The Cure:Seventeen Seconds

The Cure:Seventeen Seconds

1980

Fiction Records

Format I Own it on: Compact Disc

Track Listing: 1. A Reflection  2. Play for Today  3. Secrets  4. In Your House  5. Three  6. The Final Sound  7. A Forest  8. M  9. At Night  10. Seventeen Seconds

 "Welcome to the McGothlin Group, where we discuss pressing issues within the Goth community...I'm your host Count Unemployable, and with me are today's panelists...Let me start with Worst-Selling dark poetess, Raven Writingdesk..."

"Thanks for having me, Count...Allow me to read my latest work...ahem...

"Peresphone Rex: An 18th Century Gothic Opera in 82 Parts:

Book One:

O, river of crimson,
of whom the raven doth caw, 
So pale, so dead...
Phantoms summon with icy fingers,
will she succumb to their call? 
Father, O Father,
Which drunken fit of rage?
Which heavy hands?
Which heavy, heavy hands?
I see the mute Savior,
Bleeding eyes and mouth,
Reaching for the last crumb,
cruelly pushed away...
O, Father doth the ovens call ye?
Will you sacrifice another daughter?
To the Gods and Sons of Hollow Hopes?
Did I disappoint thee? 
Am I not all that you hoped?
Eagle-Eyed like a hawk,
The Incredible Hulk,
For to ravens doth thee die..."

 "Stunning! A bold, bracing work! Where can the audience buy the book?"

"Oh, uhhh....There isn't a book...But you can come to Denny's at 3 am...I'm usually there all night taking advantage of a bottomless cup of coffee from 12:00pm-5:00am..."

"Excellent, Excellent. Our other panelist dresses head-to-toe in black, smokes the occasional clove cigarette, and owns albums by Bauhaus and the Cure, but isn't a Goth... Allow me to introduce Jamin 80, writer of the Friday Night Record Party blog, which won the 2013 Bloggie Award for 'Least Viewed Blog'...Is it true you only get 2 hits a day?"

"Yup...Me hitting you and the ambulance hitting 60! Har Har! But no seriously, I'm hoping my hits go up when I do my post on The Cure's "Pornography" in a couple days...Words like 'pornography' tend to get me a lot of views...As do words like "big boobs"...Well, technically that's two words, but I think you get my point...I'm hoping someday a band called "2 Hot College Girls Making Out" will release an album called "Big, Bouncy, Naked Boobs" and that review alone would ensure I have a good year..."

 "Good luck with that. Today's topic is the album "Seventeen Seconds" by the Cure...Goth Classic or Transitional Post-Punk effort? We'll start with you, Raven...

"It's not 'Pornography' or 'Disintegration' so I have to go with Minor Goth classic...I've spent many a night listening to this on my ipod while slitting my ivory wrists while whispering curses on my Father's soul...You won't be able to ignore me anymore, Daddy! I'm going to haunt you for a loooooooong time..."

"Now, let me ask you a question, Jamin. Why do you hate Goths so much?"

"I don't hate goths!"

"Then why do you write Raven like some sort of cheap caricature of a self-absorbed moron with Daddy issues, constantly threatening suicide just to get attention? And why would you name me 'Count Unemployable'? Not exactly a term of endearment...Us Goths are people just like you...

...we have jobs...

...Families...

 Why, I wouldn't be surprised if one day there was a Goth President!"

"I am a man chastised!"

"It's so pitiful when 'goth' is still tagged onto the name The Cure. We're not categorisable."

"There. You have it from the man, himself...Not Goth...Mystery Enigma music..."

 "Boner-Killing Rainy Life Music."

 "Boo!"

..................................................................................................................................

Alright...Enough of the horse-shit... (throws chair across the room) It's time for some straight-talk...I like the "Seventeen Seconds" album...It's somewhere in-between the post-punk influence of the first album and the atmospheric, doom rock of "Faith" and "Pornography"...For this reason, I tend to like it a bit more than "Faith" but not as much as "Pornography" (where they finally nailed this style)...

As is often the case with Cure albums, the singles are the clear highlights (even the most minor of Cure albums have killer singles)...And "A Forest" is a pivotal moment in the Cure discography...If the terms "droning bass" and "drab, repetitive structures" don't sound too exciting on paper, they sure sound nice in your headphones...A kaleidoscope of radiant grays...The Cure is good at this moody, stuff...I'm usually not the type of person that's into "atmosphere" really, but for some reason the Cure has always appeared to me...I think it's because they never seem to be trying to bore me...Again, I think it comes down to Robert Smith being a great songwriter...He knows how to subtly build the drones (when the tape doesn't run out (see: "The Final Sound")) and when to bust out the catchiness ("Play for Today").

By gum, today does seem like the kind of Friday where it's totally appropriate to listen to some Cure...And I'm not talking "Friday I'm in Love"...Let's spin "A Forest" and crack open a bottle of "La Fin du Monde"

(Sorry to keep forcing these Goth stereotypes on you Robert Smith...I'm going to make a concerted effort to never bring up the "G" word again in these Cure posts...)

“It’s is pitiful when goth is still tagged onto the name The Cure.
“We’re not categorizable. I suppose we were post punk when we came out, but in total it’s impossible.

Read more at http://www.gigwise.com/news/25662/the-cures-robert-smith-im-not-a-goth#2KH6c3fvm40yVpqq.

“It’s is pitiful when goth is still tagged onto the name The Cure.
“We’re not categorizable. I suppose we were post punk when we came out, but in total it’s impossible.

Read more at http://www.gigwise.com/news/25662/the-cures-robert-smith-im-not-a-goth#2KH6c3fvm40yVpqq.99

He said: “It’s is pitiful when goth is still tagged onto the name The Cure.
“We’re not categorizable. I suppose we were post punk when we came out, but in total it’s impossible.

Read more at http://www.gigwise.com/news/25662/the-cures-robert-smith-im-not-a-goth#2KH6c3fvm40yVp

The Cure: Three Imaginary Boys/Boys Don't Cry

The Cure: Three Imaginary Boys

1979

Fiction Records

Format I Own it on: Compact Disc

Track Listing: 1. 10:15 Saturday Night  2. Accuracy  3. Grinding Halt  4. Another Day  5. Object  6. Subway Song  7. Foxy Lady  8. Meathook  9. So What  10. Fire in Cairo  11. It's Not You  12. Three Imaginary Boys  13. The Weedy Burton




 Wow, it just struck me I'm probably going to be listening to nothing but the Cure for about a month straight...If you see me losing interest in things I used to care about or start giving away all of my possessions, maybe have someone check up on me...

 Alright, pretend Tom Hanks or Alec Baldwin or James Earl Jones is narrating this, and it'll make it sound a bit more important...

ahem...Somewhereshire, England...1978...The murky, dub-influenced sounds of post-punk had infiltrated the music scene and Robert James Smith, Michael Dempsey, and Laugh Out Loud Tolhurst entered Morgan Studios to record what would become their landmark debut album, "Three Imaginary Boys"...

They actually start out sounding surprisingly peppy...Sort of in the spiky vein of "Pink Flag"-era Wire, or maybe a more theatrical Gang of Four or something...I'm probably going to squander what's left of my credibility by naming this one of my favorite Cure albums...But I can't help it! It's so lively and catchy! I wish they would have done another record or two in this style before surrendering to the void...



Alright, here's my love pile: Album opener "10:15 Saturday Night" is hushed and atmospheric but in a way they didn't really do after this...Instead of using the technique to luxuriate in gloominess, it's used to make the rock sections rock a bit more...I tend to point to this song and "Killing an Arab" (not included on this album, but we'll get to that below) when I refer to Robert as being a quintessential post-punk guitarist...Lots of stabs, screams, and brooding lines...He has a way of using the guitar as a way to accentuate the lyrics as well as interacting with the rhythm section, which helps sell the imagery (taps drip...drip...drip...drip...dripping for example) It's much clearer here than on the more keyboard heavy later albums (which I used to strain to hear the guitar, as a teenager)....

The title track is another favorite of mine...A nice, plodding drone, that manages to pull off catchy...Again, I can't help but think of "Pink Flag" Wire...Compare and contrast the song to "Reuters," for example....

Oh yea, "Fire in Cairo"! One of my all-time favorite Cure songs...I don't know if this song was ever a single, but it seems like it should be...Catchy, poppy punk...I'm telling you..Pick this album up and you're going to walk away with the chant F-I-R-E-I-N-C-A-I-R-O!! rattling around in your head non-stop...With such clear highlights, it took a few of the songs ("Meathook," "Accuracy,") some time to burrow their way into my brain, but eventually it all grew on me... Nowadays I really only skip the snoozey bass-mumble "Subway Song" and the the Hendrix song "Foxy Lady," which they cover in the exact same way that XTC covers "All Along the Watchtower," if that makes sense...

I think this album gets dismissed too often as a formative effort...They hadn't established their voice, sound, sad clown make-up, blah, blah, blah... I think even if they disbanded after this album, it'd be remembered a snappy '78 post-punk gem...If'n you don't believe me, here's "Fire in Cairo" by the Cure..Enjoy...

  




The Cure: Boys Don't Cry

1980

Fiction Records

Format I Own it on: Vinyl

Track Listing: 1. Jumping Someone Else's Train  2. Boys Don't Cry  3. Plastic Passion  4. 10:15 Saturday Night  5. Accuracy  6. Object  7. Subway Song  8. Killing an Arab  9. Fire in Cairo  10. Another Day  11. Grinding Halt  12. World War  13. Three Imaginary Boys




This is the  US/Australia version of "Three Imaginary Boys...It swaps out "So What," "Foxy Lady," "Meathook," and "It's Not You" for "Jumping Someone Else's Train," "Boys Don't Cry," "Plastic Passion," "Killing an Arab," and "World War."  So, that's a prety good trade, in my opinion...Although I might trade back "So What" for  "World War"...



Y' know how I talked about how I squandered the last of my credibility by saying "Three Imaginary Boys" is one of my favorite Cure albums? Well, I just found a hidden shred in my pants pocket, so this is it...The very last of my credibility....I like this popped-up Frankenstein version even better... I can't help it! I love poppy shit, and the minute the first guitar rings out on the title track...That is some poppy shit! Robert Smith is a world-class writer of pop songs! Something he'd prove again and again throughout his work...Sure, I love the gloom and doom too, but not better than flippin' "Boys Don't Cry." 



This is also where you can find the "Killing an Arab" single...Which has gotten a bit of a bad reputation...Hell, even Robert Smith won't sing the original lyrics anymore...

 "I'm the Stranger! Eating some CAROB!!"

If you're wondering what carob is, they're giant pieces of poop that grow on trees...

Anyway, Robert's always seemed like a pretty cool guy...Not the racist type...The song's actually about the novel "The Stranger" by Big Al Camus...

My friend Josh had this exact copy of the book...I read it once without really intending to...Y'know where you pick up a book and kind of read the last page, and then you find yourself  turning to the previous page to find out what's going on and then pretty soon you realize you've read the entire book backwards?  That was one of those books...I haven't re-read it since the 90's, but I haven't forgotten a single thing about it...It really sticks with you for some reason...I can see how someone would feel compelled to write a song about it...Maybe I should write a song about reading it backwards!!!

"I've been executed and then I come back to life,
and then I kill an arab but he gets back up,
and he follows me for awhile then he goes back home,
and then some guy bones his ex,
and then I go to my mom's funeral,
and suddenly Jamin's looking at the front cover and can't believe that new books used to only cost a $1.25 (only a $1.25),
I'm dead,  (Sprooooooinnnng) I'm alive...
I'm the Stranger, I killed an Arab but he got back up and went home..."

I'm not big on songs that rhyme...I'm more of  a bongo-playing,  free-verse/free-love guy...

It feels like I've been writing this post for a long time, so I'm going to end it willy-nilly...I love the "Boys Don't Cry" record, even more than the "Three Imaginary Boys" album, although I'll admit it's impact is blunted a bit by so much overlap with the "Standing on a Beach/Staring at the Sea" singles collection...But pick it up for the fantastic "Plastic Passion" and the alright-ish "World War." 

Here's "Boys Don't Cry" by the Cure...Enjoy...

Culture: Two Sevens Clash/International Herb

Culture: Two Sevens Clash

1977

Joe Gibbs Records

Format I Own it on: Vinyl

Track Listing: 1. Calling Rasta Far I  2. I'm Alone in the Wilderness  3. Pirate Days  4. Two Sevens Clash  5. I'm Not Ashamed  6. Get Ready to Ride the Lion to Zion  7. Black Starliner
Must Come  8. Jah Pretty Face  9. See Them a Come  10. Natty Dread Taking Over




Alright! Now this is some proper Friday music! 

So light up that big-ass Hindenburg joint...Pffffft!!

And put on "Two Sevens Clash" by Culture and you can't go wrong...Bright, chirpy reggae songs about an impending apocalypse...huh? 

Apparently Marcus Garvey prophesized that on  July 7, 1977 there would be great chaos in the streets, causing Rastafarians to mark it the date the apocalypse would occur...Once July 7th rolled around, however,  not much happened, except Dick Clark got married for the third time...

 Incorrect doomsday predictions aside, we should all stop and thank Mr. Garvey for a moment and thank him for inspiring one of the enduring classics of the roots-reggae era...

And the odd thing about the album is how peaceful the band sounds about the whole thing...If I honestly believed the world was going to end in a few months I doubt I'd be so laid-back about the whole thing...I'd probably write a lot of panicked tracks about the importance of canned food and tips on fighting wasteland mutants for the last gallon of gasoline...

Again, I'm glad these guys had their heads together...Some of the snappiest reggae you've ever heard lurks underneath that bright yellow cover...More soulful and brighter than the heavier, dubbier style that was popular at the time...Listen to those guitar stabs on "I'm Not Ashamed," it's like being knifed by rays of sunshine (despite it being one of the darker tracks on the album)...And main-man Joseph Hill is one of the genre's great vocalists...He has a nasally, snotty tone that makes all the Rastafarian proselytizing go down easy...It's hard to believe they hit it this far out of the park on their first try...On the other hand the line-up of legendary Jamaican studio musicians listed on the sleeve probably didn't hurt either, boasting names like Sly, Robbie, and Skatalites alumni...

Favorite tracks have got to be the mighty title track, where you can practically hear the band capturing the zeitgeist (which means "friendly ghost" in German or something), and "Get Ready to Ride the Lion to Zion," which I mostly love for the lion roars...Oh yea, here's a neat trick, after the third roar put on the Wizard of Oz and it matches up perfectly...

If you're new to reggae, it should be one of your first purchases, and if you're a long-time reggae fan, dust it off and play it again, fer old times sake...

Here's "Two Sevens Clash" by Culture...Enjoy...

Culture: International Herb

1979

Virgin/High Note Records

Format I Own it on: Vinyl

Track Listing: 1. The International Herb  2.  Jah Rastafari  3.  It A Guh Dread  4.  Rally Around Jahoviah's Throne  5.  The Land We Belong  6.  Ethiopians Waan Guh Home  7.  Chiney Man  8.  I Tried  9.  The Shepherd  10. Too Long In Slavery 



Culture released a couple of albums between "Two Sevens Clash" and 1979's "The International Herb," but I don't have those (although I ran across a copy of  1978's "Baldhead Bridge," last weekend and didn't pick it up for some reason...Now I kind of wish I would have...).  But I did find an old vinyl copy of "International Herb" at FYE for three bucks a coupla years back...So that was a good score...

"Two Sevens Clash" must have been a tough act to follow...Not only was it a perfect debut, but how do you face the world when the doomsday you spent a whole album talking about doesn't occur?  

 Although,  a closer look at the band smoking humongous joints while gathered around a Marijuana bush, they don't seem too worried about it...Just keep on with the sweet, soul reggae and keeping on praising Jah and sticking it to the downpressor man...

I don't think this is quite as spectacular as "Two Sevens Clash," but it's not far off most of the time...It's lacking some of that albums fatalistic joy, but I'm usually too busy tapping my foot and nodding my head to the alluring rhythms to think about it...Especially on the title track, which sometimes plays it a little close to Peter Tosh's "Legalize It" lyrically, but the uplifting delivery is all theirs...No hatred for the weed's detractors...Their only aim is to get people all over the world to smoke "the international herb"...Even schoolchildren!!

                         
                                      "Irie Ites! When does He-Mon come on?"

Y'know....I feel like all I've done lately is draw joints in people's mouths in MS Paint...I'd have to go back and look to be certain, but I'm going to say at least three out of the last four posts have fallen into this category...Has the Friday Night Record Party gone stale? Do I need to put a big chip clip on it to keep it fresh? I'm going to put at least a one month moratorium on MS Paint joint photos...Maybe I won't even use pictures at all...Maybe it'll just be a big, impenetrable block of text...Or maybe just photos of Paula Deen chuggin' Tequila while uncle Jesse looks on...

 The Dukes of Hazzard Uncle Jesse...

Not the Full House Uncle Jesse...

We should have a Friday Night vote! Which Uncle Jesse is the true Uncle Jesse? Two Uncle Jesse's enter...One Uncle Jesse leaves...So make sure to stop by your county's polling office, cast your vote and make your voice heard!

Oh yea, I should talk about the "International Herb" record a bit more before we clock out for the day...When I first picked this up and saw a song called "Chiney Man," I was a little concerned, but it turns out it's a beautiful unity anthem with the album's best chorus...They just seem to write it on the sky...In big, puffy clouds of Marijuana smoke...Damn, I'm going to have to rewind it and play it again...

You can listen with me! Here's "Chiney Man" by Culture...Have a happy Friday everyone!...

 

Crosby, Stills & Nash: CSN

Crosby, Stills & Nash: CSN

1977

Atlantic Records

Format I Own it on: Vinyl

Track Listing: 1. Shadow Captain  2. See the Changes  3. Carried Away  4. Fair Game  5. Anything at All  6. Cathedral  7. Dark Star  8.  Just A Song Before I Go  9.  Run from Tears  10. Cold Rain  11. In My Dreams  12. I Give You Give Blind




You're just in time for CSN Theater:

 "Whatever happened to us, Man? Pffft (bogarts joint).  We were never gonna settle down...I thought we were just going to smoke grass forever...Living off the land,  making love to whomever we pleased all day long for the rest of our lives...But here we are...Settled down in our Million Dollar houses...2.5 kids...Respectable jobs..."

"Don't be so down on yourself, man...You should be happy...You've got your own million dollar Holistic Yoga Mat business...Carol has her Couple's Vibrational Therapy business and besides...We have been smoking grass forever..."

 "Yea...It's just..."

 "I tell you what! Why don't you and Carol come over this weekend...We'll get high, swap wives...I'll cook up some grass-fed tofu and spindly twigs and we'll put on some Crosby, Stills & Nash for old times sake..."

 "Yea, that sounds good...I've been trying to get back into music...I wrote a song for Carol...Let me play it for you"

(gently finger-bangs an acoustic guitar)

"Oh, Carol, Carol,
Sweet love-makin' lady,
Woman-Childe of the moone,
lay your sweet solstice down on me...
 I'll bear your burden, woman,
make sweet love all the night...
Sail, on Ocean Momma,
bear my fruitful children, mother momma... 
Bear Momma, moon momma, bear boon moon..."

"That's beautiful, man..."

"I think I'm going to play it for her while we're making love..."

(Applause)


Okay, I hope you all enjoyed "CSN" theatre...Now onto the album itself...My copy doesn't have the nice, sail-boating cover that you see above...Apparently the photo is just pasted on the album cover, because mine appears to have fallen off, so I just have a great, gaping, gray void where the picture should be...

 For the longest time I stared at it and was like, "Y'know, I just don't get this album cover" and figured it was some avant-garde experiment I didn't understand...

I don't especially listen to this group...I'm more of a "...& Young" fan. I bought this for my wife sometime in the 90's at some little thrift/record shop that briefly existed in Hale, Michigan, circa 2001...I don't know if my wife ever actually listened to it...I know I hadn't...But I knew of the band's hit singles and figured it was just going to be a lot of hippie platitudes and sail-boat songs...

Even the record label had a sailboat on it...

And then the first song, "Shadow Captain" comes on and surprise, surprise, it's a hippie sailing song...And a pretty dull one too...So to be honest I kind of settled in for the long, soft slog at this point...But it turns out this album was marginally more interesting than I had originally expected...

My ears perked up for the first time when I was listening to the latin-tinged soft-rocker "Fair Game." It all bopped along inoffensively enough...Gentle, glossy vocals...detailed acoustic guitar...But suddenly from out of nowhere, a radiant three part harmony comes together, and they sing like a choir of angels, "She's pleasant and she's friendly while she's looking at your CROOOOTCH!!!"

Wait, what? I hurriedly grabbed the lyric sheet and sure enough, I'd heard it right...And not only that, Stephen Stills just keeps bitterly nailing some girl to the wall for the duration of the album...

A little bit of online research reveals that Stills was going through a messy divorce at the time and decided to exact his revenge in the only manner he knew how...LATIN-TINGED SOFT ROCK!!!  So his contributions end up giving the album a little much needed blood and bile...God damn is the guy bitter as hell...

And then Graham Nash surprises me too with "Cathedral" where he has an LSD FREAKOUT IN A CHURCH!!!! And then goes on to bash religion for awhile in his chirpy, cute chipmunk voice:

"All religion has to have its day
Expressions on the face of the Saviour
Made me say, "I can't stay."

Open up the gates of the church and let me out of here!
Too many people have lied in the name of Christ
For anyone to heed the call.
So many people have died in the name of Christ
That I can't believe it all..."

They even kind of rock out (in the politest way possible) in the song...Damn, these guys are kind of bad-ass in their own way...Crosby is the only one who doesn't really have a moment on the album...I think he was in full-blown Coke-Walrus mode at this point, as he just kind of floats around harmlessly throughout the proceedings...

I really thought I was going to do a whole post doing nothing but busting on Crosby, Stills & Nash (and I guess I did, somewhat...) but honestly this was a pretty enjoyable record...I think this would totally appeal to Fleetwood Mac fans who can't get enough of slick break-up material...These guys might not know how to rock but at least they have a lot of personality, and I think that counts for something...

Here's "I Give You Give Blind" by Crosby, Stills, & Nash...Enjoy....