Bill Summers & Summers Heat, "Jam the Box" (1981)

I love hand-drawn album covers. Homeboy definitely got his roller-ruler out for this one.

For track 1 side 1, percussionist Bill Summers and his dream team the "Summers Heat" attempt to lay out a manifesto for the album, first addressing the question of "what is the box?" before proceeding to "jam" said box for the remainder of the LP. Naturally, this is accomplished over a crunchy drum machine beat and wonderfully nasty synth bass.

On the other hand, their thesis is not expressed with a great deal of conceptual rigour:

We gave you a beat, dance and call it what you want to

La la la la, this is what you're dancing to

It does have a name, after all

It's The Box, that is what we call it

(chorus)

We call it The Box,

Makes you jump right out your socks

Don't stop

We've got a lot to saaaaaay

Summer Heat, if it takes you eight lines to inform me that I'm dancing to a box, I'm not surprised you got a lot to say.

Bill Summers And Summers Heat - We Call It The Box by doggziller

This track is a heater but it does get a bit repetitive and I would normally mix out half-way. So if you get bored, do make sure you fast forward to the five-minute mark where Bill Summers at last gets down to brass tacks and defines the meaning of "the box".

I guess it's some kind of outer-space box? Bill doesn't explain it all that clearly, really.

Song Chang Sik, S/T (1976)

I'm always wide open to foreign-language LPs, possibly because the capability to understand the lyrics of most songs often reveals how silly they are. I was pleasantly surprised to discover a couple of heaters on this suspiciously weepy looking album from South Korea.

The "sad clown" outfit was nearly a deal-breaker.

Production and mixing is a bit ropey but the bass at least sounds thick and that first moment after the "Slow Jam" intro when your boy's voice floats in is just haunting. Some nice progressive elements pop out of left field on these tunes also with unexpected synthesizer chirps, fuzz guitar and flute soloing all thrown into the mix.

Song Chang Sik by doggziller

I have no idea what the real names of these tracks are I'm afraid nor any clue to the content, but given that South Korea was under military rule at this time I like to imagine these songs circumspectly criticise the regime  through allegorical ballads about the shy, pretty girl-next-door being curb-stomped by riot police.

Frank Hatchett, "Body Shots" (late 70s?)

This seems to be one of a number of records put out by the obscure "Statler" label to provide soundtrack for dance classes. Frank Hatchett is not actually the recording artist but instead a dancer/choreographer who worked on the kind of Broadway stuff where numbers end with everyone freezing with their arms held out and then they yell "JAZZ!" on the final beat - or at least so I imagine, being deeply unqualified in such matters.

Here's what the liner notes say:

Sensational - that's Frank Hatchett! All across the country he has left his mark. Once you've seen him you're a fan for life. No one works with such electricity and warmth. His highly successful Springfield, Mass. school, The Frank Hatchett School of Performing Arts is a testimonial to his genius. 

Among his outstanding credits are the choreographing of off Broadway musical comedies, including "Reach for the Sky" and "Cartoons", the MacDonald TV Commercial, Black Miss America and Miss Universe. On his International agenda are choreographing for the Queen Elizabeth Hotel night club in Montreal Canada and the musical production of "Frick Frack" in Vienna Austria.

If you can catch him it will be at his school in Springfield or in New York where he teaches at Jo Jo's Dance Factory. 

Neither the Austrian production of the intriguing-sounding "Frick Frack" nor the other shows mentioned seem to have survived in popular imagination long enough to dent the Internet, but I suspect that this may be the McDonald's commercial that he choreographed (gotta have some sympathy for Frank given the portly white dudes he had to work with - okay guys, just uh, just line up in a row and march on the spot would you? okay let's try it one more time). There isn't a lot of information available on-line but Frank seems to be still hard at work and inspiring new generations of jazz dancers.

The music itself is late '70s sounding instrumental jams played by session musos, many of the tracks don't hit the spot but there are a couple of nice grooves, bedroom joint "The Lover In You" and the more up-tempo "Shamballa", presented here for your jazz-dancing pleasure:

Frank Hatchett - Body Shots by doggziller

NEW ZEALAND MUSIC MONTH #3: The Chapta "One" (1971)

Today's selection "Journey to the Sun" is cherry-picked from The Chapta's first album - amid a set of otherwise fairly straightforward pop-rock, someone decided to cut a freaky psych tune (my money says it was the Two Ronnies looking dude on the lower left).

Having listened carefully to the lyrics of this song I can confirm that in true psychedelic fashion, they are a bunch of nonsense - my guess is that the boys were stoned one day and decided that it was "about time someone gave the Sun some props". The change in the chorus where "Apollo" is exhorted to "shine [his] light" is a bit over the top but otherwise there's little to fault with this tune, the rise and fall of the synth at the start has me foaming at the mouth in particular. I'm unreliably informed that in 1971 the only synthesizer in New Zealand was held in an acoustics research lab at Victoria University so I guess the lads must have signed it out for the afternoon.


"Journey to the Sun" was not released as an album or B-side and was perhaps considered filler at the time - in retrospect it is the stand-out tune of the album. It should be noted that this is available alongside a number of excellent cuts on the compilation "A Day in My Mind's Mind"  (the Salvation and 40 Watt Banana tracks on there are some SERIOUS HEAT).

The Chapta - Journey to the Sun

OVS "Crimes of Passion" (1985)

In my system, 1985 is pretty much a last chance year. If a record says '86 or '87 on the label I will not touch that mess with a barge-pole borrowed from a disliked neighbour (unless of course it's "So" by the delightful Peter Gabriel).

That is my shit right here.

Even then, I have to make allowances before dropping the needle on a joint from 1985, because odds on someone will have made some bad decisions. e.g. The snares will probably be too loud, or there will be no bassline, or a melodic hook will be played by pitch-shifting a sample. I don't know why a few months' drift in production trends makes such a difference, but it does. "Crimes of Passion" by Dutch outfit OVS, however, sounds like an earlier production, possibly because cocaine was less readily available in Holland.

(In fact from the limited information available on line, I suspect it may be a release of a tune from '82 - which kind of makes all this nonsense about production year a bit irrelevant).


I think Ben put it best when he characterized vocalist Bernard Oattes' voice by pointing out that you can't imagine him meaning anything remotely rude or sleazy, regardless of the actual lyrics. His is a pure voice, an angelic voice - almost asexual, certainly without a smidgen of lasciviousness. You can't help feeling that the "Crimes of Passion" referred to in the song could only be something like "holding hands when a policeman can see" or "teasing with intent to tease".

Bernard van Oattes, today.

 
By my reckoning this is a near perfect pop song, hit the link and see who you believe.


OVS - Crimes of Passion

Jan Hammer Group "Melodies" (1977)

Jan Hammer is, of course, mostly famous for soundtrack work on Miami Vice. Those of a certain age will no doubt remember the scandal and long-running "flame war" that eventuated when Greg Phillinganes was bumped from the cover of the September 1985 edition of "Keyboard" magazine in favour of Jan.

Mr. Phillinganes is said to have snapped a keytar over his knee when an acquaintance pointed out that his name had been printed in the same size font as "Equipment Reviews".

But Jan had a long career before his work on Miami Vice secured him eternal fame, a Bill Gates bankroll and a white stretch limo with piano keys painted on the side. He spent the 70s mostly putting out jazz-fusion with outfits like the Mahavishnu Orchestra and his own Jan Hammer Group - while there's no denying his talent as a keyboardist, the style he was working in is generally of little interest to me (e.g. how is this not terrible).

However, today's selection is a just a normal love song that happens to hit a sweet spot between the 70s and 80s and come out totally unique, with an arpeggiated bass-line that anticipates the Miami Vice years underpinned by tough drums that hark back to the early 70s. The production is superb and studio nerds should find it a rewarding listen. Folks who mainly just like nice songs will not be disappointed either.

Jan Hammer Group - Don't You Know

Licky "African Rock" (1979? 1980?)

I think this is one of those obscure low-rent studio productions where they spent a day recording a bunch of tracks with session musicians and made up a new name for the band on each song. So I guess it was pretty near the end of the session when somebody came up with "Licky" as a band name.

"Licky, man, it's like Sexxy but it sounds more sexual in your mouth when you say it" explained Larry Robinson while frantically rubbing his nose "I'm about that mouth feel."

High fives all 'round.

So anyway, Licky is the B-side. Bizzarrely, the A-side is the exact same recording but with all the percussion turned down in the mix, and as an over-dub a man sings off-key in a kind of trembly, stage fright voice while randomly shaking a tambourine that has about a hundred too many microphones pointed at it. It is like someone doing bad karaoke of Osibisa. The track is still called "African Rock" but the band is now "Dream Lovers". I doubt that anyone anywhere has ever listened to the A-side of this record all the way through.

It's disco, by the way, but in all the right places - no strings, plenty of augogo, hot synth solos and bass that gets slapped, sure, but not in an abusive way. The concept of this song is that an African rock is travelling from America to Africa to learn about itself. Initially the rock doubts its abilities but it receives encouragement from nearby backing vocalists in the end it succeeds. It is kind of "a journey" I guess.

(B-side wins again).

Licky - "African Rock"