The Cheeky Moogies of Pop

 

The Monkees were the very first rock group to use a Moog

Mickey Dolenz bought one

Although I have seen this Doors tune cited as the first major use

Soon all the stars were at it

Too dour to be cheeky but George Harrison certainly had some effrontery in releasing a whole album of his Moog dribblings (one side actually played by Moog-man-for-hire Bernie Krause

They all had a go

Byrds too - although they are too earnest to be filed under "cheeky monkey"

Anonymous in Comments points me to this shot of Roger McGuinn and a Moog from the gatefold of Byrds untitled

Hang on a minute, that came out at the very start of 1968. 2001, A Space Odyssey came out in April. Did the Byrds come up with the idea independently, or had they heard about the film being in production? 

The lyrics

In 1996, we ventured to the moon

Onto the sea of crisis like children from the womb

We journeyed cross the great wall plain beneath the mountain range

And then we saw the pyramid, it looked so very strange

This beacon had a field of force that circled all around

And not a man could get inside, no way could be found

It was here for thousands of years before our life began

Waiting very patiently for evolving man

When the galaxy was young, they looked upon the Earth

And saw that its position was promising for birth

They searched for life, but finding none, they left a beacon bright

Its signal had not been disturbed in the eternal light

How wise they were to choose this place, they knew when we arrived

That our atomic energy we'd harnessed and survived

I look out on the Milky Way for people of the dawn

I know that they will come some day, but will our wait be long?

In 1996, we ventured to the moon

Onto the sea of crisis like children from the womb

We journeyed cross the great wall plain beneath the mountain range

And then we saw the pyramid, it looked so very strange

Ah, I see - the song and the film are based on the same Arthur C. Clarke story, "The Sentinel"....

I don't know why I never came up with  this gruesome but conceptually accurate pun before: 

sci-fidelia 

Would have worked as well as synthedelia, describing the electronic / rock convergence of late Sixties

"Electronic rock" was a term quite widely bandied about at the time, I discovered only quite some time after doing that piece. All studio-as-instrument stuff was considered part of "electronic rock" though, since it involved manipulating magnetic tape - not just rock with the add-on of synth and Moogy stuff.  So psychedelia and "electronic rock" were if not the same, then overlapping considerably. 

From Lilian Roxon's Rock Encyclopedia, published 1969

This one song is quite a good example of synth-meets-psych - how disappointed I was on picking up the second-hand album to find not a single song in the same vein as "Old Man Willow", instead it's all  rather hearty and rootsy gut-bucket rock. (Didn't  Elephant's Memory go on to back up Lennon during his power-to-the-people, back-to-basics phase?). Well, the middle section of jazzy horns and vamping piano chords in "Old Man Willow" reveals these traits, if only it all stayed in the dreamy, ripply, trance state...

Perhaps it's more of an electric organ than a synth sound

Someone should write a piece on the role of keyboards in psychedelia... It's as key as any studio trickery like phasing or backwards-guitar or wotnot... 

More from Roxon: 

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Despite the title, this Anthony Newley / Delia Derbyshire electronovelty doesn't actually involve a Moog I don't think

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Anon suggests that Moog possibly on this Byrds tune "The Hungry Planet" but if so it's just a woosh or two

Tyler in Comments reminds me of the electronic dabblings of the Dead - this puts Garcia's voice through Moog 

Jefferson Airplane's dabbles in that direction

Talking about sci-fidelia, the title track of "Crown of Creation" is lyrically derived from John Wyndham's The Chrysalids. 

The Cheeky Monkeys of Pop (now with added Robbie)

The original cheeky monkey, or Monkee - rather amazingly Mickey Dolenz was closely associated with some actual monkeys, early in his career, as a character in Circus Boy

A hint of simian is definitely a bonus with this archetype but not essential. 

Ian Brown playing up to it, having fun with it with the Unfinished Monkey Business album

Although as covers go it's oddly sinister 

 

And then the original spur for this meditation, Lily Allen 

At a low televisual ebb recently so found ourselves watching From Riches to Rags on YouTube -  an ancient docu-reality thing on Lily and her sister's attempt to start a vintage clothing rental boutique - the concept: haute couture too expensive to buy, but you could grub up enough cash to wear it for one night of feeling like a star. 

Diverting enough stuff, mainly for the cheeky-monkey charm of Lily who really doesn't seem cut out for business. (Spoiler: neither of them were).

Most of the time on camera, Lily's unmade-up and casually dressed - what I find disconcerting are the intermittent glimpses of her onstage or doing some kind of celeb-oriented event, paparazzi clustered around her as she totters on high heels, clad in a couture gown and caked in cosmetics.  

Disconcerting because her true essence seems much more like the Artful Dodger reincarnated. 

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

So who else is there? 

Steve Marriott? 

Well, he in fact played the Artful Dodger in Oliver! on the West End stage long before he was a Small Face

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

William in comments point out a glaring and obvious omission

This Stones pastiche reminded me of the existence of Mick Jagger - who has a simian quality but I don't know if he's exactly a "cheeky monkey"

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Oooh - thought of another. 

Well, I don't know if "cheeky monkey" is the word exactly but Saffron in Republica has a sort of bouncy bratty energy - like an 8 year old in a romper room. 

You could probably point to punky precursors  - The Slits - but I like to think of "Ready To Go"  as the inauguration of a likeable lineage of unladylike pop - I'd almost say "ladette" -  like which would include Icona Pop's "I Love It" and Pink's "Coming Up" ("get this party started") and early Ke$ha .  Charlie xcx... 

Now I think of it, are The Spice Girls a whole pack of cheeky monkeys?  

Talking of unladylike pop / ladette-pop, clean forget about Lady Sovereign

Who in many ways is the template that Lily Allen was basing her thing, albeit not rapping but singing 

"Cheeky monkey" is very much something to do with a return to childhood.

Pre-sexual - in the case of the female artists, there's a bratty 9-year-old tomboy quality that cuts against or is at odds with whatever glamour they are otherwise attempting to put across

The girl-gang comes first, coupling is a distant second

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Update August 9

Genuinely abashed to have missed one of those "standing in plain view" examples. 

It took Andrew Parker to point out the bleedin' obvious: 

Robbie Williams

He only made an autobiopic earlier this year in which he appears in the form of a chimpanzee 

Robbie Williams: "I've been a cheeky monkey all my life" 

More than a faint resemblance to Norman Wisdom, who had a simian aspect, as well as seeming like a perpetual 10 year old with a catapult pulled from the pages of the Beano or Just William

Norman Wisdom also had a pop career, singing glutinous chart-topping ballads that generally played on his image as the Fool, but extended that into amorous metaphors (fool for your love, you made me your fool, that kind of thing).

I have not seen the Better Man movie - well, I tried to watch it but had to stop after 10 minutes -  but did sit through a whole long (two-part I think) doc on Robbie. 

The gist of was that he achieved fame and public affection as someone for whom it was all just a lark, someone essentially paid to enjoy himself in public....  

But then he decided he wanted to be taken seriously -  he craved artistic credibility, wanted to say profound things and push the pop envelope, desperately desired to be "cool"... and this misguided ambition and consequent inevitable shortfall with attendant lashings of critical derision, tabloid mockery etc - this had him spiraling into mental fragility and addictive behaviours (I remember reading at the time that he was addicted to espressos and cigarettes, he would drink several espressos an hour while chain smoking - I expect this was just the lighter end of his issues).... 

And then at his lowest ebb, there was some kind of eureka moment. Robbie realised that some people just aren't cut out for depth.  They skate along the surface of life and there's nothing wrong with that. He realised that there wasn't anything more to him than being a born entertainer - a singing and smiling showman. So he went back to his true calling, effectively cabaret at arena scale - singing his most fondly remembered songs, giving it 110 percent onstage, putting on a grand show and taking people's minds off their own problems. 

Strangely during his dark, off-course days, his great aspirational idea of "deep" and cool was Oasis.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Some cheeky monkeys of my own

proto-postpunk (absolutely Oarsome)

 

The Zone of Frou Frou Intensification

Cocteau Twins have a very odd career shape.

It starts logically enough - first few records they are shaking off influences.

Garlands - OKAY

Lullabies - OKAY

Peppermint Pig - OKAY

Then then bloom into themselves:

Sunburst and Snowblind - SUBLIME!

Head Over Heels - SUBLIMEST!

The Spangle Maker - SUBLIMEST!

"Song to The Siren" (essentially a Cocteaus release) - SUBLIME!

But then they cross over into The Zone of Frou Frou Intensification 

Treasure - JUST TOO-TOO PRECIOUS

(I have actually come to like this album more but at the time I spurned it - didn't buy it despite being a huge fan up to that point. There's some great songs like "Lorelei" but the Victoriana girls names thing is a lickle bit ick)

And then I lost track of the Cocteaus during the dreary midriff of the Eighties. 

There is a run of releases - 3 EPs and a mini-LP: 

Aikea-Guinea  - HUH

Tiny Dynamine - HUH

Echoes in A Shallow Bay - HUH

Victorialand (just Robin and Liz on their own) - HUH

I didn't buy any of these and despite repeated attempts over the years, have never been able to get into them, with the exception of "Aikea-Guinea" the song, which is lovely. 

I can't even remember the music on these releases. Just a faint after-sense of it being a bit too fiddly and decorative 

I mean, yes, yes, Sylvère Lotringer did say "beauty will be amnesiac or will not be at all" but I don't think he quite meant this...

Yet a lot of fans rate them.

And each release reached #1 in the Independent Charts

And then we get to the strange bit of the career arc - suddenly you get a string of greatness again

Love's Easy Tears / Those Eyes That Mouth  - SUBLIMEST!

The Moon and the Melodies - SUBLIME!

Blue Bell Knoll - SUBLIMEST!

And then things start to tail off again after this unexpected resurgence

Heaven or Las Vegas -  FINE

(actually grown to like this more than I did at the time)

Four-Calendar Cafe -  OKAY

(never bothered even listening at the time; it seems pleasant now, overproduced, a sense of a band losing its way)

Milk & Kisses - LET US DRAW A DISCREET VEIL.... 

So what happened with the middle period? 

The mini-LP Victorialand is named after a region of Antarctica.

Then there's the title of  "Aikea-Guinea"...  

Did Robin and Liz get too cozily domestic, cuddled up on the sofa watching David Attenborough nature documentaries?

But it's not like Cocteau Twins reinvented themselves with the return-to-sublime phase, or even go back to a rawer, more eerie sound that they had earlier on. 

They continued the smoothing-out, edging-towards-commercial trajectory, it's just they wrote better melodies - melody just seems to bubble out of them like an unquenchable spring  -  and Liz is singing sublimely.

What other groups go off the boil like that and then go on the boil again? 

Of course you may disagree and think the Treasure to Victorialand phase is their best phase. 

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

ZFFI obviously a twist on the ZFI or Zone of Fruitless Intensification as explicated here

^^^^^^^^^^^

Then again, as Alfred Hitchcock said, "self-plagiarism is style" 

My own thoughts on style, which once achieved seems almost inevitably to set the artist (or genre) on the path to the Zone of Fruitless Intensification

T.V. Eye versus TV In My Eye

 

"T.V. Eye" is not about television, of course. 

T.V. has a particular private slang meaning in Stoogesworld and to be honest, I would advise you not to look it up, it might subtly impair your enjoyment of the song as it has ever-so-slightly with me, which is a shame as it is a Top 10 all time rock song for me. 

Somehow I've only just got around to hearing Los Microwaves, despite Barney Hoskyns going on about them in the NME back in the day. 

They are None New Wavier that's for sure.

"TV In My Eye" is yet another example of the very low status of television in the cultural hierarchy back then, compared to nowadays.

 From punkers to highbrow literati, all agreed that it was nonstop garbage, rotting your brain. 

cheeky monkeys, Rezillos, going on Top of the Pops and taking the mickey out of it! 

Gil Scott Heron obviously...

What else? 

(Talking Heads being clever semi-invert the idea and in "Found A Job" have the characters making their own television)

"Damn that television, what a bad picture"

"Don't get upset, it's not a major disaster"

"There's nothing on tonight, " he said, "I don't know what's the matter"

"Nothing's ever on, " she said, "so I don't know why you bother"

We've heard this little scene, we've heard it many times

People fighting over little things and wasting precious time

They might be better off, I think, the way it seems to me

Making up their own shows, which might be better than TV

Judy's in the bedroom, inventing situations

Bob is on the street today, scouting up locations

They've enlisted all their family

They've enlisted all their friends

It helped save their relationship

And made it work again

Their show gets real high ratings, they think they have a hit

There might even be a spin-off, but they're not sure 'bout that

If they ever watch TV again, it'd be too soon for them

Bob never yells about the picture now, he's having too much fun

Judy's in the bedroom, inventing situations

Bob is on the street today, scouting up locations

They've enlisted all their family

They've enlisted all their friends

It helped save their relationship

And made it work again

So think about this little scene, apply it to your life

If your work isn't what you love, then something isn't right

Just think of Bob and Judy, they're happy as can be

Inventing situations, putting them on TV

(No quite the total inversion of rock convention as with "Don't Worry About the Government" but different than railing against the braindeath)

Most rock songs, the attitude to television is on the level of Network and Being There, or Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 and his short stories like "The Pedestrian", or Neil Postman's Amusing Ourselves To Death i.e. typical highbrow "admass" critique of the brainwashing machine in the living room

Ironic, in a way, given that your highbrow literati like J.B. Priestley would have lumped rock'n'roll and youth culture in with TV, supermarkets, advertising, etc as part of admass. 

Now, are there any pro-TV songs? 

I have never really inspected closely the lyrics to ZZ Top's "TV Dinners"

Objects Lesson

 Awesome tune... 

The album it's from is very good throughout but that's the tune I find unfeasibly urgent and exciting. 

Faint resemblances of The Fall and Blue Orchids here and there but really the Spherical Objects have their own sound

It's sort of garage punk influenced, keyboard-propulsive - but skeletal, almost translucent

Like an anorexic Stranglers, in moments

Excellent drumming 

Interesting odd little byway of Manchester after-punk, the Object Music label

None New Wavier (Gruppovoodoo)

I remember when I was first looking at music papers seeing the name Gruppo Sportivo and being faintly intrigued, in the same way that Brand X adverts were faintly intriguing. Couldn't get a fix on what either band would sound like. 

I don't remember ever hearing Gruppo Sportivo  then although they got quite a bit of exposure in the UK. And they were pretty big on the Continent, or parts thereof.

A Dutch group - basically a Dutch bloke, as there's this one central, recurring figure, Hans Vandenburg - who take Anglophilia to an extreme. They basically seem to want to be The Members. 

Although I think they started before The Members. 

Actually what they are really like is a Netherlands version of Deaf School. I believe Bette Bright sang with Gruppo later on.

Well this is None New Wavier to the power of I don't know what - Gruppo Sportivo covering Wall of Voodoo

Like Fabulous Poodles, like Jona Lewie, like Costello and Joe Jackson and Graham Parker, they represent that side of New Wave where it is a time when funny-looking blokes have a chance at being pop stars. People who in most other eras would not get a look-in for not being a looker -  too ordinary-bloke unmemorable,  or actively mis-shapen.

 

No funny-looking or even ordinary-looking women of course - in New Wave, it's still expected that you are pretty. At least when it comes to fronting a band. (So not so "New" after all). 

You can be quirky and wacky and easy-on-the-eye like Lene Lovich but the beauty double standard still applies.

Gruppo have good looking backing singers, who jig about a bit like the girls in Squeeze's "Cool For Cats", to offset the bald gnome-like central geezer. 

Eeuw the mohair makes it look he has horribly hairy shoulders.

Design wise you can't get much more None New Wavier than this cover below

Still going