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A Disc-Horse On Contemporary Society
120 Plays9 months ago
More musical memories of the 1990s record-o-sphere. Brothers Giles and Steve plough into the tape mountain once again and pull out three choice recordings from their past. This week the songs prompt a rambling conversation on a range of themes, including:
- Intense young men
- Digging The B-52s
- A flame-haired barbarian
- The robot invasion of a West Midlands market town
- Dissociation through video game addiction
- Learning about being in a band with the BBC
Related video material is available on the This Are Johnny Domino blog
The B-52s performing Whammy Kiss (a key text)
Trailer for the 1985 film Red Sonja
Banjo Kazooie Mumbo’s Mountain walkthrough
Playlist of the entire BBC Rock School series
Lefty Frizzell performs Saginaw Michigan
Visit the Johnny Domino website
Connect with Johnny Domino on Facebook and Instagram
Podcast artwork by Giles Woodward
Edited by Steve Woodward at PodcastingEditor.com
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Transcript
Reflective Beginnings with Kendrick Lamar
00:00:00
Speaker
I am a sinner who's probably going to sin again. Lord forgive me, Lord forgive me, things I don't understand. Sometimes I need to be alone. But other times I need to record a podcast with my brother about music we did and stuff.
Introduction and Theme: Old Music Projects
00:00:39
Speaker
A nice bit of Kendrick Lamar to start the podcast. My name is Steve and the man in the background waving at you is my brother Giles. Hi, I'm Giles and hello and welcome to the podcast. If you've been here before, you know what this is. If you haven't, it's just us talking about music, mainly music that we recorded a long time ago.
00:01:03
Speaker
And we're going to listen to some songs and discuss them and talk about what it makes us think. Absolutely. And that's it. Yeah. Have we got any business to talk about before we start the main business? Like, I mean, you know, as anything happened that we need to talk about? No, since the last episode. The last episode being the one where we talk about the tape as it stands currently, the compilation tape, the mythical compilation tape that we are compiling.
00:01:31
Speaker
We haven't really moved on with that, but I'm very excited about making it into a real thing. Not necessarily a physical thing, but it will definitely be available digitally.
00:01:45
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. And this is now the beginning of volume two. Volume two, because the first volume we worked out was enough to fill a C60 cassette. So, yeah, we'll keep going until we've got another hour's worth. Yeah, that's the idea. And then we'll do another compilation and then we'll keep going and keep going and keep going until we run out of tapes.
00:02:12
Speaker
I prefer to take it one episode at a time. But let's just see how it goes. I think the fact is what's worked quite well so far is we haven't really had any plan. Okay. So let's carry on with that. Let's forget the plan. It seems to be working quite well. Right.
Formation of Johnny Domino: Band Origins
00:02:36
Speaker
So today, Steve, we are going to listen to three
00:02:41
Speaker
Johnny Domino songs that most people in the world have not heard, but some people may have.
00:02:49
Speaker
A lot of the songs that we've talked about so far on the podcast have been songs that were recorded by me and you, Giles, with occasional help from our friends. Now, around about some of 1996, we decided we were going to turn into a proper band. Now, that involved us working up some songs with Albert, who we've mentioned a lot of times on previous recordings, and Jim, who has appeared on the podcast with his voice, his disembodied voice has appeared on the podcast.
00:03:19
Speaker
And Mark? Yes, but not on this first recording. Yes, the first couple of recordings don't involve Mark. So the first one was me, you, Jim and Albert. And we were rehearsing in cable's practice space, the bakery, which if it was an actual bakery would have been shut down on hygiene grounds.
00:03:43
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, would you say at this point, were we fairly intense young man? Well, it's hard to say because we did at the same time as we were doing some of these recordings, we were recording joke songs as Jimmy Dorito, the alter ego band of Johnny Domino. So I think there's always been
00:04:10
Speaker
This is incredibly pretentious. There's always two sides to us. The reason I asked is that my abiding memory of Jim and Albert, they were a little bit younger than me. I thought they were fairly intense. But also quite funny. Yeah. Well, we used to go to the pub and play pool a lot and we used to have a laugh with them. Yeah. And rehearsing was always good fun.
00:04:38
Speaker
Yeah. But we did record and write a lot of songs that were not much fun round about this time. When you say not much fun, you mean that they were quite serious? That's it. Yeah. They were very serious minded. Yeah. But they were quite fun to play. Yeah. And yeah, it's like it was like our version of thrash metal or industrial music or something.
Challenging the Band's Image
00:05:06
Speaker
Yes, but we did have a lot of fun and around about this time, well, for the first few years of Johnny Domino as a band, there was an idea that we were miserable.
00:05:19
Speaker
And it used to really wind us up. And this is around about the time when we started doing gigs and sending tapes off. We're not miserable. No, not at all. But we used to really wind us up. But then if we listen to this next song, you can sort of see why. Yes. And we've got a few recordings that we're going to play some bits of, right? Yeah.
00:05:44
Speaker
OK, because this is a song that was originally called Red Sonja, which we'll talk about in a bit. And the first recording of it was in the practice room. And you can sort of smell the damp and the cold.
Recording 'Red Sonja' and Lyric Contributions
00:06:01
Speaker
It does sound very damp. In the recording. And this has got Albert singing. And Albert, I think, wrote the lyrics.
00:06:09
Speaker
He certainly wrote most of the lyrics. Definitely banged a few of those early songs into shape, didn't he? Yes, he did. I'm just playing the bass and you're on the guitar, Jim's on keyboards. Yeah, I think Al was just singing.
00:06:55
Speaker
I mean, I quite like this recording.
00:06:59
Speaker
It's quite atmospheric and you can hear us shouting the changes because we definitely didn't really know what we were doing at this point. I want to listen to another version or another couple of versions as well. So let's save the listener from having to listen to too much Red Sonja.
00:07:24
Speaker
Now, you're about the name of it. It's nothing to do with the film, Red Sonia, the 1985 adventure slash fantasy film starring Bridget Nilsson and Arnold Schwarzenegger. But it is. Yeah, but we knew someone called Sonia. No. There was a girl called Sonia that we used to see when we went to the Funk Nights in Darwin. Yeah, it's not about Sonia. No, but no, I didn't think it was about her.
00:07:53
Speaker
Why is it called Red Sonia then? I don't know. I think, well, I wrote the lyrics originally, or I started writing the lyrics originally about someone called Sonia, that I'm at who had the audacity not to fancy me in the same degree that I fancied her. So, unbelievable. But I didn't really finish the song.
00:08:18
Speaker
And then Albert got older, my lyric book, and he wrote most of the lines, basically. And you can sort of tell it's the Albert lyric because, I mean, I don't think I would ever write, there's a line about dance, people in a club dance decaying and rotting. And that's a very Albert line, I think. And then Red Sonia, it was just one of, it was a film that,
00:08:48
Speaker
We probably had seen, I think it's the sort of film that Jim had probably quite liked, possibly. I've never seen the film. You've never seen it? Never seen the film. Ah, it's pretty good. It's got Arnold in it. Yeah. And it's a Conan the Barbarian spin-off, basically. Right, right. And it's got some good scenes of
00:09:11
Speaker
like really obvious fake heads flying through the air as Sonia swishes her sword around. She does some pretty good swordplay actually. Yeah, it's like dark fantasy. It's a bit like, you know, what's the other?
00:09:29
Speaker
There's other ones of that. Hawk the Slayer. Not exactly the same, but we used to like Hawk the Slayer as well, didn't we? Do you remember? Hawk the Slayer was a terrible film, wasn't it? Yeah. It's not really about that, but it was originally about somebody called Sonya who had red hair. Anyway, it became quite a heavy song.
00:09:54
Speaker
about some girl who's going through quite a difficult time, I think, probably. OK, shall we listen to a version that by this time Albert had stopped playing with us. He'd stopped playing. And he still played with us. Yeah, but he took his ball back. He didn't want to do it anymore. So this recording is just me, you and Jim.
00:10:41
Speaker
That is me singing isn't it? It is.
Bass Influences and Music Creation Process
00:10:52
Speaker
I've always found that really odd to sing. Very wordy. It's definitely Albert's vocal line because he's got a deeper voice than me. Yeah.
00:11:08
Speaker
And I think Albert took it up a level on the chorus. Yes, he did. In the end with a shout out.
00:11:38
Speaker
It's not in your range at all is it?
00:11:56
Speaker
I'm not sure if I can listen to three versions of this song. This is going to take some really good editing isn't it? It's a good job you're really talented. Thanks. That version is clearly not in your range is it?
00:12:18
Speaker
It's really not in your range at all. Well, I found it a very odd song to sing. It is rhythmically precise, which is again another Albert thing. He's a very rhythmic lyric writer and it rhymes, but not in an overly forced sort of way.
00:12:37
Speaker
Not to my ears anyway. No, I didn't really like singing it. I was more comfortable just playing the bass on that one. And I did like the bass line. And I think on that version, and on the last version, if we could listen to, I really quite like the bass on it actually.
00:12:59
Speaker
I'm quite keen, I was quite keen on a certain type of bass playing, I think. And it was quite a conscious thing. Obviously, I really liked Steve Hanley. Yeah. From, from the fall. That sound. Yeah. Yeah. And I think that was kind of what I was going for really. And obviously a bit of Kim D or probably thrown in there as well. Yeah. That was definitely an influence. Yeah. I mean, I think at this,
00:13:28
Speaker
time I was basically writing the music and telling everyone what to play. Well, no, you did, though. I mean, you did. You did definitely write the music. But I think people kind of added their own. Oh, God. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think to it. You know what I mean? Yeah. I don't know. I don't think I don't think it was like. I wasn't standing over you. It wasn't James Brown's situation.
00:13:55
Speaker
I wasn't standing over you saying, well, you've changed that bit or anything. You didn't dock our pay for playing the wrong note.
00:14:05
Speaker
Yeah, then eventually Mark joined the band as keyboard player, I don't want to say utility player, but he did fill the gaps in when needed on anything that needed gaps filling, didn't he? Played guitar, played keyboard and brought his beautiful collection of
00:14:26
Speaker
anti-convintage keyboards to us as well. He did. Actually, I think by that point, he didn't really have that many, but he then went out and bought loads of things. So thank you, Mark, for spending all that money on your old keyboards. Yeah. And Mark was the kind of a, he was a less intense young man.
00:14:50
Speaker
It was way more chipper. He brought a welcome sense of chipperness to the Johnny Domino organization. Yes, we needed someone to kind of lighten the mood a bit. Yes. Definitely. I think he did that. Yeah. So on this recording, it is you on the bass, me on guitar, Mark on keyboards, the drum machine,
00:15:18
Speaker
And there's loads of extra bits and bobs that we added. And to say it was recorded on four track, it was a very full sounding recording. Yeah, there's loads of little sounds. Yes, beginning with a sample of Jim saying, Red Sonia, backwards.
00:15:58
Speaker
You're born in the right place at the right time I don't need to be uptight or unkind You could have anything you want But you seem content with what you don't want All the plans they made for you Are the worst thing you could do with yourself
00:16:36
Speaker
Living with wrong people, making bad impressions You made it weak with your night club confession Seems like everything will be fine if you go along
00:16:50
Speaker
Fills in the gaps when you speak But he still maintains on the beat And he lays on his chest when he sleeps Sadly still creeps in, you'll find it blows away You're a teenage, but you're so fed up You just can't speak What does it mean, what does it mean?
00:17:27
Speaker
Made this way by all their needs You're just blowing smoke in the breeze It should be different now you're older Until my club is getting colder Inside me, stand around and watch Each other dance decay and rot But you and I, we're shaking them off
00:18:02
Speaker
Everybody knows your name They see you at the top of your game You don't need anyone It's over for you
00:18:27
Speaker
Sadness still creeps in, you'll find It blows away your teenage mind You're so eat up, you just can't speak What does it mean, what does it mean?
00:19:30
Speaker
Sadly still creeps in, you'll find it blows away your teenage mind You're so lit up, you just can't speak What does it mean, what does it mean?
Creating 'Rabbit Themes': Album Insights
00:21:12
Speaker
We got there in the end. That was the version from the Rabbit Themes album, the first album released by Jonny Domino on Artist Against Success. A couple of things about that recording, there's a very wispy sort of percussive sound on the drum track.
00:21:32
Speaker
And that was when I turned the MIDI lead round and got the drum machine to play the keyboards. We were very into, as we mentioned before, the B-52s and on their album, Party Mix, there are lots of weird percussive sounds happening on different tracks. So we were trying to do that. So again, it's another B-52s reference. We recorded the bass and guitar at Dick's Farm, me and you, in different parts of the farm kitchen.
00:21:57
Speaker
which is very nice. It's like recording whales or something. And I think this might be the first recorded instance of a vocal style that we used on backing vocals, which I think we all called Steve in a box.
00:22:12
Speaker
Yeah, so that's me shouting in the background on the choruses. Yeah, Steve in a box. Do you think the B-52s, that sort of sound of the weird kind of percussive keyboards, do you think they used a similar method to create the sound? No, they probably just did it with their hands. Oh, right, okay. So why didn't we do it with our hands?
00:22:38
Speaker
Because I don't know. I don't know. Because it does have that sound of the... Is it a bit like the stuff on Whammy as well? Well, musically it's very like...
00:22:53
Speaker
particularly the song Whammy Kiss from that album, which is very... I mean that's... if you can refer to something as being a key text in the Johnny Domino folklore, then that song is one of them. I love the B-52s. Yeah. But I mean that's like...
00:23:10
Speaker
We didn't have the kind of camp cheerfulness of the B-52s, but we were taking some of the musical references, definitely. I was listening to the lyrics on that, and I just had the revelation that it has a very, very similar lyrical theme to the song A-Team by Ed Sheeran. We're plowing the same furrow.
00:23:39
Speaker
Wow, I've never heard that song. Go and check it out. Okay, I will do. Did you think that Ed Sheeran would ever get a mention on this podcast? I think it was only a matter of time. Yeah. Especially when we started talking about using a loop pedal. No, we never used a loop pedal. No, we didn't do that yet. I remember in particular one gig that we did, and that was in May 1998,
1998 Stafford Gig with Servotron
00:24:06
Speaker
And it was at a place called the Malt and Hops in Stafford. Can you remember that place? In my head, it was in the middle of a roundabout. Yeah, it was like a country pub, really. I seem to remember it was in the middle of
00:24:26
Speaker
Was it a city or like a big town? A small market town. Small market town. Yeah. And we got that gig because we'd done some gigs with the surf creatures. Oh yeah. The surf creatures, Andy.
00:24:43
Speaker
It was Andy from The Served Creatures and he was very nice and liked us and they should have been doing the gig and they couldn't do it so he recommended us to take the place of the support and we were supporting a band called Servitron. Oh they're a good band. Now were they the same members of Man or Astro Man or was it some members of Man? I don't know what the link is between the two but they were definitely affiliated with them.
00:25:08
Speaker
but they were a cool sort of surf band who dressed as robots. They were so amazingly nice. They were such lovely, lovely people. And we had a good chat with them and talked about, they were from Athens, Georgia, so we talked a lot about the B-52s obviously, and they talked a lot about Devo. And they were just really sound people. I think it was my first realisation of like how
00:25:38
Speaker
American bands generally are so much better than British bands because they just tend to work harder and play more. I remember there's a story, I think it's Ivo from 4AD. Somebody asked him, what's the difference between British bands and American bands? And he said, if an American artist walks into a room and there's a guitar,
00:26:08
Speaker
they're going to pick it up and play it. If a British band walks into a room and there's a guitar, they will look everywhere else in that room other than at the guitar. That was how we described the difference between American and British bands. Yeah. But then he signed Lush, so there you go. Mother is that. I don't think he was right all the time, the Wolfgang Press in particular.
00:26:33
Speaker
Yeah, they were just very nice, very chatty, had a lot of time for us. They listened to our sound check and said incredibly complimentary things. And then at some point in the evening, they disappeared and changed into homemade robot costumes. And then from that point on, they didn't let the mask drop. You know, they were in character for the rest of the night as robots.
00:26:57
Speaker
And they were brilliant the way they talked to the audience and they were, weren't being heckled, like light hearted heckling. And they would answer in character, just nonstop. They were so tight. And I remember that Marx, I think it was his Korg MS-10, his keyboard, they gave him a sticker, which said something about member of the servitron robotic Alliance. And I'm pretty sure it's still on there.
00:27:24
Speaker
Yeah, no, they were great. That was a good gig. It was a great gig. It was packed. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was a great crowd. It was a really great crowd, really good gig. And we had a chippy tea. After our sound check, we went and had a chippy tea and it was pretty good chips as well. Good memories. Okay. Where are we going to go next? Well, the next song has got a couple of different song titles.
00:27:51
Speaker
At this time we'd released, had we released Rabbit Themes? Jim was working in a record shop in Derby, which at that point I think was called Way Ahead, and then it turned into, at some point after that it was called Reveal, but it was run by a guy called Tom, and he used to manage Way Ahead in Nottingham as well, but he moved into Derby.
Song Title Origins: Banjo-Kazooie
00:28:12
Speaker
and Jim was working there so when we put out rabbit themes ourselves before artists against success put it out they stocked it in the shop and Tom had the idea he wanted to start a record label and his first single was going to be Us and a local band called Stairwell, a split single and we were writing this song
00:28:36
Speaker
And Tom was doing the artwork and he said, Oh, what's the song called? We didn't have a title for it at this point. And Jim said, The O'Chimpy Underground. So that's what the song was called on the single. Yeah. I seem to remember when he told us that we were a bit like, what does that mean? Did he tell you what it meant? Don't think we ever found out. I don't think it meant anything.
00:28:59
Speaker
Yeah. So what year was this? This was in 1998. So in 1998, I think, well, certainly Jim and I were both spending quite a lot of time playing on the Nintendo 64. Okay. And one of the best games on the Nintendo 64
00:29:24
Speaker
at the time was a game called Banjo Kazooie. Did you ever play it? I don't think I did. Banjo Kazooie.
00:29:32
Speaker
And it was about a bear who had a parrot, I think, on his back. And you would run around controlling the bear and the parrot. And it was like one of the first kind of like world 3D platform type games. And it was massive and spent many, many hours completing this game. And I know Jim did as well. And there is a level on it.
00:29:57
Speaker
And it basically, I think it's a jungle, I can't remember. And there's a little character called Chimpy. Oh, Chimpy is a small monkey found in Mumbo's Mountain. And he sits on a small stump near Congress Tree and wants an orange from Banjo and Kazooie.
00:30:20
Speaker
That's amazing. I think it's too much of a coincidence that we were playing Banjo-Kazooie and there's a character called Chimpy in it and it's at the same year. Chimpy the Chimp. So I think it's Chimpy from Banjo-Kazooie. Oh my God. I don't know what the underground's got to do with it. Once Banjo and Kazooie bring the orange back to Chimpy, Chimpy runs off and leaves a jiggy for the bear and bird. Yeah, that's it. Does that mean anything to you?
00:30:49
Speaker
Yeah, I know what a jiggy is. Okay, the stomp also rises higher to allow Banjo and Kazooie to jump up onto the upper area to learn a skill, fight conga and even press a grunty switch. Yeah, amazing. God, it was a good game.
00:31:06
Speaker
But it was really frustrating though at times. There was a level on it called Clankers Cavern that nearly, it nearly killed me. I still remember the frustration of playing it. And I devoted many days, many days trying to complete this level.
00:31:23
Speaker
Anyway, there you go. So The O'Chimpy Underground has nothing to do with that, but I think that's what the title comes from. Excellent. Good to know. Yeah, and the song, I wrote the lyrics. I think the lyrics are mostly about feeling quite disassociated.
00:31:40
Speaker
from your surroundings, which has nothing to do with playing too much computer games. No. And the music was written by you, I think. Yeah, it was. This was one of the last songs we recorded on a four-track. Yeah, it's one that we used to play a lot live. It was one of our standards that was in our set, really. And we played it for quite a few years. Shall we have a listen to it?
00:32:08
Speaker
Okay, so this is the single version.
00:32:27
Speaker
And my body just hangs from the neck below I can bully birds, I can press buttons Things will happen if I open my mouth If I open my mouth there will be a reason
00:32:46
Speaker
My best friend, my enemy, can you save a seat for me? If you feel so guilty, stop having fun. Stop having fun.
00:33:05
Speaker
That's you singing backing vocals, isn't it, on the chorus? Yeah, yeah. No Stevie in the Box on that one. I want to get onto any other version of it, really. Yeah, it's quite a low-key version. Well, it's good. Yeah, I mean, musically, I like it. But as we'll hear on the next version, we kind of turned it up a notch a little bit. Well, Jim certainly did with his lyrics and gave it a bit more on the version that was put onto
00:33:32
Speaker
The Johnny Domino's second album, Players. But yeah, I think that was, I
Collaboration with Stairwell: Split Single
00:33:38
Speaker
think it was all right. And it was, that was the version that was on the split single. And I can't remember what the song by Stairwell, Hollow Heel sounds like. Can you remind me? The other song on the seven inch one? I can't remember either. They were a nice bunch of lads. They were keyboard, they were the keyboard driven. They were piano driven.
00:34:02
Speaker
I mean, they were quite a serious emotional kind of band. I think they were very into Jeff Buckley. Oh, you know what? Does that just come back to you? Were they a bit like Keene? I didn't want to use that word. But when you think about piano driven emotional rock from the late 90s, early noughties, you think of Keene.
00:34:24
Speaker
Yeah, I'm not keen. See what I did there. See what I did there. That's the kind of quality that we expect. So this is the album version. By this point, there was no The Underground on it. It was just called O'Chimpy, which obviously makes a lot more sense.
00:34:43
Speaker
And pay attention to the very tricksy little bit of rhythmic subterfuge that happens in your tradition. Rhythmic ambiguity, you've talked about it before. Yeah, I lost the word. But yes, rhythmic ambiguity, because it starts off sounding one way, but then it changes gear. And I remember we were very, very pleased with ourselves when we figured out how to do that.
00:35:28
Speaker
As a frozen brain, and the body ch...
00:35:47
Speaker
My best friend, my enemy Can you save a seat for me? If you feel so guilty then Stop having fun Stop having fun
00:36:40
Speaker
My best friend, my enemy Could you save a seat for me If you feel so guilty, hey Start having fun My best friend, my enemy Can you save a seat for me If you feel so guilty, hey Start having fun
00:37:22
Speaker
You're damned just like a fly It makes me wonder You only give me what I want So I pretend not to want I'll watch my back and imagine What's my left hand on me? From back towards your door I feel like
00:38:21
Speaker
That was Old Chip Pea by Johnny Domino from the most concise album as is billed on the bandcamp page. Somebody wrote that. I think that was probably me. Well it is. The rest of them are all quite
00:38:38
Speaker
hefty. You couldn't fit them on one side of a C90. That's one you could fit on one side of a C90 and probably have enough room for another two songs. Yeah, good. Which I think is always a good length for an album. I think you're right. Yeah. And it's got some good artwork, that album. Certainly has. Even though I say so myself. No, it's got some good stuff.
00:39:00
Speaker
There's a good picture of Darryl on the inside of the CD booklet.
Influence of Rock School on Music
00:39:05
Speaker
Darryl, our cousin. Yes, playing the guitar or holding a guitar. Holding a guitar. Holding a guitar. And I'm quite pleased with my drawing of a discourse. Yes.
00:39:18
Speaker
as in a DJing horse. Well, it's like a dis... you get a disjockey. You get a disjockey and that's a discourse. That's a discourse. I seem to remember we talked a lot of the time about the album being a discourse. Oh my god. A discourse on contemporary society. Oh my god. And only as a tongue-in-cheek sort of way, we weren't serious about it being a discourse. Do you think we're a little bit too heady, perhaps? No, I think our problem was we had lots of little jokes that no one got.
00:39:48
Speaker
Yeah. Things that we'll probably talk about in the future where we did lots of things that we thought were absolutely hilarious and no one thought it was a joke. Probably because we delivered it in such a morose, creepy-ish sort of way. I think the next song that we're going to listen to or the next piece of music we're going to listen to is a clear example of that. I think possibly. Can I just say one more thing about Ochimpi? Yeah.
00:40:18
Speaker
The weird noises, it's not very interesting. I was just going to talk about putting the guitar through Mark's keyboard, but it's not very interesting. I'm going to cut that out. What? Are you? Yeah, it's not very interesting. No one cares about the technical stuff. I don't know. Some people might. Yeah, so I'm playing my guitar, but the lead is going through Mark's Korg MS-10, I think. It creates all those wispy, floaty noises.
00:40:47
Speaker
Now, some people might think that it's a boring thing to talk about, but I don't because it makes me think of Deirdre from Rock School, Deirdre Cartwright from Rock School. And weirdly enough, I think there's something of Henry about your bass playing on that track as well. It's kind of the funky... Can you remember what he taught us all about? He taught us all about playing funk bass and slap bass.
00:41:13
Speaker
He did. Possibly we need to talk about what rock school was. It was an educational program about how to be a rock star. In a band, a rock band. According to Wikipedia, it explored the history of rock music and gave instruction in popular performance techniques.
00:41:34
Speaker
It was public service broadcasting at its best. Absolutely, yes. In the late 1980s I think, was it? 1983. How early? Yeah, we used to watch it all the time. I think the first series was in 1983 and then it came back, certainly in the UK, it came back in 1987 according to Wikipedia.
00:41:57
Speaker
But the band consisted in the first series of Deirdre Cartwright on guitar, Henry Thomas on bass and Jeff Nichols on drums. Jeff was quite dour, wasn't he?
00:42:08
Speaker
He was a little, but he was a drummer. He was a drummer. He was a pretty typical drummer. Yeah. And then in the second series, they brought in Alistair Gavin, who was a Speccy keyboard player. He had all the synths around him. He did. Yeah, yeah. It was great. But Deidre was my favourite. And she did, I'm sure she did do a bit where she put a guitar through a synthesiser. And that's what you were doing.
00:42:35
Speaker
Look at Wikipedia, there's an episode guide. Here we go.
00:42:41
Speaker
new technology might have been episode 10 because they did it in America with Herbie Hancock presenting it. Now that kind of knocks, with all respect, that kind of knocks Henry, Deidre and Jeff out of the water, doesn't it really? Yeah, but I think it would be too good. I think the original is the best. Yeah, you know.
00:43:10
Speaker
It's like the American version of the office. It's not as good. Yeah, exactly. But yeah, so that is chimpie and a long and rambling conversation about rock school and
Recording 'Kung Fu Love Theme'
00:43:21
Speaker
people of a certain age will know what the hell we're talking about. And if you don't.
00:43:27
Speaker
Google it. Or you know what, we'll put some links on the show notes. Yes, we will. Check them out. We always do good links on the show notes. So if you don't look at them, you should look at them. Yes. Because there's always good links. And on the blog that accompanies the podcast.
00:43:44
Speaker
all those video materials are embedded in the pages. So you can just watch them all in one convenient place. Shall we finish off the episode? Yes, let's do it. With another in-joke from the Johnny Domino world. Yes. Now this, the first recording, where did it come from? I can't find it.
00:44:11
Speaker
I think it was actually from 1994, the first version, and I don't know if I recorded this on my own or not, but it's called Kung Fu Love Theme.
00:44:37
Speaker
you
00:45:07
Speaker
Oh.
00:45:42
Speaker
ś ś
00:46:26
Speaker
Now, this is probably an example of something we talked about in the past where I would record a piece of music just because I thought it was funny. That used to make us cry with laughter, that one. I remember sitting in the room with headphones on and people just crying with laughter with that one.
00:46:49
Speaker
Is it the dogs when the recording of the dogs barking? God, I'd have no idea where that recording came from. I think it's the keyboard part. Is it the synth keyboard part, the strings? Yeah, it's the strings. Or is it the Casio CZ-3000 Typhoon sound, one of the presets, which is rumbling in the background as well, making it all windswept. God, we did think that was hilarious, didn't we? It was a love theme from a Kung Fu movie.
00:47:17
Speaker
with dog barking. We've mentioned in the past the band Ween, everyone's favorite arch stoner pranksters. And that, just like the juxtaposition of this moving theme tune with a recording of dogs barking is very Ween.
00:47:39
Speaker
And we thought it was so funny that when we were recording our first album Rabbit Themes, we recorded another version of it. We did. Which we're not going to listen to again, are we? There are better keyboard sounds on this version.
00:48:09
Speaker
We're using Mark's keyboards, not our crappy Casio synth. Let's leave it at that.
00:48:29
Speaker
But yes, so there you go. They are our three songs for possible inclusion on the mythical best of Johnny Domino mixtape, volume two. So we have... Right. I'm going to have to concentrate. I need to concentrate now. Okay. Can I just list the songs for the benefit of the audience who may have lost the will to live by this point? Okay. It includes Sonia.
00:48:55
Speaker
And I think for inclusion, we're talking about the version from Rabbit Themes. We have Ochimpi from our second album Players and Kung Fu Love Theme. Right. Okay. This is where we're meant to have a debate about which one's going to go on volume two of the best of Johnny Domino. Yeah.
00:49:19
Speaker
I mean, I think it's pretty obvious which one's the better. You say that. It's really not. It's really not obvious. I was joking. I don't think it's obvious. Oh, okay. I thought you'd been sincere. No. Right. I've got very good memories of playing Chimpy and Sonya live.
00:49:42
Speaker
I do love the story about us playing in the middle of a roundabout in Stafford in a really very traditional pub. And we're supporting a band made up entirely of robots, homemade robot costumes. So that's that's a good story. Chimpy is, as you said, it was probably one of our longest serving songs in Johnny Domino, because we played it live pretty much to to the end of our
00:50:12
Speaker
live performance time. And I'd forgotten how much we loved laughing at Kung Fu Love theme. And part of me just really loves the idea of including Kung Fu Love theme on the compilation because it's potentially the first track.
00:50:32
Speaker
God, yeah. You know what I mean? But I also quite like the idea of upsetting the people who listen to this podcast that know our work because I know that amongst them, certainly amongst my friends who like our stuff, Players is their favourite album by us. Well, I don't know, Steve. I mean, I think Sonja was a good song, but it goes on a bit. It's a bit dour. Chimpy's a bit more fun.
00:51:02
Speaker
Can we not include Chimpi and Kung Fu love song? Please. Okay. Okay. Yes. I think that's a good compromise because Chimpi, as I say, it was definitely more fun than Sonya. I really have good memories of playing Sonya live, but it's not much fun to listen to. Yeah. And Chimpi
00:51:26
Speaker
I think it was a pretty representative of the Johnny Domino sound at that time. And Kung Fu Love Scene is fairly representative of the Johnny Domino humor mindset that was there. Because we were fairly intense young men, but we also had a bit of a laugh. We did try to have a bit of a laugh. Nobody was laughing with us, but we had a laugh. No, that's not the point. We weren't trying to be comedians.
00:51:56
Speaker
We were just amusing ourselves. Okay, so we're going to have... As we said last episode, the people don't have to listen. It's true. So we've gone for Chimpy and Kung Fu Love theme. Can I say it's the first version of Kung Fu Love theme? Yeah. One with the dogs. Yeah, the dogs.
00:52:17
Speaker
because that makes it is possibly slightly more obvious that it's a joke. Good. There you go. Thank you very much for listening to the podcast. Before we finish, we have a new section. The new section today is country music.
Saving Country Music: A Passionate Plea
00:52:37
Speaker
Yes. Country music that's around now
00:52:43
Speaker
needs to go. Needs to get in the bin. Needs to go. Are you talking about right wing? Yes. Try burning the flag in this town sort of thing. Needs to go. For 2024 we need to go back.
00:52:59
Speaker
We need to go back. And one of my current fave songs is a song by Lefty Frizzell. And it's a song he wrote in 1963 called Saginaw, Michigan.
00:53:17
Speaker
I urge you all to go and find this song and listen to it. It was his sixth and final number one on the US country chart. It's a song from the point of view of a working class son of a fisherman from the titular city who falls in love with the daughter of a much richer man. The rich man does not believe the singer is worthy of his daughter.
00:53:43
Speaker
Okay. Then, as it's a story song, you see, the singer travels north to Alaska in the hope of finding gold and when there is no gold, the singer concocts a ruse. Okay. Which I'm not going to tell you about because you need to listen to the song and then you'll find out what the ruse is. I really like this song and it was introduced to me by
00:54:08
Speaker
by my kind of father-in-law, Tracy's dad, on Christmas Day, actually. Oh, it's a Christmas present. Yeah, it was this Christmas present to me, and it was the best Christmas present I got, this song. He prefers the version by Bobby Bear, which was a few years later, but I like this version best.
00:54:28
Speaker
All I'm going to say is listen to it and enjoy the recurring rhymes because the thing, the key feature of the song is the way that Lefty Frizzell as a good country singer, there's lots of good rhymes in this. And it rhymes Michigan with fishermen, rich and then and richer man and ambitious man. And finally missing him.
00:54:59
Speaker
which is a bit of a power rhyme, but it works. He doesn't try and rhyme Saginaw. No, Michigan. It is Saginaw, Michigan. There you go. So it's the rhyming. It's the rhyming and we need to get more back into rhyming, country singers.
00:55:15
Speaker
But I agree with what you're saying about the contemporary country is giving country music a bad name. Yeah, it is. And country music is not ostensibly racist. You know, to me, it's not reactionary. It was the music of the working class and the underclass. It was basically it's the white blues at his root and all of this kind of
00:55:40
Speaker
my flag, my mom, my hometown shit is giving it a bad name. It really is. And Saginaw, Michigan, by Lefty Frizzell, is a great example of a song which is about somebody who's seen as being, you know, at the bottom of the room, yeah, who's kind of getting one over the man. And that's where we should be going with country music, people.
00:56:04
Speaker
Yes. So, get writing. Get writing some songs. You're getting a hard agree from me on that. Okay. That's the end of my section today. Beautiful. Country music. Save it. Save it. We need to save country music. Save country music.
Conclusion and Call for Reviews
00:56:22
Speaker
Yet again, thank you very much for listening to the podcast. If you are enjoying it, if you are on a platform which allows you to rate and review, please do so. And also pass it on to at least one other person who may be interested in the kind of guff that we are putting out.
00:56:41
Speaker
Guof. Thank you very much for joining us. We'll be back in a couple of weeks with more Rock School Indettered Rememberings. We will. Thank you, Steve. Thank you, Jonathan. What song are you going to put at the end of this one?