"White Spats and Lots of Dollars"
[This is one post in a series about my music mixes. The series list has links to all posts in the series and also definitions of many of the terms I use. You may wish to read the introduction for more background.
Like all my series, it is not necessarily contiguou
I think the first song I can really remember hearing that used filters to make a modern song sound like it was being played off a scratchy 78 was “Puttin’ on the Ritz,” by the enigmatically named Taco. Born in Indonesia, educated in Belgium, Dutch citizen who started performing in Germany, Taco (yep, that’s his actual given name) was primarily doing a synthpop version of an ancient (originally released in 1929) Irving Berlin tune. The voice filtering is light; most of the old-timey vibe of the song is provided by its just being an old-timey song. Production has been used in other songs since then to give them a patina of age, and it has gotten much more obvious through the years. There are almost certainly examples that predate Taco too; I’m just not familiar with any of them. I always thought it was a nifty technique, if not overdone, and there have been several radio-friendly examples that I can recall, such as Space’s “The Female of the Species,” or White Town’s “Your Woman,” where the vocals sound less like they’re coming off an old phonograph and more like they’re being delivered over an old analog telephone line with a bad connection. I’m not sure when I decided to gather such songs and turn them into a mix, but of course all 3 of these examples had to feature heavily, which is why you see them back-to-back as the first vocal tracks on this volume (and why Taco gets the honor of providing the volume title).
Of course, “scratchy record” songs, as I referred to them before deciding that they all had in common a mischeivous sense of shenanigans in addition to the sound of the old Victrola, are not sufficient for a mix. Not due to lack of examples, of cours
Sometimes these are new songs dressed up to be reminiscent of those classics. Squirrel Nut Zippers are excellent at this, as they prove with “Prince Nez” (among many others). The arrangement, including banjo, muted trumpet, and Hawaiian-style steel guitar bending, gives it that old-time feeling. Britain’s Electric Swing Circus1 is not so bad at it either, but they have a tendency to add some modern fluorishes (like buzzing synth chords and a touch of that voice filtration again). “The Penniless Optimist” is the best example of this, but the much softer “Put Your Smile On,” which is little more than the scratchy record filter and an accompanying ukelele, is a nice little track to help us wind down to the close. Fellow Euro-electro-swing practitioners (this time from France) Caravan Palace are not known for this style, but their not-quite-instrumental “Panic” somehow still manages to evoke the frenetic pace of 20s and 30s music while maintaining the strong electronic feel. But the all-time best practitioners of this style have to be the Red Sea Pedestrians. We’ve seen RSP before, most notably on Porchwell Firetime,2 but you’d have to guess that a band consisting of a guitar, banjo, stand-up bass, fiddle, clarinet, and percussion, and who self-describes as “a warped and beautiful blend of American Roots, Rock, Klezmer, Gypsy, Classical and Jazz”, would certainly fit the bill here. “Sleepwalk Dreamin’” is an amazing tune that manages to sound both indeliby modern and also comfortably at home in the 30s or 40s, and it’s pretty pitch-perfect for this mix. Their ”[Untitled]” is the closer for their first album, and I liked so much in that capacity that I made it the closer here as well.
Of course, the other way to do it is to emulate Taco and take an actual old-timey song and update the arrangement, but not too much. “Going Up to the Country, Paint My Mailbox Blue” is not quite as old as I am, but I was in fact only 2 years old when the great blues musician Taj Mahal first recorded it. The version here, by Austin eclectics the Asylum Street Spankers, is given the same trappings that SNZ used on “Prince Nez”: banjo, clarinet, fiddle, and brushes on the snare instead of the standard drumsticks, and I have to say I like it better than the original, although I am admittedly a blues illiterate. Or take Lee Press-On and the Nails’ take on the 1939 classic “Brazil”, which also uses a touch of filtered vocals and theremin-like synths to spruce up a very 40s-style song. (The interlude tacked on at the end was so perfect when recontextualized that I just kept it for fun.)
Alternatively, you can do it the other way round: take a modern song and recast it with a 30s or 40s style of instrumentation. And no one does that better than Scott Bradlee & Postmodern Jukebox. Here I’ve chosen to showcase their version of “Hey There Delilah,” originally by the Plain White T’s. By adding a banjo and some honkytonk-style piano, giving vocal duties to Joey Cook doing an able imitation of a flapper,3 and speeding up the tempo considerably (and most likely taking it out of the minor key of the original, though I confess I’m not musically knowledgeable enough to say that for sure), Bradlee turns it into a whole different song. The original would have been weirdly out of place here; this version is perfect. And, while it’s tough to beat Bradlee, I have to give a shout out to Orkestra Obsolete, who redid the New Order classic “Blue Monday” “using only instruments available in the 1930s.” In order to reproduce the very synth-heavy song, they used a number of techniques, including a theremin, a musical saw, and even a glass harp, which is basically just running your fingers around the rims of wine glasses filled to different levels with water. Although you can certainly appreciate just the audio, this is one instance where you should really check out the video (linked below), and maybe even the accompanying article. There was never any doubt that this song would end up here: it opens with the playing of an actual scratchy record! Tough to beat that for fitness for a particular purpose.
Of course, there’s also no shortage of tunes that actually use vocoders or other filtration techniques to give songs that old-timey feel. Many artists like to use such things as little bridges or interludes. Cyndi Lauper stuck “He’s So Unusual” in just before the closing song on her debut album; it’s actually pulling double duty here, as it’s an update of a 20s song sung by Helen Kane (the inspiriation for Betty Boop). Twice as long and still under two minutes, “Wet My Bed” is (according to Wikipedia) the first song recorded by the Stone Temple Pilots; it’s a surreal, stream-of-consciousness track, improvised by Scott Weiland and Robert DeLeo4 and then later stuck on their debut album two songs from the end, where I would eventually hear it and go “what the fuck was that??” But it stuck with me, and here it is again. And the “Intro” of Michelle Branch’s Hotel Paper is a mere 11 seconds, but it’s just as good an intro to this volume.
Of course, the scratchy record effect is beloved of some downtempo artists, particularly those looking for that “lo-fi” feel. For instance, Monster Rally5 employs it a bit in the opening of “Orchids,” and even more so in “Lovely You.” Both songs have a bit of an old-timey feel above and beyond just that though, which is also the case with “Smoke from the Attic” by Smokey Bandits. All three instrumental pieces somehow manage to evoke the early part of the 20th century even while being pretty firmly grounded in the early years of the 21st.6 On the other hand, “Slow Serenade” by German electro-swing artist Tape Five7 is also an instrumental, and also released in the first 20 years of this century, but has zero modern concessions. It could have easily been pulled from an episode of The Lawrence Welk Show that my grandparents watched when I was a child. Despite that not-particularly-glowing assessment, it’s a sweet tune that probably wouldn’t work anywhere else in my mix universe.
Meanwhile, applying a filter to vocals to make them sound tinny or far away is not that uncommon either. Besides some of the aforementioned examples, there is of course the ultra-classic “One Night in Bangkok,” from the musical Chess. Now, I am definitely no fan of opera, and not even particularly a fan of ABBA,8 but for some reason I just adored this song when it appeared on the radio during my freshman year in college. Many reviewers describe Murray Head’s “rap” as a bit lame, and I’ll admit that, as a rap, it leaves a lot to be desired. But if you think of it as a poem that happens to have some music playing in the background, I think it’s pretty awesome.9 That is, judging it only on the basis of its wordplay, it has a lot to recommend it to an English major such as myself. Plus it’s just fun. For a couple of more obscure picks, I went with De-Phazz and Trost. De-Phazz is know
[ White Spats and Lots of Dollars ]
“Orchids” by Monster Rally, off Return to Paradise
“Female of the Species” by Space, off Spiders
“Puttin' on the Ritz [single version]” by Taco [Single]
“Your Woman” by White Town, off Women in Technology
“Prince Nez” by Squirrel Nut Zippers, off Hot
“Going Up to the Country, Paint My Mailbox Blue” by Asylum Street Spankers, off Mercurial
“Sleepwalk Dreamin'” by the Red Sea Pedestrians, off See Through the Eyes of Osiris!
“Hey There Delilah” by Scott Bradlee & Postmodern Jukebox, off Top Hat on Fleek
“Smoke from the Attic” by Smokey Bandits, off Debut
“One Night in Bangkok” by Murray Head [Single]14
“He's So Unusual” by Cyndi Lauper, off She's So Unusual
“The Penniless Optimist” by the Electric Swing Circus, off The Electric Swing Circus
“Dr. Wanna Do” by Caro Emerald, off Deleted Scenes from the Cutting Room Floor
“Wet My Bed” by Stone Temple Pilots, off Core
“Rock 'n' Roll Dude” by De-Phazz, off Days of Twang
“Lovely You” by Monster Rally, off Return to Paradise
“Feel Good Inc.” by Gorillaz, off Demon Days
“Panic” by Caravan Palace, off Panic
“Blue Monday” by Orkestra Obsolete [Single]15
“Brazil” by Lee Press-On and the Nails, off El Bando en Fuego!
“Slow Serenade” by Tape Five, off Swing Patrol
“Even Sparrows Don't Like to Stay” by Trost, off Trust Me
“Put Your Smile On” by the Electric Swing Circus, off The Electric Swing Circus
“Remember Me” by Bella Ruse, off Bella Ruse [EP]
“[Untitled]” by the Red Sea Pedestrians, off A Lesson in Cartography
For the last few, less obvious choices, I went with Bella Ruse, whom you may recall from Sirenexiv Cola, to close the volume (not counting the super-brief outro from RSP). Honestly, the vast majority of Kay Gillette’s vocals sound like they belong on an old 78 ... their website describes it as an “antique voice.” “Remember Me” is another short song that isn’t a bridge:16 just a sweet, simple acoutic-guitar-driven ballad. It honestly just doesn’t need the filter to sound old-timey.
Next there’s “Dr. Wanna Do” from Caro Emerald. You may recall we first ran into this Dutch purveyor of electro-swing on Salsatic Vibrato III, but we seen her since on several other volumes.17 That’s because she’s awesome. And honestly a lot of her music is reminiscnent of interwar Europe, such as was portrayed in Stephen Fry’s excellent Bright Young Things. This track uses the muted trumpet, a stand-up bass, some voice-filtered scatting, and a breakdown that triplicates Emerald’s voice to make her a one-woman Andrews Sisters. The result is a typically captivating Emerald outing.
Finally, the most off-beat choice is probably “Feel Good Inc.” by Gorillaz. While the heavy voice filtering is an obvious qualifier, nothing else about this song gives off any kind of old-timey vibe. Still, it’s an amazing track with a great (and proper) rap from De La Soul, and I would’ve felt weird not including it here.
Next time, let’s get dreamy.
1 Known primarily for their upbeat retro-swing tunes such as can be found on Salsatic Vibrato VII, but also for the occasional surreal tune such as the one I used on Bleeding Salvador II.
2 But also on Bleeding Salvador II and Wisty Mysteria II.
3 Wikipedia tells me that Cook was on American Idol. I’ve never watched it personally, but perhaps you remember her.
4 Apparently the “all right, now what?” at the end is producer Brendan O’Brien wondering where the hell they were going to go from there.
5 We first heard from them on Apparently World I, but also on Paradoxically Sized World V.
6 Debut by Smokey Bandits was released in 2010; Monster Rally’s Return to Paradise came out in 2013.
7 We were introduced to Tape Five on Salsatic Vibrato VII.
8 In case you didn’t know (or perhaps had forgotten), Chess was written by the two male members of ABB
9 To be clear, proper rap is much more than that.
10 Which I suspect is not much: AllMusic knows who they are, so they don’t quite meet my defniition of moderately obscure band, but Wikipedia is definitely a bit hazy on them, so they’re close.
11 Although I suppose that only works if you know who both Koop and Morcheeba are, and, if you knew that, you’d have a decent shot of knowing who De-Phazz is anyhow. I should probably work on my descriptions.
12 There: better?
13 The other classic example being the Smiths’ “Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want.”
14 Linking you to YouTube because it’s really the only place you can get the full extended version. You can find shorter versions on Amazon, but, if you’re like me, only the 1984 radio edit will really scratch this itch.
15 This one, on the other hand, is not available anywhere other than YouTube, as far as I know.
16 This mix seems to attract such; perhaps it’s an unconscious callback to those early days when songs were in general much shorter.
17 Specifically, Salsatic Vibrato VI, Salsatic Vibrato VII, and Moonside by Riverlight II.
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