllllllly be in the mood to listen to, since it doesn't exactly deliver the live jolt that a "Live & Dangerous" or "Kiss Alive!" do...This is some serious end-of-the day music...When you're at home, in your casual-wear khaki's, kicking back with a wine cooler...Real Grown-up music...Although, I do have to say it went down a lot easier when I broke it up over two successive nights...

Hey, waitaminute! It's Friday Night! We made it through another week! Let's bust out the wine coolers and listen to all 13 minutes of "Telegraph Road"!

Dire Straits: Dire Straits

Dire Straits: Dire Straits

1978

Warner Bros.

Format I Own it on: Vinyl

Track Listing: 1. Down to the Waterline  2. Water of Love  3.Setting Me Up  4. Six Blade Knife  5. Southbound Again  6. Sultans of Swing  7. In the Gallery  8. Wild West End  9. Lions  



I grew up distantly familiar with Dire Straits...Just like every other child of the 80's I  was transfixed by the "Money For Nothing" video...

...and I'm sure I caught "Sultans of Swing" on FM radio here and there but never really thought much about it...One summer day I was babysitting at my Brother's house and I noticed he had the obligatory copy of "Brothers in Arms" that seemed to be standard issue in the 80's... Out of sheer boredom I tossed it on the stereo...Was I blown away by Mark Knopfler's zeitgeist-capturing masterwork? Ummm, kinda...When the album didn't PUT ME TO SLEEP!!'

So I kept to the hits and never really gave much thought to their full-lengths...My wife is a bigger Dire Straits fan than I, and asked why we didn't have any DS in the collection, so one day at FYE I found a copy of the band's first album for a buck or two and picked it up...I figured if I found their later work a little sleep-inducing  maybe their earlier material would be more lively...It was recorded in '78 when British punk was in full rage, so surely this album must have surely picked up a bit of punk fire by sheer cultural osmosis, right?




Uhhh, wrong...It's certainly dry, stripped down and spare in the manner of punk and there might be mutual ties to pub rock but that's about it...This is measured, highly-skilled, relax-rock with lots of blues/jazz/country touches...I have to give Mark Knopfler a lot of credit...It takes balls and talent to solo using his clean, clear-as-a-bell tone...If there was a single flaw it would take a split-second to spot it, but he's always dead-on...Noodling cleanly and efficiently like a finely-tuned machine...I imagine if you're into guitar noodling this would be a real find...

But for me, I don't know...I find the low-key, dimly-lit mood appealing at times, and Marks' voice is  iconic (like a gruff, laid-back Dylan, is the best way I can explain it) but in the end this album snoozes me out...It's nice and all but I only find myself snapping to attention during "Down to the Waterline" and "Sultans of Swing" where the band puts a little more sting into their approach...The endlessly melodic guitar fills in "Sultans" are classic though and the songs has earned its rightful place in endless classic rock rotation...It 's one of the few songs on radio that really holds up to endless repetition, with enough little musical twists and lyrical details to keep the ear occupied after countless plays...Plus it inspired one of my all-time favorite "Shreds" video...

                                 
CREOLE!!!
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Here's a recipe for Down-Home Bayou Mardi Gras Shrimp Creole:

. 2 cloves of minced garlic

. 2 minced onions

. 2  minced words

. 8 oz tomato sauce, Mon Ami

. You love, Gambit., no?  

. 2 tsp Worcestercestershirecestershire sauce

. 10,000 Louisiana shrimp

Combine ingredients into large cauldron to be stirred by the one-eyed Bayou witch...Wrestle a spicy swamp gator until tempers are brought to a boil...Remove from heat and throw into Jerry Lewis' face...

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I usually find myself listening to Dire Straits' debut  as a soothing "after-party chillout" record...When you're beyond buzzed and in wind-down mode this record always sounds great...But listening to this stone-ass sober (like I'm doing now) makes me want to take a nap...But I like naps...And I like Dire Straits...So here's " Down to the Waterline"...Enjoy...