Archive for the douglas mccarthy tag

Recoil: Faith Healer

Tuesday. Tuesday...I never thought next Tuesday would ever happen. Way back in the wee days of the internet, I was on the Recoil official mailing list--back when that meant daily emails of conversing with other fans, and sometimes Alan Wilder himself, who is surprisingly approachable for someone who used to be a very key member in one of the most important electronic bands ever.

We begged, and begged, but he said it couldn't be done. Recoil could never tour, could never even do a live show... there were just too many people involved. We couldn't expect him to actually pack Douglas McCarthy, Toni Halliday, Moby, Maggie Estep, Siobhan Lynch, Nicole Blackman, Samantha Coerbell, Hildia Cambell, and Diamanda Galás all on a tour bus. Oh come on, we could dream, right?

I guess Alan changed his mind, because he's on tour, and he's coming to The Metro on Tuesday night with Gary Numan. After a LOT of digging around, I was able to discern that he actually accomplished this by bringing no vocalists at all; in their place is film, with imagery chosen specifically for each piece. It's not Diamanda Galás and Douglas McCarthy hanging out on a bus, but I'll take what I can get.

Though nearly impossible given all the options, I choose Recoil's first single and most well-known track, a cover of the Sensational Alex Harvey Band's "Faith Healer" featuring Douglas McCarthy (Nitzer Ebb) from Bloodline*. I can't say it's a good representation of Recoil, because each album and even each song is a work of art that stands on its own, ranging from vintage Bukka White placed over minimal electro and Maggie Estep's hilarious spoken words to Diamanda Galás screeching in tongues and Toni Halliday screaming hate over industrial like nothing you'd ever imagine listening to her spacerocky Curve albums. And I'm not even touching on the whole plane-crash-as-concept-album thing...

official website
buy Bloodline on Amazon.com

*trivia: Foetus also covered this song on Rife, ergo this track is often mistaken for a Foetus cover, not to say that Thirwell's version didn't influence this one.

Yello: Bostich

Last night started off really slow--after all, a good portion of our crowd was at The Queen Is Dead early in the night--but by the time Arturo went on and The Handsome Devilz arrived, it was a juggernaut. While Kamar was rallying the dancers over to Neo, I got to do a long early set. One of the things I love about doing early sets at Atomic is that I get to experiment a bit and gauge reactions before I play a song to a packed floor. Will they dance if I play this? Will the regulars run up to the booth screaming about how they love it or how they'll strangle me if I ever play it again? Sometimes, I realize that I should've been playing it at 1am all along.

Such is the case with the Yello classic "Bostitch". It blows my mind that this single was released in 1979. Typical of Yello's style, it's sophisticated, dark, and avant-garde. It's very new wave, it's really tech-house, it's vaguely industrial…and no, that is not Douglas McCarthy from Nitzer Ebb singing. Actually it's Dieter Meier [himself a very interesting person], the conceptualist half of Yello, whose ideas are executed by self-claimed perfectionist Boris Blank, who reportedly has a library of over 100,000 samples he made from scratch.

Now in their 60s, Meier and Blank are still making music as Yello, and it's still just as good. Most of their current work is in soundtracks these days. Recently, they've worked with Audi and been the subject of a documentary. I hope I'm half as cool as they are when I'm their age.

"Bostich" is on their debut album Solid Pleasure.

Solid Pleasure on Amazon
Yello Official Website

Give thanks for Nitzer Ebb!

Ok, so… it's a bit hypocritical for me to post this, I'll admit it. I mostly make fun of Nitzer Ebb; I have food related parody vocals for most of their songs. I hardly need to put much effort into it with stuff like this on their Wikipedia page: "Nitzer Ebb began when Bon Harris and David Gooday asked Douglas McCarthy to sing in their band. They shared an interest in witchcraft, talking to trees, and collecting runestones in Chelmsford and Little Baddow"

Talking to trees?

But I can't deny their influence, which is rampant everywhere from synthpop to Detroit techno and, of course, the industrial and EBM scenes that they had a hand in founding. Their style sounded very dated to me 10 years ago, but now the minimalism sounds fresh--all things come back again, of course.

I choose to post "Let Your Body Learn" from 1987's That Total Age release because to me, it relates well to new wave [and I'm sure the influence goes both ways]. I'm also including a new track from Neon Electronics vs The Hacker that I've been playing alongside various Nitzer Ebb tracks the last few weeks; it's a fantastic modern example of their continuing impact on electronic music and instantly got a warm reception on the dance floor.

We're thrilled to be giving away tickets to their upcoming concert on Thanksgiving night. Though lacking in trees, Nitzer Ebb put on a great live show, and I'm sure they won't disappoint. Opening for them is my absolute favorite local-Chicago-via-way-of-Detroit band Kill Memory Crash, and if you haven't seen them, get there early--you will be blown away. I've posted their song "Demento", also wearing a bit of Nitzer Ebb inspiration, from their 2004 album American Automatic. They have new stuff and it's amazing, but still unreleased so you'll have to listen to my radio show if you want to hear it.

See you on Thanksgiving night, and see you at the Nitzer Ebb show!

Amazon's Nitzer Ebb Store
Neon Electronics vs The Hacker
Kill Memory Crash on Amazon