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kylesvariouslistsandstuff · 1 year

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Further FOX AND THE HOUND Observations

I watch THE FOX AND THE HOUND... Like, a lot...

Not too long ago, while scoping around Goodwill... Even though I have largely halted collecting Disney VHS tapes (something I regularly did from the early 2000s up until the late 2010s, with some additions every now and then afterwards), I couldn't help but pick up some Disney VHS tapes that I saw there...

One of them was the 2000 release of THE FOX AND THE HOUND, which was in the Gold Classic Collection. This release came in both VHS and DVD formats, but I scooped up the tape, largely for the front artwork. I never really collected the Gold Classic Collection editions, even though they were the newest releases of several Disney films when I was in my late single-digits. I had gotten a couple of them, too, back in the day, as previous editions were no longer available. I had FUN & FANCY FREE, ALICE IN WONDERLAND, and THE RESCUERS DOWN UNDER circa 2000-2002. I had also gotten the GCC DVDs of THE SWORD IN THE STONE and THE BLACK CAULDRON. Many years later, when I started collecting Disney VHS tapes, I did eventually throw in at least one more GCC release. I remember being given the 2000 release of TOY STORY from a relative, and... I didn't really pick up any after that, until I got the FOX AND THE HOUND VHS the other day.

I tend to watch the movie a lot, and I wanted an excuse to the other day, so I popped in the VHS. I had never seen what this transfer of the movie looked like, I was only familiar with how it looked on the original 1994 VHS release (from "The Classics" line) and the 2011 Blu-ray... But, THE FOX AND THE HOUND fascinates me, even if it's not among my personal favorite Disney animated features...

There was a period in my life where I watched it frequently, too. Circa early 2002, I want to say? And another time around mid-to-late 2005-ish, when I was nonstop watching many of the animated classics. Studying them like the obsessed 12 3/4-year old that I was at the time! These films are like my sun and moon, even the ones that aren't regarded as the greatest, or even considered below par.

Anyways... Where was I? Yeah, THE FOX AND THE HOUND. Well-known amongst the average animation (and/or Disney) historian as the smack-dab-in-the-middle of the transitional era picture of the Disney animated feature library. The film whose production was fraught by Don Bluth's mass exodus from the studio, resulting in a half-year delay and the enterprise scrambling to hire many new animators to work on the picture, getting it to its summer 1981 release date. A film worked on by many future giants in the animation and cinema landscape, from John Musker to Chris Buck to Glen Keane to Brad Bird to Tim Burton!

Wow-wee!

THE FOX AND THE HOUND wasn't quite a beloved picture upon release in 1981, with some brushing it off as yet another Disney cartoon in the age of Steven Spielberg and George Lucas. In fact, this dog picture shared the same summer with RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK. It is a very compromised picture, as it is well-known that the young artists and the veterans were both at odds- not so much with each other, but with a very strict management that feared the wrath of angry letters from parents and the Bible Belt. This middle-management wouldn't allow the animated features in the works at the time (THE RESCUERS, this film) to be more in line with the films overseen by Walt Disney, films that weren't afraid to frighten young children and commit to their visual drama. Thus, you had Chief surviving a fall from a railroad bridge that was *supposed* to result in his death (thus fueling Copper with vengeance and hate for his best friend), and a general lack of oomph in other scenes. Jerry Rees, one of the animators of the film, recently revealed in an interview that the directors and executives didn't want the death of Tod's mother in the opening sequence to be explicit! They had to fight, tooth and nail, to get that gunshot sound effect in the movie!

That tells you everything you need to know...

THE FOX AND THE HOUND was in full production by the end of 1978. An inked and painted image of Tod and Copper meeting each other in the fallen log appeared in a November issue of LIFE Magazine that year, in celebration of Mickey Mouse's 50th birthday. In this issue was also some concept art done up by Mel Shaw for THE BLACK CAULDRON, which ended up being the feature film to be completed after FOX/HOUND. Not too long ago, I had read that one of the remaining bits of Don Bluth's work on the film was in the scene where Tod causes trouble in the barn while Widow Tweed is tending to Abigail the cow... and yeah, it does look like a Bluth scene!

There's a particular way Bluth does eyes, and I feel like you can see that with both Tod and the cow. Also, Tod doesn't keep his tongue in his mouth (before he takes a drink), another Bluth staple. You can see where his work is, using the tongues as your guide, in THE RESCUERS and WINNIE THE POOH AND TIGGER TOO. He has a thing for characters' tongues flopping out of their mouths.

But I definitely think that Bluth-ness can be felt in other scenes during the film's first 10 or so minutes, such as Big Mama comforting Tod after losing his mother, and Widow Tweed feeding Tod milk. And then about 20 minutes or so into the picture, once Amos, Copper, and Chief go on their lengthy hunting trip, you can see where things resumed following Bluth's September 1979 exit from the animation wing. You can see the work of the Cal-Art animators, and the vibe of the picture is slightly different. The first 10-20min of the movie have that '70s slow quietness to it, the veterans and the animators who already had ROBIN HOOD, TIGGER TOO, and THE RESCUERS under their collective belts... And then the rest of the picture, the new animators. There's a looseness to the animation and structuring of that half of the film, I feel.

I find that very, very fascinating. We have roughly a quarter of the movie that was made in 1978-79, and then the rest resumed in - presumably - early 1980. Of course, the story itself was probably locked by the end of 1978 with few major changes made afterwards (for example, the earliest iterations of THE FOX AND THE HOUND had some crow characters instead of woodpecker Boomer and the Brooklyn-accented sparrow Dinky), it's the execution of what was laid down. One team handling the first 10-20min, the other handling the rest. There's at least two schools of thought at play here, maybe a third, because Glen Keane's bear sequence feels - from a visual and staging standpoint - like it's from a completely different movie. The powerhouse sequence showcases a kind of intensity and raw pencil-drawn power that did the early Walt-era films proud, that the rest of the movie could've lived up to if the filmmakers had been allowed to just make a great family movie without the fear of upsetting someone.

Then you look at MICKEY'S CHRISTMAS CAROL (1983) and THE BLACK CAULDRON (1985), it's the new team's work through and through... THE FOX AND THE HOUND is the full bridge from the end of the Nine Old Men's lengthy careers to the "Young Turks" who would eventually be at the forefront of Disney Animation's "Renaissance"... You have a little bit of everything in it, really... Nine Old Men stuff that feels like it's from the late 1970s, Don Bluth stuff that's in line with his work on THE RESCUERS and his first feature THE SECRET OF NIMH (and also his part-time short BANJO THE WOODPILE CAT), the new animators' work that rings more CAROL and CAULDRON, and Glen Keane just absolutely going off with a scene that looks like it could've come right out of one of the '90s movies.

Kind of an eclectic collection of filmmaking choices, if you think about it, all rolled into this often-overlooked 83-minute movie.

#the fox and the hound #disney animation #random observations #unorganized thoughts

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secretradiobrooklyn · 4 years

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Shroud of Pigeon | 12.5.20

Secret Radio | 12.5.20 | Hear it here.

1. Yos Olarang - title unknown

This is a real score in my book. Generally known as Yol Aularon, this guy is Cambodia’s greatest rock musician, turning out garage rock that knows no equal in America or anywhere else, in my opinion. I tracked down this song on a tape attributed to “Yol Aularon” which includes his big hit, “Cyclo,” but also this song which I haven’t heard on any other collections. Honestly, though, I may yet run across it in a prominent collection, because I have no way of figuring out the title — every bit of the text I can find is in Cambodian. In any case, we LOVE this track! It’s almost like a catalog of Olarang’s laughs: there’s a merry snort, a giggle, and a malevolent cackle all built into the melody. I believe he’s the blazing lead guitarist as well. It’s just such a perfect gem of pure rock energy.

2. Gedou - “Scent” (I think)

Speaking of pure rock energy — DAMN, SAM! This was our introduction to Gedou, a blasting burst of Japanese glam rock whose costumes match the sounds you hear here. These guys were only originally active from ’73-’76, and then got back together sporadically after that; I believe this is from that original lineup. It’s well worth it to check the live video that this comes from. It’s an electric thrill just to see them leaning back to back, singing into the same mic, doing kicks and losing their minds in shining kimonos and silk hiphuggers. It feels like a Japanese MC5 whose wardrobe directly influenced David Bowie. One note I read says that they were popular with Japanese biker gangs at the time — and there are certainly bikes aplenty in the video. I’m looking forward to finding out more about the impact they had in Japan, and whether they made an impression in the rest of the world.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uHfBhJsqrD8

3. Clothilde - “Saperlipopette”

What a strange little slab of chamber pop! Clothilde was barely even a one-hit wonder in France — she released two 45s in 1967 and, as far as I know, that was it. But what a song! It’s like a vanful of pop records crashed into a classical instrument shop. I especially dig the xylophone or whatever that is back there — hardly necessary given the hyperactive harpsichord, but it takes the poppy flavor right over the top. So many bands have tried to get to this level of fizz, but I’ve never heard it succeed like this!

- King Kong - “Ten Long Years”

Slint is one of indie rock’s most unimpeachably cool bands, which makes the silliness of King Kong all the more endearing. Band leader Ethan Buckler was the original bassist in Slint, and all of the Slint lineup got into the act at one point or another. In 1995 Drag City released King Kong’s “Me Hungry,” a sort of funky concept album about a caveman, his yak, and an inhospitable world. Sean Nelson and I spent many not-sober nights enjoying that record — “I push em out, I push em out” — and got to see them play the Crocodile Cafe. I definitely remember appreciating how groovy King Kong was, like Neanderthal B-52s. Butler even looked a bit like a shaved caver.

4. Star Feminine Band - “Femme Africaine”

Born Bad is our new favorite label, right up there with Analog Africa. They’re based in France, and release music both archival and new. Star Feminine Band is based in Benin, home to so much of our favorite music. It’s definitely worth watching the video for this song just to see how young and full of potential the girls in the band are. They were assembled in a School of Rock sort of situation, taught to play instruments and encouraged to write lyrics. The lyrics of this song are so directly uplifting it’s enough to put a lump in the throat. Meanwhile, the music is such a pleasure to listen to! The whole album is full of good stuff, but this song is pretty much their theme song. It translates to:

“Oh woman, African woman

Oh woman, Beninese woman

Black woman, get up, don't sleep

You can become president of the republic

You can become prime minister of the country

Get up, something must be done

African woman, be independent

The country needs us, go to school

Africa needs you, you have to work

The world needs us, let's stand up we'll defend

African woman, be independent”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bdDp6VAXXbk

5. Young Signorino - “Mmh Ha Ha Ha”

A few years ago a friend posted the video for this song on FB with a note that was like, “Ever see something you should hate but you can’t stop watching?” I watched it, watched it again… and watched it again. It eventually slipped out of my mind, but I was thrilled to remember it the other day in the context of WBFF. The song’s language, such as it is, is Italian, but it also just fits perfectly into the post-language mix that has been turning our cranks lately. I’m really glad to get a chance to present it here first as a piece of music, because the video really affects the experience.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K9bf4PT-aEk

6. Yura Yura Teikoku - ゆらゆら帝国で考え中 “Yura Yura Keikoku de Kangaechuu” (I think?)

This is another sweet find in a broadcast full of em! Yura Yura Teikoku is a trio formed in 1989 and have a huge rep in Japan as a psychedelic band, but apparently by 2000 they were crafting super-awesome pop songs that rocked hard. The video of this song features a singer with adorably mussed hair and a striped shirt against an orange background, looking super hip and on top of the world. From what I’ve read they were gigantic in Japan but utterly unknown outside, which changed a bit when they played New York in 2007 and again a year later, to packed houses. But that didn’t seem to do the trick, and they finally broke up in 2010. They have several good songs from this period, but this one, from a three-song 45, is the one that has hooked us the hardest so far. We can’t seem to find out even what the song title is, but as far as I can tell the band’s name translates to The Wobbling Empire, and the song title is “Thinking in the Wobbling Empire.” It’s bizarre to us that this kind of hip tight rock didn’t find a way into the bigger world… but I guess singing in Japanese was the deciding factor. Really glad to have uncovered it though!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9CM44MohAs

7. Can - “Mother Sky”

I know a lot of bigger Can fans than me, but this track has so much of what we love in the drones, the freakouts, the lockdowns, the Engl-ish vocals, the long climb towards the climax… it feels sometimes like flying, sometimes like swimming, sometimes like burrowing deeper and deeper downwards.

8. Señor Coconut - “Showroom Dummies”

Can and Kraftwerk share enough DNA that they seem like a natural pairing. But… Señor Coconut’s version of this classic track of “Trans-Europe Express” is honestly my preferred version of the song. It sounds so sincere and strange, and I find myself thinking about the lives of mannequins even as I also hear the palm leaves switching in the breeze. The album “El Baile Aleman” — “German Dance” — was released in 1999, and apparently Kraftwerk was fine with it. Thank goodness.

- Lithics - “A Highly Textured Ceiling”

Every time I hear this track I think of Six Finger Satellite’s “The Pigeon Is the Most Popular Bird,” a crucial album for me. I learned about all of these tones for the first time from that record. I’ma write more about this band in a sec, when they show back up.

9. Schwervon! - “American Idle”

Years ago Mike Appelstein hipped us to Schwervon!, a two-piece band who were about to make the opposite journey of our own eventual path, moving from NYC to Missouri — in their case Kansas City. They turned out to be lovely individuals and an instant favorite band, and we hosted them whenever they came through STL. Their album “Courage” plays like a lost ’90s classic, and “American Idle” is one of the best tracks on there. The production of the album, by Matt Mason, is straight-up enviable. As is so often the case, good people have good friends, and they led us to Jeffrey Lewis, who has been a pleasure to get to know better since we made our own way east last year. I don’t think Matt and Nan are writing songs together anymore, but we’re glad that they did.

10. Boney M. - “Rasputin”

I saw this song peeking at me from my computer now and then, but didn’t check it out til recently. What a complete banger! The lyrics are absolutely fantastic — “Rah! Rah! Rasputin, Russia’s greatest love machine, it was a shame how he carried on!” — but so is the production… and the video, for that matter. Apparently this was a hit track in 1978. I’ve spent most of my life avoiding disco, though, so I had no idea. I love how the narrative weight shifts from the lead male voice to the chorus voices. It’s such a strange read of Rasputin’s life and death — the unkillable Casanova of Russia!

11. Rafaella Carrá - “Festa”

Did I mention that I used to hate disco? Well, this is my big comeup. We’ve been dabbling in disco on WBFF here and there, but this pairing is meant strictly for the dancefloor! This is the original Italian version, but Carrá became a massive hit in Spain and recorded most of her songs in Spanish as well. Obviously, the Spanish influence is strong in this song’s amazing flamenco claps and trumpet passages.

12. T.P. Orchestre Poly-Rythmo de Cotonou Benin et Loko Pierre - “Djo Mi Do”

There’s nowhere to go from disco but back to our prime fascination: Tout Puissant! This album is a collaboration with saxophonist Loko Pierre, and every track hits hard. But this track’s chorus, “djo mi do, djo mi do!” is such a gotdamn hook! This band continues to surprise and reward the deeper we dig into their catalog, and I feel like we’re still just getting started. So funky and fresh every time.

The chorus makes me think of a song we first heard on KDHX about a decade ago — “Dominos,” by The Big Pink. I really liked the hook of the song but loathed the cold-blooded lyrics, so I found myself hating it. You know how it is. I’m really glad to find a song that can replace it in my head — and it’s a way better song!

13. Bruno Leys - “Hallucinations”

Credit to Born Bad records once again for this song. It’s a true rarity. Bruno Leys fell in with some fellow students in Paris in 1967 including a guy named Emmanuel Pairault, who was obsessed with an instrument called the ondes Martenot, which is a very very early electronic instrument that works a little like a theremin — though it’s played by wearing a ring on one finger and sliding it along a wire, depressing the wire to change the note — but has a crazy range of sounds. The instrumental hook in this song, as well as the backing notes, are on the onde Martenot. Leys co-wrote and recorded four songs with the band, they got signed up with a label, released a 7”, then he had to leave for compulsory military service… and by the time he got back two years later there was no band and no label. The 7” was practically unobtainable til this year, when Born Bad records finally released it anew. I hope Leys is still alive to appreciate that it finally made its way into the world!

- The Psycheground Group - “Psycheground”

14. Troubadour Dali - “Spirit of ’67”

Oh, Troubadour… Sleepy Kitty shared a label with Troubadour Dali for several years, and we were big fans of their whirling swirling psychedelia. They had a couple of chicks (I think they’d approve of the word) projecting old-school colored oil-and-water light effects on the band, and when they were on, they looked and felt like the greatest band in the land. Troubadour went through an impressive number of players over the years, and there was generally some sort of drama or mayhem going on — not too surprising for a band who loved Brian Jonestown Massacre. The main songwriter was a lanky, handsome fella named Ben, though there were also great songs by Kevin and, every once in a great while, a powerful contribution by a quiet, snappy dresser named Benjamin. Benjamin apparently put this recording together entirely on his own. When he showed it to the band they flipped out — it’s obviously a winner — and they quickly got together a live version of it. Man, it tore the house down every time. At some point, though, in the midst of some of that drama, Benjamin started to kind of slip sideways out of the band. As they were finishing up their second full length, he declined to let the band record this song, or to make the demo available, despite their pleas. Eventually they went forward without it, and I don’t know what happened to Benjamin but I do know that Paige happened to rediscover her copy of “Spirit of ‘67″ recently, tucked into a stack of burned CDs. We’re very glad to get to drop this very special song into this secret radio mix.

- The Psycheground Group - “Psycheground”

Rare Italian instrumental noodles from the mid ’70s.

15. The Velvet Underground - “After Hours”

*Not ruined. Affected, but not ruined. She said so.

16. Jean Cussac in “Le Livre de la Jungle” - “Etre un homme comme vous”

One musical adventure we’ve really enjoyed is checking out familiar musicals in unfamiliar tongues. And though you may not think of Disney’s “Jungle Book” as a musical, you’d be mistaken. This version of “I Want to Be Like You” is a particular delight. It plays straight with the original, but the presence of the French language inflects the rhythms with a Parisian flavor that I’d never noticed before.

17. Duch Kim Hak - “Neary Sok Khley”

Another hit from the Cambodian treasure chest. Paige noted as we listened the first time, “This one has good chords,” and we took to referring to it as Cambodian ska. I think it’s meant to be a simple twist song, but there’s a royal quality to the chords that really puts it above a straightforward dance novelty. And his vocal delivery is ace!

18. The Fall - “Terry Waite Sez”

Not much needed on this one! This is one in a host of classics from 1986’s “Bend Sinister.” The Brix E. period of The Fall is just the BEST.

19. Twiggy - “When I Think of You”

Paige: “I was made aware of this record by The Deccas [a band she briefly sang with in Chicago]. They knew every single girl group song that had ever been recorded. This was the same band where the guy who was obsessed with Scott Walker and looked like him and his house was very /60s and he had a word processor. I didn’t even know what a word processor was. That’s unrelated to this song though. She’s one of the great singing models — and maybe next week we’ll play another one. There are three known.”

- Psycheground Group - “Psycheground”

20. Hallelujah Chicken Run Band - “Alikulila”

SO happy to have this album on vinyl at last! It was just released in this format, and Analog Africa is always so good at including notes about the album’s genesis. These guys are from Zambia, and they pioneered the translation of mbira parts into guitar parts, while writing these amazing songs that I’ve never heard anything like. Except for one. One of their songs sounds a bit like a Bound Stems song. Which is weird, because obviously we’d never heard them when we wrote ��Cloak of Blue Sky.” It just proves to me that they were both way ahead of their time and working in an idiom that could and should be hit music today. It sounds so alive and creative and insightful, like good indie rock should.

21. Lithics - “Snake Tattoo / Twisting Vine”

Lithics is one of my favorite contemporary bands. They played Foam in St. Louis like five years ago, right after I’d discovered their existence via the excellent album “Borrowed Floors.” Foam was a tiny little club that fit maybe 50 people and was sure to go apeshit for this show. I was SO psyched to be there… but the night of, we couldn’t get out because we were staying out in the Illinois woods and it was snowing enough to make the return trip too treacherous. As much as that’s one of the main shows of my life I wish I’d seen, I’m glad that Brad got to see them and tell me about it later. I hope I can catch them in NYC.

22. Sunny Blacks Band - “Mission spéciale”

OK, I admit that I’m obsessed with Melome Clement — or Meloclem, as he is known by some in Benin. He’s the composer of hundreds of T.P. Orchestre songs, and I’ve written about him a ton. I know he plays some horns and I believe he plays the slashing guitar that you hear in this track. I don’t think that’s him singing but I’m not sure; his voice is very malleable. Sunny Blacks Band is the group he was playing with when the T.P. Orchestre guys found him. It’s hard music to track down, but I love how much it rocks — or “jerks,” as they said at the time. We’ve also played the track “Holonon Die” on here and it jerks too, with an extended, wild electric guitar solo over pulsing trap and hand drums. What a freakin powerhouse Meloclem is.

23. Betti-Betti - “La Vie de Bettie Bettie Chanteuse Camerounaise”

This recording is a beautiful mystery. It appears in a film called “Badiaga,” which I encountered while looking for music by Betti-Betti, a superstar within her nation of Cameroon. This comes from one of the final scenes in the movie. There are different summations of the film (we don’t understand the language of the film itself), but apparently the story is “inspired by” the story of Betti-Betti, who was discovered as a child wandering in a marketplace, brought up extremely poor and eventually sang (a cappella?) on the radio, whereupon she became an instant success. She played constant shows and played with many of the region’s heaviest hitters, including T.P. Orchestre (they recorded an album together, which is how we found out about her). As for this recording — I don’t know if this is sung by Betti-Betti or by the actress playing her. And I don’t know the male character singing alongside her, though I’m guessing he’s a real-life music figure himself. It’s a beautiful duet, rich with feeling, and the performance footage throughout the movie is electrifying.

P.S. This film is also how I found out about Eko Roosevelt, whose “Me To a Dey My Own” is an epic upbeat number we’ve played on WBFF!

24. Guided By Voices - “The Goldheart Mountaintop Queen Directory”

A perfect song, meant for the opposite of social distancing: to be sung full-bore in a crowd with one’s arms slung around sweating strangers, straight into the face of the band (I’ll be the one hooting the recorder part). This is how legends are made.

- Janko Nilovic & Soul Surfers - “Maze of Sounds”

I love the bass part on this album as much as the album artwork, which we will surely have included somewhere around here. This guy’s story is pretty interesting: he was born in Istanbul to a Montenegrin father and Greek mother, and his career started by working with French singer Davy Jones (but not THAT Davy Jones) in 1967. He got into recording for sound libraries, working in soul and funk and psych music, gained a serious composing rep and eventually, maybe inevitably, his music started getting sampled by the likes of Dr. Dre and Jay Z. Not bad, not bad!

25. Gnonnas Pedro et Ses Dadjes - “La Musica en Verité”

Maybe someday we’ll release the version of this song that we recorded in the early days of the pandemic. This is the final track (if not the final song) on the immortal “Legends of Benin” album on Analog Africa. My favorite aspect is how the guitar plays the same mesmerizing piece throughout, but the percussion evolves over the course of the song until it has gradually changed completely. It’s a subtle dynamic but it’s a master clinic in how to run a drone song the right way. Also, that organ part is just beautiful.

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thisisheavynews · 5 years

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Mark Lanegan albums: a guide to the very best

For a man typically depicted by the press as a lone wolf, singer Mark Lanegan has been unusually collaborative all through his a long time in the music enterprise. There have been albums with Queens Of The Stone Age, Greg Dulli, Isobel Campbell and Soulsavers, and visitor appearances on information by The Breeders, the Eagles Of Death Metal, Masters Of Reality, Mike Watt and Creature With The Atom Brain, to title however a few.

And, after all, there’s his time as chief of Seattle’s vastly influential proto-grunge lords Screaming Trees, and half a dozen riveting solo albums that draw from the deepest recesses of people and blues. “Basically,” he says, “I’m always singing about the same stuff, whether it’s in a loud or a quiet outfit.”

Lanegan’s music, which he as soon as memorably equated to “throwing a little darkness on people”, will be each unsettling and surprisingly transferring. His is considered one of the nice singing voices in fashionable rock; a rusty carburettor sound able to imbuing even the slimmest lyric with actual gravitas.

Born in the Washington suburb of Ellensburg in 1964, a troubled teenage life led to heroin dependancy and a year-long spell in jail for drug-related misdemeanours. In 1985 he shaped Screaming Trees with Van and Gary Lee Conner and Mark Pickerel. Four albums of slanted, heavy-duty rock led to a major-label take care of Epic in 1991, but success for the band proved oddly elusive. By the finish of the decade, Screaming Trees had been all however over, and by then Lanegan was already a number of albums into a solo profession.

In 2000 he turned up on Queens Of The Stone Age’s Rated R, signing up as a full-time member of the band the following 12 months. He additionally squeezed in one other undertaking, becoming a member of buddy and Afghan Whigs mainman Greg Dulli in the Twilight Singers, earlier than the pair struck out alone as the Gutter Twins. Perhaps unsurprisingly, he give up QOTSA in 2005, although he continued to sing on their albums and infrequently tour with them.

Factor in a downtempo album of electronica with northern upstart duo Soulsavers and three albums of scrumptious desert-noir with ex-Belle & Sebastian star Isobel Campbell and also you marvel how he has time to do any of it, not to mention keep a excessive degree of consistency.

Blues Funeral, his first solo album in eight years, sparked a interval of prolificity, with three albums – 2013’s Imitations, 2014’s Phantom Radio and 2017’s Gargoyle – launched in fast succession in the years following it. Now, Lanegan’s new album, Somebody’s Knocking, is due to drop in October.

So who’s the actual Mark Lanegan? “I’ve done it a lot of different ways,” he as soon as stated. “My ex-wife said I have several different personalities – and none of them good.”

Screaming Trees – Sweet Oblivion (Epic, 1992)

The sixth and best album by the Screaming Trees was a profitable mixture of West Coast grunge, knotty punk and 70s arduous rock. It ought to have put the band on a comparable business degree as Nirvana, but it didn’t pan out that means.

Big hooks and sharp riffs abound, not least on huge hit Nearly Lost You, which gained traction from being on the Singles compilation. The album additionally marked out Lanegan as each a gifted songwriter and a consummate frontman, who invested the songs with a menace and temper that minimize deep into American roots territory. Dollar Bill is one other spotlight, whereas For Celebrations Past discovered him channelling some historical spirit like a latter-day Jim Morrison.View Deal

Mark Lanegan Band – Bubblegum (Beggars Banquet, 2004)

Lanegan might have nonetheless been a member of QOTSA, however Bubblegum was the undisputed spotlight of his solo profession to date. Not that he was solely alone – PJ Harvey fetches up on Come To Me and pulsating duet Hit The City, Izzy Stradlin and Duff McKagan add ballast to the splendidly weary Strange Religion, and Josh Homme rams a knuckleduster into the clanging rock of Methamphetamine Blues.

These redemptive songs of lust, longing and drug psychosis are at occasions scuffed and melancholic, at others infected and scary. Also aboard are previous mucker Greg Dulli, QOTSA’s Nick Oliveri and former Mrs Lanegan Wendy Rae Fowler.View Deal

Queens Of The Stone Age – Songs For The Deaf (Interscope, 2002)

Having had a cameo on QOTSA’s Rated R, Lanegan’s contribution to the desert rockers’ third album was extra substantial, co-writing and/or singing lead on 5 tunes.

Songs For The Deaf was a unfastened idea piece that barrelled by California, accompanied by fictional visits from small-town radio stations. As such, Lanegan’s oddly carefree vocals introduced a Biblical weirdness to God Is In The Radio, whereas Hangin’ Tree was pretty dripping with barely hid malice. He’s additionally to the fore on each the title monitor and Song For The Dead, intoning over the din like some malignant sprite.View Deal

Gutter Twins – Saturnalia (Sub Pop, 2008)

The bonds between Lanegan and ex-Afghan Whigs man Greg Dulli run deep. They started enjoying on one another’s information round the flip of the millennium and toured for a whereas as the Twilight Singers. (Dulli additionally credit Lanegan with saving him from a doubtlessly deadly cocaine behavior.)

The Gutter Twins discovered the pair united as the self-styled “satanic Everly Brothers”, taking turns at the mic for a set of gloriously doomy, post-grunge songs fed by a shared style for all times’s forbidden fruit. Lanegan excels on the anthemic Idle Hands, and the buzzing Bête Noire, during which he moans at the moon like a misplaced hound over an ominous beat.View Deal

Mark Lanegan – Whiskey For The Holy Ghost (Sub Pop, 1994)

His solo debut The Winding Sheet noticed Lanegan dispense with the noisy rockisms of his Screaming Trees persona, however his new profession didn’t actually start to fly till this ravishing follow-up.

The temper is nearly uniformly darkish, Lanegan essaying boozy tales of sorrow and defeat with a voice that appears like a busted squeeze field. It’s as shut as he ever acquired to making his personal down-home album. Breathy whispers, strings and acoustic guitars poke by the porch mild, whereas songs like Pendulum herald the arrival of Lanegan the literate poet, with a attain and breadth solely hinted at beforehand.View Deal

Screaming Trees – Dust (Epic, 1996)

The Trees’ swansong got here 4 years after Sweet Oblivion, and in the wake of scrapped periods with producer Don Fleming. Dust truly turned out to be extra of a signpost to Lanegan’s solo profession than the guns-blazing last huzzah that followers might have envisioned. There’s a haunting blues high quality to a lot of the album, although it’s undoubtedly the razor-backed product of a band with a regular grip on rock dynamics, the Eastern flavours of the excellent Halo Of Ashes and the ringing Dying Days being plain proof.

The band didn’t formally name it quits till 2000, however Dust proved to be a worthy send-off.View Deal

Isobel Campbell & Mark Lanegan – Hawk (V2, 2010)

The third and best collaboration with the former Belle & Sebastian singer continued the duo’s fetishistic pursuit of the Old West, with Lanegan enjoying leathery Lee Hazlewood to her purring Nancy Sinatra. It was an unlikely union, but it surely labored nicely.

Campbell’s dust-caked songs and stirring preparations present the superb automobile for Lanegan’s lived-in growl, be it the acoustic blues of You Won’t Let Me Down Again, Time Of The Season or the boot-heel bluster of Get Behind Me. Snake Song, too, is suitably venomous, although Lanegan comes on like a bruised Appalachian romantic on Eyes Of Green, full with fiddle solo.View Deal

Queens Of The Stone Age – Rated R (Interscope, 2000)

QOTSA’s breakthrough album, Rated R marked the begin of the band’s long-running affiliation with Lanegan, who has gone on to seem on each album since.

The music itself carried sturdy traces of the Trees (little question helped by the involvement of their ex-drummer Barrett Martin), although their previous singer’s function was considerably subsumed by the success of Lanegan-free singles Feel Good Hit Of The Summer and The Lost Art Of Keeping A Secret. That stated, his gruff vocals on In The Fade render it reassuringly potent. He additionally added back-ups to Leg Of Lamb, Auto Pilot and Homme’s private favorite, I Think I Lost My Headache.View Deal

Screaming Trees – Buzz Factory (SST, 1989)

Co-produced by Jack Endino, the man behind Nirvana’s Bleach and Mudhoney’s Superfuzz Bigmuff, Buzz Factory is the best instance of the Trees’s early output on SST. There are heaving nice riffs, and the music carries a uncooked, unvarnished high quality, veering from the Soundgarden-ish Black Sun Morning to the Stooges-like Subtle Poison. It’s very a lot the sound of a band in transition, Lanegan’s baritone but to purchase its distinctive sense of command and presence. There’s a lot to admire, although, not least Where The Twain Shall Meet and Flower Web.

Buzz Factory was the band’s final album for SST, after which they went briefly to Sub Pop earlier than a extra prolonged tenure with Epic.View Deal

Mark Lanegan Band – Phantom Radio (Vagrant, 2014)

Ever since his Screaming Trees days, Lanegan was synonymous with a darkish, dusty, harmful nook of the American musical panorama. So it was a little bit of a shock to discover him, on his ninth solo album, ensconced underneath the gray skies of 1980s England.

From the deep, chiming gothic guitar of opener Harvest Home to the chilly synths and Hooky bass line of Floor Of The Ocean, on Phantom Radio he channelled Joy Division, Echo And The Bunnymen and The Cure alongside Depeche Mode at their most downcast.

And then, after all, there’s that voice. Always threateningly stunning, if something Lanegan proved right here he was getting higher with age – grittier by the 12 months, and extra soulful, whereas retaining the melancholic heat that made his earlier tasks so particular.View Deal

from Heavy News https://thisisheavynews.com/mark-lanegan-albums-a-guide-to-the-very-best/

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tallmanbusiness · 7 years

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Corporates struggle to innovate. Five common causes that get them stuck, and how best to unstick them.

Unusually I’ve consolidated five separate blog posts into one post, all focused on one theme: corporate innovation. Total read time is 10mins 13 seconds - ish.

For several years my mantra is that there has never been more opportunity for innovation and entrepreneurialism than now. What’s remarkable is that opportunity continues to grow constantly. New technology opens more doors daily.Incumbent businesses are being disrupted, out-manoeuvered and left behind.Corporates recognise the need to innovate, but commonly struggle to do so.Corporates often get stuck. The five big sticking points that I see repeatedly are:

Stuck because there is no precedent.

Stuck with an intolerance of failure.

Stuck in an analogue paradigm.

Stuck in demanding too much revenue from new ventures.

Stuck unable to trust their intuition.

Bringing each of these challenges to life in more detail, with some examples of effective antidotes, as follows:

1. Corporate innovation gets stuck because there is no precedent:

Read time: approximately 2min and 27 seconds – ish.

Looking back to 2005, who could have imagined back then that today more than two billion people would use Facebook daily? That Facebook would become one of the most prestigious and profitable corporates on earth. It was ‘unforecastable’ – unthinkable even.

Before Facebook there was nothing quite like it previously.

There was no precedent.

The reason that Facebook was not invented by a corporate is that, had the idea been suggested, no one in a corporate would have known how to evaluate such a new proposition. Before Facebook both the popularity and the economics of social media networks were unknown.

This lack of precedent is something that entrepreneurs and start-ups find exciting and energising. In most corporates, my experience is that the opposite is equally true. Corporates are invariably terrified by the thought of pioneering.

[I hate quotes] There is an old quote in business – apparently from Columbus: “That if you want to discover new territories, first you have to have the courage to lose sight of the shore.” [Which is especially challenging if you happen to believe that the world is flat].

My observation is that most corporates are so wedded to their sight of the shore that it is unthinkable for them to contemplate that there is an existence beyond their current horizon. They want to know exactly what a new innovation / venture is going to yield before they set-sail.

In corporates, the preservation of their core business is often an overwhelming priority. Precedent (what went before) is a handicap that causes innovation paralysis.

Start-ups are not held back by provenance, because they don’t have any. Entrepreneurs revel in the privileged advantage of a beginner’s mind. (Link to my earlier blog post on this).

Observations on getting unstuck:

Corporates need to better recognise when they lack the courage or experience to metaphorically ‘lose sight of the shore’. The solution then is to hire experienced captains who have a demonstrable track-record of successfully navigating unchartered waters.

Essentially, corporates need to hire proven entrepreneurs.

If the obstacle to hiring entrepreneurial talent is a fear that they will be “too disruptive” and/or culturally rejected – then corporate companies need to change their culture.

The choice is clear. Innovate or die.

I also strongly advocate deliberately hiring people from outside your industry – acquire a fresh perspective with new skills and experience.

Some corporates have such aggressive immune systems that they kill anyone or anything that does not conform to their current paradigm. We now live in a period of unequalled opportunity for innovation. Corporates will fail to exploit this opportunity if they are not able to control and suppress their instinctively destructive autoimmune response.

Venturing into new areas is always difficult. Corporates that are successfully innovating are the ones that actively seek out and collaborate with start-ups. Corporates should not try to compete with start-ups, but they should invest in them. If you can’t beat them, join them. If your corporate does not yet have a venturing/investment division, now is the time to create one.

My assertion is that successful investment by corporates into new start-ups has the potential to yield more shareholder value than a marginal increase in market share in their core market.

2. Corporate innovation gets stuck because corporate culture is intolerant of failure:

Read time: approximately 1min and 33 seconds – ish.

Before the digital revolution corporates would rely on techniques such as market research to de-risk their pursuit of innovation. New products and propositions would be researched to death in order to avoid the humiliation of failure.

In 2007 I helped launch iPhone in the UK. Before launch, we asked business customers what they thought about iPhone – universally they all hated the idea of it. However, when stocks of the new phone hit O2 stores, we literally had to find ways to entertain the queues such was the overwhelming demand.

Fear within corporate culture is systemic. Corporate employees will never willingly share their failures in their Annual Performance Review (APR). To do so would be career suicide.

The core DNA of corporate culture is allergic to failure.

The act of pioneering multiplies corporate anxiety.

Observations on getting unstuck:

Corporates need to learn to fail fast. The mantra in start-ups is “Win BIG, fail cheap and quick”.

Start-ups have no money, they can’t afford traditional research because it is simply too expensive. They have no option but to launch, and learn.

Also, start-ups can’t afford to fully build their ideas and new propositions. Which is why they rely on MVP – Minimum Viable Product.

Get the new innovation built and launched; get it front of customers; start selling; learn fast. Look for market traction quickly. If sales don’t materialise fast, adapt and improve the proposition.

Iterate.

Often corporates’ biggest challenge is not knowing when to stop – when to give-in and kill a new venture. Fear of failure can cause two dysfunctional behaviours:

Either to over-invest in a bad idea to avoid admitting defeat.

Or paradoxically, to give up too early without trying hard enough to evolve and iterate.

Start-ups are more resilient; less fearful; more determined; and apply more discretionary effort in order to win.

My assertion is that start-ups are more successful at innovation than corporates because they possess a greater will to win.

3. Corporate innovation gets stuck because corporates are wedded to an analogue paradigm:

Read time: approximately 2min and 24 seconds – ish.

Most analogue corporates (ie. those that pre-date the internet) launched the on-line version of their business at some point between 2000 and 2010. Without exception, their approach was to build websites that replicated and translated their off-line service, on-line. Only, not as good. Most corporate websites offer a poor version of the real-world experience.

Ten years ago, that was the conventional way. Back in 2000 this approach was sort-of acceptable. Frankly, the technology (especially internet speeds and capacity) was relatively limited then and so there wasn’t really much of an alternative.

However, inconveniently – that excuse is no longer valid.

There are two big problems with replicating an off-line service on-line:

Invariably it is a rubbish experience.

It doesn’t make use of the technology now available.

When I go to a shop in the high street, I can immediately see the difference between a “family” sized pack of something, versus a “travel” sized pack of something because one is very big, and the other is very small. That difference is lost when jpegs are disproportionately sized on-screen to a uniformed format where they look identical.

Supermarkets designed their on-line shops in an era when people commonly pushed big supermarket trolleys around giant supermarket superstores. Where I live, those superstores now stand empty of customers. The superstore paradigm is no longer relevant to the extraordinary digital experiences that new digital tech can now deliver.

On-line shopping should enable shoppers super-powers that would not be practical/viable in the real world. Experiences that can simulate; stimulate; predict; that leverage AI; make things easier and more delightful.

Supermarkets are not alone in their attachment to an analogue era. Another example are banks who invariably design on-line statements to look like the ones that they printed and put in the post in 1972.

Why does my bank assume I want to read lists of my transactions? I rarely use cash and so the volume of my bank transactions has multiplied exponentially.

Specifically when my account receives a deposit, I want to hear it in my ears the very next time I put my headset on (ideally rendered in a slightly sexy whisper – “you just received two thousand pounds” - how cool would that be).

Airlines – don’t get me started.

Observations on getting unstuck:

Stop briefing designers to reflect the past and echo the off-line world – nostalgia is romantic.

Be open-minded to the new capabilities that new digital tech enables.

Be aware that new capabilities are emerging constantly. Actively hunt for them.

Design is not done. ‘Done’ is only a moment.

Leverage new tech to create differentiation.

Leverage new tech to the advantage of your customers.

Employ diversity – in terms of gender, age and ethnicity. Diversity adds new perspectives and helps fuel fresh thinking.

My assertion is that corporates that actively hire from their primary competitors are invariably the least innovative.

4. Corporate innovation gets stuck because it demands too much revenue from new ventures:

Read time: approximately 1min and 22 seconds – ish.

If the revenue that a corporate consistently generates from its core business is measured in billions (or hundreds of millions), it is very difficult to get excited by (and dedicate precious resources to) a new venture that produces [say] less than ten million dollars. Why bother?

Much has already been written about this - it is called the “Innovators Dilemma”.

Corporates tend to have one of two reactions to this dilemma.

One is to simply abandon the innovation idea.

The other is to wildly over-estimate anticipated demand and massively exaggerate the forecast revenue to the point of being totally unrealistic. With regard to innovation Corporates often hold completely unrealistic expectations.

To put that into context, in my experience, it is very rare for any new venture to produce revenue in double-digit millions within the first two years.

Observations on getting unstuck:

Stop counting the money exclusively – identify other measures of success.

Quantify the positive impact the innovation will have on reputation, rapport and reach – all of which, via social media, have never been more measurable than they are today.

Don’t just count the sales-revenue, I’m keen to encourage corporates to take an equity stake in new ventures so that as the new business grows so will the value of their shares, (often disproportionately so).

To accelerate sales of the new product or service, identify ways of attaching / bundling it with an existing product – ideally the most popular product.

Don’t look to up-sell existing customers individually (one-by-one), find ways to ignite them in wholesale quantities eg. using a ‘free-mium” pricing model.

My assertion is that corporates that get stuck by the “innovators dilemma” have failed to recognise and work out how best to leverage their biggest asset – which is fast-track access to millions of consumers.

5. Corporate innovation gets stuck because corporates are unable to trust their intuition:

Read time: approximately 2min and 27 seconds – ish.

Invariably start-ups are born out of passion. Entrepreneurs have a knack for spotting a gap in the market and for ‘going-for-it’. Before launching, start-ups often lack the resources (and expertise) to fully research and evaluate the validity of the business model that they have chosen to pursue. Commonly start-ups rely on instinct and intuition.

It is understandable for corporates to apply more rigour than that exercised by start-ups. For good reason, Corporate Governance is there to protect customers, staff and shareholders. However, often corporates allow both governance and self-imposed rules to completely disable the power of their collective intuition. In the worst cases, they stop listening.

The challenge with corporate governance is that it can get in the way of properly tuning in to customers’ true wants, needs and aspirations. At mobile operator O2, if we’d acted on what our business customers had told us prior to the launch of iPhone, we could easily have been dissuaded from going ahead with the launch. Thankfully we trusted our own instinct and intuition that the product would be a massive success, which it went on to be.

Observations on getting unstuck:

Have a hunch. It is good to have a hunch.

Tune in to your gut – listen to what it is telling you. Don’t ignore that sense of uneasiness in your stomach. Train yourself to react instinctively and immediately to it and respond to it. Don’t ignore what your body is telling you.

In the words of Matthew Key, the former CEO of O2, “Trust your intuition, it’s what got you here.”

Celebrate and understand your successes. Build a foundation of success on which your confidence can justifiably rely on. If you don’t bank your successes in your own mind, you are denying the opportunity of building a solid foundation of confidence.

Spend more time hanging-out with your customers. It amazes me how few corporate employees truly spend time with their customers.

Listen to social media. Ronan Dunne, CEO of Verizon describes Twitter as his opportunity to “walk the shop floor”.

Employ people who have a natural tendency to be astutely observational.

Put customer insight at the heart of your decision making, and focus on doing the right thing by your customers – these two actions will rarely let you down.

The opposite of intuitive thinking is to overly rely on process, governance and research. Don’t focus on de-risking decisions, but instead focus on learning fast and iterating quickly. Worry less about making the right decisions. Learn to recover faster. (Link to my earlier blog post on this).

My assertion is that corporate governance can stifle intuition and with it, innovation too.

#Business #sme #corporate #innovation #Start-ups #Scale-ups #digital #coaching #mentoring #entrepreneur

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