Fashion and Suicide
So somebody asked me to come up with three songs to use in a fashion show. I was told it was for "hip and contemporary" clothes. There was a committee that was doing the music, and they were having trouble coming up with music for this part of the show, and so this person took my three choices to them. My choices were all immediately and summarily dismissed. Eventually the first song was reconsidered and will be used, but I'm still a little taken back. Have I lost it? I thought for sure that each of these three songs would be perfect, what I would expect to hear at New York Fashion Week. I think they are, actually, and these people just didn't realize it. Or maybe they didn't want that. I don't even necessarily love MGMT, but I don't see how it wouldn't be perfect for this, how on first listen somebody wouldn't go "yeah, that's exactly the sound we're looking for." I think I'm right and these three songs would have been perfect:
About that last song: When I saw Spectrum (Sonic Boom) do a one-man audio mind-melting at the Mohawk a couple months back, he opened with this song. I wasn't familiar with it, and after a long google and soulseek search found him doing it as Sonic Boom with a band called Fuxa. I also learned it was a cover from a band called Suicide. For me, another one of those names I've heard, and finally get around to listening to, and realize I've been wasting a lot of time not listening to them. They are like Can: you listen and can't believe this shit is coming from the 70's. You can immediately sense the influence to Spacemen 3 and Stereolab and other 80's and 90's electro-trance pioneers and a whole host of other bands like Jesus and Mary Chain and Primal Scream. When I read the Allmusic band overview, I realized the true unheralded weight of their genius. Two guys, basically a keyboard and a microphone, creating more dissonance than most punk bands of their era, out on their own making spooky electro music way before it was cool. Heather Phares' Allmusic review of their essential 1977 First Album says about the following song: "one of the most harrowing songs ever recorded. A ten-minute descent into the soul-crushing existence of a young factory worker."
And here is that cover of "Girl":
About that last song: When I saw Spectrum (Sonic Boom) do a one-man audio mind-melting at the Mohawk a couple months back, he opened with this song. I wasn't familiar with it, and after a long google and soulseek search found him doing it as Sonic Boom with a band called Fuxa. I also learned it was a cover from a band called Suicide. For me, another one of those names I've heard, and finally get around to listening to, and realize I've been wasting a lot of time not listening to them. They are like Can: you listen and can't believe this shit is coming from the 70's. You can immediately sense the influence to Spacemen 3 and Stereolab and other 80's and 90's electro-trance pioneers and a whole host of other bands like Jesus and Mary Chain and Primal Scream. When I read the Allmusic band overview, I realized the true unheralded weight of their genius. Two guys, basically a keyboard and a microphone, creating more dissonance than most punk bands of their era, out on their own making spooky electro music way before it was cool. Heather Phares' Allmusic review of their essential 1977 First Album says about the following song: "one of the most harrowing songs ever recorded. A ten-minute descent into the soul-crushing existence of a young factory worker."
And here is that cover of "Girl":
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