JFA/TSOL Pianos

Wow it's been a long time. Exactly 6 months since my last posting!! It's funny, this whole time, I've been reading and thinking about music and culture, but just never really got my shit together to comment in terms of a readable public forum. Well here's something. Originally an email, now a blog post.

Now for something very interesting....

what happens when you give early 80s punk bands pianos and organs:

JFA (jodie foster's army) - Nowhere Blossoms

http://www.mediafire.com/?ym5dlz5nojg

this southwest band used to be really hard when they first started and wrote songs about skateboarding, and bongs and beaches (beach blanket bong out) and snickers, and then three years later, the first song on their record is a two minute piano led instrumental called "julies song." what. despite this change in sound, i actually really like this record. it's got a light american post punk thing kinda going on. not new wave at all. its ok. also you must check out gems such as a totally obligatory note for note cover of james brown's "i feel good" (i seriously do not remotely understand why they recorded this whatsover) and "signifying monkey" which features a field recorded crazy black guy rapping in chicago a litty ditty about a lion and a tiger or something. weird record.

TSOL - Beneath the Shadows

http://www.mediafire.com/?rhu5dhzmldd

This still sounds a lot like primer era TSOL. Okay, no more songs about necrophilia or how property is theft, but overall the lyrics are standard TSOL suburban psuedo-goth odes to darkness, loss and memories. the thing is about this record is that despite being the same lyrically, and for the most part also musically (no real change in production values), this guy for some reason is DRENCHED in piano and organ. and the thing about this, and by extension JFA using pianos and what not, is that it in no way resembles new wave. notice how i i have not once so far used the word keyboard. Nope. This is all piano or cheesy organ (see the beginning of "walk alone" and the middle of "wash away" on this record). its almost like these bands were attempting a sort of, proto new wave balance on these records. like, more eno, stranglers and the damned in their use of piano instead of electronic uses ala devo or kraftwerk or the b-52s. the best way to describe it, for the TSOL record at least, is harkening back to the occasional sounds of the film A Clockwork Orange which Beneath the Shadows' cover clearly references. pre-new wave constructions. but not experimental...

Weird shit man. I don't get it.