B-52s: Classic or Dud.

yep! that band was super tight.

"Some say she's from Mars or one of the seven stars that shine after 3:30 in the morning. WELL, SHE ISN'T!" just jumped out at me. Never really noticed the last part before.

Listening at work, no one can see me laughing under this COVID mask.

I only just noticed this morning that for their formative (pre-mainstream) days, the B-52s didn't have a bassist!

There's a Bass in the Band (And It's Called the Bass)

the gypsies had no home and the b-52s had no bass

https://www.vintagesynth.com/sites/default/files/2017-05/sb100.jpg

iirc ricky wilson tuned the bottom two strings down, removed the middle two strings, and played "bass" on the low strings simultaneously with guitar on the high strings.

A number of songs are CFxxFF, where x is missing string.

and Kate Pierson handled the rest on her keyboard xpost

I just tried experimenting with the CFxxFF tuning for the first time, and it's amazing! Taking the bottom strings down that far makes them ridiculously slack and floppy, but you instantly get *that* sound. (I'm guessing Ricky used thicker gauge strings for this?) And then tuning the top two to the same F is similarly weird, but it is the magical sound of the "down! down!" part of "Rock Lobster." The way he combined bass parts and lead parts on only four strings was wonderfully eccentric and original.

yeah, that's amazing! i didn't know that at all

I would assume one would be playing mostly unison on the top two strings, rather than a lot of minor and major seconds?

Yes, the "down!" riff is literally just placing one finger over both strings at the 12th fret, descending each step down the fretboard. The two unison strings create a sort of wavery sound, probably aided by just a touch of reverb, and voila.

“Without anything but the love we feel”

otm

bought "Good Stuff" on CD at Half Price today, but listened to another acquisition ("Chorus" by Erasure) on the way home instead

Waiting for bus number 99
Goin to the store for hot dogs and wine

A number of songs are CFxxFF, where x is missing string.

― Three Rings for the Elven Bishop (Dan Peterson), Wednesday, October 6, 2021 8:25 AM

imagine if he had gotten his hands on one of those guitars with moveable frets.

Cracked case copies of Good Stuff (probably harvested from long boxes) were staples of late-'90s Walmart cutout bins.

yeah, that album was made for cutout bins.

I remember buying it the day it was released at Peaches Records in Seattle and being disappointed.

I remember spending a summer almost wearing my cassette copy of Good Stuff out, even though I knew in my heart that it wasn’t quite as awesome of the prior album

This one's been stuck in my head all weekend:

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

It’s a good track. The 9 minute Shep Pettibone one works really nicely if you are a fan of 80s extended mixes.

nice, thanks, I do love extended 80s/90s mixes

I like the Good Stuff remix too

I had Bouncing Off the Satellites on tape in high school (I took my car in for service and it was in the cassette player when I picked it up) and I think it's kinda slept on... has some of their very best songs (Summer of Love, Ain't It a Shame, Girl from Ipanema, Wig). She Brakes for Rainbows kinda points the way to Cosmic Thing, too.

yeah it's a solid LP imo, better than Whammy (which, in turn, sounded MUCH better when I revisited it recently)

Bouncing Off The Satellites has been out of print for ages. Don't remember ever seeing a copy in the UK.

Good Stuff forms part an extremely incongruous 2-for-1 CD package.

https://countrymusicusa.com/cdn/shop/products/20190320_123_740x.jpg

Ahahaha!

Well, there are too many horn arrangements on Good stuff imo

That’s the Blood, Sweat and Tears album where Fred Schneider joined as lead singer

Revisiting Whammy a few days ago, I was struck by how tinny and crudely programmed those sequencers and drums are. The songs are okay.

By contrast, Bouncing Off the Satellites bounce off the walls. "Ain't It a Shame" is their Secret Best Song. Sinead O'Connor killed it a decade ago:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UUF5mrKUOVA

can't be doing with any version of that song that doesn't have the Galaga samples

I totally love Whammy. Alfred, have you heard Plastics? I’ve written this elsewhere but the second time I saw the B-52s Plastics toured with them, and I’ve long thought the “tinny” rhythms on Whammy may have been Plastics-inspired. That period after Wild Planet that yielded Party Mix and Mesopotamia they were obviously casting about for what to do next.

I thought Bouncing off the Satellites was a minor letdown on release, but I’ve come to love that as well. It lacks anything that rocks me like “Trism” or “Queen of Las Vegas” though.

…which is crazy because Plastics were certainly inspired by the B-52s; Whammy seems to me like returning the favor.

I think I've said it before, but I love the Mesopotamia outtake version of Queen of Las Vegas (from the Nude on the Moon anthology):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I4SAclO9JAE

Absolutely, it’s wonderful. I wish there were more outtakes like that, but there really aren’t.

yo I like The Plastics!! I have their Rough Trade 7"

Yay! I often use ilx threads to decide what to play. This afternoon: Good Stuff, Whammy, and Welcome Back Plastics.

Good Stuff needed to be 20 minutes shorter, resequenced, and preferably done with other producers.

That "Queen..." outtake is what I heard in my head that the Whammy version doesn't produce.

i completely forgot bouncing off the satellites even existed until we were listening to a b-52s mix in the car the other week and Wig came on. What a great song.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4mPCLvsB5GQ

Awesome.

“Whammy Kiss” live, sans rhythm box, rocks.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BIEobB7JDkA

FYI, they're playing a one-off show at the Riviera Theatre in Chicago in November.

Was talking with some friends yesterday about (the lack of) Mexican food in the UK and that you don’t see e.g. tamales.

I mentioned the line, “Hi, my name is ricky and i'm a pisces. I love computers and hot tamales” from Song For A Future Generation and was informed there is a candy brand called “Hot Tamales” and now I’m not sure which one he loved. Any ideas?

I was just watching Twin Peaks and remembered that Julee Cruise joined to perform Cindy’s parts during her hiatus. Still doesn’t compute for me.

Not the candy. xp

Before the 1986 album Bouncing Off the Satellites was released, Ricky Wilson died of Aids-related illness, having kept his illness secret from all of his bandmates except Strickland until just before his death. “We saw Ricky get thin and asked, ‘Are you OK?’ And he said, ‘Oh, I stopped eating Mexican food.’ He loved Mexican food.

Thank you :)