Clearance Rack Classics Retro 80s and 90s Dance Mix by DJ Tintin

1. A Victory Of Love - Alphaville2. Save Our Love (Razormaid! Mix) - Escape From N.Y.3. Hang On Now (Extended Mix) - Kajagoogoo4. Precious Little Diamond - Fox The Fox5. It's Alright (Remix) - Pet Shot Boys6. Snappy (The Spice Has Risen Mix) - Erasure7. Lucky Bag - Electronic8. Regret (Fire Island Mix) - New Order9. Lose Him (Razormaid! Mix) - I Start Counting10. Pretty Boys And Pretty Girls (Extended Mix) - Book Of Love11. I Don't Know Why - Red Flag12. Flexible (Remixed Extended) - Depeche Mode13. I Dream Myself Alive - a-ha14. Too Pieces - Yaz15. Space Age Love Song - A Flock Of SeagullsNotes and Other Random Things: Greetings, everyone! Back with another retro episode. Lots to like in this one with a few ultra-familiar ditties like "Space Age Love Song" by AFOS and "Regret" by New Order, some lesser-known, but great tracks from some brilliant albums like "Too Pieces" by Yaz and "I Dream Myself Alive" by a-ha, and one or two that you may not be familiar with like "Save Our Love" by Escape From N.Y. I've been really horrible about providing notes about the songs lately, but I'm doing what I can just to get new episodes up, which is really the point when all is said and done. Hope you like it! Happy Listening!

1. Pedestrian's Adventures - Camouflage2. Deeper And Deeper (Long Version) - The Fixx3. A Little Respect (12" Remix UK) - Erasure4. Relax (New York Mix) - Frankie Goes To Hollywood5. Date Stamp - ABC6. Pleasure Boys (Razormaid! Mix) - Visage7. Who'll Stop The Rain? (Special Dance Mix) - Heaven 178. Confusion - New Order9. American - Soviets (Cameron Paul Mix) - C.C.C.P.10. Brave New World (Razormaid! Mix) - Moskwa TV11. All Day - Ministry12. Behind The Wheel (Shep Pettibone Remix) - Depeche Mode13. Planet Earth (Night Mix) - Duran Duran14. The Things That Dreams Are Made Of - The Human League15. Computerlove (Remix) - KraftwerkNotes and Other Random Things: Hello, everyone! It's nice to be here. I've come so far to see you all ...Finally, another podcast for your listening pleasure. It appears even this 'cast is not immune to supply chain snafus. Immediately after my last podcast, my 12-year old computer bit the dust. I spent a lot of time picking out parts for my new build, but could not find a suitable video card to save my life. Took many months and a bit of luck to get the last piece of my silicon puzzle and then a couple weeks to find enough time to put it all together. But, I did and it works! So, here we are. Lots to like in this one and hopefully I'll get to provide some tidbits about some of the songs in the near future. For now, enjoy the music. Great to be back!

1. Idiot Country - Electronic 2. Rising Sun - The Farm 3. Patience (Razormaid! Mix) - Celebrate The Nun 4. Soul On Fire - Anything Box 5. The Walk (Everything Mix) - The Cure 6. LSI (Love Sex Intelligence) (Beatmasters 12" Mix) - The Shamen 7. What Can You Do For Me - Utah Saints 8. Blue Monday (Hardfloor Mix) - New Order 9. Channel Z (12" Rock Mix) - The B-52's 10. Sea Of Sin (Razormaid! Mix) - Depeche Mode 11. You Think You Know Her (The Deception Mix) - Cause & Effect 12. One In Ten (UB40 Vocal) - 808 State 13. Red Hills Road - Candyflip 14. Give Me Your Hand (Razormaid! Mix) - Red Flag 15. Tasty Fish (Pascal 12" Mix) - The Other Two Notes and other random things: I hope everyone is staying busy and safe during the current craziness. I really assumed that lockdowns and stay-at-home-orders early in the spring would be a boon for my podcasting opportunities, but alas it was not. Still, I finally managed to get around to recording this line up of tunes yesterday that I assembled a while ago. So there's that. If you're a 90s dance music fan there is lots to love here, most of which has not appeared in a #CRCRetro podcast prior to today (I'm looking at you Anything Box, Electronic, The B-52's, The Farm, Cause & Effect and Candyflip). One thing that stands out is a full third of the tunes here are album versions and not remixes. Much like the more you learn the more you find out you have yet to learn, the same applies to my music collection. Seems like the more stuff I collect, the more I realize how much I have yet to get. Because I have no desire to repeat things too often in this 'cast, I assume nobody will have issues with hearing album cuts of some songs strategically placed among the mixes. But, it certainly makes mixing more challenging. Thank God for looping! A second thing that stands out is that three songs here are from the New Order evolutionary tree. "Idiot Country" (a personal fave of mine) from the super-group Electronic featured Bernard Sumner from New Order, Johnny Marr from The Smiths/The The, and Neil Tennant from Pet Shop Boys. "Tasty Fish", from 1991, is by The Other Two: New Order drummer Stephen Morris and New Order keyboardist Gillian Gilbert. Of course, then there's the 1995 Hardfloor Mix of "Blue Monday", the original of which still sounds cool and futuristic all these years later, and is still the best-selling 12" dance single of all-time. Considering I'm currently reading Peter Hook's book "Substance Inside New Order", which is his take on the phenomenon that was/is New Order I suppose I had them on the brain while assembling this podcast. Nonetheless, there's a lot of good, upbeat vibes in this edition and really we could all use a little more of that these days. More to come ...

1. Animal Magic (Dance Vocal) - Belouis Some 2. If You Leave (Hot Tracks Mix) - Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark 3. Obsession (US 12" Mix) - Animotion 4. Chant No. 1 (I Don't Need This Pressure On) (12" Version) - Spandau Ballet 5. Poison Arrow (US Remix) - ABC 6. Kiss Me - Tin Tin 7. It's A Miracle / Miss Me Blind (US 12" Mix) - Culture Club 8. Love & Pride (USA Summer Mix) - King 9. Shack Up (Radio Edit) - A Certain Ratio 10. Change Your Mind (Razormaid! Mix) - Gary Numan 11. Hold Back The Rain (Remix) - Duran Duran 12. Can You Hear Me? (Razormaid! Mix) - Visage 13. But Not Tonight (Extended Remix) - Depeche Mode 14. Talk Talk (Extended Version) - Talk Talk 15. Leave Me Alone - New Order Notes and other random things: I assembled this podcast while selecting songs for my previous podcast and thankfully had time this week to record. So for anyone keeping track that's two new podcasts in roughly a month! Not bad for someone who has been on the quasi-semi-biannual recording schedule for some time. I'll add some notes at some point, though I haven't even finished the notes from my previous 'cast. I figured you all would want the music more than my ramblings anyway. Enjoy!

1. Lust For Love - Images In Vogue 2. Shake The Disease (Remixed Extended) - Depeche Mode 3. Heartbreak Beat (Extended Mix) - The Psychedelic Furs 4. Burn For You (12" Remix) - INXS 5. Bizarre Love Triangle - New Order 6. New Religion - Duran Duran 7. Memorabilia (12" Mix) - Soft Cell 8. We Came To Dance (12" Version) - Ultravox 9. Goodbye Seventies - Yaz 10. Run From Love (Razormaid! Mix) - Bronski Beat 11. The Love Parade (12" Mix) - The Dream Academy 12. Love Is A Shield (Extended Mix) - Camouflage 13. Million Headed Monster (Listen) - I Start Counting 14. Symmetry (Extended Mix) - The Spoons 15. Sex (I'm A ...) (Extended Version) - Berlin Notes and other random things: Happy New Year to everyone! My gift to you: a NEW PODCAST! Ring in 2020 and the new decade in glorious retro style, but please play responsibly. That goes for everything else tonight as well! I'll be back with some tidbits about the bands when I get a chance. In the meantime, Happy Listening! Much the same as other "almosts" like B-Movie and The Danse Society, bands whose promising beginnings were marred by disappointing recording sessions at crucial developmental stages, Images In Vogue's trajectory seemed poised to deliver better overall results. After forming in 1981, moderate success found them early with the 1982 release of two EPs: the 3-song "Pre-Release" and 5-song "Educated Man", plus an opening gig for Depeche Mode. Supported by relentless touring and and opening slot for Duran Duran in 1984 the band signed with Warner Canada. Setting to work on their first full-length album, the label execs suggested "Dream Weaver" singer Gary Wright to oversee production. The resulting sessions produced dismal results for the band who decided to shelve the project. The album would eventually be released by the label on the strength of the single "Call It Love" which was getting regular rotation on college radio throughout North America. Touring demands in Toronto prompted a move across country from their home in Vancouver. Ironically, the rigors of travel caused friction among band members. Simultaneously, band member Kevin Crompton (later known professionally as cEvin Key) remained in Vancouver to focus on his bourgeoning side project, Skinny Puppy. Further fracturing caused the band to slowly lose their momentum and Images In Vogue went on official hiatus in 1991. Renewed interest in retro music and fan demand has reunited members for various tours and appearances including a 2012 appearance with the next band I'd like to mention: The Spoons. The Spoons formed in Burlington, Ontario Canada in 1979. Taking their name from the famous utensil while eating Alphabet Soup at the home of band member Brett Wickens, the group originally followed a prog rock template, but found more success as pioneers of the Canadian electronic music scene. After recording an early single in 1981, Wickens left the group to focus on design. Originally working with Peter Saville, designer for the Factory Records catalog of bands, he has since carved out an exceptional career in brand identity, having directed work for major companies such as Adobe, Coca-Cola, Sony, Viacom and for all the major Hollywood Studios. He is responsible for designing the Sopranos logo. Without Wickens, the band came to prominence beginning in 1981 with the release of "Stick Figure Neighborhood", one of the earliest new wave albums to be engineered by the great Daniel Lanois. Their next album, "Arias & Symphonies" earned the collective a Most Promising Group Award and saw "Nova Heart", the first single from the album hit the Canadian charts. The b-side to that song was the one here, "Symmetry". A live favorite at early gigs, lead singer Gordon Deppe said of the song, "We went into the studio fully intending it to be our first single release. Little did we know that the lesser known B-side "Nova Heart" would take on a life of its own and become the A-side midway through recording. It took us all off guard." So, "Symmetry" was almost a hit. Strangely enough, the song didn't even appear on the "Arias & Symphonies" album. Members of the band reunited in 2010 to record their sixth album and appeared alongside Images In Vogue in 2013 to co-headline the "Rewind The Tape" tour. They are still active today. The Dream Academy almost never happened. Singer/Guitarist Nick Laird-Clowes, formerly in a band called The Act, keyboardist Gilbert Gabriel and multi-instrumentalist Kate St. John combined forces with the notion of creating music with a diverse and rather unorthodox set of instruments and sounds. Moving counter to the power pop acts of the day, their demos were rejected by every record label over the course of a two-year period before before getting signed by Warner Brothers thanks to a fortuitous relationship with Geoff Travis of Rough Trade records and Pink Floyd's David Gilmour, who went on to produce Dream Academy's first two albums. As luck would have it David's brother Mark had played guitar in The Act with Nick. The track here, "The Love Parade", was the fourth single from the group's eponymous debut album. It eventually peaked at #36 in the US, but was viewed as disappointing by record execs who had hoped for more in the shadow of the runaway hit "Life In A Northern Town". Reflecting on production for "The Love Parade", the only song on their first album not produced by Gilmour, on the 35th Anniversary of the release of their first full-length, Nick revealed: "What happened was, we had a pretty good demo for “Love Parade,” and we loved it, and when we made the record with David, somehow we never got 'round to it, and he always said, “Well, the demo's pretty good, and it's not really my kind of thing, and it's good what you've got.” And I said, “Well, okay.” But at the end of the album, when we listened to it, it wasn't good enough. But we still all adored the version, so Geoff Travis from Rough Trade, being a really canny music-loving thinker, said, “What about [Alan] Tarney? He did 'We Don't Talk Anymore,' by Cliff Richard.” And we all loved that record. There was a touch of irony about it, because we knew this was coming from right field instead of left field, and we thought, “Well, that's a really inspired idea, because nobody would think of us working with Tarney.” So it was really interesting, and we said, “Well, let's see what he thinks.” And he said, “No, I'd love to do it!” It wasn't like I could say, “I want this, I want that.” I did a lot of that, and he walked out a couple of times because of that. And it was right back to that old thing which had happened every time when I'd worked with anyone before David. It was just silly things like, “Can I just get on the faders and push the keyboards like this and put more echo on the voice?” But it was always happening to me. [Laughs.] So it was brilliant, and… Well, no, it wasn't brilliant, but he did it, and then we mixed it again, and it was great. But he taught us a lot. I mean, he didn't triple-track vocals. He tracked them up about 12 or 15 times! He had real special techniques, and he also had quite strong ideas. So he was wonderful, but he just came at things from a totally different place. He was pure pop, and he was very, very brilliant at it." As a side note: Alan Tarney also produced "Take On Me" by A-ha.

1. Regina - The Sugarcubes 2. Mysterious Ways (Solar Plexus Club Mix) - U2 3. Tom's Diner (DNA Mix) - Suzanne Vega 4. Hippie Chick (Flower Power Mix) - Soho 5. Space (Funny Mix) - Candyflip 6. Perpetual Dawn - The Orb 7. X,Y & Zee (The Intergalactic Mix) - Pop Will Eat Itself 8. I Want Your (Hands On Me) (Razormaid! Mix) - Sinead O'Connor 9. Cloud 8 (Future Mix) - Frazier Chorus 10. King For A Day (Extended Mix) - Thompson Twins 11. Secret (Original 12" Mix) - OMD 12. Thieves Like Us - New Order 13. Nothing (Zip Hop Mix) - Depeche Mode 14. I Touch Roses (Full Bloom Mix) - Book Of Love 15. Universal Daddy (Aquarian Dance Mix) - Alphaville

1. Bag Lady (I Wonder) - Ebn-Ozn 2. Electric Barbarella (Tee's Club Mix) - Duran Duran 3. Sub-culture (Razormaid! Mix) - New Order 4. (Set Me Free) Remotivate Me (Release Mix) - Depeche Mode 5. Music That You Can Dance To (Razormaid! Mix) - Sparks 6. Love Glove (Full Version) - Visage 7. Clear Trails - Shriekback 8. European Son (12" Version) - Japan 9. Let's Go To Bed (Extended Version) - The Cure 10. When Smokey Sings (Detroit Mix) - ABC 11. No Stars (Unreleased Original Remix) - Figures On A Beach 12. Blue Savannah (Razormaid! Mix) - Erasure 13. Disenchanted (12" Version) - Communards 14. No Gift Refused (Extended Version) - Until December 15. Love Will Tear Us Apart - Simple Minds Notes and other random things: 50 episodes! Kind of a nice accomplishment, if I may say so. Not sure why 50 is any more important than, say, 47 or 5 or 19. I certainly don't want to be numerically discriminatory or anything like that, but maybe if those other numbers were divisible by something other than themselves and 1 they might get more publicity. So, I'll celebrate reaching the 50-episode milestone because not only is 50 equal to half a hundred, but it is divisible by lots of other cool numbers. On to the bands ... The first band I'd like to mention here is the first band in this podcast: Ebn-Ozn. Many of you are probably aware of the excellent "AEIOU Sometimes Y", which also appeared on CRC #28, but most of you may not be aware of their tune "Bag Lady", which was a Top 40 Club hit and minor radio hit. Both songs appeared on the group's only full-length album called "Feeling Cavalier", which is notable for being the first album to be recorded entirely on a Fairlight CMI sampling keyboard. That makes Ebn-Ozn one of the true pioneers of the sampling culture which was just starting to take hold in the early 80s. If you haven't seen the video to "Bag Lady", it featured one Imogene Coca, better known as Aunt Edna in National Lampoon's Vacation movie. Go take a look. I'll wait ... Okay, we're back live.

1. Heartbeat City - The Cars 2. All Roads Lead To Rome - The Stranglers 3. I Die: You Die - Gary Numan 4. Auto Music (Razormaid! Mix) - Our Daughter's Wedding 5. To Cut A Long Story Short (12" Version) - Spandau Ballet 6. Fun City (12" Mix) - Soft Cell 7. 8:15 To Nowhere - Vicious Pink 8. Telecommunication - A Flock Of Seagulls 9. New Life (Remix) - Depeche Mode 10. Devil Inside (12" Remix) - INXS 11. Still Angry - Book Of Love 12. Today (Extended Version) - Talk Talk 13. A Forest (Tree Mix) - The Cure 14. The Metro (Extended Version) - Berlin 15. Take On Me (Tony Mansfield 12" Version) - A-ha Notes and other random things: So, hello again! Nice to make your acquaintance. Good to finally carve out an evening to record another podcast. I swear, these days I blink and three or four months go by. I suppose, relatively speaking, the same could be said for this episode as it is officially the shortest podcast in CRC history, clocking in at just under one hour. "So, Mr. DJ Tintin," I'm sure you're saying to yourself, "for all my patience waiting for you to give me some new tunes you reward me with LESS music???" It seems that way. You still get the requisite 15 songs, but many of these were single or album versions as opposed to remixes. That's the only defense I have. BUT, look at this artist and track list! Those of you looking for some stuff you haven't heard before may have just hit the mother lode. The Stranglers? Our Daughter's Wedding? Not exactly household names. "Fun City", "Heartbeat City", "Still Angry"? Not exactly the songs anyone would recall off the top of their heads by Soft Cell, The Cars or Book Of Love, respectively. But enough justification. On to the bands ... So, why were the 80s so great? A loaded question to be sure. But ask yourself how many bands in recent memory could have a member, who owned a hair salon, rent out a space above said hair salon, form a band, get discovered by Bill Nelson of Be Bop Deluxe fame, decide upon wearing women's clothes for a video shot in three days on a shoestring budget and become superstars thanks in some part to a fledgling music network called MTV and a now-famous hairstyle? Such was the fate of A Flock of Seagulls, a band that certainly helped alter my musical trajectory and, with the song I Ran (So Far Away), created one of the most iconic and lasting songs of the decade. THAT is the greatness of the 80s - the fact that music was not yet paint-by-number. There was room for experimentation. Sure, you had to be marketable, but the definition of marketable was fluid. And the rules were fluid. As long as someone in the know heard something they liked or saw a creative spark it was sometimes enough for a label to take a chance on you. Spoken like someone who thinks the music they grew up with is the best, I know. But I ask again: could that backstory exist today? Perhaps, but I just don't see it. As for the song in this podcast, "Telecommunication", it is sort of a cult hit at this point and probably an accidental one at that. "(It's Not Me) Talking" was the first single release by AFOS in 1981, but it was the futuristic lyrics and "wall of sound" energy, later praised by uber-producer Phil Spector, that propelled "Telecommunication" into the clubs and into hearts of new wavers. The tune still sounds cool and futuristic even today and reminds me of a moment in time when musical possibilities were still limitless. "No sequencers were used" reads the liner notes of Our Daughters Wedding's first EP, "Digital Cowboy". Layne Rico (electronic percussion / synth), Keith Silva (vocals / synth) and Scott Simon (synth / saxophone) wanted everyone to know that their electronic wizardry and sleight of hand was due entirely to coordination and skill and not programming and triggers like many of their contemporaries such as Depeche Mode and OMD, two groups to which ODW was often compared after their switch over from punk rock and guitars to new wave and synths. And while the group, who sang about lawnchairs and made frequent appearances on MTV with Martha Quinn in the early days of the network, somewhat ironically dismissed DM and OMD as being too "gimmicky", the group did score opening slots for some of the giants of the day including Duran Duran, Talk Talk, Iggy Pop, The Psychedelic Furs and U2. They even worked with famed producer Colin Thurston to record the aforementioned EP. Not bad for a US-based band who suffered the slings and arrows and broken beer bottles of misfortune hurled at them for using electronics on stage at a time when punk was still king. But even skill and deigning to employ sequencers could not save the group from a dust up with their label, EMI. According to Scott Simon, the LA office killed the momentum of their full-length album, Moving Windows, which was released in 1982, because a label exec had a personal issue with one of the band's representatives. The track here, Auto Music, is a Razormaid! mix of the lead track to that first and only full-length. The sweet electronic bass line you hear came about from Simon and David Spradley, the producer for Moving Windows, "jamming one morning in our Union Square loft." To cut a long story short, Spandau Ballet are good. Go buy their records. Seriously, though, Spandau Ballet seems like a perfect name for a slick and sophisticated band who helped spearhead the New Romantic movement, an era of glossy images and high fashion that gave rise to groups like Duran Duran and Visage and others. That is until you remember that, like other groups, SB had their roots in the punk scene and that their name was Allied trench warfare slang for corpses whose bullet-riddled bodies twisted and danced on barbed wire as they were hit by German gunfire. Perhaps they would have been better off going with The Cut or The Makers, both previous band names. But, the name Spandau Ballet stuck as did the amazing voice of Tony Hadley, the Kemp brother's guitar prowess (Martin and Gary), Steve Norman's saxophone riffs and John Keeble's percussive underpinnings. That classic lineup produced a string of Top 10 hits (10 to be precise) including "Gold", "Only When You Leave", "True", "Chant No. 1" and the song in this podcast, "To Cut A Long Story Short", the groups' debut single, which reached #5 in the UK. Speculation surrounding the song is that it pertains to a veteran suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder after being drafted, but getting no explanation why he must join the war. This song apparently inspired Vince Clarke (Depeche Mode, Yaz, The Assembly) to write DM's third single, "Just Can't Get Enough" which, as a side note, is currently being used in a Wal-Mart advertisement. I did NOT see that coming! What more can be said about Gary Numan that hasn't already been said over the course of four decades by the music press? Probably nothing, so I'm not even going to try to break new ground. But, in case you missed it, Gary did just drop his 18th solo album, Savage (Songs From A Broken World), this past September and it instantly shot all the way up the album charts to #2 in the UK and #1 on the UK Indie charts. Call it a love of the man and his music or an indictment of the current music scene, but for a guy who goes down in history as the first artist to secure a #1 song using an all-electronic approach with the highly-coveted and frequently-covered "Are Friends Electric?" way back in 1979, the fact that Gary is still making music that questions, challenges, lifts, destroys and defies convention is impressive. Despite the lofty charting position of the new album and its predominant use of electronics, it failed to register on the Billboard Electronic charts because, according to a Billboard executive, “Sonically, the Numan album just does not fit in" with Billboard's perception of electronic dance music. Seems a bit ridiculous, but Numan is no stranger to such disinterest or indifference on the part of the music cabal. In fact, even during his heyday, "Are Friends Electric?" was perched atop the British charts for three weeks before any radio station would add it to their playlists. The song in this podcast, "I Die: You Die", which appeared in 1980 on the Telekon album a mere two years after his Tubeway Army signing with Beggars Banquet, is his rebuke of the music press and their God complex, star-maker/star-breaker tendencies. The track eventually reached #6 on the UK singles chart. And finally, speaking of the music press, the last band I'd like to mention here had them completely baffled and befuddled for the bulk of their career, or at least until 1990 when Hugh Cornwall left the group. The Stranglers, originally known as the Guildford Stranglers when they embarked as a band in 1974, were comprised of guitarist/keyboardist Hugh Cornwall, bassist/vocalist Jen-Jacques Burnel, keyboardist Dave Greenfield and drummer Brian Duffy (aka Jet Black). Though not one member hailed from Guildford, they were "tweeners" in every sense of the word, dabbling in numerous styles from electropop to soul during the course of their long and storied career. And while many of their successes came during their early punk days, they never quite fit into the punk scene. Ostracized for their relative age, their humorous, often self-deprecating lyrical style contrasted with their often anti-politically correct stage antics, their stunningly fast musical growth and development, and their hit-making skill, which generated 21 Top-40 singles, The Stranglers set themselves apart from their punk contemporaries and gave the press fits as they did not know how to put square pegs into round holes. The track here, "All Roads Lead To Rome" was from their seventh album, Feline. As you can hear, it has distinct new wave overtones, which makes total sense having been released in 1982, but it is certainly a brave departure from their earlier work. And while this track did not chart, it still stands as one of the high points from the Feline album and provides a glimpse into a chameleon-like band that was firmly in transition. Another episode in the books. Thanks for reading/listening. Enjoy the music!

1. Close (To The Edit) - The Art Of Noise 2. Wood Beez (Version) - Scritti Politti 3. Junge Roemer (Specially Remixed Version) - Falco 4. Promised You A Miracle (US Remix) - Simple Minds 5. What You Need (Extended Mix) - INXS 6. Strangelove (Blind Mix) - Depeche Mode 7. The Great Commandment (Strauss Remix) - Camouflage 8. Animal Magic (Dance Vocal) - Belouis Some 9. Chains Of Love (Truly In Love With The Marks Bros. Mix) - Erasure 10. True Faith (Shep Pettibone Remix) - New Order 11. Have In Mind (Kalimba Mix) - Cetu Javu 12. Brand New Lover (Dust Monkey's Love Bubble Mix) - Dead Or Alive 13. Relax (Ollie J Mix) - Frankie Goes To Hollywood 14. It's My Life (Happy 90's Mix) - Talk Talk 15. Is There Something I Should Know? (DJ Tintin Mix) - Duran Duran

1. Love Is All That Matters - The Human League 2. In The Name Of Love - Naked Eyes 3. What He Say - Ministry 4. Too Shy (Midnight Mix) - Kajagoogoo 5. (I'll Never Be) Maria Magdalena (Extended Version) - Sandra 6. Jet Set (Jellybean Mix) - Alphaville 7. Some People (Special Club Mix) - Belouis Some 8. World In My Eyes (Oil Tank Mix) - Depeche Mode 9. Vanishing Point - New Order 10. Boy (Original 12" Version) - Book Of Love 11. Probably A Robbery (12 Gauge Turbo) - Renegade Soundwave 12. Count To Three (House Mix) - Red Flag 13. Loved It (The Other Track) - The Other Two 14. Different Story (World Of Lust And Crime) (Long Version) - Peter Schilling 15. This Occupation (Extended Mix) - China Crisis Notes and other random things: So, how often does a band release a non-hit to promote an upcoming Greatest Hits compilation? I don't know the answer exactly, but it can't be very often. Still, The Human League did just that with the first track in this episode. Truth be told, "Love Is All That Matters" did reach #41 in the UK, but this particular song was aimed at US audiences specifically due to the fact the that "Human", the first single from the album Crash, went to #1 in the States. Sadly, the track failed to chart in America. Oddly enough, the song, which was the third single off the album, was released almost two years after the album itself, which made it more of a promotion for the upcoming Greatest Hits package. Accompanying the song's release was a cheaply-made clips video, perpetuating the notion that the group's label was not willing to invest much more in the band, with their having reached a low point creatively. It's why the band was flown to Minneapolis in the first place to work with renowned producers Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, mega-producers responsible for the meteoric rise of Janet Jackson and others. While the parties got along personally, professionally the sessions were a total power struggle. Lead singer Phil Oakey said of the pairing, "We like to be in control in the studio. We don't like giving that up to a producer. That's why we had a big, final argument, and we just decided to go home and leave them to finish it off. It just got to the point of who had the power, and in that instance...They were the men behind the mixing console, so they had ultimate control." Jam and Lewis had notoriously rejected much of the band's material in favor of their own, even replacing keyboardists Philip Adrian Wright and Ian Burden. Wright was so humiliated, he quit the band upon their return to the UK and Burden shortly thereafter. Still, despite the power struggle, Oakey now admits that this record saved their careers, despite feeling as if its not truly their album. Whatever the case, "Love Is All That Matters" is a terrific song, which is why I chose to feature it here. Naked Eyes has not often shown up in these podcasts, mostly because I do not own any remixes by the group. (Insert audible gasp here). While their music is fantastic, it seems there was always something there to remind me that other releases took precedence over filling gaps in the Naked Eyes portion of my music collection. (You see what I did there!) Thank goodness for looping then, right? At least it gives me a chance to feature SOMETHING by these guys. In this instance, I chose "(What) In the Name of Love" from 1984's Fuel for the Fire album. It was the second full-length release from the group that was origially conceived as a duo featuring Pete Byrne on vocals and counterpart Rob Fisher on keyboards. Originally in a band called Neon with future Tears For Fears progenitors, Roland Orzabal and Curt Smith, that collaboration was short-lived, but it gave fans of 80s music two great bands at the expense of one, which is not a bad thing at all. And though you may hear lots of wacky stories from those who lived through the decade of excess, one thing you'll never hear anyone say is "I remember seeing Naked Eyes live." Though Pete Byrne has said they expected to tour after their first album, but their record label wanted them to produce more studio material, many believe that the complexity of their music prevented them from ever touring. They were one of the early adopters of the Fairlight CMI and Emulator sampling synthesizers and, because of the sheer bulk of the equipment back then and the limitations those synthesizers possessed with regard to memory and sequencing ability, it was considered almost impossible to recreate their songs in a live setting. These were digital sound reproductions, not analog or reel-to-reel reproductions as bands like Depeche Mode used on stage for percussion early in their careers. So, much like Visage before them, the band was strictly a studio creation. After the second album, Byrne and Fisher took a hiatus from Naked Eyes to pursue other musical interests, but left the partnership open-ended. They had always planned to get back together to write more songs. The moment arrived in 1999, but sadly the sessions were interrupted when Rob Fisher died of complications from surgery. Still, Byrne has carried on and Naked Eyes in its current incarnation has been playing live shows across America from Hollywood to Carnegie Hall, has performed on PBS and has put out both a live concert DVD and a critically-acclaimed ten-song acoustic collection. An all-new studio album is apparently forthcoming as well. Maybe it will have some remixes! Anyone with a working knowledge of Ministry and Alain Jourgensen knows the group has gone through a fairly massive transformation from their early days as a new wave/synthpop group to the thrash metal juggernaut that tore up venues with punishing guitar-laden sounds from mid-90s to the present. To anyone else, it would seem that the Ministry appearing in this podcast is not even the same group as the current incarnation. Heck, it's still hard for me to connect the dots between point A and point B, but for Jourgensen that would probably be the preferable scenario. He has repeatedly said his previous persona, that of a clean-cut kid sporting new wave duds and singing with a fake British accent was a mistake, disavowing any willfulness on his part to produce such a monstrously "awful" album as With Sympathy, the source for "What He Say", the track that appears here. He has held tight to the notion that Arista records was solely responsible for the direction the band took on that first full-length release, though his wife at the time was quoted as saying "...the English accent thing was more an homage to the bands he loved than anything else. He was not trying to come off as British. The Stones used a southern accent and no one crawled up their ass for it." Regardless, With Sympathy is an excellent slice of new wave bliss despite the fact that its creator denies having anything to do with it. Out of print for quite a while (Jourgensen has said on several occasions that he destroyed the original master tapes) the album was reissued in 2012 with three bonus tracks. The Other Two, if memory serves (and it may not) has not yet appeared in CRC. The group consists of Stephen Morris and Gillian Gilbert, husband and wife, drummer and keyboardist respectively of New Order and both critical components to the success of that band. Morris also drummed for Joy Division. Morris has said there is no real mystery to The Other Two band name "We're crap at names, and it was getting late" is his explanation of its origin. Interestingly, the pair originally sought out Alison Moyet and Kim Wilde to perform vocal duties, but Moyet didn't happen and Wilde apparently went on too many vacations to be a reliable addition. With Morris' dislike of singing drummers (Phil Collins and Don Henley specifically make him sick) Gilbert was recruited to provide the voice for the group. Most of the material appearing on their two albums, The Other Two & You (1993) and Super Highways (1999) is part re-purposed stuff and left-over stuff cobbled together from the various television and soundtrack work the duo has authored over the years. The track here, "Loved It (The Other Track)" was the last song on their debut album and appeared only on CD releases. Last, but not least is a woman who outsold Madonna in many countries during the mid-80s. Her name is Sandra Ann Lauer - Sandra - as her legions of fans know her, and is one of two artists in this episode to have collaborated with Michael Cretu, with one of them eventually marrying the producer extraordinaire. Can you guess which one? (Hint: it's not Peter Schilling) Formerly the lead singer of a disco trio called Arabesque, she also provided vocals on the string of Enigma albums released in the 90s and beyond. The track here, "(I'll Never Be) Maria Magdalena was the lead single from her debut album The Long Play, which was released in 1985. While having a rather striking resemblance to Laura Branigan and Italian singer Raf's huge hit "Self Control" from a year earlier, this track went on to become a #1 hit in 21 countries around the world. It was re-released in 1993 with much more techno elements and a futuristic video, but it flopped signaling the start of her career decline from it's lofty peak. She is, however, still recording music to moderate success. Thus endeth the lesson and this episode. Until next time, Happy Listening!

1. Beat Dis - Bomb The Bass 2. Hello (Honky Tonk Mix) - The Beloved 3. Say It (Disco Citizen Mix) - ABC 4. Good Life (Indulgence Mix) - Inner City 5. Left To My Own Devices (New Toy Mix) - Pet Shop Boys 6. World (World In Action Mix) - New Order 7. Heart - Pet Shop Boys 8. That Way Again - Seven Red Seven 9. World In My Eyes (Sensoria Mix) - Depeche Mode 10. Don't Let My Love - T42 11. Oh L'amour (The Funky Sisters Remix) - Erasure 12. Pleasure Boys (Razormaid! Mix) - Visage 13. Images Of Heaven (Razormaid! Mix) - Peter Godwin 14. In Blue ... DJ (Razormaid! Mix) - Data 15. New Gold Dream (Razormaid! Mix) - Simple Minds Notes and other random things: First, apologies to Kon Kan fans. I had fully intended to include a remix of "I Beg Your Pardon" in this episode. But I didn't. Why? Well, I've found that early Sunday mornings are about the most opportune time for me to record podcasts now - really early. And in my half-awake, half-asleep state I cued up the wrong tune. In all my years of DJ-ing/podcasting, I can't ever recall cuing up a song I had no intention of using. It's funny, but I couldn't for the life of me figure out why the beats wouldn't match and it wasn't until 3 or so minutes later that I realized I was cuing up the wrong tune. At that point, I didn't have enough time to switch to a different song, so I just went with it. So, for all you Pet Shop Boys fans out there, you get two PSB tunes in this podcast with only a single song separating them. It works, I suppose, but I generally prefer to use only one song per artist in each 'cast. I guess there's a first time for everything, right? Speaking of a first time for everything, after 45 episodes, Bomb The Bass finally appears in song form and not in a production or remix vein. I alluded to "Beat Dis" in episode #41 as CRC featured the Bomb The Bass Mix of Depeche Mode's song "Strangelove" as the lead-off track. One of the early dance tracks to incorporate sampling into the mix, "Beat Dis" was the first single from Bomb The Bass (aka Tim Simenon) and had upwards of 72 samples contained within. Along with ground-breaking tracks, "Pump Up the Volume" by MARRS and "Theme from S'Express" by S'Express, "Beat Dis" heralded the arrival of sampling as a viable artform. The track was huge in Europe, reaching #2 on the UK Singles Chart. It also peaked at #1 on the Billboard Hot Dance Club Play Chart for one solitary week, marking the only charted hit for Bomb The Bass in the United States. I have a real soft spot for the track I'd like to mention next. The band is T42 and the track is "Don't Let My Love". These guys were on the upswing and on the cusp of breaking out in a big way from the Dallas-Ft.Worth market during my time there in the early 90s. Orignally a duo consisting of Jay Gillian and Jimron Goff, vocalist Will Loconto supplanted Goff as the lead singer in 1989. After the release of a cassette EP (remember those?) called Hot On Top, they gained steady airplay on 94.5 The Edge radio station, which was home to all the great alternative bands back in the day. One of my many record store haunts back then, Oak Lawn Records picked up the band for a 12" single of "Don't Let My Love", which did well enough to attract the attention of Columbia Records, who signed the group. They released the full-length album, Intruder, in 1992, which was produced by Paul Robb from Information Society. It's hard not to hear the similarities to Information Society on "Don't Let My Love" and other songs on the album as well. In an ironic twist, Loconto quit the band in 1993, setting out to work with Information Society. While Gillian brought in other musicians to keep the T42 fires burning, the band's star faded and the group melted wistfully into the retro ether. Still, they left behind some tasty pop sugar for our consumption, even doing a very respectable cover of "Let Me Go" by Heaven 17. If you're into upbeat electro-pop, Intruder is definitely worth a listen. And if you're from the DFW area, the album and this song should be a reminder of an excellent time when the DFW local music scene was king. Taken from his 1982 album of the same name, Peter Godwin's "Images In Heaven" resembles more of a cult classic than a bonafide mega-hit. Formerly a member of the short-lived glam rock band Metro, along with Duncan Browne and Sean Lyons, Godwin is probably best remembered for his solo effort, "Images In Heaven", though you'd be hard-pressed to find anyone outside of devout new wave lovers who are very familiar with the song. David Bowie may argue the "best-remembered" point, as Metro's song "Criminal World" made enough of an impression on Mr. Stardust to induce a cover tune. Still, outside of 1983's Correspondence album and a Best Of compilation released in 1998 on Oglio Records, Godwin's scant musical output has always left new wave junkies wishing for something more. Something more ... also the sentiment I feel about Seven Red Seven. Chicago natives and band mates, Mitchell Adrian and David Michael, formed the group in the early 90s and had only a couple of releases issued to minor success before going on to production work for other musicians. However, their time together as a band produced one of the more under-rated and under-appreciated synth-pop albums in Shelter, which was released on Speed Records in 1991. The album included the song here, "That Way Again" and "Thinking Of You" (which appeared in remix form in CRC episode #34). Both were issued as singles. However, the rest of the album, much like Intruder by T42, is a synth-pop delight and a must-have for any synth-pop completist, especially for fans of Red Flag, Cause & Effect, Anything Box, Cetu Javu and others. The group would record just one more album, Bass State Coma, in 1994, and an interesting cover of "Superstition" by Stevie Wonder before moving into the production field. Truly a shame their total musical output was not much, much greater. P.S. Go buy Shelter! The last band I'd like to mention in this episode is the band Data. Fronted by Georg Kajanus, who made waves in the 70s with his band Sailor, Kajanus left Sailor in 1978 to dabble in electronic music. From this, Data was born. The track here, In Blue ... DJ, is a hybrid mix by Razormaid! Records of a couple of tracks from Data's third and final album, Elegant Machinery. Their other releases include 1983's 2-Time and 1981's Opera Electronica. In 1995, Eternity Records released a compilation album called Accumulator containing the second and third albums in their entirety plus the track "Fallout" from the Opera Electronica album. That's it for this episode. I'll be back soon with another new episode. Thanks for listening!

1. Tora! Tora! Tora! - Depeche Mode 2. Brother And Sister - Erasure 3. God Tonight (Art Of Mix) - Real Life 4. I Get Excited (Razormaid! Mix) - Pet Shop Boys 5. A Kind Of Tragedy - Celebrate The Nun 6. Your Tears (Razormaid! Mix) - Echo Romeo 7. Hurt - Re-Flex 8. 5-8-6 (Razormaid! Mix) - New Order 9. Cubik (Kings County Dub) - 808 State 10. Disappointed (808 Mix) - Electronic 11. Think (Virtual Reality Mix) - Information Society 12. Creation (Ultimatum Mix) - Stereo MC's 13. Train Of Thought (Extended Mix) - A-ha 14. Tesla Girls (Razormaid! Mix) - OMD 15. Reap The Wild Wind (Extended Version) - Ultravox Notes and other random things: Starting off this podcast is a song that may not be familiar to non-Depeche Mode fans - or about four of you. The phrase itself is notable for its connection to Pearl Harbor. The word "tora" literally means tiger in Japanese, though in a WWII context it is radio code for "totsugeki raigeki", meaning lightning attack. In a Depeche Mode, context, however, the song is also notable as it is one of only two Martin Gore-penned songs appearing on the band's debut: Speak & Spell. (the other was the instrumental track, Big Muff). As most of you probably know, Vince Clarke, who later went on to form Yaz and Erasure, was an original member of DM and its primary songwriter before leaving the group shortly after the release of their first record. Gore would take over songwriting duties after that. Tora! Tora! Tora!, while not one of the most well-known or provocative songs in the DM catalog, provides a tantalizing, albeit brief, glimpse into the mind of Martin Gore and all that was to come. As a side note, a live version of Tora! Tora! Tora! appears on the 12" version of the song "Get The Balance Right". It was the first live track to appear on any DM single. A limited edition version of GTBR contained several more live tracks, making it the first DM single to appear in a limited edition format. Speaking of Vince Clarke and Erasure, the second song in this 'cast, "Brother & Sister" is, in my humble opinion the best track on the band's Wild! album, which dropped in 1989, and perhaps one of their best tracks, period. Considered one of the stronger Erasure albums from stem to stern by many fans, Wild! is enigmatic in the sense that, for whatever reason, it didn't strike a chord with American audiences. Coming immediately on the heels of The Innocents from only a year earlier, an album which contained the massive hits "Chains Of Love" and "A Little Respect" one would think that the next album would have more appeal stateside. Yet, not even great songs like "Drama!, "Star" or "Blue Savannah", (#4, #11, #3 respectively in the UK) sniffed the American singles charts. The band wouldn't see the American charts again until the release of "Chorus" in 1991. On another side note, it was around that time that I got to meet Andy Bell. It was at a hotel bar in downtown Fort Worth, Texas after a concert. While I didn't attend the concert, I had a friend who worked at the hotel tip me off that Andy would be in the bar area sometime after the show. Three other friends and I piled into our car and headed for the hotel. When we arrived, there was a rather large throng of people waiting outside, hoping to get in to catch a glimpse of the band. We showed up well after the fact, walked right in the front entrance and took a seat at a table in the bar area. Nobody even inquired whether or not we had a room at the hotel (we didn't). About 15-20 minutes later, Andy and a couple members of his entourage took a seat at a table near us. We mumbled among ourselves, starstruck as ever. It took about another 15 minutes for us to get enough courage to walk over and ask for an autograph. As we were the only other people in the bar, he kindly obliged. We didn't linger or ask a bunch of questions. We simply said how much we loved Erasure's music and thanked him for the autograph. Then we returned to our table. He appeared exhausted from the show and I think he truly appreciated the fact we didn't press the issue. While many stateside think of Re-Flex as a one-hit wonder thanks to their international smash, "The Politics Of Dancing", the fact is the band had five other singles chart in various countries around the world, including the track "Hurt", which appears here. Reaching #82 in the US back in 1983, the song is largely forgotten or overlooked by all but die-hard fans at this point in time, but it's a fantastic pop gem by any standard and deserves to be heard. Re-Flex were formed in the early 1980s by musicians Baxter on vocals and guitar and Paul Fishman on keyboards and backing vocals, and included Francois Craig on bass, and two successive drummers, Phil Gould and Mark King, both of Level 42 fame. Following King's exit, Roland Vaughn Kerridge took over on drums and later, after Craig’s departure, Thomas Dolby introduced ex-Gloria Mundi bass player Nigel Ross-Scott to the band, thus completing Re-Flex's final and perhaps best-known line-up. Though the group stopped working together in 1987, they have never officially split up. If you are a fan, it might interest you to know that in 2010, Re-Flex band members released a 6 CD box set entitled 'Re-Fuse'. The set includes a re-mastered version of their debut album, The Politics of Dancing, and five CDs of other previously unreleased material. One of those five discs is their sophomore effort called Humanication which, somewhat ironically, was shelved by EMI before its release as it was deemed ... wait for it ... too political. And speaking of pop perfection, OMD's "Tesla Girls" would have to qualify. Though it's one of the definitive club tracks in the band's catalog, Andy McCluskey and Paul Humphreys found it exceptionally difficult to come up with a version that they knew to be "right". At the time, the band's confidence had bottomed-out after the release of their fourth album, Dazzle Ships, and the group struggled to produce new music they felt was up to their lofty standards. Inspired by Yugoslavian-born scientist Nikola Tesla, who developed the alternating current, and armed with a title suggested to the group by musician Martha Ladly, "Tesla Girls" went through endless revisions and multiple adaptations during umpteen recording sessions for their fifth album, Junk Culture. Even after creating what would become the album version of the song, McCluskey recorded two new versions and even attempted to remix the original studio recording before admitting defeat and signing off on the version we've all come to love ... except for "Kids In America" singer Kim Wilde, who called the tune "inane and monotonous". Still, in 1984 the track reached #21 in the UK and has become a classic. By the way, the "No, No, No" vocal sample was done by Maureen Humphreys, Paul's wife at the time. Last, but never least, you may be wondering about the title 5-8-6 by New Order. The song was originally conceived out of Factory Records' head, Tony Wilson, requesting "twenty minutes of pap" from the band. From that directive was borne a 23-minute instrumental titled "Video 5-8-6". The song contained many elements that would surface in various songs on NO's debut album, Power, Corruption and Lies, including their best-selling club hit, "Blue Monday". The song would eventually be distilled down to the vocal version of the song most fans are familiar with. Bassist Peter Hook has stated that the title comes from the bar structure found in the track "Ecstasy". The track went on to chart at #86 on the British Singles Chart and #19 on the British Indie Chart. It also went on to become a classic among classics in the New Order catalog. Welp, another episode in the books. I'll be back with another soon. Thanks for listening!

1. TV - Elektric Music 2. Musique Non Stop - Kraftwerk 3. That Smiling Face (German Band Version) - Camouflage 4. Step On (Twistin My Melon Mix) - Happy Mondays 5. Temptation (Part 2) - Gary Clail/On-U Sound System 6. Need You Tonight (Mendelsohn Mix) - INXS 7. Lie To Me - Depeche Mode 8. Dame Tu Mano - Cetu Javu 9. Confusion Instrumental - New Order 10. Hip Hop Be Bop (12" Mix) - Man Parrish 11. Certain Things Are Likely (Original 12" Version) - Kissing The Pink 12. Don't Tell Me (Dance Remix) - Blancmange 13. Kiss & Tell (Dance Remix) - Bryan Ferry 14. It's Me, Cathy (Follow My Heart) (Club Version) - Hubert KaH 15. The Magician (Razormaid! Mix) - Secession Notes and other random things: Some band notes on the way soon ...

1. I Want You - Utah Saints 2. Hallucination Generation (Syametic Nightmare) - Gruesome Twosome 3. Salvation (Razormaid! Mix) - The Hood 4. State Of The Nation - New Order 5. Happiest Girl (Jack Mix) - Depeche Mode 6. You Make Me Wonder (Razormaid! Mix) - Celebrate The Nun 7. What Do You See (Arabian House Mix) - Cause & Effect 8. LSI (Love Sex Intelligence) (Beatmasters 12" Mix) - The Shamen 9. Lucky Charm (Extended Club Mix) - Hard Corps 10. Send Me An Angel '89 (Dance Mix) - Real Life 11. We Came To Dance (12" Version) - Ultravox 12. The Calling (Full Extended 12" Mix) - Ken Heaven 13. We Are The Boys (Razormaid! Mix) - Until December 14. The Sound Of The Crowd (12" Version) (Complete) - The Human League 15. My Translucent Hands (No. II) - I Start Counting Notes and other random things: Well, here it is. My first brand new podcast in nearly seven months. Where does the time go? They say patience is a virtue and good things come to those who wait and I think this one was worth waiting for. A good blend of the familiar and the not-so-familiar; some things you may remember and some you've long since forgotten or maybe never heard in your entire life. Before I get to a few band notes, I want to mention that I have now upgraded my account back to a Pro account. I just couldn't bear the thought that people were actually making a point of coming to this site to listen to the music only to be told by a pre-recorded message that they could not because of bandwidth limitations. What does that mean for you all? It means no more running out of bandwidth two days after I post a new episode. With apologies to the Pet Shop Boys it means more "opportunities" to listen and to download when you have time. It means more storage, so I don't have to delete the audio from an older podcast just to post a new one. (You may have already noticed I've re-posted some of the more recent back-catalog episodes). Over time, I will add more of them. For long-time listeners, it's a chance to re-visit some of the older stuff from "back in the day". For newer listeners, it will be like a glut of new podcasts to check out. I also want to note that I've removed the audio for my previous episode (CRC #42) as the recording levels were all over the map and I didn't think the quality was up to snuff. Perhaps 5 or 6 years ago, it would have been okay, I suppose, but even in light of the cheap mixer and free recording software I use to assemble these 'casts, I think this podcast has come too far now and demands a higher level of quality. So, I may re-record that one at a future date. At that point, I'll re-post. Same for back-catalog items. The really good ones, I'll re-post. The ones that could use a little work will most likely be re-recorded and re-posted as a "reboot" episode. All in all, thank you all again for tuning in. Have a Merry Christmas and a prosperous 2017! Now on to the bands ... If you've been a follower of this podcast since the beginning and you've clung to the belief that, against all probability, the thrash metal band, Slayer, would somehow make its presence felt at some point then your patience has finally been rewarded. And you should book your ticket to Vegas immediately. Taking a riff from the group's tune, "War Ensemble", "I Want You" was one of four Top-25 hits for Jez Willis and Tim Garbutt on Utah Saints' self-titled debut. The duo were at the pioneering edge of sampling, also grabbing a snippet of Kate Bush from her track Cloudbusting for the song "Something Good" and a soundbite from the inimitable Annie Lennox from her song "There Must Be an Angel (Playing with My Heart)" for the track "What Can You Do For Me". Called "the first true Stadium House band" by Bill Drummond of The KLF, Utah Saints were one of the first rave acts to play live and one I had the good fortune to see on the same bill with The Shamen in the early 90s during the rave culture explosion. And let me tell you: it was quite a show ... probably. I first heard "Salvation" by The Hood sometime in 1989 while in college. A guy who lived down the hall from me had a version of it on an old mix tape. I really liked the track and was pleased as punch when the first of many Razormaid! discs from my nascent subscription showed up in the mail containing a mix of that song. It is a portion of that 10+ minute version that appears here. I would soon come across a movie soundtrack of the same name while sifting through record bins at a local indie shop. New Order, Cabaret Voltaire, The Hood, hip-hop producer extraordinaire Arthur Baker and others appeared on the album, so I purchased it. While I've listened to the song "Salvation" umpteen times over the years, I did not know much about the band or its members. To this day, I still don't. I spent the better part of an hour trying to find information on the group, but mostly found song credits and track listings. Eventually, I did find a tiny bit of info on a website called The Lost Turntable. The info was posted by an Arthur Baker and a John Hood respectively, both of whom I can only assume to be the real article. "the hood- is john hood, a legendary nyc party promoter-doorman,who is also quite a good writer. he was signed for a short time on the sire label and is active on the club scene in south beach, miami, florida" "Wow! Yeah, that The Hood track is indeed me: John Hood. (Thanks AB!) And I'm delighted to find it posted. In fact, till right now I never even had an MP3 of the song! So if no one minds, I'll post this, save this, and send this around. Nice to find Salvation!" If anyone knows anything more about The Hood, I would LOVE to get a one-sheet or press kit or bio on them. Speaking of bands I don't know much about, Gruesome Twosome would qualify as well. Sort of a one-off project for founders Samy Birnbach from Minimal Compact (aka Lord Solomon Pearbrook) and Norwegian producer Per Martinsen, who had been recording under the name Syamese, "Hallucination Generation" is the only official single from the group and was released in 1989. A cult classic in its own right, the song sort of bridges the gap between traditional industrial dance music and the bourgeoning New Beat music scene that was starting to take hold at the time. Birnbach and Martinsen would later collaborate with the likes of Bertrand Burgalat, Thrash from The Orb, Paul Kendall and Fortran 5 to eventually release a full-length album called Candy From Strangers, which was released in 1993. Birnbach currently releases material under the DJ Morpheus moniker, having once worked with Colin Newman from Wire for a project called Oracle, while Martinsen performs as Mental Overdrive. While it's probably not the best analogy as they employed very different musical styles, Ultravox is much like the band Genesis in the sense that they have two distinct timelines, led by two distinctly different front men. And much like one could argue Peter Gabriel represented the true vision for Genesis, there is no denying that Phil Collins took the band to massive commercial heights and is probably remembered more readily as the face of the group. Similarly, one could argue that while John Foxx may have been the driving force behind Ultravox during their formative years, it was Midge Ure, who took over after Foxx left for a solo career, that kept the band from imploding and pushed them further into the mainstream and to massive success in the UK. With 7 Top-10 albums and 17 Top-10 singles, U-Vox, like many other bands of the day, took their cue from the glam rock outfits that came before such as Neu! In fact, early on Ultravox was known as Ultravox! (with an exclamation point) in deference to Neu! The first album with the classic line-up of Ure, Billy Currie, Warren Cann and Chris Cross would be the amazing Vienna, which marked a very different direction for the group. Produced by long-time Kraftwerk producer Conny Plank, the album included the title track, which would reach #2 in the UK and would be the highest charted song for the band. (John Lennon's "Woman" and "Shaddap You Face" by Joe Dolce would both keep the song from reaching #1). And while the 1982 album Quartet, produced by George Martin, would be the best-selling US album for U-Vox, the band would not again reach the level of critical success they found with Vienna. The song in this podcast is the 12" version of "We Came to Dance", the final single from Ultravox's sixth studio album, Quartet, released on April 18, 1983. The single reached #18 on the UK charts and was the last of seven consecutive top-20 singles for the band. This being the Christmas season, I would be derelict not to mention that Midge Ure also co-wrote (with Bob Geldof of Boomtown Rats fame) and produced the song "Do They Know It's Christmas?" by Band Aid. Last but not least, I want to mention "State Of The Nation" by New Order. Though it reached #1 on the UK Indie Singles Chart and #30 on the UK Singles chart in 1986, the song is probably not a favorite of the majority of New Order fans. I would wager if every NO devotee were to compile a list of his or her Top 10 songs, it would probably appear in less than 5% of those lists. Still, the track is a great one even if only for the fact that it's one of the few NO songs whose title actually appears within the lyrics and/or chorus of the song. As most die-hard fans know, the titles of most NO tunes have little or no relevance to the subject matter being discussed. "Shellshock", "Regret", "Touched By The Hand Of God" and "Confusion" are a few songs I can think of off the top of my head that go against that grain. While the song did not appear on the album, Brotherhood, which was released around this time, both the remix version appearing here and the B-side called "Shame Of The Nation", which was produced by John Robie, appear on the Substance compilation, released in 1987. That will do it for this epidsode. I've got my next podcast ready to record. As soon as I find some time, I'll do just that. Happy Listening!

1. Ever So Lonely (Razormaid! Mix) - Monsoon 2. Eyes Of A Stranger - Payolas 3. Stripped (Highland Mix) - Depeche Mode 4. Close To Me (Closer Mix) - The Cure 5. Eye Wonder (Main Mix) - The Apples 6. Justify My Love (Hip Hop Mix) - Madonna 7. Truth Is Out Of Style (12" Mix) - MC 900 Ft. Jesus 8. Dysfunctional Relationship (12" Mix) - Consolidated 9. Get The Message (DNA Sin Mix) - Electronic 10. Imagination (12" Version) - Belouis Some 11. The Honeythief (12" Mix) - Hipsway 12. We Move (Dance Mix) - Visage 13. Don't Say No (Ruby Red Mix) - Erasure 14. "Vous Le Vous" Medley (Razormaid! Mix) - DAF 15. Los Ninos Del Parque - Liaisons Dangereuses Notes and other random things: I re-recorded and re-posted this episode on 1/22/17 due to the poor recording levels on the original post. If you downloaded the previous version, you may want to delete that and download this one. It will be much more consistent from start to finish. Starting off this episode is the band Monsoon. While the term monsoon refers to a seasonal reversal of the wind and torrential downpours that occur in areas of SE Asia, it's an unfortunate name, in a sense, for the band led by Sheila Chandra as they produced but a trickle of pop-infused music before disbanding. Just 16 years old at the time of their only album release, Third Eye, in 1982, Chandra, producer Steve Coe and bassist Martin Smith struck proverbial gold with "Ever So Lonely", which peaked at #12 in the UK. They followed that with the song "Shakti", which rose to #41. However, those two songs would prove to be their only hits, though a cover version of The Beatles' "Tomorrow Never Knows" also appeared on the full-length album and featured one Bill Nelson on the E-Bow. In refusing to tether their fortunes to a record label that demanded more hits, Coe and Smith were free to promote Chandra's solo career, which focused less on pop music and more on world music. She eventually signed with Peter Gabriel's Real World record label, releasing three solo albums in the 1990s. Sadly, Chandra today suffers from Burning Mouth Syndrome, an affliction with no underlying medical or dental cause that produces such severe pain when laughing, crying, speaking, singing, etc. that she was rendered mute and forced to give up her music career. Hailing from Vancouver, BC Canada, The Payolas produced one of the most breathtakingly sensual tracks of the 80s with their amazing song, "Eyes Of A Stranger". A fixture on the Canadian New Wave Scene from the late 70s through the 80s, the band was comprised primarily of core members Paul Hyde and Bob Rock, the latter of whom went on to become a mega-producer/engineer, working with such diverse artists as 311, Metallica, The Cult, Aerosmith, Motley Crue, Our Lady Peace, The Tragically Hip and others. Taking their name from the Alan Freed payola scandal of the late 50s, the group won a Juno award for Single of the Year for Eyes Of A Stranger in 1983. (Rock, himself, has been nominated for 17 Juno awards in various musical categories including Engineer of the Year and Producer of the Year) The track would later appear on the Valley Girl soundtrack, a soundtrack that, like Pretty In Pink after it, was great when soundtracks typically were not. Modern English, The Flirts, Men At Work, The Plimsouls, Josie Cotton, Eddy Grant, Gary Myrick and The Figures and others graced that soundtrack, which became a serious collector's item for a long while until being re-issued by Rhino Records in 1994. Sticking with the music industry disillusionment theme from earlier, Mark Griffin (aka MC 900 Ft. Jesus), a music hero from my old stomping grounds of Dallas, Texas eventually quit the business after the release of his third album One Step Ahead Of The Spider, released in 1994. Thankfully he leaves a legacy, albeit brief one, of some of the better cult classics of the era including the arsonists lull-a-bye "The City Sleeps" from 1991's Welcome To My Dream album and the track appearing in this episode, the 12-inch mix of "Truth Is Out Of Style" from his 1989 debut album, Hell With The Lid Off. In case you were wondering, Griffin's stage name derived from a sermon by televangelist Oral Roberts, who claimed he was visited by a 900-foot tall image of Jesus, commanding him to erect a hospital on the campus of the university bearing his namesake. Despite his short music career, Griffin's American heritage at the very least was a blessing in disguise as MC 270-Meter Jesus somehow just doesn't have the same ring to it. I'm going to end this here. I still have another podcast write-up to do and a couple of podcasts ready to record, so I'm going to have to end this here. Happy Listening!

1. Strangelove (Bomb The Bass) - Depeche Mode 2. Keep On (Razormaid! Mix) - Cabaret Voltaire 3. World In Motion (The B-Side) - England New Order 4. Suicide Blonde (Milk Mix) - INXS 5. Don't Talk To Me About Love (12" Mix) - Altered Images 6. Quiet Life (12" Mix) - Japan 7. Memorabilia (12" Mix) - Soft Cell 8. Left To My Own Devices (New Toy Mix) - Pet Shop Boys 9. Your Love Takes Me Higher (The Pod Went Pop Mix) - Beloved 10. You Spin Me Round (Murder Mix) - Dead Or Alive 11. Take Me Now (Razormaid! Mix) - Vicious Pink 12. Sex (I'm A ... ) (Extended Version) - Berlin 13. Girls On Film (Night Version) - Duran Duran 14. Dance With Me (Long Version) - Alphaville 15. It's Called A Heart (Extended) - Depeche Mode Notes and other random things: I hope this time around I will get to do some notes on some of the tracks in this episode. I'm guessing most would rather hear the music than read a bunch of ramblings from a guy stuck in the 80s, but I'll do my best to keep the total package intact. I do want to quickly point out to readers/listeners that this episode did manage to earn an "Explicit" tag due to some thematic issues in a couple of the songs. While the language is generally fine, there is one "slut" outburst in the Berlin tune and some sketchy noises in a couple of the songs typically associated with carnal activities. Just wanted any parents out there to be aware should you feel like playing this mix in the car or somewhere where inquisitve and/or impressionable kids might be within earshot. Berlin and Beloved are the problematic songs, so just fast-forward through those if you're concerned. On to the songs ... Leading off things is a Bomb The Bass remix of the DM classic, "Strangelove". It's an appropriate first track, I suppose, as the song was the first single off the Music for the Masses album, which was released in 1987. While eminently successful at that point in their career, it's probably the album that nudged DM toward super-stardom, an interesting turn of events considering the band chose the album name as a lark, a snide dismissal of the suggestion that they create more commercially successful music. While the compositions on the album were more sparsely arranged than previous albums and darker in tonality, the album was a critical and commercial success, effectively making DM a musical fixture among the masses, something they jokingly embraced in selecting the title. As for the song itself, it was originally a high-energy pop song, but Mute founder and producer Daniel Miller thought the overall feel of the track wasn't a good fit for the album. Miller's remixed version is the one that shows up on Music for the Masses. Bomb The Bass, by the way, is the one-man audio production team, Tim Simenon. Simenon found early success in the mid-80s as a musician creating drum tracks and basslines, then "bombing" them with a variety of samples and noises. His first single, "Beat Dis", which contained 72 samples including bits and pieces from Public Enemy to Ennio Morricone to anything in between, was one of the first tracks to introduce sampling into the musical vernacular. "World in Motion" was a song written by New Order in support of England's 1990 FIFA World Cup campaign. Believe it or not, the tune still stands as New Order's only #1 hit on the UK singles charts, holding the top spot for 2 consecutive weeks. The song is credited to ENGLAND New Order, most likely because members of that era's football (soccer) team, including left-winger and future hall-of-famer, John Barnes, contributed vocals and rapping to the song. Last year, a blog entry in NME magazine celebrated the 25th anniversary of perhaps the greatest sports-themed anthem of all time with a look at ten "geeky" facts about the song. I've reposted them below. 1. New Order drummer Steve Morris claims the band's manager, Tony Wilson, tricked the FA and the band into working with each other. "Knowing Tony, he probably sold them the idea of us doing a song and then told us the FA had come up with the brilliant idea." 2. In fact, he and instrumentalist Gillian Gilbert initially thought the offer of making the song was a joke. They had another offer of work on the table – with director Michael Powell – but eventually chose to delay that until the following year. Later, on the day they started recording 'World in Motion', they received a phone call saying Powell had died. "We made the right decision," they said. "We'd have looked like proper charlies working with a dead director." 3. Gilbert and Morris were actually pretty crucial to the song – the track was adapted from one of their compositions as The Other Two, which was originally written for BBC's 'Reportage'. 4. At the time, when NME asked footballer John Barnes how excited he was to be collaborating on a football song, he responded: "If I thought it was going to be the same as the usual crap, why bother? But this is alright." Barnes' rap was written by the man himself and performed - legend has it - in one take. 5. When the FA heard "love's got the world in motion", they asked the band to replace "love's" with "we've". The band refused. "It's an anti-hooligan song", they said. Too right. 6. Morris, in a crisis of ambiguity, called coming up with the lyrics a "nightmare", because he wanted to avoid any association with football violence while being cheeky enough that "if it all went pear-shaped, at least we could say it was a joke." He later said, "I couldn't imagine it being anything other than 'World Cup Willy', but Keith Allen got involved and made it funny." 7. Keith Allen, who co-wrote 'World In Motion', wanted it to be called 'E for England', with lyrics that ran: "E is for England, England starts with E / We'll all be smiling when we're in Italy." The FA vetoed the decision. Looking back at it in 1993, he was diplomatic: "I think at the time there were certain drug-related overtones that didn't appeal to either Top of the Pops or the record company." Allen was later involved in 1998 unofficial England song 'Vindaloo'. 8. At the time the song was released, lead singer Bernard Sumner told NME, "This should be the last straw for Joy Division fans." Make of that what you will. 9. Reflecting on the song years later, Morris said that it may have changed football. "It did come at a bit of a turning point for football. Until that point it was all very laddish. After 'World in Motion' everybody got a bit loved-up with it." 10. Barnes recently revealed that he had to do a rap-off with Paul Gascoigne, Steve McMahon, Peter Beardsley and Des Walker before he was picked to perform the rap. The question is - did Gazza cry when he lost out that time too? By the way, the song that would knock "World in Motion" from it's lofty perch at #1? "Sacrifice" by Elton John. For shame! Produced by the great Trevor Horn and appearing on the album Introspective, as well as being one of the longest tracks in their musical repertoire, "Left to My Own Devices" by the Pet Shop Boys was intended to be an "experiment in seeing how mundane a pop song could be, before setting it against extravagant music," according to lead singer Neil Tennant. No doubt, the song adds touches of classical music, specifically orchestral phrases culled from Claude Debussy's "Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune" ("Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun"), to the proceedings. However, this mundane song is rife with supposedly biographical or semi-biographical information from Tennant's youth that he ambiguously puts on display topped off with an idiomatic title. Whether lyrics about "roundheads" (a reference to Pro-Parliamentary forces in the English civil war) the sun and brochures and Che Guevara are self-referential terms about the Boys' "alternative" lifestyles is a matter of conjecture and I'll leave it to smarter people than myself to pour over the details. Frankly, I don't care what the meaning. I prefer just to listen and enjoy. In a previous episode, I mentioned the numerous contributions of Nick Rhodes to the success of Duran Duran. Perhaps his biggest was that of a visionary as he quickly seized on the potential of the music video. He was the one who pushed the band toward more elaborate productions, a somewhat questionable decision at the dawn of the 80s as the phenomenon that would come to be known as MTV was still months away from its eventual August 1, 1981 launch date. Not to mention, at that time, nobody could have actually predicted the overwhelming success of the network and the lasting impact it would have on the music industry. Released in July of 1981, "Girls On Film" was the third single from Double D's self-titled album. Interestingly, it was the band that chose the song to be their third single after a dismal showing by the second single, "Careless Memories", a song that had been selected by their label, EMI. Though "Careless Memories" reached #37 in the UK, it was perceived as a failure because the first single, "Planet Earth", had been a Top 20 hit. "Careless Memories" was also the song chosen to herald the soon-to-be released full-length album. That the band chose "Girls On Film", a staple at live performances, as the group's third single was fortuitous. It helped album sales overseas, though it did not initially chart in the US. After the follow-up success of the Rio album in 1982, their first album was re-issued in the states in 1983 and became certified platinum in 1985. While the song is no doubt a great one, it was the video, which was originally filmed in 1981 a few weeks prior to the launch of MTV, that made serious waves and caused serious consternation among parents and network censors. The uncut version circulated regularly on the Playboy Channel as it was deemed too pornographic for MTV. It was also banned on the BBC. A heavily-edited "day" version was created for regular airplay and is the one with which most of us are familiar. And though the song had already achieved chart success, it was that video, directed by Godley & Creme, that kept people talking and kept the band firmly in the public eye. Simon Le Bon would later lament that the scandalous nature of the video obscured the message of the song, which was about the exploitation of models in the fashion industry. To end this episode, I figured I'd include the most reviled song in the Depeche Mode catalog. Okay, that's a bit of an exaggeration, but both Martin Gore and Alan Wilder have, on numerous occasions, described "It's Called A Heart" as their least favorite single ever recorded by DM. Wilder admitted he was "anti even recording, let alone releasing it". So, why the high level of disdain for the song? Seems the band, especially Wilder, thought that the b-side, "Fly On The Windscreen" was a stronger song and should have been released as the band's next single at the time. Apparently, the record label didn't like the fact the first word of the song was "death". Yet Wilder argues: "I fought tooth-and-nail on behalf of the B-side Fly on the Windscreen which was far superior. To me, the whole thing was a serious backward step. I felt we'd worked diligently to build up recognition for a harder sound, with more depth and maturity, and here was this ultra poppy number that did nothing for our reputation." When asked in an interview if he could turn back time and do something over again, Wilder responded: "I don't think I'd change much, apart from some of the hair styles and those daft boots I wore in 101. Oh, and I'd also make sure that I missed my wake-up call on the day we made the video for It's Called a Heart." Wilder says of the video concept, "Quite how [Peter Care, the director] equated 'calling something a heart' with twirling cameras around on the end of a string in a field of corn in Reading dressed in a skirt, I'll never be able to tell you." Wilder hated the song so much that he answered the question "In your opinion, what makes up a true DM fan?" with "Anyone who still gives us the time of day after having heard It's Called a Heart". Remixes didn't fare much better in Wilder's eyes. He once commented on the "Slow Mix" version of the song, "...you do need to be particularly devout to endure it - slowing it down to half speed made it twice as long - probably not a very good idea - twice the agony." Okay, so Alan Wilder doesn't particularly care for the song, but I LOVE IT! And since I'm curating this podcast, I included all 7+ minutes of the Extended Mix for your listening enjoyment. That's it for this episode. I've got another podcast all figured out and I'll post it as soon I can find time to record it. Thanks for tuning in/listening/reading!

1. Secrets - Fiat Lux 2. Puppets - Depeche Mode 3. Collapsing New People (Berlin Mix) - Fad Gadget 4. Shame (Mix Two) - Nitzer Ebb 5. Fine Time (Steve 'Silk' Hurley Mix) - New Order 6. Obsession (Club Mix) - Xymox 7. New York, New York (Dancefloor Cut Mix) - Microchip League 8. Evolution (Original Mix) - Nostromo Dept. 9. The Race (12" Mix) - Yello 10. Passion (Extended Mix) - The Flirts 11. Lose Him (Original 12" Version) - I Start Counting 12. Love Action (12" Mix) - Human League 13. Don't Go (Razormaid! Mix) - Yaz 14. Computerlove (Remix) - Kraftwerk 15. Play To Win (12" Extended Version) - Heaven 17 Notes and other random things: Sorry to everyone for the three-month vanishing act. Without boring you all to tears or making excuses, lets just say that raising a family doesn't leave one with much spare time to devote to things like podcasting. Nonetheless, I got another one done. Lots to like in this one, including some stuff I'm hoping even die-hard retro junkies may not be all that familiar with. Some notes will be forthcoming as I find time to clack out deets. In the meantime, enjoy the new tunes! Update 3-6-16: I didn't find time to write up anything on this episode, though I will say that I included Kraftwerk to coincide with my getting to cross off a bucket list item. On October 9 of last year, I saw Kraftwerk live for the first time ever. Simply put, the show was amazing. Sure, only Ralf Hutter remains as one of the original members, but the visuals, the sound and the experience were as immersive as one could hope for. The videos were all 3-D as well adding to the sensory overload. The 2 1/2-hour extravaganza bridged the early classics with newer material and it was quite extraordinary sitting down the entire time with generally polite applause in between songs, at least until the clamor began, culminating in a triple encore. It was a show I won't soon forget. If the band should make it to your area, it is well worth the price of admission.

1. Souvenir (DMC Postcards From The Edge) - Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark 2. I Touch Roses (Full Bloom Version) - Book Of Love 3. The Good Samaritan - Counterfeit 4. New Dress (Razormaid! Mix) - Depeche Mode 5. Animal Magic (Dance Vocal) - Belouis Some 6. Bizarre Love Triangle (Shep Pettibone Remix) - New Order 7. It's Alright - Pet Shop Boys 8. The Great Commandment (Acid Commandment) - Camouflage 9. Last Train To Trancentral (Razormaid! Mix) - The KLF 10. The Sun Rising (Norty's Spago Mix) - The Beloved 11. 900 Hours (Mr. E Mix) - Boxcar 12. How To Be A Zillionaire (Bond Street Mix) - ABC 13. Cccan't You See (Razormaid! Mix) - Vicious Pink 14. Get The Balance Right! (Combination Mix) - Depeche Mode 15. Goodbye Horses (Extended Version) - Q Lazzarus ***SPECIAL NOTE FROM CRC AND DJ TINTIN***: Apologies to everyone who has attempted to download and/or listen recently, but gets a pre-recorded bandwidth notification. For awhile I had a pro account with much more bandwidth, but I couldn't justify the cost with my time limitations over the past three years. That said, I also don't like fans and followers to be cock-blocked for weeks on end by bandwidth overages. Right now, I have to be satisfied with a free account, but I didn't anticipate using up my bandwidth three days after the reset date each month. It's a good problem to have, but still a problem. Anyway, I'll keep you all in the loop should things change. For now, I guess, circle the 24th of each month on your calendar to remind yourself to grab these episodes when you can before my 15 gigs of bandwidth per month evaporates! Thanks to each and every one of you for tuning in. It really makes a guy feel good. Notes and other random things: Alright! It's 3 hours to dawn, I've got a full bowl of cereal, half a glass of water, it's dark and I'm making a podcast. Hit it! This sassy little number contains ABCs and OMDs, Counterfeits and Camouflages, Boxcars and Beloveds, something "vicious", something "new" and even a double DM! Happy Listening! Okay, so like any normal testosterone-fueled male member of the species I'm a competitive guy, my own worst critic and I can't stand giving a less-than-competent effort in whatever it is I choose to undertake. That said, I do read comments and check reviews with regard to my 'casts to make sure I'm living up to some realistic level of excellence. For the most part, I've been thrilled that this insignificant little program I assemble in my basement has brought so much joy to so many of you. I try to be honest and forthright in my write-ups for my sake, for your sake, for band's sake, for God's sake. Most of what I write is knowledge I've gleaned over the years from being a fan, from reading music mags, from collecting umpteen thousands of records and reading umpteen thousands of liner notes on the bands I feature here. Often, however, I look up artists to confirm or deny stuff I thought I'd read, thought I'd heard, figured I'd seen or otherwise dreamed. Most importantly, I try to get it right. But I don't always. ...Which brings me to the first band I'd like to mention here: Counterfeit. In episode #23, I included Lee McFadden and Co.'s song "The Good Samaritan" At the time, it was a new find for me, one I discovered on a compilation I had just purchased. Until that point I knew nothing of the band and had a difficult time finding much information on them. I jumped to the conclusion that the song I possessed was probably their only release. Thankfully, a kind listener made a comment to the contrary. He wrote: "In fact there is a three-track EP of "The Good Samaritan" that was released a couple of years ago. Myself and the other two members are still in contact and work together occasionally on music." - Lee McFadden. Holy S#!+, Lee McFadden just wrote to tell me I'm full of crap. That's so COOL! Anyway, thanks to Mr. McFadden for correcting my error. I thought it appropriate to let you all know there is more to the band than just one song. I also figured that by using Lee's comment as part of my write-up it would give me another chance to feature the excellent track here. So, back to the "my own worst critic" comment a moment ago. One of the things about this podcast that is endearing/aggravating is that it's a live mix. That is, I hit record and go for an hour or more - typically 15 songs. As you can imagine, things can sometimes go wrong when performing live, especially at 3 in the morning when I recorded this one. Some errors are bad enough I scrap the whole thing and start over. Sometimes, I just accept things like variances in recording levels or slightly mismatched beats because it's too time-consuming to spend an hour or more redoing an entire 'cast for small inconsistencies, especially when you're using cheap, finicky mixing equipment as I do. In the case of this podcast it turns out two of the tracks here had questionable endings. The first, Book Of Love's "I Touch Roses" mix had a repeated phrase for the last 30 seconds that sounded as if the track were skipping. Of course, I remembered that at the last possible moment and quickly began mixing it out. So, if it sounds like an unnatural point at which to fade in/fade out, it is. And now you know why. I'd say Daniel Miller should be flogged for ending the track in that way, but how can I possibly stay angry at the fellow who founded Mute Records? I forgive you Daniel. Just don't do it again! In case you were wondering about the other track with the weird ending it was 900 Hours by Boxcar. Thankfully, the first gaffe reminded me to avoid a second. I'd like to spend a moment to write about Belouis Some. Frankly, I could spend a day debating the correct pronunciation of Neville Keighley's alter-ego ... but I won't. Just know that all the variants I've encountered rank right up there with bands like INXS, Cetu Javu, EBN-OZN and others whose names were all butchered during their infancy. (C'mon ... admit it. You called them "Inks" the first time you saw their record in the storefront window. You know you did!) Anyway, the track "Animal Magic" was released in 1987 on Belouis Some's self-titled album, two years after the band found chart success UK and stateside with the songs "Imagination" and "Some People". Those songs led to opening gigs for Nik Kershaw and Frankie Goes To Hollywood during their heyday in 1985 and a track called "Round Round" which appeared on the Pretty In Pink soundtrack. The soundtrack is notable for two things: it's association with a John Hughes film and for being killer back when soundtracks were mostly filler. (That rhymes!) As an interesting side note: Nik Kershaw's song "Wouldn't It Be Good" also appeared on the Pretty In Pink soundtrack as a cover version by Danny Hutton Hitters. Belouis Some's "Some People" would also surface on a Swatch commercial circa 1986. Australia had its share of good rock music in the 80s. Men At Work, INXS (however you pronounce them) and Midnight Oil represent just a few of the names. But as club culture began to consume record racks in the mid-80s, fledgling bands began to dabble in electronics, shifting their focus from guitar-infused pub rock to synth-based dance music. Brisbane's Boxcar were one of those bands that gained prominence world-wide. But old pub-rock habits die-hard and the band had a difficult time of things even in their home country where they were often met by a chorus of boo-birds during live performances. The group was also ridiculed for being too derivative of established artists like New Order (whom they toured with at the turn of the 90s.) Thanks in part to producer Robert Racic, who had worked with Severed Heads (also an Aussie electronic band) and Single Gun Theory among others, Boxcar's first full-length release "Vertigo", issued in 1990, was praised by critics for it's sophisticated electronic sound. Tracks like "Freemason", which charted at #8 on the Billboard Dance Chart and "Gas Stop" brought the group some recognition outside Australia. But despite support gigs for Depeche Mode, Erasure, The Pet Shop Boys and the aforementioned New Order, the band was never really able to gain much traction and after two more albums, "Revision" in 1992 and "Algorhythm" in 1994, the band's output and live dates began to ebb even though they never officially called it quits. ABC were like the cool kids in high school that everyone wanted to be like. They had the swankiest clothes, the hippest hair cuts, listened to the coolest music and seemed to always have their finger on the pulse of whatever the "it" thing was to do at the time ... at least until the 20-year reunion rolled around and you saw them wearing the same clothes and sporting the same haircuts, albeit with much less hair and carrying around 50 extra pounds and you realized there had been little personal growth there. The band's roots grew from a band called Vice Versa. Both guitarist and synthesizer player, Mark White, and saxophonist, Stephen Singleton, were members of that group and are notable for their first ever gig being the opening act for Wire. (Not a bad way to kick off a career). After the release of an EP called "Music 4", future ABC singer Martin Fry, at the time editor of his own fanzine called Modern Drugs, interviewed the band. Shortly thereafter, they asked him to join. From the start, the band were pretty set on making 100% machine-made music. Having mega-producer Trevor Horn of The Buggles Fame, a guy affectionately nicknamed, "The Man Who Invented The Eighties" in your corner can certainly help chart a solid course for success. And did it ever. The first album, "Lexicon Of Love", went #1 in the UK, spawned innumerable imitators, featured great songs like "Look Of Love", "Poison Arrow", "Tears Are Not Enough", "Date Stamp" and others, and should be on a short list of the best albums from start to finish to come out of the 80s. From there, however, the band never ventured far from their original song-writing formula and were unable, despite some hits here and there, to duplicate the immense success of "Lexicon". In ABCs defense, not many bands could. Further, the group continued to splinter, losing members as the years went on. Drummer David Palmer left to join Yellow Magic Orchestra shortly after "Lexicon" was released. Stephen Singleton left in 1984. Remaining members Fry and White then recruited Fiona Russell-Powell (known as Eden) and David Yarritu to mitigate the departures of Palmer and Singleton. That line-up produced their biggest hit stateside with "Be Near Me". Mid-1987, ABC's album Alphabet City spawned the Top 10 hit "When Smokey Sings", a tribute to the great Motown singer, Smokey Robinson. Interestingly, Smokey was in the midst of a career resurgence for a new generation of fans and was himself firmly ensconced on the pop charts with his single "One Heartbeat" at the same time as ABC's tribute. It marked one of the only times in chart history a singer had a Top 40 hit while simultaneously being the focus of another. Not many bands can say they were responsible for coining a term that would become part of the vernacular. In an earlier CRC, I mentioned that Throbbing Gristle's Genesis P. Orridge is widely recognized to have created the "industrial" tag with the advent of his label, Industrial Music, in the mid-70s. March 27, 1982 - that's the date Vicious Pink described their music as "techno" in a feature published in Sounds magazine - almost 4 years before the term gained wider acceptance in the Detroit DJ subculture. Band members Josephine Warden and Brian Moss formed the group in 1981 in Leeds, England, getting their start as backup singers for Marc Almond and Soft Cell. Originally called Vicious Pink Phenomena, Brian describes how the name came to be: "I met [Josephine] when I was DJ at an alternative night, I put on with friends, at a pub called “The Adephi” in Leeds. I also met Dave Ball and Mark Almond there through Jose, as she went to the same College as them, Leeds Polytechnic. We decided to start a band together for a bit of fun. Jose, Dave Ball and I wrote our favourite words down on pieces of paper, turned them upside down and shuffled them about. Then we each chose one of the pieces of paper, after that we rearranged them into the name Vicious Pink Phenomena, Jose’s word was Vicious, Dave’s was Pink and mine was, well, Phenomena. It was a kind of lottery I guess, but it worked. We thought it also sounded like it could be the title for a 50’s / 60’s Science Fiction B Movie." In all, the duo would release 5 dance singles, many produced by Dave Ball of Soft Cell. Despite zero promotion and garnering next-to-no mainstream support Vicious Pink managed to chart all five of those singles in the UK. The particular track here, "Cccan't You See" was their third single and was produced by the great Tony Mansfield of New Musik fame. It was the highest charting single of the bunch, reaching #67. That's it for this episode. I'll be back soon with another. Thanks everyone and Happy Listening!

1. Visions Of You - Jah Wobble's Invaders Of The Heart 2. Life's What You Make It (Extended Mix) - Talk Talk 3. Birthday (Justin Robertson 12" Mix) - The Sugarcubes 4. Feel Every Beat (DNA Remix) - Electronic 5. Hallelujah (Club Mix) - Happy Mondays 6. Big In Japan (Remix '88) - Alphaville 7. Transition - Renegade Soundwave 8. Notorious (Extended Mix) - Duran Duran 9. Prisoner To Desire (Razormaid! Mix) - Psyche 10. Love Comes Quickly (Dance Mix) - Pet Shop Boys 11. Policy Of Truth (Beat Box Mix) - Depeche Mode 12. Walking Away (Space Age Mix) - Information Society 13. True Faith (Shep Pettibone Remix) - New Order 14. Subversion (Razormaid! Mix) - Tanz Waffen 15. Machines (LP Edit) - Red Flag Notes and other random things: Somebody slap me if I try to take several years off from podcasting ever again. I had to pretty much relearn everything I had known about my cheap mixer and recording software from scratch. Not only that, new updates to software means new interfaces and having to learn where all the navigation features are all over again. You may not be able to teach an old dog new tricks, but at least he can relearn old tricks since forgotten. Anyway, on to the music. Starting everything off is sort of a forgotten gem by John Joseph Wardle, also known as the inimitable Jah Wobble. The track peaked at #10 on the US Modern Rock charts back in 1992. Featuring the unmistakable backing vocals of a young Sinead O' Connor, the song was a staple on college radio back in the day. But it almost never happened. Following his stint as the original bassist for Public Image Ltd., Wobble formed Invaders of the Heart in 1983, but sometime in the mid-80s became disillusioned with the commercialism prevalent in the music industry. That and his penchant for drunken brawls let to a hiatus from music. Thankfully, a friend and former bandmate convinced him to return. A live recording he made led to a new contract with a small European label, which propelled him to further success with subsequent Invaders albums. Since the early 90s, Wobble's world music leanings and unique dub-style bass playing has shown up in numerous collaborations with a wide range of musicians of all musical backgrounds. Talk Talk hasn't appeared a lot in CRC, but that's mainly due to the freeform nature of their later music and their lack of "hits" if you will. That's not at all a slam on the group or their style. In my honest opinion they were one of the more original groups coming out of the 80s. And that's not to say they didn't have their share of chart success, but like some other well-respected bands, as their popularity ebbs, their critical acclaim skyrockets. Mixed by producer extraordinaire Tim Friese-Greene, who co-produced Thomas Dolby's "Golden Age Of Wireless" album and has done work with another of my favorite bands, Catherine Wheel, this Extended Mix appeared in February of 1986. According to the band, there was also another 12" mix of this track, by Dennis Weinrich, that was omitted from the "Asides Besides" compilation where this track was taken to "stop the listener from being driven crazy". Seems like I'm going to have to find that one now ... Although the original version of "Birthday" by The Sugarcubes is one of my favorite Sugarcubes tunes, and although I got to see them live back in 1989 opening for Public Image Ltd. and New Order, and although Bjork has attained a level of success whereby she needs only one name, I think the more interesting persona involved with the remix is Justin Robertson. It's unprecedented for me to write about remixers in CRC, but to any music lover at the turn of the 90s Justin's name has probably surfaced many, many times in record collections everywhere. Turned on to music by the burgeoning acid house scene while a student in Manchester, Robertson quickly jumped headlong into the club scene, taking the record store to DJ to club owner route. Erasure, Bjork, Happy Mondays, New Order, Talk Talk, Stereo MCs and Gary Clail are just a few of the more recognizable names Justin has worked with. You may have noticed that four of those artists/bands are featured in this podcast. Coincidence? Well, yes, it was just coincidence. To read more about Justin Robertson's odyssey, you can check him out at http://thedeadstock33s-justinrobertson.com/ Four albums and twelve singles. That's the total output of Renegade Soundwave's eight-year run as dance/east-end hip-hop/dub/sampling/electro-industrialist noise-makers. The song here, Transition, is from their "In Dub" album, which was a quick follow-up to the success of their first long-play album, "Soundclash". Released in 1989, "Soundclash" followed up several popular singles: "The Kray Twins", "Biting My Nails", and "Probably A Robbery", which charted at #38 in the UK during the year 1990. "Probably A Robbery", though gained chart legs mostly due to the b-side, "Ozone Breakdown", a favorite in dance clubs somewhat due to the prominent sample from the cult film, "The Warriors". RSW have been cited by The Chemical Brothers as a major influence. Red Flag, in my opinion as far as electronic dance music goes, was very under-appreciated. Buried beneath their hearty dance beats are beautiful pop songs with lush melodies and harmonies and catchy hooks, at least that was the case with their earlier material, including the track here, "Machines". Originally called Shades Of May, the band was conceived in 1982 and consisted of brothers Mark and Chris Reynolds. Both classically trained musicians, by 1984 the two took seriously to studying music and computer technology. A 1988 gig for a Southern California record pool got them noticed by producer Jon St. James. Shortly thereafter, their first single "Broken Heart" (an amazing song, no less) made its debut. Stacey Q, of "Two Of Hearts" fame, co-produced the single with St. James. Their album "Naive Art", a fantastic album from start to finish that included dance hits such as "Russian Radio" and "If I Ever", appeared in 1989. If timing is everything, the brothers' was impeccable as "Naive Art" hit the streets just as Depeche Mode were riding high at what was perhaps the peak of their songwriting prowess. As such, Red Flag's sound struck a chord, literally and figuratively with the synthpop crowds who, ahem, just couldn't get enough of DM at the time. Regulars to CRC will notice a rather robust selection of Razormaid! remixes throughout these podcasts and "Naive Art" remains the only album Joseph Watt and Co. from Razormaid! ever produced in its entirety. Paul Robb of Information Society also helped with the production. Red Flag were victims of label doldrums twice: the first was the dissolution of Enigma Records in 1991, which led to their signing to IRS, the label on which "Machines" appeared. The second was the following year when they were dropped from IRS, an event which, considering the label's impending financial troubles, may have been rather fortuitous. The brothers also had the foresight to use their advance to build their own studio, which would be home of their own label, Plan B Records. It would be the imprint of all future releases. While the band is still actively recording, Mark Reynolds sadly committed suicide in 2003. May he rest in peace and may his music live on forever.

1. Messages (Razormaid! Mix) - Orchestral Manoeuvers In The Dark 2. Computer World - Kraftwerk 3. Perfect Kiss - New Order 4. Unveiling the Secret (Remix) - Psyche 5. Desperate But Not Serious - Adam Ant 6. Atomic - Blondie 7. It's Called a Heart (Razormaid! Mix) - Depeche Mode 8. Talk Talk (Extended Version) - Talk Talk 9. Space Age Love Song - A Flock Of Seagulls 10. Train of Thought (Extended Mix) - a-ha 11. The Sound of the Crowd (12" Version) (Complete) - The Human League 12. Uncertain Smile (12" Mix) - The The 13. Nowhere Girl - B-Movie 14. Cool Blue - Eurythmics 15. Tainted Love '91 - Soft Cell   Notes: Hi, again! This is my second installment of the Retro Reboot series. It's kind of a way to revisit some of my better, older podcasts while I get everything ready to do some new podcasts in the near future. For some of you these episodes will be familiar, but for some of my newer friends and listeners they will sound completely new. Regardless, it's all great music that should be heard. This particular episode was originally published in February of 2011. Happy listening!

1. The Dominatrix Sleeps Tonight (Dominant Mix) - Dominatrix 2. Touched By The Hand Of God (Razormaid! Mix) - New Order 3. West End Girls (Razormaid! Mix) - Pet Shop Boys 4. Kiss You (When It's Dangerous) (Extended Remix) - Eight Seconds 5. The Promise - When In Rome 6. A Letter From Afar (Big Mix) - B-Movie 7. Wishing (If I Had A Photograph Of You) - A Flock Of Seagulls 8. Brave New World (Razormaid! Mix) - Moskwa TV 9. Situations - Cetu Javu 10. LFO - LFO 11. Change Your Mind (Razormaid! Mix) - Gary Numan 12. Shellshock - New Order 13. Don't Go (Razormaid! Mix) - Yaz 14. Getting Away With It (Razormaid! Mix) - Electronic 15. Love U More (A Version) - Sunscreem Notes: I'm back! Well, kind of. It's been a long three years away, but a career change, a cross-country move, starting a family and all the obligations that go along with it quickly push podcasting down the ol' priority list. It also didn't help that all of my music has been in packing boxes since the move. Well, that has recently changed and I'm starting to get it all organized again, meaning I'm hoping to start doing podcasts again. They probably won't be as frequent as I'd like, but it will be something, which is more than the nothing I've given you, my listeners, for the past long while. During the process of unearthing my music collection, I came across some of my earlier podcasts. Because I ditched my Pro account for the free one in light of my time constraints, most of my old podcasts were removed from this site as my storage capacity was severely depleted. While I try to get organized, I thought it might be cool to re-post some of my better, earlier efforts. For new listeners, it will give you some new material to listen to. For those who have been with me from the start, it will at least replace the podcasts that have been up for an eternity. The one here is the one that started it all: my first ever podcast. I'll post the track list in the next day or so for those who do not have it. In the meantime, it's good to be back (well, kind of). Happy Listening!

1. Meant to Be - The Listening Pool 2. Silent Cry - Chris & Cosey 3. Sometimes (Extended Mix) - Erasure 4. Beethoven (I Love to Listen To) (Razormaid! Mix) - Eurythmics 5. She Drives Me Crazy (David Z 12" Version) - Fine Young Cannibals 6. I Don't Want Your Love (Dub Mix) - Duran Duran 7. Secret (Original 12" Mix) - Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark 8. The Blue Sky - a-ha 9. Don't You Want Me (Special Extended Dance Mix) - The Human League 10. True Faith (Shep Pettibone Remix) - New Order 11. Breakaway (Popper Mix) - Big Pig 12. Date Stamp - ABC 13. Dangerous (Hazchemix) - Depeche Mode 14. Possible Worlds - The Shamen 15. Fanatic (Razormaid! Mix) - Claudia Brucken   Notes and other random things: How I'm going to do this write-up when I haven't even finished the last one is a complete mystery. Stay tuned to see whether or not I solve it!

1. The Chase - Propaganda 2. Follow the Rainbow (Razormaid! Mix) - Joe Machine 3. X-Rated (Moonitor Version) - Psyche 4. 19 (Destruction Mix) - Paul Hardcastle 5. Humatic (Razormaid! Mix) - League of Gentlemen 6. World in my Eyes (Oil Tank Mix) - Depeche Mode 7. Situations (Razormaid! Mix) - Cetu Javu 8. Thinking of You - Seven Red Seven 9. Handsome (Psycho-Ray Mix) - Camouflage 10. Komputer Pop - Komputer 11. Heaven (Extended Version) - Until December 12. Spooky (Magimix) - New Order 13. Render - Lassigue Bendthaus 14. W.Y.H.I.W.Y.G. - Front 242 15. One World - Ajax   Notes and other random things: Update as of (02-01-12):  God golly ... is it already February?!?! Just realized I forgot to do my notes and random things for this podcast, which was already over a month ago! Jeez. Well, it's on the way, plus a new podcast once I find time to record. New job, new family member, new year and a cross-country move on the horizon are taking up all my time at the moment. Did you notice all the "newness" in that last sentence? Yet here I am dishing out what Bryan Ferry would call "The Same Old Scene" when it comes to reasons why I can't seem to get podcasts up in a reasonable amount of time anymore. Or, like ABC's Martin Frye crooned, "Excuses have their uses, but they're all used up." Seriously, though, I can't recall being any busier in my entire life and I beg your indulgence with my slow updates of late. Update as of (02-04-12): Let's look at a few of the bands in this particular episode (finally, right!?) I want to start with League of Gentlemen. Funny I want to start with a band I know almost nothing about, but it's really the concept of this song that intrigues me so much. Back in the 80s, there were a lot of industrial-sounding bands that were fascinated with the synthesis between man and machine and what it might entail for the survival of the human race. Mysterious Art, for instance, if you recall from an eariler episode, touched on the theme with Men of Glass. There were plenty of others. This excellent number from 1987 does the same. On a side note, I have always been fascinated how Eastern Bloc industrial artists could always seem to write cool songs even though they barely knew English. Somehow they take sentence fragments and comma splices, add the letter "z" wherever there is supposed to be an "s", pluralize words like "informationz" and still manage to give me chills. That's talent! Of course, this band only had enough talent to do one song because I haven't, to date, found anything else by these guys ... at least in this incarnation. As we have learned with producers like Morton, Sherman and Belucci they can "seed" an entire genre by doing hundreds of one-off bands to create a scene as those guys did with the Belgian New Beat dance scene years ago. So, maybe the guys in LOG reformed under another moniker. I'll have to look into it sometime. But there's more to this "Humatic" phenomenon than meets the eye. As with other electronic groups who explored man's servitude to the rise of machines there is an inherent lack of logic there that makes me chuckle. I've played it out for you below, though names have been changed to protect the innocent. (Note: this is a completely fictional account) Klaus: Hi, Gert. Gert: Howdy, Klaus. Klaus: Say, Gert, how would you like to be in a band with me? Gert: Sounds great, Klaus. But is this another one of your band concepts that requires I wear lederhosen on stage while dumping a stein full of Krautspatzle over my head? Klaus: No, Gert. This one is much better. I want to explore the relationship between man and machine and how eventually, due to elementary chaos theory, all machines will morph and rise up against their masters and enslave them, breed with them and create a hybrid race of automatons that will exterminate all humanity. Gert: Count me in! Klaus: Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go get the drum machines, sequencing keyboards, electronic samplers and Commodore computers that we'll be using.  Gert: Sounds great, Klaus. I can't see anything that can go wrong with this utterly ironic plan of yours. By the way, do you have a band name yet? Klaus: I sure do, Gert. I wanted something memorable and easy to recall, so it's come down to either Braunschweiger Umweltverschmutzung or League of Gentlemen. Gert: Rad.   Update as of (02-17-12): I don't have anymore fantastic re-enactments for the next band in the arsenal. In fact, like League of Gentlemen, I have little to no information at all about Joe Machine either, though I think I came across his social networking page on MySpace ... or at least some guy who goes by the name Joe Machine. Anyway, we have ZYX records in Germany to thank for this release and divinity to thank for the voice that is eerily reminiscent of Daniel Ash from Bauhaus/Tones on Tail/Love and Rockets fame. As is the case so often with electronic music of this era, "Kraftwerk creep" rears its head a couple of times in this episode. Seeing as how they are one of the most influential collectives in electronic music history it's not surprising that so many others to follow were touched by their genius. From tempo to timbre to replicating the "Musique non-stop" mantra found in the Kraftwerk tune of the same name from the Electric Cafe album, Psyche's X-rated is a delectable morsel of synthetic cyber-porn sleaze that captures the Kraftwerk-ian spirit perfectly and garners this episode an "explicit" tag in the process. Sebastian Komor of Icon of Coil remixed the track. Then, there is the awesome, sub-splitting frequencies of the track Komputer Pop by the band Komputer. If you recall, I mentioned this band when discussing the group I Start Counting several episodes ago as they, Fortran 5 and Komputer are all brain children of David Baker and Simon Leonard. If you haven't done so and you are a Kraftwerk fan, I highly recommend Komputer's first album called World of Tomorrow. It's a fantastic concept album and is about as close to replicating the Kraftwerk sound as you're going to find. There are a bunch of great tracks to boot. And in case you missed it, Baker and Leonard recently released a compilation of tracks spanning all three iterations of their long-time collaboration. Called Konnecting, it contains 15 tracks. For die-hards, they also released a companion 60-track digital deluxe set of b-sides and rarities with tons of remixes. If you have never owned anything by these guys, the new set is a fantastic place to begin and perhaps end if you're not a completist when it comes to music collecting. More to come ...

1. Sea-Missile Motel - Moev 2. New Decisions - Manufacture 3. See How it Cuts (Extended Club Dub Dance Remix Version) - I Start Counting 4. Slave (Extended Mix) - Revenge 5. Das Omen (Razormaid! Mix) - Mysterious Art 6. Opportunities (Ron Dean Miller and the Latin Rascals Mix) - Pet Shop Boys 7. Who Needs Love Like That (The Love That Mix Version) - Erasure 8. Locomotion (Razormaid! Mix) - Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark 9. Our Lips are Sealed (12" Mix) - Fun Boy Three 10. Love Reaction (12" Mix) - Divine 11. Our Love / Lucky (Razormaid! Mix) - Donna Summer 12. Everything's Gone Green - New Order 13. When Smokey Sings (The Miami Mix) - ABC 14. Send Me an Angel '89 (Dance Mix) - Real Life 15. Pretty in Pink (Berlin Mix) - The Psychedelic Furs   Notes and other random things: A couple weeks back I left a note at the top of my podcast explaining my current bandwidth situation. In short, I pretty much use up my monthly allotment within the first couple days of each month anymore ... and I blame you all! No, really. I do. But, as I said then, it's a great problem to have and I'm so very thankful that you guys tune in like you do to hear these classic retro dance tunes on a frequent basis. The only drawback is that PodOMatic has become pretty strict about allowing DJs to post new episodes if they have gone beyond their bandwidth limitations. What does that mean exactly? Well, first it means I had to change the sub-title of my Podcast. Since its inception I have used the subhead: "An (almost) weekly retro dance experiment." With my current busy schedule, "almost weekly" was a stretch even using a qualifier such as "almost". Now, my window of opportunity is even smaller than before. As such, I altered the subhead to: "80s and 90s retro dance adventures of a boy and a cheap mixer." It's probably a better descriptor anyway as I'm a boy and I own a cheap mixer. Second, it means unless I can scrounge up the roughly $250 per year PodOMatic charges for the next tier of bandwidth, I'm going to be saddled with this problem for the foreseeable future.  Third, it means you'll probably be seeing a PayPal donation button appearing on my page very soon. I had the option to remove it in the beginning, which I did, but I'll probably put it back up there in case any of you would like to chip in towards an account upgrade. I don't make any money doing this, nor did I intend to, but I also didn't anticipate the amazing response I've received thus far either.  Fourth, I'm also looking into placing some Google AdSense ads onto my page. I know, I think it cheapens everything and makes me look desperate, but if I can convince you guys to click on them when you visit my page, it might go far in helping me upgrade my account, which means I can provide retro goodness to you on a more frequent basis. I should point out that neither begging for donations nor begging for clicks are desirable options, but doing only one new Podcast per month isn't really an attractive option either. All in all,  I haven't yet decided how I'm going to handle my current situation, but I'm sure it will become clear as we move closer to 2012. I just wanted you all to be aware of what's transpiring right now. I can say from reading the forum posts that many other podcasters share my predicament and are none too happy because ultimately it's the listeners, the lifeblood of our shows, who end up getting shortshrifted. So, my apologies to everyone on that front.   Okay, now that that's out of the way, I can catch you up on some of the artists in this episode. In the meantime, I hope to have another new episode up very soon. Hang tight!  Let's start with Harris Glenn Milstead, better known as Divine. This is Divine's first appearance on CRC. I've shied away from his work over the past year and a half so far because I just couldn't find a good segueway for it. Well, that and his stuff is pretty crappy. It's highly derivative schlock that anyone other than a flamboyant drag queen wouldn't be able to get away with. I mean, this is the same guy who somehow got industrial record label Wax Trax! to release his version of The Name Game song (you know: Tintin, Tintin, bo-bintin, Banana fana fo Fintin, Fe fi mo-minton, Tintin!) But this is Divine we're talking about and you'd expect nothing less from a member of John Waters' "Dreamlanders" troupe  ... and he delivered every time! I guess that sounds a little harsh if it weren't really the point. Heck, it was Waters, the guy who aspired to make the "trashiest motion pictures in cinema history", who gave Divine his name and enlisted him as the lead in several of his soon-to-be cult films. Those appearances piqued Divine's lust for more fame and fortune, which he would find at the start of the 80s when he delved into the club scene. His "act" consisted of yelling "f*ck you!" at the audience and getting into fisticuffs with a fellow drag queen. In a way, Jerry Springer owes his entire television career to Divine! Pairing up with composer and record producer Bobby Orlando, Divine's live spectacles began to include disco numbers including the song Love Reaction, which appears here. His growing popularity on the club circuit spawned world tours even though Divine admitted at the time not being able to sing a lick as you'll witness first-hand. Orlando had gone about producing an entire album and touring before Divine had even mastered the lyrics. But that didn't stop him as Divine thought that if porn stars could have successful stints in the studio (I'm guessing he meant The Andrea True Connection and that ilk) why couldn't he? Really, though, the music was secondary to the trash, which is perhaps why Divine has been a secondary thought so far on CRC compared to other artists whose focus was the music. Still Love Reaction was the third single to chart on the Dutch Singles Chart and peaked at #25. It also spent 7 weeks on the German Singles Chart peaking at #55. And if you can't quite get enough of New Order's Blue Monday, this is basically the version Divine would have recorded had he been the lead singer, so there's that.   Next up is Donna Summer. Though I don't like to discount the possibility of any artist showing up on CRC at any point, I can tell you now, with almost complete certitude, that this will probably be her only appearance. It has nothing to do with her persona or a patent dislike for her music, except for the fact the bulk of her career occurred in the 70s and her hardcore disco sound doesn't exactly fit with what I'm trying to do here. Technically though, Our Love was released in '79, but didn't find massive success until the 12" version was released in 1980. From there it sold over a million copies. The track appeared on Summer's seventh album called Bad Girls, which became her best-selling album of all time as it spawned six different singles including the title track and Hot Stuff. One of the key contributors to Our Love and the Bad Girls album as a whole? Giorgio Moroder (of course!)  Moving from Summer to Sumner, New Order's Everything's Gone Green would seem an odd choice to mix into Our Love until you hear the similar electronic undertones. At that point it becomes more of a logical (and rather nifty, if I may say so) choice. In fact (or factus for you New order junkies), New Order have cited Donna Summer as an inspiration for their own work. According to lead singer Bernard Sumner, Blue Monday was heavily influenced by four tracks in particular: Dirty Talk, by Klein + M.B.O.; You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real) by Sylvester; Our Love, by Donna Summer; and Uranium by Kraftwerk. As for Everything's Gone Green, it was released originally in 1981, peaking at #3 on the UK Independent Singles Chart and #34 on the U.S. Billboard Hot Dance Club Play Chart. It is supposedly the first New Order track to contain computer-generated sounds and the last of the band's tracks to be produced by Martin Hannett. The song is also responsible for a major labeling gaffe. That's because the b-sides, Cries and Whispers and Mesh, were listed correctly on the record, but in reverse order on the record sleeve. The mistake led to several misidentifications on subsequent New Order album releases. For instance, the song Mesh appears as the third track on disc 2 of the Substance compilation, but should be credited as Cries and Whispers. Strangely, the real Mesh does appear on the cassette version of the album. Pretty dorky, stuff, eh? But where else are you going to find this kind of juicy information ... except maybe on the internet. The lead track, Sea-Missile Motel, by Moev was the first track on their Dusk and Desire album, which was released in 1985. Originally formed in 1981 by keyboardist/percussionist Tom Ferris and keyboardist/vocalist Cal Stephenson, the band released their debut album, Zimmerkampf, in 1982, but was forced to find a new label after San Francisco-based Go! Records went under the following year. Interestingly, in 1984, band member Mark Jowett and manager Terry McBride formed Nettwerk Records in McBride's apartment as a way to release new Moev material. As many of you know, Nettwerk has attained worldwide success in the years since and is home to a musically diverse line-up of artists from Sarah McLachlan to Skinny Puppy. The band went through several personnel changes in the early going, but settled on Michela Arrichiello as lead vocalist during the years surrounding Dusk and Desire and she is the voice you'll hear on this track. Bassist/drummer Kelly Cook, vocalist Dean Russell and keyboardist/percussionist Anthony Valcic would eventually replace many of the early members and would form what is considered to be the classic Moev line-up. In 1988, their highly successful Yeah Whatever album spawned their best-known track, Crucify Me, which, unlike Donna Summer, I can assure you will appear in CRC at some point down the road.    Label mates Manufacture further exemplify the eccentricity that graced the Nettwerk Records musical stable. Formed in 1984 by Brian Bothwell and Perry Geyer, the group was originally created as a soundtrack company, making experimental music and video. After performing in front of live audiences, the duo eventually became a band. In 1987, they were signed to Nettwerk and were commissioned to make two full-length albums as well as a variety of 12" dance singles. The song here, New Decisions, comes from the second album, World Control. It was a bit more pop-friendly than their debut, Terrorvision, though Sarah McLachlan did perform vocal honors on the great track, As the End Draws Near. Believe it or not, that song eventually was awarded a platinum single in Canada when it appeared on her album, B Sides, Rarities, and other Stuff. For the record, Brian Bothwell continues to work in the film and video field and also works as a Photographer in New York City. Meanwhile, Perry Geyer continues to produce music and owns and operates CyberSound Studios in Boston and New York City. That's all for this episode. Thanks for listening! Cheers!   Note as of 12-18-11: Hello, once again! I'm sending out these notes as a way to fill in the long gap left by my lack of posting a recent episode and as a way to keep you up-to-date on my status. For all the gory details of my recent podcasting travails, read the previous two entries in red below. Despite all the seemingly unfortunate news, this note is to let everyone know I have recorded a new podcast and it's ready to post once my bandwidth resets again in just a few days! (For all the gory details about bandwidth, you can also read below.) Anyway, hang tough, gang - the light at the end of the tunnel is rapidly approaching and I think you're going to find the new podcast was worth the wait. In it there are a LOT of great tunes that you probably have not heard before, plus some very different versions of a couple of old classics. Again, thanks for your patience! DJ Tintin    Note as of 12-05-11: Hi, all. Well, what a long, strange hard drive breaking down, no computer for two weeks trip it has been. I am happy to report that I have my computer back and it appears to be functioning just fine. The good news is I can get back to podcasting. The bad news is I have gone over my bandwidth for December already! The good news is I have tracks all selected for my next episode and will record it this week. The bad news I probably won't be able to post it right away. The good news is I will begin work on subsequent podcasts so that when my bandwidth resets once again I can hopefully post several episodes at once. The bad news is I'm hungry so I need to go get something to eat. The good news is you won't have to read anymore of this drivel! You all are the best audience anywhere and I fully appreciate the support and your saint-like patience. Hell, if I were you I probably would have quit listening to me by now. But then I would have changed my mind and would have started listening to me more than ever! Gee, what a swell guy I'd be if I were you.  Cheers!     Note as of 11-28-11: I meant to post a new episode this past weekend. I really did. Unfortunately, the hard drive on my computer gave out and I'm currently in the process of getting it replaced. Installing a new hard drive is no big deal, but it's trying to save all the data on the old one that is taking some time. The good news is I hope to have my computer back today or maybe tomorrow. The bad news is that I'm already halfway to my bandwidth limit for the month and we're only 4 days in. I just have to hope I can find time to record before I reach my ceiling. Again, I apologize to everyone for the lack of a new episode over the past month. Thanksgiving holidays + no bandwidth + broken hard drive = not good. Hang with me just a little longer! Everything should be back to normal shortly. Cheers, DJ Tintin         

1. The Politics of Dancing - Re-Flex 2. Here Comes the Rain Again - Eurythmics 3. Fools (Bigger) - Depeche Mode 4. People are Still Having Sex - LaTour 5. Thinking of You (Warzone Mix) - Seven Red Seven 6. Ebeneezer Goode (Beatmasters Mix) - The Shamen 7. Doved Up - Sunscreem 8. Round & Round (The Club Mix) - New Order 9. Two Tribes (Annihilation Mix) - Frankie Goes To Hollywood 10. Living on Video - Trans-X 11. Deeper Shade of Blue (Extended) - Red Flag 12. Dust - Boxcar 13. Together in Electric Dreams (Extended) - The Human League 14. Smalltown Boy (Razormaid! Mix) - Bronski Beat 15. Leaving on a Midnight Plane (Razormaid! Mix) - Nick Straker   Notes and other random things: Well, if the new episode hadn't already tipped you off ... I'm back! Please, no applause (surely none of you applauded). It was great to get out of town for a week even though about a third of the trip was spent in the car. Yup. About 2200 miles in total. But if you've been keeping up with these podcasts you've probably come across several posts that discuss road trips. Personally, I enjoy them. There's nothing quite like watching unfamiliar scenery float by in parallax while skirting past 18-wheelers in a downpour. In all seriousness, it's nice to witness different topography, different natural wonders, different roadkill and take in the subtle differences of a McDonald's cheeseburger that was constructed in backwoods America versus that of the big city. In case you were wondering, it tastes like it has better family values ... and a dash more possum.  But the real point of taking a vacation is to come back re-energized which, if you look at the music selection in this episode, you can clearly see that I have (unless you don't know any of these songs in which case you'll have to take my word for it and then listen for yourself!) This set is positively high energy through and through with a delicate balance of 80s and 90s; major and minor keys; some meat and in one or two cases a lot of cheese (I'm looking at you, Nick Straker ... but don't think I haven't glanced more than once in your direction too, Phil Oakey). But I like cheese, which is why songs like Together in Electric Dreams and Leaving on a Midnight Plane surface in this podcast. And just so you know, Nick and Phil, I'm going to discuss you guys first to show there are no hard feelings. Nick Straker was originally the keyboardist for a band called New Musik. Formed in 1977, the band was initially called The End of the World and was conceived mainly as a casual jam session outfit for four London-based school mates: singer Tony Mansfield, bassist Tony Hibbert, drummer Phil Towner (who drummed on the Buggles MTV-launching track Video Killed the Radio Star) and Straker. The band was one of the first to blend electronic instruments with traditional ones, creating an irresistible pop sound with superb melodies and unrelenting hooks. Why they were never able to make bigger waves on the commercial scene still baffles many music critics and historians. Mansfield, however, went on to become a big-time producer working with early 80s bands like a-ha, Vicious Pink, B-52's and After the Fire among others. Straker departed New Musik before the release of their first single choosing to pursue a solo career. He scored several hits, including A Little Bit of Jazz, which reached #1 on the U.S. Hot Dance Club Play chart in 1981 and A Walk in the Park, which hit #20 on the UK Singles Chart in 1980. The track here is the excellent (and cheesy!) Razormaid! mix of Leaving on a Midnight Plane. It originally appeared on the A Walk in the Park album and peaked at #61 on the UK Singles Chart in 1980.  Together in Electric Dreams is an interesting case study in musical perception. Often associated with The Human League, the track is really a Giorgio Moroder creation with lead singer of THL, Phil Oakey, contributing vocals. It's no surprise that THL often gets most of the credit because they were still near the apex of their popularity in 1984 when the song was initially released. The track was written for the film Electric Dreams, the first full-length feature film by Steve Barron. Barron made his mark directing some pretty high-profile music videos during the early 80s, including THL's international smash hit Don't You Want Me. The funny thing is, he intended Electric Dreams as a way of capturing the massive success of Flashdance from the year before. Yes ... Flashdance! Because that film used music from Moroder, Barron decided to employ Moroder as the music director for his new film. He wanted something heart-stirring to run during the final credits and a classic 80s track was born. The song would surface on a collaborative album by Moroder and Oakey the following year. This extended version is taken from an album of THL rarities and remixes, which certainly won't help the perception that this song is not a THL original. The fact that I credited it as THL (since it was taken from a THL album) won't help either. But I'm going to do something about that Giorgio Moroder for the remainder of the write-up Giorgio Moroder. I just hope it will set the record straight Giorgio Moroder about where some of the credit should go.  I'm still planning to cover one or two more of the bands in this podcast. However, I thought I'd pass this on: it's information about the new Erasure album I hinted at in an eariler episode. The album already dropped in the UK, but for those of us stateside, the release date is Tuesday, October 11. I can't wait!   'TOMORROW'S WORLD' - STANDARD EDITION CD & DOWNLOAD The standard single CD edition is packaged in a single fold digipac with a light pink background and includes a booklet with lyrics to all the songs that also folds out into a poster. TRACKLISTING - Be With You / Fill Us With Fire / What Will I Say When You're Gone? / You've Got To Save Me Right Now / A Whole Lotta Love Run Riot / When I Start To (Break It All Down) / I Lose Myself / Then I Go Twisting / Just When I Thought It Was Ending   'TOMORROW'S WORLD' - DELUXE EDITION CD & DOWNLOAD The deluxe 2-CD edition comes in a double-fold digipac with a light purple/blue background and different artwork to the standard edition, but includes the same poster booklet. The second CD on the deluxe edition contains 8 bonus tracks; extended mixes of 'I Lose Myself' and 'Fill Us With Fire' by longtime Erasure collaborator Gareth Jones; an extra track entitled 'Give Me Life'; demo versions of the songs that eventually became 'I Lose Myself', 'Fill Us With Fire', 'Be With You' and 'You've Got To Save Me Right Now'; and producer Frankmusik's own remix of the current Erasure single 'When I Start To (Break It All Down)' TRACKLISTING CD1 - Be With You / Fill Us With Fire / What Will I Say When You're Gone? / You've Got To Save Me Right Now / A Whole Lotta Love Run Riot / When I Start To (Break It All Down) / I Lose Myself / Then I Go Twisting / Just When I Thought It Was Ending CD2 - I Lose Myself [Extended 'No Self Control' Mix by Gareth Jones] / Give Me Life [bonus track not available elsewhere] / Fill Us With Fire [Extended 'Fired Up' Mix by Gareth Jones] / When I Start To (Break It All Down) [Frankmusik Remix] / Clash (demo version of 'I Lose Myself') / Big Song (demo version of 'Fill Us With Fire') / Major 7th (demo version of 'Be With You') / Save Me (demo version of 'You've Got To Save Me Right Now')   Note as of 10-08-11: Okay, I had planned to write a bit more about some of these bands, but I just flat don't have the time. I guess if it comes down to the writing or the music, I'll err on the side of the music because that's what this podcast is really about. So, I'm going to begin work on a new podcast with the bit of free time I have and end this one here. I'm sure these bands will return in the future and I can write about them at that time. Now, I realize the irony of writing a paragraph to tell you I don't have time to write anymore on this episode, so you don't have to bother pointing that out. Hold tight for another episode coming soon! Cheers!    

1. American Dream - L.A. Style 2. X, Y & Zee (Sensory Amplification Mix) - Pop Will Eat Itself 3. W.F.L. (Think About the Future Mix) - Happy Mondays 4. Never Let Me Down (Aggro Mix) - Depeche Mode 5. It's Over Now - Cause & Effect 6. Again ('90 Remix) - Do Piano 7. Prisoner to Desire - Psyche 8. Don't Argue (Dance) - Cabaret Voltaire 9. Hyperreal (Remix) - The Shamen 10. Life on Your Own (Extended) - The Human League 11. Hip Hop Be Bop (12" Mix) - Man Parrish 12. State of the Nation - New Order 13. Around My Heart (Razormaid! Mix) - Sandra 14. It's Alright Now (Back to Basics) - Beloved 15. State of Shock (L'Pool Edit) - Revenge   Notes and other random things: Greetings from Charlotte, NC. I'm DJ Tintin and this is my retro podcast. Glad you've found it. Feel free to stay as long as you like. Sorry for the re-introduction, but I've been away for so many weeks between my last podcast and this one that I almost feel like stranger to many of you. If you're tuning in for the first time, I am. And if you are, in fact, a newbie, I recommend going back and re-reading the first sentence, making sure to apply a tone of sincerity to the voice in your head instead of a sarcastic one. Before you do, however, I need to add a few more adjectives. That first sentence should read: Greetings from bread-less, milk-less, power generator-less Charlotte, NC. What the hell am I talking about? Well, for those listeners in the U.S., (and possibly abroad) you are probably well aware of the recent hurricane that hit the eastern seaboard over the past week. (If you're not, may I suggest the internet?) As such, there is neither bread, nor milk, nor power generator to be found anywhere as these are the desirable items for which panic-stricken residents spend hours in check-out lines hoping to buy the week leading up to the event.  Now, as a mid-west transplant living in the Carolinas for 14 years, I get the fear associated with hurricanes. I do. They are analagous to the fear we mid-westerners have in regards to tornadoes. The difference is you have about 10-15 minutes maximum to prepare for a tornado as opposed to a week or so for a hurricane. What that means is after a tornado passes, I can at least emerge from the twisted pile of tinder that used to be my house, go down to the local market (if it’s still standing) and celebrate my continuing to live with a bowl of cereal. In the Carolinas, that’s an impossibility because the shelves have been completely wiped out.   If I were a guy who actually bothered to prepare for catastrophe instead of worrying about posting his next podcast, I'd actually scoop up all the lunch meat, cereal and lightbulbs from the nearby food emporium at the first word of impending doom. Surely, someone with bread, milk and a power generator would be willing to barter for shelter should I be left homeless. Methinks the guy with the cache of mustard or mayo would probably be sitting pretty as well. On to the music … L.A. Style make their first appearance on CRC. They were a rave group that toured extensively between 1991 and 1995, when they eventually split up. The group was founded by radio host Wessel van Diepen, also the most successful dance-pop producer in Dutch history having assembled the groups Nakatomi and the Vengaboys as well. The band was fronted by Frans Zid Merkx, a multi-tool artist going by the moniker FX. Best known for their huge club hit James Brown is Dead, L.A. Style were the first group to land a rave track on Billboard’s Hot 100 Airplay chart. The song here, American Dream, is the last track on L.A. Style’s self-titled album from 1993. The sample contained within comes from the first inaugural speech of President Richard M. Nixon, delivered Monday, January 20, 1969. See the excerpt below: “The American dream does not come to those who fall asleep. But we are approaching the limits of what government alone can do. Our greatest need now is to reach beyond government, and to enlist the legions of the concerned and the committed. What has to be done, has to be done by government and people together or it will not be done at all. The lesson of past agony is that without the people we can do nothing; with the people we can do everything.” Pop Will Eat Itself have appeared a couple times in earlier CRC episodes (#13 and #20) and both times the tracks used were taken from their Cure For Sanity album circa 1990. If you believe the past is a good indicator of the future, you won’t at all be surprised to learn that X, Y & Zee, the track here, also appeared on that amazing album. I say amazing because I have vivid memories associated with it, trucking home from Texas to Kansas over fall break my sophomore year in college. I took my roommate to see the Kansas/Kansas State football game and then we stayed in Manhattan (also called "The Little Apple", which is home to the KSU campus) with friends drinking and carousing well into the night after a KSU victory (though truth be told I’m a KU fan). This album received heavy rotation on that 1200-mile round trip and deservedly so, though you won’t find much agreement among those haters of what was called the “grebo” movement. Mostly a product of the music media who have an unfailing compulsion to label clusters of similar-sounding music, grebo started in the late 80s and continued on into the early 90s before “Brit Pop” took over. PWEI were forerunners of the subculture, which encompassed bands whose sound blended garage rock, hip hop, pop and electronica. Dreads, partially shaved heads and high ponytails, torn jeans, boots, lumberjack shirts, army surplus clothing, and eclectic hats defined the fashion (if you can call it that), a look dubbed by the Trouser Press as “slimy-looking lowlifes playing retrograde raunch”. Ned’s Atomic Dustbin, Jesus Jones, The Wonder Stuff and others were all part of that short-lived movement. The remix appearing here, though taken from the single, also appears as a hidden track at the end of the Cure for Sanity CD. A little PWEI trivia: the band was headed by Clint Mansell, a fine musician who has gone on to score many Hollywood films including the Darren Aronofsky films Pi and Requiem for a Dream, The Wrestler and Black Swan. Music writing credits on PWEI albums are all listed as Vestan Pance, a pseudonym for the entire band. At one time, after the addition of drummer Robert “Fuzz” Townshend to their line-up, they proposed the name Vestan Pance and Socks, which was summarily rejected by their label RCA. Speaking of heading up an artistic movement, The Happy Mondays would most certainly qualify. Lead by one-time smack user Sean Ryder, the Mondays charged headlong into what would become the Ecstasy-fueled club scene in Manchester, England. Dubbed “Madchester” by those who were there, the Mondays became poster boys for the “haves” of the sonic landscape, diving into excess so severely that they nearly drove their label, Factory Records, into financial oblivion. The whole thing is pretty well-chronicled in the excellent film 24-Hour Party People, directed by Michael Winterbottom, which is sort of a dramatized account of Factory Records head man, Tony Wilson, and the rise of Joy Division, with some attention given to other Factory bands including: New Order, A Certain Ratio, The Durutti Column and, of course, the Mondays. The track here, W.F.L. (which stands for Wrote For Luck) was remixed by Paul Oakenfold and appears on the mini-album Hallelujah. Hallelujah was originally a four-song EP called the Madchester Rave On EP, but was renamed after three bonus dance mixes were added before its release in the U.S. For Erasure buffs, a Vince Clarke remix of W.F.L. also appears on the CD version of the Mondays’ second full-length album called Bummed. When close-knit bands lose a member to tragic circumstances there exists a time of deep reflection followed by a re-evaluation period where remaining members make the critical decision to fold up the tent or to carry on. After losing singer Ian Curtis to suicide on the eve of their first U.S. tour, Bernard Sumner, Peter Hook and Stephen Morris of Joy Division decided to continue on, though they decided a name change was in order to escape the long shadow left by Curtis. Out of the ashes came New Order. For Rob Rowe of Cause & Effect, the untimely death of friend and co-founder Sean Rowley too put his hopes for the future in serious doubt. The tragic loss in many ways eclipsed the success of their self-titled debut album on Exile Records (which was later re-issued as Another Minute by BMG). That album spawned two top ten dance singles, including You Think You Know Her, which stands as the group’s pop chart high point. Unlike Joy Division, Rob made the decision to move forward under the C&E banner. He enlisted Keith Milo, a California-based electronic musician and, along with drummer Richard Shepherd, the band released their second full-length album, Trip, in 1994.             “Performing the tribute to Sean at the KROQ Acoustic Christmas Show in LA was a turning point,” explains Rowe in the band’s Offical bio, “The overwhelming support from the fans and audience made me realize that giving up just wasn’t an option.” “Coming in to Cause and Effect after Sean’s death was a scary thing to do,” adds Milo. “There was so much uncertainty. Sean was a genius with melody, he was irreplaceable. I think there was solace in the fact that we became a very different band at that point and we all felt that we were doing the right thing by continuing on.” Produced by the great Martyn Phillips, Trip contains the brilliant track appearing here, It’s Over Now. It ultimately climbed to #7 on Billboard’s modern rock charts, and was the band’s fourth release to appear on Billboard Hot 100 singles chart. The last artist I want to touch upon this go-round is Man Parrish. An Andy Warhol, Club 54 “freakazoid”, Man Parrish is responsible for a couple of the most enduring, innovative and influential tracks in the history of electronic music. I say a couple because as quickly as he arrived he vanished once again into relative obscurity. Arriving right at the juncture of the evolutionary electronic music tree where legendary producers like Arthur Baker and John Robie split from the Kraftwerk-infused trunk to create a portion of the hip-hop foundation with Soul Sonic Force’s track Planet Rock, Manny Parrish would split the other way, building upon the notes of Kraftwerk’s Autobahn that were no doubt trapped somewhere in his brain. Using a Roland TR-808 drum machine and two keyboards, he crafted Hip Hop Be Bop in his bedroom. In doing so, he became one of the early producers-turned-artists on the electronic music scene. In an interview, Man said of the track, “It was played in a really wide spectrum: in black hip-hop clubs, in white underground places like Danceteria, in after-hours clubs. The radio station pumped it like crazy because I did vocoder spots for them and in exchange for payment, they put my stuff into heavy rotation. When you first hear it, you think, ‘Huh, weird instrumental track.’ But the more you listen to it, it's like, 'This is really interesting.' It even happened to me: I used to hate it at first." Hip Hop Be Bop went on to sell over two million copies, but Parrish received almost nothing for his groundbreaking efforts. Much like innovation, ripping off artists was commonplace back then. As Parrish explains, “When I first started out I was so broke I made this song called Heatstroke as a soundtrack for a porno movie. Some DJ had sampled it off the movie, made an acetate, and somebody told me, ‘Hey they're playing your music at this club.’ I ran down to the club and all of a sudden my song came on. I asked the DJ, ‘Wait a minute, where'd you get that record? It's my music.’ He told me, ‘That's your music? Come down to the record company, they'll sign you on the spot.’" He goes on to say, “I got nothing--it was the classic first record rip-off deal. I would go to the label and literally beg for rent. The guy who owned it bought a plane, a house in Vermont, and a Porsche with a hand-carved dashboard. It was how everyone did it back then.” After suffering so many disappointments and massive burn-out, Parrish ended up a male prostitute for a spell to pay the bills. As many musicians as were influenced by him, Man Parrish inadvertently may have influenced thousands of lawyers as well as his story reads like a textbook case of copyright infringement, an issue which would come to the forefront of music as technology and sampling began to take hold during the 80s. That’s it for this episode. Thanks to everyone for tuning in and be sure to support the artists as they make this all possible. Barring any more hurricanes, I’ll be back soon with another episode. Cheers!       

1. Tempted - Waterlillies 2. World in My Eyes (Safar Mix) - Depeche Mode 3. Neighbors (Extended Version) - Camouflage 4. So in Love (Brand New Extended Mix) - Orchestral Manoeuvers In The Dark 5. In Love with Love (Razormaid! Mix) - Debbie Harry 6. Always on My Mind / In My House - Pet Shop Boys 7. You Spin Me Round (Murder Mix) - Dead Or Alive 8. Witchcraft (Extended Mix) - Book Of Love 9. Don't Stop (Razormaid! Mix) - The Mood 10. Anvil (Night Club School) - Visage 11. Let's Go to Bed - The Cure 12. The Beach - New Order 13. Chorus (Fishes in the Sea) (Aggressive Trance Mix by Youth) - Erasure 14. Cry Wolf (Extended Mix) - a-ha 15. Hold It (Extended Mix) - Tin Tin   Notes and other random things: I don't know about you, but I've had about enough of the triple digit temperatures. In my part of the world, at least, it's so hot that sweat sweats, stadium vendors are selling "luke warm" dogs and Paris Hilton has changed her catch phrase to "That's cold." And August has just begun! I'm afraid it's going to get a lot worse before it gets better. Thankfully the opposite is true for this podcast. This week, CRC continues its new wave hangover from the previous episode with great old tracks from The Mood, Visage, The Cure and New Order among the selections. The Mood were from York over in the UK. They formed in 1980 and, like so many other groups, members John Moore, Mark James Fordyce, Steve Carter, John Dalby and Eric James Logan met in a local music store they frequented. This particular establishment was called Track Records. As it was with Fad Gadget, Depeche Mode appeared as The Mood's supporting act for several early live gigs. (Funny how DM eventually surpassed so many of the groups for whom they opened.) The song here, Don't Stop, was released in 1982 and peaked at number 59 on the UK singles chart, but did reach the top spot on the UK dance chart, which had recently been introduced. Between their formation and dissolution in 1984, the band released 5 singles, but none did well enough for their label RCA to support a full album, though a 5-track mini-album was released in the US. A deal with EMI never materialized after the group left RCA and they split up in 1984.     OMD have appeared several times before on CRC. Though mostly remembered for If You Leave, their bittersweet contribution to the awesome Pretty in Pink soundtrack, Andy McClusky and Paul Humphries strung together an amazing collection of pop hits throughout the 80s. The song here, So in Love, originally appeared on the Crush album, which was released in 1985. The album was the first that producer extraordinaire Stephen Hague (Pet Shop Boys, New Order and others) produced on his own. Though a little nervous, he and the band got along splendidly. The tracks for the album were recorded at Manor Residential studios in Oxford, an isolated locale which led to "long work days and a heroic amount of drinking," according to Stephen. As for the remix that appears here, Andy said that it "... was recorded with some live drums and most of the other instruments were from the Fairlight CMI sequencer, but all put to tape. Therefore, the 12" was made of a series of dub runs of the multi-track onto two track tape, then all spliced together like the good old analogue days." OMD recently released another studio album and have been touring quite liberally over the past year.  It's not often cover songs show up on this podcast, but in the case of Always on My Mind, I made an exception. Here, the Pet Shop Boys do their thing to Brenda Lee's 1972 country music hit, though Willie Nelson's version from ten years later may be fresher in most minds. Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe released this particular mix of the song in 1988 for their six-song album Introspective. They originally recorded the track for an ITV television special in Britain commemorating the 10-year anniversary of Elvis Presley's death (he covered the song as well). The song was such a sensation that the duo released the track as a single. The version here melds the original track with an acid-house track called In My House, which you will hear in its partiality before giving way to Dead Or Alive. A little trivia: In 2004, The Daily Telegraph slotted PSB's version of Always on My Mind at number two on their list of the 50 greatest cover songs of all time. It is a dandy, indeed.  Speaking of cover tunes, one of Visage's earliest demos was a cover of Zagar and Evans' In the Year 2525, a haunting tune about man's inquisitive, yet self-absorbed and self-destructive nature. Formed by Steve Strange, the ubiquitous club kid, Visage were a distinctive zag(ar?) to the zigging of the post-punk movement going on at the end of the 70s. With ex-Rich Kids members vocalist Midge Ure and Rusty Egan already in tow, Ultravox's Billie Currie and bassist Barry Adamson, guitarist John McGeogh and keyboardist Dave Formula from the band Magazine joined forces with the group and released their first single, Tar - probably not the best choice, but it was material leftover from Strange's time in his previous band The Photons. Still, the difference between making your mark or not in the music biz often boils down to timing and for the next release, the group, now on Polydor instead of the tiny Radar Records, released their most successful song, Fade to Grey. It went on to sell massively throughout Europe and the single jump-started what would become the New Romantic movement. A few other notes: In case you hadn't figured it out, The Beach is more or less the instrumental version of New Order's phenomenal dance track Blue Monday; mad props to the guys at Razormaid! for their absolutely killer mix of Debbie Harry's In Love With Love. My advice after hearing this version? Don't ever think about listening to the original on the Rockbird album - it's completely lifeless by comparison; a couple of episodes ago, you heard Snappy, the b-side to the Chorus single from Erasure. Well, here is the actual single, in a trance remix form you may never have heard before; finally, though it's far from my favorite track by Book of Love, band member Ted Ottaviano provides one of the better quotes you'll hear about a song. He said of Witchcraft, "While writing our second album I came up with this unrequited love song. The recipe is pretty clear: 1 part Greek Mythology, 1 part Nick at Night and a dash of JJ Fad." Good stuff! That's it for this episode. Please support the artists, for they make this all possible. Check back very soon for another new episode and thanks to everyone for listening! Cheers!    

1. Rio (Carnival Version) - Duran Duran 2. White Feathers - Kajagoogoo 3. We Live So Fast (Special Dance Mix) - Heaven 17 4. Always Hoping - Vicious Pink 5. Underneath the Radar (12" Remix) - Underworld 6. Photographic - Depeche Mode 7. Sex Dwarf - Soft Cell 8. Heaven is Waiting (Dance Mix) - The Danse Society 9. A Day (Remix) - Clan of Xymox 10. Dancing in Berlin (Dance Remix) - Berlin 11. Whip It - Devo 12. I Melt with You - Modern English 13. Just Like Heaven - The Cure 14. Never Say Never - Romeo Void 15. Chosen Time - New Order Special Note from DJ Tintin: While originally recorded in 2011, I re-recorded this May 28, 2017 to correct a few of the recording glitches from the original post. Since the original post, I also found a remix version of "Heaven Is Waiting" by Danse Society, which I have substituted for the album version.  Notes and other random things: Every so often, I go real old school with the old school. The multiplier makes this podcast feeble decrepit school in some ways. Everything you hear in this one is roughly 1981-1985, the exceptions being Underneath the Radar by Underworld and club/radio mainstay Just Like Heaven by The Cure. This episode begins with Duran Duran's Rio, the lead-off track for their album of the same name. The particular version here, the Carnival Version, is very similar to the original, though it contains a few more measures of instrumentation for a nice change of pace to the familiar one any retro lovers will know by heart. Stephen "Tin Tin" Duffy, known for his catchy 80s tune Kiss Me and for his band The Lilac Time, was the original vocalist for the band, though he left after a year figuring they would go nowhere. Simon Le Bon eventually became the frontman and the highly recognizable face of the group, though it's keyboardist Nick Rhodes with his flair for production and keyboard wizardry that really helped define the group's sound. An avid fine artist, he was acutely aware early on of the power that music videos could have on album sales, as any boy on the verge of his teens will recall from the early days of MTV. Though most guys at that age were taunted and teased mercilessly for listening to such flamboyant music, Duran Duran were an early guilty pleasure that found their way into my regular music rotation when I wasn't hanging out with the rabble-rousers. Speaking of Mr. Rhodes, there is a larger connection between Duran Duran and Kajagoogoo, the second band appearing in this episode, than just the beat matching. It was Nick who discovered them and persuaded them to sign with EMI records despite a bidding war among three other record labels. He also helped produce their first album, White Feathers, along with Duran Duran producer Colin Thurston (who has made several appearances here on CRC doing work for Talk Talk and others). That album contained the title track heard here. An interesting side note: Nick also produced Kajagoogoo's biggest hit, Too Shy, which went on to top the charts in 1983. The kicker is that Duran Duran wouldn't have their own number one until later to the chagrin of Nick. I'm certain there are no sour grapes as Duran Duran went on to have a much longer career when all was said and done. Over the past two episodes, the summer edition and this week's new wave edition, you may have seen and heard your fill of Modern English for a while. Both Face of Wood and now the heartbreakingly overplayed I Melt With You come from the band's second album called After the Snow. If I may say so, it is one of my all-time favorite albums. Vocalist Robbie Grey, Gary McDowell, Michael Conroy, Richard Brown, and Stephen Walker put together a sound that resonates with me more than any other: guitars, percussion, excellent vocal timbre and just the right level of keyboard accoutrements. I'm pretty sure that is the reason I fell in love with New Order and mid-80s The Cure as well. Produced by Hugh Jones, who did a lot of work with Echo and the Bunnymen, and released in 1983, After the Snow has great melodies, lovely arrangements and every song hits the sweet spot. And though I Melt With You was re-recorded and re-issued in '90, used in a Burger King ad, a Hershey ad, a Ritz ad, a Taco Bell ad and in cover form by Nouvelle Vague for automaker GMC, and overplayed on 80s flashback radio shows everywhere, if you can somehow transport yourself back in time and try to remember how you felt when you first heard it, you'll recall just how amazing this song still is. A little Modern English trivia: The band formed in Colchester, Essex in 1977 and were originally called The Lepers. Thankfully that didn't stick. Heaven is Waiting from Danse Society represents the pinnacle of the band's early output. Kind of like B-Movie, they suffered from poor timing, ill-conceived decisions from label management and never really were able to capitalize on momentum. While recording the material for the Heaven is Waiting album, the guys sought to work with Ian Broudie, who produced for Echo and the Bunnymen, had his own band Care and later went on to form The Lightning Seeds. Anyway, Ian had other projects in the works and the band instead teamed up with Nigel Gray, who had worked with the Police and Siouxsie and the Banshees. It should have been a good fit, but Gray apparently had a rigid schedule consisting of 10am -5pm sessions. The problem was that even if a session was going well, he would call it a day at 5pm. The result was an album that, according to keyboardist Lyndon Scarfe, "was dull, lifeless, uninspired, and depressed the shit out of us." While the guys did eventually hook up with Brodie to retool the tracks, their Arista label decided to release the Stones cover 2000 Light Years from Home as their third single, something the band fought adamantly to prevent. Despite a video and a huge promotional push, the single failed to chart and it thus began their ultimate demise. Shame, really.  As founder of 415 Records, Howie Klein brought bands like Wire Train, Translator, Until December and Red Rockers to the fore. He later went on to become the President of Reprise Records from 1989 until 2001. In this episode, you'll hear one of the ultimate sexual equivocations from the 80s in the track Never Say Never by Romeo Void, another one of Klein's finds. Lead singer Deborah Iyall is Native American and if anyone could look less like how she sounds, Deborah would certainly qualify with her half-spoken, half-sung style. Though Romeo Void disbanded in 1985, she did a couple of solo albums and, having teamed up with songwriter Peter Dunne, is still performing live today, though they haven't quite generated the buzz that she and her band did in 1982 with this tune. That's all for this episode. As always, if you like any of the music you hear, please support the artists. Oh, and in case you were wondering, the image above is from artist Patrick Nagel. His iconic work appeared on the cover of the Rio album by Duran Duran, though an alternate image was used on the 2001 limited edition remastered version. Nagel died in 1984 at the young age of 38. He was found dead in his car after suffering an apparent heart attack. Ironically, he had earlier participated in a 15-minute celebrity Aerobathon to support the American Heart Association.  So, on that happy note ... but I'll be back again soon with another episode, so there's that! Thanks again to everyone for your continued support.      

1. What Time is Love? (LP Mix) - The KLF 2. Make it Mine (v 1.0 Progress Mix) - The Shamen 3. Blue Eyed Pop (S1000 Mix) - The Sugarcubes 4. Love Baby - Fortran 5 5. Break 4 Love (Razormaid! Mix) - Raze 6. The Beginning (Roundabout Mix) - Seal 7. Walking Away (S.M.D. Mix) - Information Society 8. Don't Tell Me (Dance Remix) - Blancmange 9. Snappy (12" Remix) - Erasure 10. Beat of Life - Anything Box 11. Je T'aime (Extended Mix) - Vicious Pink 12. Bitter Heart (Razormaid! Mix) - Seona Dancing 13. Regret (The Fire Island Mix) - New Order 14. So Weit Wie Noch Nie (Erlend Oye Mix) - Jurgen Paape 15. The Caterpillar (Flicker Mix) - The Cure   Notes and Other Random Things:  Happy Memorial Day Weekend to all my US listeners and happy regular weekend to everyone else around the globe. The occasion here in the states marks a time of sun, friends, family, icy beverages and plumes of smoke wafting from the grills and barbeque pits of backyards everywhere. But it also marks a time of quiet reflection and giving thanks to the men and women in the Armed Forces who have served our country and have, in some cases, given their lives to protect our shores. It is thanks to their bravery and their willingness to put everything on the line that the rest of us have the freedom to over-eat, get sloppy drunk and moon my television while screaming obscenities at whichever NASCAR event happens to be on. Oh, don't tell me you haven't done it. Anyway, even though it doesn't seem like nearly enough, a heartfelt "Thank You" to all those in uniform. Heroes - all of you. On such a patriotic day for us in the states, and with my being one of its inhabitants, I almost feel guilty including songs with foreign lyrics like Vicious Pink's French-inspired Je T'aime and Jurgen Paape's So Weit Wie Noch Nie. The latter song includes samples from an artist named Daliah Lavi, whose lyric appears in a 1972 track called Vielleicht Schon Morgen. Mind you, I have nothing against the French and the Germans. One makes great fries and the other exceptional gummy bears. It's just that on a day like today, I somehow feel like the whole podcast should be nothing but John Philip Sousa samples sprinkled into a mash-up of The National Anthem and Take Me Out to the Ball Game, you know? But because none of those are 80s tunes (or 90s tunes for that matter) that would never happen. Of course, considering that this podcast sort of strayed from a typically unwavering adherence to the 80s & 90s theme anyway, I suppose I could have chosen that path. For instance, the Jurgen Paape track is actually a 2002 release. It just fit so well with New Order's Regret that I couldn't resist. Also, astute listeners will hear an MC5 sample right at the beginning of the KLF track What Time is Love? Yeah, that's lead singer Rob Tyner screaming, "Kick out the jams, M0+#er Fu(k=r!" And if you listen closely and know well your old people music, you will hear a number of other samples including a highly recognizable "1 ... 2 ... 3 ...4" from the Beatles in the remix of Make it Mine by The Shamen; and "It is time ..." a chopped up sample from Chrissy Hynde of The Pretenders in the track Love Baby by Fortran 5. The original lyric appeared in the song Stop Your Sobbing. Back to the KLF … James Cauty and William Drummond have appeared in an earlier episode of CRC. At that time, I mentioned how musically irreverent they were and how glaringly insubordinate they were to the music industry as a whole. It seemed as if everything they did was merely to get a reaction out of the public or to challenge the accepted definitions of art. One read of their hilarious and very tongue-in-cheek book How to Have a Number One the Easy Way will support that notion, but it doesn’t mean they didn’t pen some very infectious and highly danceable tracks in the process. What Time is Love?, despite dripping with mid-range frequencies, is one of them. Now, pay attention because here are some names that you should know as they helped make the song what it is: Isaac Bello: he’s the guy who does the rapping in the song. Wanda Dee: she’s responsible for the “I wanna see you sweat” lyric And then there are P.P. Arnold and Katie Kisson, who yell “Mu Mu!” at various intervals. How’s that for a resume builder? The Sugarcubes make their second appearance on CRC with the excellent remix of Blue Eyed Pop. As most Bjork fans know, the Icelandic collective is where the pint-sized pop star first gained international acclaim, though she had been involved in music from a very young age, even recording her first album at age 11. She has also had a brilliant solo career and contributed vocals to the song QMart on the 808 State album Ex:el. This mix of Blue Eyed Pop was done by S1000. The DJ/production duo consisted of Mike Koglin and Spencer Williams. Koglin has gone on to become a very prominent trance DJ and producer these days, running his own record imprint called Noys Music. To those younger listeners with a larger familiarity with the trance scene, he had a huge club hit in 1998 with a track called The Silence, which was a reworking of Depeche Mode’s Enjoy the Silence.  Raze were conceived by American producer Vaughn Mason with singer Keith Thompson contributing vocals. Though Break 4 Love was released in 1988, Thompson also did the vocal honors on a track called Jack the Groove in 1986. That song was one of the very first house music chart topping tracks in the UK, creeping into the top 20 at one point. The Pet Shop Boys and Peter Rauhofer, who also performed under the name Club 69, did a cover of Break 4 Love in 2001. Using the name The Collaboration, the track appears on the bonus disc of the album Release and as a b-side to the second disc of their single Home and Dry. The Razormaid! version here is pretty filthy at points, thus the Explicit tag on this podcast. It’s a pretty muddy, steamy affair anyway, but some of the samples might make you squirm a bit if you’re within earshot of your parents while listening. Why on earth you would put yourself into that predicament anyway is beyond me. Then again, as the guy who just admitted he moons his television, I probably don't have much room to judge. You probably don’t want to play this one around your kids either, unless you’re prepared to answer a LOT of questions. Information Society have appeared on CRC several times in the past and they will appear again in the future. I’ll let the band themselves tell you about this particular track. I’m still trying to figure out what S.M.D. stands for. “This was the 2nd single released off the ‘first’ album. It did almost as well as What's On Your Mind, getting to #9 in the top 40 in the fall of '88. The video got a lot of MTV airplay. We had a big problem with this one in the studio. When we were mixing, and we got to the vocals, they sounded distorted in a very strange manner. Of course, the first thing we did was to solo the vocals to hear what was wrong with them. Then we couldn't hear anything wrong with them, so we shook our heads and went back to mixing. Then they sounded distorted again. Only WITH the tracks did they sound distorted. Eventually we realised that the super-heavy TR-808 kick drum sound was creating the ILLUSION of distortion in the vocals, similar to the effect of talking into a fan. We had to remove the super-sub-kick during the vocals sections.” They went on to say, “It was on this single that we began to realise how little control a band, especially a dance band, really has over its re-mixes. We rejected the Shep Pettibone mix outright. It went on the CD anyway. We really didn't like the "The Space Age" samples in the Space Age mix, they stayed.” Hmmmm. I think I’m getting some pretty good ideas about what the S, M, and the D might stand for now! Erasure are no stranger to this podcast nor will they ever be with the sheer volume of catchy dance tracks Andy Bell and Vince Clarke have cobbled together over the twenty-plus years they have been together. Snappy is the b-side to the song Chorus, which appeared on the album of the same name. This 12” mix was produced by uber-producer extraordinaire Martyn Phillips. Fans of Erasure (and Depeche Mode for that matter) might be interested to know that an album collaboration between Vince Clarke (an original member of DM) and Martin Gore is forthcoming. On August 27th of last year, Clark shared via Twitter that he and Gore had recorded a track called “Zaat”, which was to appear on the next Erasure album. The two apparently had enough creative energy together to crank out a full-length. As far as I know, no dates have been set for either release at this point. Last, but not least, I wanted to write a few words about Seona Dancing (pronounced like Shawna). The knowledge has gained a bit of traction with the success of The Office in the UK and all his other pursuits, but Seona Dancing was the musical outlet for one Ricky Gervais when he was but a skinny little gothy/new wavy-looking kid back in the day. They had two single releases: this song and one called More to Lose, but after both achieved only modest (and apparently unofficial) chart positioning, he and friend/bandmate Bill Macrae decided to call it a day in 1984. Gervais is certainly not regretting that move, though any lovers of 80s electronica might beg to differ. As a side note, if you have small kids, do yourself a favor and don't let them listen to Break 4 Love. Did I already say that? In all seriousness though, get Ricky's excellent Flanimals series of children’s books. I happened to pick up the first one a few days ago and it’s really quite funny. It’s a brief biography of a bunch of non-sensical creatures with non-sensical names along with descriptions of their habits and behavioral traits. It’s a very entertaining read, I must admit. I also must admit I think I bought it more for myself than for anyone else. Hey, I do an 80s podcast. What kind of maturity level do you think you’re dealing with here? Thanks to everyone for listening. I hope to be back again soon with another episode. In the meantime, enjoy this one and be sure to support the artists you like. Without their efforts, none of this is possible.   

1. Tears are Not Enough (Extended Version) - ABC 2. White Boy - Culture Club 3. Some Distant Memory - Electronic 4. Desire - T42 5. Adonde (Razormaid! Mix) - Cetu Javu 6. Drama (Act 2) - Erasure 7. Gas Stop (High Octane Mix) - Boxcar 8. People are People (Different Mix) - Depeche Mode 9. A Letter From Afar (Big Mix) - B-Movie 10. Lose Him (Original 12" Version) - I Start Counting 11. Play to Win (Disco Mix) - Heaven 17 12. Lifestyle - Elektric Music 13. Round & Round (Merry Go Mix) - New Order 14. Your Love Takes Me Higher (The Pod Went Pop Mix) - The Beloved 15. Falling Rain - Celebrate the Nun   Notes and other random things: You might be wondering what's up with the cake pic. Well, considering it says Happy Birthday it should be pretty obvious: it's almost Memorial Day here in the U.S. That has nothing to do with the cake, but I just thought I'd point that out. Really, it occurred to me this week that at the time of my last podcast it was almost exactly one year ago that I began CRC. One year ... hard to believe that much time has elapsed. It seems like just yesterday that today was called tomorrow. You know what they say about time ... that's it's lost a pretty big market share to Newsweek over the past decade. Really though, it apparently sprouts wings and floats about when you're having fun. And doing this show has been a blast thus far. Sure, it took awhile to get the recording process down. And it takes effort to try to come up with totally fresh episodes each week. And sometimes my joints ache when the weather is bad. That last one has nothing to do with the podcast, but it shows you my dedication and the lengths I'll go to get some great music to you, my listeners. And speaking of listeners, had anyone told me when I started this thing that a guy with a cheap mixer, sizeable retro music collection, faulty joints, inability to do short write-ups and a dream could record a retro mix 'cast from his media room in Charlotte, NC and be listened to in 71 countries around the globe, I would have told them I'm hungry. But after I got some food, I would have said that he or she was crazy. I want to personally thank each and every one of you for sticking with me this far, but that would take an awfully long time, so I'll just have to do it in this mass message. I hope you'll continue to come along for the ride for as long as I'm willing and able to do this podcast. How long will that be? Well, I admit I can't see into the future ... at least not very far. I do know I will be having a bowl of Lucky Charms at some point in the next half-hour, but other than that, my powers of saying sooth are not all that good. But, with a little luck, some effort on my part to shirk my other responsibilities, and a good comb I hope I'll be celebrating a second anniversary with you all around this time next year. I think I'm going to skip the band write-ups for this week, though I may cover one or two of these bands over the weekend, since they are making their first appearances on CRC. I just had so much else to write and the pink hearts, yellow moons, orange stars, green clovers and blue diamonds are calling my name. Oh, and I'm about to go get a bowl of Lucky Charms too.  Cheers to all of you and thank you so much for listening! You all are the best!       Addendum: I mentioned that I would probably write a bit about some of the bands in this episode because they made their first appearances in CRC. Well, here it is! I'll start with Culture Club. Now, you'd have to be very, very young or living in a very remote cave not to know or have heard about Boy George. Granted, those of you who are very young may only remember images of George O'Dowd in an orange jumpsuit sweeping up rubbish on the streets of New York as part of a community service arrangement in regard to drug charges and a false burglary charge. Many of you will remember the crazy outfits and androgynous appearance of the flamboyant lead singer during the group's heyday. What you may not know, aside from the handful of singles and MTV success in the mid-80s, is that the band were really a talented collective of musicians and had a lot of soul about them. The track here, White Boy, is evidence of that. The song was the first single released by the band, though it  was a commercial disappointment despite heavy radio play. That fact doesn't make it any less amazing or addictive. As the story goes, Jon Moss, the drummer of the band, paid a visit to producer Steve Levine and John Howard in 1982 with a demo tape of three songs, including White Boy. Howard immediately pinpointed the track as the standout of the bunch and it was released three months later. If you've ever heard any of CC's early work, you would agree that the track has something about it ... a groove, a lyrical smoothness, a catchy chant-type chorus ala Nitzer Ebb's Join in the Chant - something that sets it apart. So, it was a bit of a shock that the track didn't do better upon its release. A second single, I'm Afraid of Me, was received even more poorly than the first. However, it was the appearance of graffiti on walls around London, stuff like "Culture Club Rule OK" that convinced Howard there was something abuzz about the band. Howard had seen the same thing a year or two earlier with Adam Ant on the heels of a few of their disappointing first singles. The CC camp felt that they just needed to release the "right track" and the dominoes would all fall into place. Interestingly enough, that track would end up being Do You Really Want to Hurt Me, interesting because it was originally added to the their first album Kissing to be Clever as filler material. Crazy how things work sometimes.  T42 have appeared on CRC once before, the Thanksgiving episode to be precise, but I have to give a shout out to these guys from Texas as they were one of many Dallas/Ft. Worth bands on the rise during my college days. Jay Gillian and Will Loconto were the prime movers of this duo and they released a handful of catchy, electronic jingles that can still motivate dance floors today. The song here, Desire, was produced by Paul Robb from Information Society and became their biggest hit. I vaguely recall going to a record release party for the song. Seems like they played the track just about every hour or half hour in support and while that would seem like overkill, it's just not a song of which you can tire easily. It's one beautiful pop gem. I want to mention Cetu Javu briefly. If you recall, they are the German band of Spanish heritage who sang the bulk of their tracks in English. They also have appeared on CRC several times in the past, but the track here, Adonde, is an example of their Spanish-influenced electronic pop. The orignal version of the song appeared on the fantastic album Southern Lands. While you can still find the first issue of the album floating around, it was reissued a few years back. If you're a fan of electronic pop music, Southern Lands is a must-have. It's solid from start to finish and includes perhaps their two biggest hits, Situation, which appeared on CRC #1 and Have in Mind, which appeared on CRC #7.  Finally, I want to mention Elektric Music. If the studio wizardry and bizarre sampling seems remotely familiar then you are probably a Kraftwerk fan. Elektric Music is a not-so-side project of Karl Bartos, the percussionist portion of the classic four-man Kraftwerk lineup. The band was founded in 1992 when Bartos became a little frustrated at the tortoise-like pace Ralf Hutter and Florian Schneider, both founding members of Kraftwerk, had adopted in the studio. Their perfectionist tendencies spurred Bartos to branch out and do his own thing. The track here, Lifestyle, is the fourth track on EM's debut album, Esperanto. My favorite track, TV, which leads off the album is a song I'm dying to include in one of these episodes, but the BPMs are so low that it is going to be a bit of a challenge. Perhaps I'll figure out how to include it in one of my Mixtape episodes. Anyway, Bartos has worked closely with Bernard Sumner (vocalist from New Order) and Johnny Marr (former guitarist for The Smiths and The The), penning songs for the duo's Electronic project and their second full-length album, Raise the Pressure, which was released in 1996. Bartos has also worked with OMD's Andy McCluskey. Their collaborative efforts can be found on the OMD album Universal and on the songs Show Business and Kissing the Machine, both from Elektric Music's Esperanto album. For tech junkies, you might be interested to know that Karl Bartos released an iPhone app called Mini-Composer in March of this year. It's a rudimentary 16-steps sequencer with 4 basic waves synthesizer. It was designed with the help of Japanese artist Masayuki Akamatsu and executive producer Jean-Marc Lederman. Again, thanks to everyone for listening. I'll be back with another episode really soon. Hang tight!        

1. Let Me Go - Heaven 17 2. New Song (Extended Version) - Howard Jones 3. Domino Dancing - Pet Shop Boys 4. Living in a Box (Razormaid! Mix) - Living In A Box 5. I Don't Want Your Love (Curiosity Mix) - Duran Duran 6. What is Love? (Deeeee Mix) - Deee-Lite 7. Pablo - Beloved 8. I've Been Thinking About You (Def 12" Mix) - Londonbeat 9. Ride the Bullet (The DNA Remix) - Army Of Lovers 10. I Say Yeah (Razormaid! Mix) - Secchi 11. Intoxication (Dubfield Mix) - React 2 Rhythm 12. Dirty Epic (Album Version) - Underworld 13. X-ray - Camouflage 14. Russian Radio (Razormaid! Mix) - Red Flag 15. 1963 - New Order     Notes and other random things: Believe it or not, I get a lot of great email from listeners, so before I get to the music, let's dig into the CRC mailbag:   Dear DJ Tintin, You're always busy with your pod-thingy. What, you too much of a big shot to call anymore? Signed, Mom.   Heh...sorry, mom. Just trying to give people their fill of good retro music. I'll call you next week. I promise. Okay, that's it for the mailbag this week.     As for the music, most of this episode is rather upbeat and fun with one glaring exception: 1963 by New Order. Regular listeners will notice that New Order turns up a lot in these podcasts, yet I've never really devoted much time to writing much about them. I don't know why that is, exactly. After all, they're one of my favorite bands of all time, so you'd figure I'd give them a ton of column inches in my write-ups. But, everything about the band has always been understated, from their lyrics, to their cover art, and even to their significance in music history. In a weird way, I suppose, my omissions might be a greater sign of respect for a group that managed for so long to conceal itself. I mean, they weren't much for interviews and their liner notes rarely revealed anything about the members. Heck, Bernard Sumner, Peter Hook, and Stephen Morris were sort of unwilling rock stars anyway, their new band coming about after the dissolution of Joy Division and the death of former band mate and lead singer Ian Curtis. There was some serious discussion as to whether or not they wanted to continue as a band after the tragedy. Thankfully, they did continue on. They overcame early criticisms of being a Joy Division sound-alike and eventually developed their own sound, creating some of the most memorable dance music from the 80s. Blue Monday, for instance, is still the top-selling 12" dance mix of all time. (Check out CRC #19 to hear the song.) As for 1963, there is disagreement about its meaning. A superficial listen to the lyrics reveals a grim scenario whereby a man murders his lover and takes on another. The song is a recap of the failed relationship and seems to be sung from the perspective of the deceased. When taken into account with the date, 1963, however, the song, depending on what you believe, takes on a deeper significance. While much of New Order's music is left for open interpretation, as the band has said, it has also been said that lead singer Bernard Sumner wrote the song about the death of John F. Kennedy. According to some, Sumner had a theory that surmised JFK hired a hitman to kill Jackie so that he could be with Marilyn Monroe. History turned out differently and the bullets found a different target. So distraught was Monroe, she killed herself. The song, therefore, is sung from Jackie's perspective, begging John to spare her life. It's an interesting theory, but history will also show that Monroe died a year before Kennedy. Some have suggested the song refers to a soldier taking on another wife while fighting overseas and killing his domestic lover out of necessity or perhaps guilt. Some have suggested “Johnny” is a reference to Bernard's adoptive father John Dicken. Whatever the case, it's admittedly a sort of a down way to end a podcast lyrically, though the song's producer, Stephen Hague, has pointed out that it's the only song about domestic violence you can dance to. I'll hang my hat on that statement. New Song by Howard Jones is the first appearance for HoJo on CRC. With few exceptions, his music was always positive, but when you’re a self-described optimist that glove would seem to fit. Listen closely and see if you don’t find similarities between this song and Solsbury Hill by Peter Gabriel. While it’s long gone now, Jones' distinctive Mohawk hairdo was quite the spectacle back in the day. They were one-hit wonders in the U.S. with their 1987 hit Living in a Box, but the band of the same name had a second album that did quite well in Sheffield, England, their place of origin. The song Blow the House Down from the 1989 release Gatecrashing included Queen’s Brian May on guitar. This particular song is from their eponymous debut.   After Living in a Box, the podcast took an odd house-y kind of turn. Pablo has a dub feel and comes from Beloved’s remix album called Blissed Out. I’ve Been Thinking About You is the 12” version of the #1 tune by Londonbeat from 1991. The original appeared on their second full-length release called In the Blood. The first time I heard this tune, I thought it was Roland Gift and the boys from Fine Young Cannibals. A reasonable mistake, but a mistake no less. Ride the Bullet is the b-side of Crucified, probably the best-known hit from Army of Lovers. They always reminded me of Dead or Alive with Victorian-era costumes instead of drab-looking gothic clothes. This particular track was remixed by DNA, who has done many remix projects including the classic version of Tom’s Diner by Suzanne Vega (CRC #9) I Say Yeah is an awesome dance track by Italo-Disco producer Stefano Secchi. This particular song is the Razormaid! remix of the track and features vocals by Orlando Johnson. React 2 Rhythm grew out of the West London dance scene. The song here, Intoxication, was the second major release from the group, having signed initially to legendary producer William Orbit’s Guerilla Records imprint. This particular mix, the Dubfield Mix, was one of two by techno outfit Leftfield. The other was called the Clubfield Mix. At least half a dozen others remixed this track including pre-eminent 80s remixer Justin Robertson and John Digweed. Underworld has appeared on CRC before with their track Skyscraper I Love You (CRC #17). Here they return with the album version of Dirty Epic from the same dubnobasswithmyheadman CD. It’s hard to believe the transformation these guys have gone through over the years and maybe even harder to believe Karl Hyde and Rick Smith have been making music together for over 30 years. Though they haven’t yet been on CRC, their early ‘80s outfit Freuer will make an appearance at some point in time. Finally, there’s the Camouflage track X-ray. This version was taken from their limited, 2-disc, numbered best of collection called Rewind. In case you were wondering, I own pressing #3502. As the band puts it, they “liked the aura of the letters forming this word.” Before shooting the video, they wanted to watch the film The Man with the X-ray Eyes. The main character in the film is named Ray Milland. Because it took them ages to find a copy of the film they had watched as children, they eventually named the bonus track of the X-ray single In Search of Ray Milland. Bet you didn’t know that! Seems like these write-ups keep getting longer and longer every new episode. I’ll have to work on shortening them. I just don’t want to gyp any of the bands out of their due glory, though I may have to concentrate on the songs that have really neat stories behind them in the future. I don’t know. We’ll see, I guess. That’s all for this episode. I’ll be back again soon with more mail from the mailbag and some more groovy retro tunes. Until then…be good, everyone. By the way, the image associated with this episode is Half Face with Collar by Roy Lichtenstein. It is significant not only for the high price it was supposed to fetch at auction (and didn’t), but for the fact it was completed in…you guessed it…1963. Thanks to the website artobserved.com for the great image.