Founded back in 2012 before taking a hiatis till 2017 Doll$Boxx are a
similar melding of two bands like Audioslave as they here combine the
vocals of Fuki (Light Bringer, Unlucky Morpheus and Fuki Commune) and
the sound of Gacharic Spin. Here combining a hard rock sound with
bursts of melody which makes them much like Babymetal one of those
earworms you can't exactly place what it is that appeals so much.
Sure on first appearences they might look like another Loita Metal band
in that screenshot this video quickly sees them satirising the
sub-genre as they hang out with a bunch of creepy guys in a basement.
Modeling thier image around Maid Cafe
Hostesses in thier native Japan were Singer/guitarist Miku Kobato had
worked prior to the band taking off envisioning a fusion of Rock music
with the maid
image and hence the band was born. Let just be glad it wasn't a cat cafe she worked at!
Originally
starting out as a four piece the band soon recruited singer Saiki Atsumi
who now hands the lead vocals alongside Miku the band seeing that two
singers would allow them to create a wider range of music especially
with two different voice types which still perfectly complement each
other when placed together.
Despite the Maid image the band
favour an aggressive rock sound while the uniform is adapted to meet the
personality of each member of the band. When it comes to thier fans
though the guys are called "Masters", the ladies "Princesses" and
concerts "Servings".
It's almost fitting that the video which sees Miku paying homage to "Run Lola Run" as they runs through the streets of Tokyo that this song is also on my gym tape and just as good when your on your own runs.
Last night I celebrated my birthday
by finally got around to watching the latest American attempt at a
Godzilla movie with "Godzilla: King of the Monsters" directed by Michael
Dougherty one of the most painfully underappricated directors whose
previous work includes Krampus and Trick 'r Treat. Here getting to play
out his Godzilla nerd fantasies by making the film that we want to see
ie. Giant monsters destroying cities and battling each other not fancy
cutaways and boring soldier characters embarking on cross country
journey's. Needless to say as some who has been obsessed with these
movies since they were 8 (now 37) this movie delivered big time.
What also certainly stood out though was this end titles track by Bear
McCreary which also teases the upcoming Godzilla VS. Kong. McCreary
though is one of the truly great modern composers and whose credits
include Battlestar Galatica, The Walking Dead, Black Sails and Happy
Death Day and here he knocks it out of the part again, really capturing
the destructive nature and awe inspiring sight of the Kaiju on screen.
At the same time his score is peppered with elements of Akira Ifukube's
previous Godzilla scores which McCreary pays homage to throughout the
film.
With this track though a cover of a Blue Öyster Cult's 1977
track "Godzilla" it's all about the legend himself Godzilla with that
pounding drumbeat, orchestral soars, taiko chanting and aggressive rifs
capturing the magisty of the King of Monsters. Adding to this is vocals
from System of a Down frontman Serj Tankian who these could easily be
one of his own tracks wether with his band or his solo work as he is
certainly no stranger to this kind of dramatical flair in his own
composures. If anything though this is certainly one not only for this
mixtape but the gym tape aswell.
Possibly the most important song on this mixtape as one of my all
time favourites soundtracking my college years, a time which saw me
being able to move on from being the small fat kid who got beat up
everyday at school partly because of my place in the social order but
also because I ran my mouth all the time and seemed to relish in the
choas of pissing the wrong people off. Regardless college meanwhile was
the place were you got to celebrate your quirks and more importantly
find the tribes which represented yourself which for myself was the
skater punks, movie nerds and horror junkies.
It was seeing the the MTV bumper "Verebrae" which sampled the song which not only introduced me to the song, but also in many ways painted out the path I wanted to follow. To be the kid with the big headphones following thier own path....the chipped nail paint never happened.
A key track for the band as the band's forth single it became a suprise hit entering the charts at #4 and pushing the album from #40 to #5 though the boy photographed for it's cover would claim that it ruined his life attempting to sue the band in 2012 compared to the kid who was the baby on the cover of Nirvana's "Nevermind" who admited he used it as a way to pick up girls.
For a song which was fuel for so much change in my own world view the song also looks at change as lead singer Brain Molko explained
"People who think it's fashionable to be gay-guys who think that because some of my best friends are gay that they are going to try it out because they are in a milieu where it's cool, but they haven't actually had the desire themselves. In the song, I'm questioning people's reasons for sleeping with someone of the same sex. In the same way that heroin is very hip today, being bisexual seems to be very chic." It's an exploration into somebody's misogyny yet heartfelt. It's angry, nasty, insulting and completely politically incorrect."
To this extent you could put the song next to The BloodHound Gang's "I Wish I was Queer So I Could Get Chicks" but at the time these lyrics went completly over my head as the refrences to drugs, sex, gender confusion and bisexuality were instead lost in the noisescape the band create here as like so much music I tend to focus more on the sound than the words, but even viewed in this way there are devious lines like "Eyeholes in a paper bag/greatest lay I ever had" which only add to the song.
The video directed by Howard Greenhalgh who blurred Drummer Steve Hewitt's face due to him still being under contact to another band while having the band look like they are playing in a Clive Barker disco with the combination of disemboded limbs, spikes and melded bodies which while lacking the budget Greenhalgh would have no doubt have liked to run with for this surreal vision still creates one which melds with song taking you on a journey from wondering what the hell your watching to an almost strange sense of acceptance once it's finished as Greenhalgh brings his approach of drawing from the song lyrics to create this memorable video.
Greenhalgh while a name which might not leap out as the most recognisable despite his work promently featuring throughout the 90's would also create videos for the Pet Shop Boys, George Michael, Muse and Soundgarden's "Black Hole Sun" which won him a reader's choice award for best video by Spin magazine.
While the band might care about the song for years excluding it from thier sets, it's still one of my favourites of their backcatalogue and while I might not still be the same rebel without a clue I was in my college days it still taps into a good place whenever I hear it. Follow the Mixtape
One of the great aspects of mixtape trading is discovering new music and certainly that is the case with this track which came up as a spotify recommendation.
Featuring a sound reminisant of Nirvana this would be the band's only hit song thanks largely to heavy radioplay though clearly not here in the UK were we didn't get our first alternative station until the early 00's having to scape by on four hours of "specialist programing" each week thrown onto the late night schedule of Radio 1. It was here that you'd also find the legendry John Peel whose drive to push new music was never truly recognised by the station until his crushing passing from a heart attack in 2004. To this date no other DJ with perhaps of Jo Whiley has discovered as many bands as he did thanks to his attitude of just playing anything he thought sounded good.
Taking it's title from a phrase uttered by lead singer John Wozniak's college girlfriend's roommate after she walked in on them having sex remarking that the room smelt like Sex and Candy but then this is a song which features such phrases as double cherry pie, disco superfly, disco lemonade and platform double-suede none of which I have any clue what they are, but then when you have droning vocals mixed with some catchy rifts you can get away with alot.
The video directed by Jamie Caliri who also directed Eels, "Your Lucky Day in Hell and Cypress Hill's "Boom Biddy Bye Bye (Fugees Remix)" who he would also provide the cover art for "Temples of Boom". His work can also be found in the credits sequences for Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa and the much underappricated Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events.
On a fun side note Wozniak's father, a developmental psychologist, analyzed the video in Freudian term which he saw as a representation of a wet dream. Adding to this cited that the hole Wozniak's head was in represented the womb, the spider Wozniak's loss of innocence (which he is both afraid of and drawn to), and the puddle at the end of the video to be a symbol for semen.....personally the idea of spiders crawling towards my head is just a whole lot of nightmare fuel, while I guess the guys harassing the dresser are just really clumsy movers.
A song I first came across as it opened "Donnie Darko" even though it
was Richard Kelly's second choice having originally wanted "Never Tear
Us Apart" by the insanely overated INXS and sure watching his directoral
cut the opening of that song does work, but like every INXS song the
opening is the best part.
Flying in the face of their
contempories like U2 and Simple Minds who were drifting into stadium
rock, Echo and the Bunnymen were deliberatly heading the other way with
this track serving as a statement of intent paving the way for "Ocean
Rain" released a few months later and often cited as thier masterwork.
While Donnie Darko might have introduced the song along with so many of
it's 80's infused soundtrack to a whole new audience though discussing the song with Louder and citing it as his favourite song “No one else
has a song like The Killing Moon, not even Bowie,” Ian McCulloch stated
“I’d mentioned somewhere that The Killing Moon was about pre-destiny,”
says Ian McCulloch, “and he wrote the whole fuckin’ film about it.
Cheeky bastard! He gave us this pittance one-off fee for the use of the
song, saying it was just a little indie film, but forgot to mention that
Drew Barrymore was behind it, who had more money than Howard Hughes.
Great as it is, he should at least have given us a credit for the idea.”
The video is typical 80's fare and with no director listed in it's
credits it's hard to see were they went next, but then this really is a
song which for myself atleast will always bring back that opening bike
ride as like any song used well in a movie like Steelers Wheel's "Stuck In The Middle With You" and Reseviour Dogs it will alway own that song
and when it comes to this track Donnie Darko certainly did that.
Suprisingly for a band with such cult
appeal this is actually the only good version of this song online as the band have continued to tinker with it over the years to mixed results with a more slowed down version found on the "Southland Tales" soundtack being one of the stand outs.
The fact that it's not got more of a presence / fan videos online is only the more suprising when "Doolittle" the second album for the band which it's taken from
is often regarded by both fans and critics alike as the band's best
album, even though personally I always leaned more towards "Surfer
Rosa".
Perhaps in some alternative timeline the Pixies fell into
the same unrelenting noisescape as Sonic Youth especially with the
howling vocals of Frank Black set against the guitar fuzz and catchy
riffs; but somehow as out there as they seemed with some of the tracks
there was never the feeling that they were just making it up as they go
with Doolittle as an album seeing the band at thier most accessable
making it the perfect starting point for those new to the band.
