The Zodiac, "Cosmic Sounds" (1967)

From the 1970s through to the mid '80s, Zodiac signs were mainly referenced in music in order to help you decide whether you were sexually compatible with the featured musicians.  For a time it was rife, but ultimately the death knell rang for astrology in 1986 when Prince announced that he didn't care about it.  These days, astrology is half-remembered only as an antique barbarism, alongside such questionable practices as horse-riding, phrenology, and suicide by asp.

This album, conversely, dates from the glory days of hippiedom and celebrates the Zodiac purely for its own sake. It consists of 12 tracks dedicated to each star sign, each with overblown poetry spookily intoned over a psychedelic arrangement. Each of the poems is careful to reference a significant planet, number, colour and gemstone for the sign in question, e.g. 

nine times the colour red explodes like heated blood
the battle is on!
Mars, the master matchmaker, sulphurizes the sky
incendiary diamonds scorch the earth 

Probably a bit embarassing in hindsight, and not much help in picking your lottery numbers either. But the creative and varied arrangements do stand up well, being performed by talented sessioners and featuring excellent use of the Moog synthesizer (which in 1967 was about the size of a two or three large wardrobes). I have linked to my two favorite tracks from the album below, and as a monument to my immaturity, I include as a bonus "Aquarius, the Lover of Life" since it includes the passage:

in the friendly opal light of Uranus,
all men can blend
yet still be what they are 

(stifled giggles)

The Zodiac - Aries, the Firefighter
The Zodiac - Taurus, the Voluptuary
The Zodaic - Aquarius, the Lover of Life

I expect full compliance with the instructions on the back of the sleeve - "MUST BE PLAYED IN THE DARK"

THIS SATURDAY NIGHT - 1983 presents: Jellphonic & Reggie Blount "Live Forever"

HEY AUCKLANDERS AND OTHERS LUCKY ENOUGH TO BE IN AUCKLAND THIS SATURDAY NIGHT TO COME

Auckland City's leading source of excitement, the 1983 Collective, are celebrating the ascension of the handsome men depicted above into the roll of honour titled: "Roll of Honour Listing Dudes Who Have A 12" Record Out"

Our boys' records and many others will be played to generate a perfect dancefloor-sized sphere of  unadulterated Body Talk. Those who witness will be changed forever, plus they will still be finding glitter in their hair for three or four days afterwards.

THERE WILL BE A PYRAMID, FEEL FREE TO BRING YOUR BLUNT RAZORBLADES / MUMMIES

Details for the grown & sexy:

Saturday June 12 from 10pm

Rising Sun (373 K Rd)

$5 on the door

DRESS TO SHOCK AND AWE

And here for download again is my old 1983 promo mix which by now has been listened to by almost as many people as Pat Benatar's "Love Is A Battlefield"... however there may still be one or two recently emerged survivalists who still need to hear it:

Doggziller 1983 Promo Mix (2008)

"One day I will complete the squeakwel" (he gasped on his deathbed).

GET AT ME IN THE COMMENTS AND I'LL DO DOOR NAMES

that is the same as if i handed you five bucks

Sonny Charles, "One Eyed Jacks" (1982)

 There are various reasons to like a song apart from how you feel about it as music. Both Ben and I, for example, have a fondness for a meta-genre which I have just this instant decided to call Overextended Metaphor Groove (OMG).

As the name suggests, these are songs where the artist has committed to shoe-horning all their passions/joys/torment into the framework of a single over-arching metaphor. Sonny Charles' "One-Eyed Jack" for example, is basically a song about player-hating expressed mainly with reference to playing cards (and with total sincerity).

"The one-eyed jack is a mysterious card,

only one side you can see."

Taking a scientific approach, I quickly counted the total number of lines in the song and divided by the number of lines that contain explicit card game references (chorus counted only once). This gave an OMG compliance ratio of 53.33%, i.e. just over half of all lines in the song have some nonsense about card games in them. This is actually much lower than I expected and definitely shows the value of taking a hard-nosed, evidence-led approach (to my dismay Sonny went off the rails on the second verse and neglected to mention playing cards at all).

By the way, I have made a shortened edit of this song as after the two minute mark it does nothing but repeat the fairly ordinary chorus for another three minutes (yes, this song has a "chorus-til-fade" segment that lasts longer than the song proper - better to go for a breakdown when you've run out of ideas I'd have thought)

Sonny Charles - One-Eyed Jack

More OMG will be posted as it comes to my attention!

NZ MUSIC MONTH #6: The Underdogs "Wasting My Time" (1971)

In the 60s the Underdogs were a blues band and their biggest hit was a cover of John Mayall's "Sitting In The Rain",  landing them the support slot for John Mayall when he played in Auckland which is maybe an awkward situation when you think about it.

By 1971, after more line-up changes than I care to explain, they had somehow transformed into a garage psych band  - this is real, raw, underground shit, sounding like practice room recordings. There are some tough original songs in this bunch with great guitar work,  although you have to allow some charity for the vocals rather loose relationship with the tune at times. 

Thanks to the obscurity of our exotic nation, this LP goes for loot among overseas psych collectors, though I shan't be retiring on the proceeds as my copy is sleeveless and hence unmarketable (found wedged between two New Seekers LPs in a pile of throwaways, so, can't complain).

The Underdogs -  Every Little Thing
The Underdogs - It's A Blessing
The Underdogs - Is He Going To Die

If anyone has an empty sleeve for this album get at me: we can sell this to a bearded man in Kent and go halves on a jacuzzi.

Better than records

NZ MUSIC MONTH #5: SJD vs. Sola Rosa vs. Savage, Con Psy, & Scribe - "Not Many" (Doggziller blend) - (2004)

This one popped up on shuffle this morning and I thought it might be worth a re-visit for NZ Music Month - a blend of the acapella from the remix of Scribe's breakout hit "Not Many", over an SJD remix of a Sola Rosa joint that came out around the same time (I forgot the name - the record will be around here somewhere I suppose), blended together by Yours Truly. So that is 100% NZ artists + 100% a guy from NZ who owns a mixer, two turntables, and kinda knows how to use the pitch shift. And about three layers of remixing.


(A cute detail about this song is when Scribe yells "reeeeeeeee-miiiiiiiix", ain't nobody do that no more. Times was, you always immediately yelled "REMIX" when there was a remix. I miss that.)

This blend was done in accordance with the Old School, it is just two records playing at the same time, you can even hear where I was trying to correct for timing slips by giving the record a nudge. As I no longer have the original recording, this is lifted straight from the 2004 mix that I used it in, hence the somewhat abrupt start and finish.



THIS IS ONE FOR THE STREETS YOU GUYS

SJD vs. Sola Rosa vs. Savage, Con Psy, & Scribe - Not Many (Doggziller Blend)

NZ MUSIC MONTH #4: The Golden Horn Big Band, self-titled (1974)

Decently funky big-band jazz out of Wellington with an unusual mix of obvious ("Shaft", "Corazon") and non-obvious covers (opening the album with Malo's "Latin Boogaloo"?)


Musical direction is by Rodger Fox who was part of Quincy Conserve at around the same time, and who continues to work in this vein today in his eponymous big band (keeping trombonists off the streets since 1978!)


The Golden Horn Big Band - Hikky Burr
The Golden Horn Big Band - Dead Ringer

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