The concern is less the sale of small items than the hire/rent of them but props to you for your excellent and educational post. Sidebar: a few months ago I was looking after a lady that in the 80's used to work in a video shop and loved doing so. She told me tapes were $50 odd bucks from the manufacturer's (no discount for retail stores sleazy or otherwise) and they had all manner of tricks to repair and rejig heavily hired, miused or broken tapes so as to keep them in commission and keep them earning their $2-$3 bucks a night from their considersable initial outlay!
If you buy it now you will know when it's love but if you are thinking of swiping our headmaster's copy don't give him no lip and keep your hands to yo-self!
In 1986 I was buying Beatles albums, and didn't buy any new record as far as I can remember. 1986 records I like include XTC's magnificent Skylarking, Costello's King of America, McCartney's Press To Play, Cleaners From Venus's Living With Victoria Grey. At the time I tried to persuade myself that I liked the Smith's The Queen Is Dead in order to look at list a bit cool, but I would not listen it again today. Too cold for me. Genesis's Invisible Touch grew upon me, though. But not Gabriel's So, I don't know why, I like Gabriel. Once you start paying attention to the lyrics to "Don't Give Up", it's difficult to take the song seriously. There is a limit to what great interprets can do to transcend a text.
Free Form Sunday: I was driving back from a wedding last night, streaming Zeki’s Station on Apple Music (the first time I’d actually pressed it to see what it was!) and found myself feeling sad and contemplative; the Station tunes tugging and pulling me back into all sorts of mostly forgotten places throughout my life. The power of music, I suppose. And then…Hot Potatoes! And I exhaled and laughed as I sang out loud the “la la la la la la hot potatoes” in perfect ( ) harmony.
Sleazy Town/Video Shop Both songs provide a surprise detour from the more mainstream trio opening the album. These two tracks seem straight out the RCA era. While I like, don't love either but they are the centerpieces of the album. Great segue from Repetition into Sleazy Town. You just know the video shop is in Sleazytown. Essentially music-wise Video Shop revisits Come Dancing (dialing down the music hall, dialing up the calypso) complete with its synth horn fanfare Ray obviously loved since he also used it on Too Hot as well. Video shop sort of meanders till that Resonator kicks in and elevates everything about it much like the power chord flourish does in Come Dancing. Maybe Flash or his ghost has returned to bemoan what Mr. Black had done to his Sleazytown and then broken but unbowed Flash sees green in video rental biz so he opens up the video shop with his brother. Probably not but... Side 1 of Think Visual is a pretty eclectic mix of styles and to me shows that Ray was getting restless with just creating an album of mostly disparate rock songs. Creativity and ambition, a freshness of sound abound on the side 1 songs and most of the album. Ray seemed revitalized on Think Visual.
Nice break down of the track. I don't think in the big picture I'm seeing your thoughts are an outlier at all... As I have tried to say, it seems there is a huge correlation between favourite albums, and when each of us came to the band, and got specific albums, generally speaking.
1986 for me included the great Skylarking, Queen Is Dead and So as well. Think Visual of course, Life's Rich Pageant, Candy Apple Grey, Graceland, Love and Hope and Sex and Dreams, Dirty Work, Back In The Highlife.... To me Think Visual holds up with, or exceeds those albums.
I love lists and this is terrific. You were all over the place for sure. Dig the nod to southern rock! I was listening to Graceland, Life’s Rich Pageant & Parade but also just beginning to listen to country radio and searching for alt- country before it was a thing: Dwight, Steve Earle, Green On Red, The Silos, Lyle Lovett, The Long Ryders, Dream Syndicate and stuff like that.
Great observations. I think both Think Visual and Word Of Mouth are the best A sides since maybe not Misfits, definitely Low Budget.
It’s not something that I put together. It’s whatever Apple thinks, Apple gets. There was a variety but, yeah, it had the Jayhawks (and this particular track pulled hard!), Old 97s, Golden Smog, Ryan Adams, Richmond Fontaine, etc. And Rickie Lee Jones and, as mentioned above, ‘Hot Potatoes.’ I just clicked on it a few minutes ago and, of all things, Yes popped up. And now? Joni Mitchell. In short, I have no idea what the difference is between My Favorites and Zeki’s Station. I doubt there is any.
Some really cool posts while I was off partying.... 1986.... Interesting year for me... I was an intermittent drunkard working in the bank, but it was the year I started recording my own songs. Using the hi-tech equipment I had - an old 3 in 1 stereo - 2 cheapo kmart mics, one balanced on my leg, the other balanced on a speaker - sitting on the floor, looking at some song i had scratched out on a piece of paper. Good times indeed. Lots of great concerts in 86. Dire Straits, George Thorogood, Stevie Ray Vaughn, John Mayall and many more i don't really remember off the top of my head, without a ton of research.... Looking through the google search of best albums of 1986, I probably wasn't in the trendy zone I don't guess, because I would have bought a lot of albums, but although I have many of them now, many I didn't get at the time.... I was probably hitting back catalogs in secondhand stores. The ones I did Iron Maiden - Somewhere In Time Billy Bragg - Talking to the Taxman About Poetry Crowded House The The - Infected Kate Bush - Whole Story Stones - Dirty Work PIL - Album Cure - Standing On A Beach Robert Cray - Strong Persuader I was probably discovering The Doors, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Genesis and other big back catalogs of bands I had discovered in the years just prior.... John Farnham exploded out of relative obscurity to have the biggest selling album in Aus history, on the back of one of the best voices to ever walk onto a stage. Hunters And Collectors magnificent Human Frailty The year came to a conclusion with the Australian Made tour with Mental as Anything, I'm Talking, The Triffids, The Saints, Divinyls, Models, INXS and Jimmy Barnes. A big out door stadium show trying to boost the stocks of Australian artists and get them out of the pubs and into the arenas.... An interesting year for me.
Back when my son’s high school-era band was recording their first album our home in Tokyo acted as mixing studio. We were renting this unique place, designed by landlord’s Italian Architectural Design School son, complete with a Romeo and Juliet balcony (with a pink railing) overlooking the living room. It was in this space that we had the computer setup and from which The Band would work. They were trying to replicate a Yankee Hotel Foxtrot background noise effect and, I humbly admit, it was my brilliant idea to dangle a karaoke mic over the balcony railing so it hovered near the television set. Then my son turned the set on and turned the channel until he caught some Korean-language show (Korean dramas, sub-titled in Japanese, we’re big with Japanese ladies. Evidently they liked the plastic surgery look…but anyway!). But it worked perfectly for the noise effect. So, yeah, if the balancing-on-your-leg works? That’s the ticket!
Been off the digital grid for a couple of days - the last time I was off the grid, the Kinks were still a functioning band. "Welcome To Sleazy Town" - I really like this song a lot. I think it was written as a performance piece - something Ray wrote which allowed him to play a character on stage the same way he played the Headmaster in performances of "The Hard Way". Musically, it has a dramatic arc to it beginning with the bluesy harmonica intro and building in intensity to the chorus. A tale of urban decay which would have been something Ray probably noticed on the road. It is actually quite a complex lyric covering various issues related to the topic. Ray as a master of ceremonies leading you through the horrors of modern life in cities that used to have a vibrant downtown but now look like bombed-out war zones (yes Detroit I mean you) seems to make a lot of sense to me. "The Video Shop" - I note the ska influence and it made me think of a band like Madness (who had a penchant for whimsical observations that wouldn't be out of place in a Kinks song). It is kind of infectious once its lilt crawls into your brain. A song about the need for escapism in this cruel world and certainly of its time (good luck finding a video shop now). Ray gets inside the heads of people who are looking for a way out of mundane existence with ease, of course.
@The late man, inspiring sea cow, perhaps along with being @Fortuleo 's brother and/or doppelganger, you and I may have some cosmic ultrasonic cross-continental connection. To wit, last week I was in Boise Idaho, taking a long walk by the river with an old friend who works as an accountant/controller. Since I studied history, the two of us combined roughly equal an economic historian. But that isn't the ultrasonic, cosmic part. As we watched ducks and giggly boys in innertubes floating downstream, I told my old buddy about various *dream* projects I've never been able to get off the ground, including the story of the Emperor Julian the Apostate and his attempt to restore pagan ritual after decades of official Christianity (Constantine's reign: 306-337; Julian's: 361-363). At a certain point in the narrative, we laughed -- think of all the imperial officials who suddenly had to discard Christianity in order to stay in favor, and adopt or re-adopt paganism. What kind of little side-hustles must've popped up in all corners of the Empire: Household god statue manufacturers, sacrificial animal breeders, step-by-step guides on oracle consultation. Augeries for Dummies. Vestment stitching, 50% off. Libation concoction booths. Then, Julian dies in battle (or by treason) and suddenly those businesses are wiped out. Better find another gig, thinks the guy selling lares and penates on the street corner, quickly switching back to discount icons and 100-percent-guaranteed-authentic relics. Different phases of the later Empire, but you and I have been having similar thoughts, @The late man, which I believe is to my credit. * 1986 was when I started a long musical retreat. I got Graceland and King of America, but otherwise I just burrowed back into the 60s & 70s, filling in gaps in my e.g. Santana, Zep, & Jefferson Airplane collections with newly-cheap used vinyl (the Amoeba Music in Berkeley had huge bins of 1.00 LPs as they were rapidly setting up CD shelving). I wasn't even listening to college radio or trying to find obscure new alternative bands anymore. I guess it felt like something about growing up, oh, well, music just isn't doing the same thing, playing the same central role in my life at 24. It was a good 5 years before my musical passions re-ignited & I started haunting record (now CD) stores again.
Avid Brian X, did you ever read Julian by Gore Vidal (1964)? I did way back in high school during my Gore Vidal period. It was an interesting book.
That sort of abrupt change happens quite often, I bet. In Japan, most recently, ‘haibutsu kishaku’ (abolish Buddhism, destroy Buddha) movement in tandem with State Shinto. Thousands of Buddhist temples and icons were destroyed while priests/monks instantly became Shinto kannushi priests. Amazingly quick, more than likely. Also, separately, and earlier: hidden Christians. I frequented temple markets in the early ‘00s and always examined god statues very carefully to see if I could spot a cross. Occasionally, I did find one.
Read and loved and was delighted when my later Roman empire TA told me he thought it was probably the most authentic re-creation of the period. I drag it around, too, when I go to *general meetings* -- as *underlying IP* for my Julian project. Not that it's done much good. Funny story: A friend had Julian *under option* for awhile, and actually trekked out to Ravenna or wherever Gore V and his boyfriend were living at the time. Apparently, once he sat down with him, Gore said (imagine a slow, draggy, upper-class east coast accent): "oh lord, how can you tolerate screenwriting? I mean: Exterior... street.... day."
I really like that premise! You could do really nice dark comedy with that premise as a sort of Life of Brian meets A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum or even a mockumentary send up of it as a sort of what if??
Not to go on a tangent of history and symbols but the cross long predates Christianity as a religious symbol though obviously its presence in art or statues more than likely would indicate it being Christian in origin.
