List The Direct References of Stereolab

P.S. Not just Perrey-Kingsley, but Perrey-Kingsley playing back to Brazil with "One Note Samba"

http://www.danacountryman.com/jjp1/auto/Ondioline.jpg

The Ondioline was a vacuum tube-powered keyboard instrument, invented in 1941 [1] by the Frenchman Georges Jenny, and was a forerunner of today's synthesizers.

One of their songs namedrops about 40 different Blue Jam sketches, which is pretty awesome bizarre.

looking up these links was occasionally very frustrating -- five years ago it was easy to google the direct reference, but at this point you've got to go through about sixty pages worth of stereolab lyrics pages / retail sites / review pages / playlists playlists playlists. the difference between acknowledging an influence and eclipsing the source by borrowing the title for your own successful project is growing.

the fact that the referents are baldly sitting there doesn't necessarily mean anyone thinks to look (and why would they, it's a pop band). it's not as if there's a place for endless trainspotting in most reviews but sometimes I wonder if this band has ever offered a single intuitive or non-pilfered moment or if the whole point is wholesale representation / recombination, in which case you'd expect the referents to be mentioned a little more often than they are

http://popsike.com/pix/20060911/190030441794.jpg

ok a bit of overstatement there but the depth of their borrowing sometimes leaves me a bit stunned

xpost ok if we're just going to begin posting covers of albums

http://ochtendeditie.radio6.nl/files/2007/04/tusoa.jpg

Which song is that Louis? Or is it easily Googlable?

http://delia-derbyshire.dyndns.org/images/B00006LEPF.02.LZZZZZZZ.jpg
http://quimby.gnus.org/circus/jukebox.php?image=thumbnail.png&group=Stereolab&album=Oscillons%20from%20the%20Anti-Sun%20%283%29

http://popsike.com/pix/20060129/4828460304.jpg

sorry, i'm lazy.

Nothing To Do With Me
(aka Moonflies (aka Chris Morris))

(as seen on This is the thread where you talk about Chris Morris - genius, and the finest satirist of modern times )

Does one of those links go to Gil Scott-Heron?

i'm not a huge stereolab fan, but this list is mindboggling. good work, guys.

Here's an obscure one - the title of "Animal Or Vegetable (A Wonderful Wooden Reason)" which was on the Crumbduck EP, is a line from a Faust song (at least the bit in brackets is).

Should also mention the later McCarthy releases which offer a neat segueway into the first Stereolab record. (eg: "The Home Secretary Briefs the Forces of Law and Order").

http://www.uh.edu/engines/switchedonbach.jpg

Does one of those links go to Gil Scott-Heron?

You're talking about the bass line to "Metronomic Underground," I take it?

Song on Aluminum Tunes:

http://www.reel.com/Content/Reelimages/hollconf/1013_getcarter.jpg

Pack Yr Romantic Mind from Transient Random-Noise Bursts With Announcements begins with a sample from "Pop Orbite", a song on Chico Magnetic Band's album.

Obvious one, they recorded a split record with her.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brigitte_Fontaine
http://www.discogs.com/release/256204

I always thought Speedy Car had a bit of the Soft Machine about them.

But if you want to talk United States of America, it's Broadcast on their first album that really rips that.

On Dots and Loops.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stan_Brakhage

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Road_Again_(Canned_Heat)

But if you want to talk United States of America, it's Broadcast on their first album that really rips that.

I agree, I'd prefer to keep this to direct references / uncredited samples / lyrical lifts rather than vaguer incorporated influences or else I'd just be Sylvie Vartaning it up over here

first track on Refried Ectoplasm, 'Harmonium', where the 70's DJ spools up a tape which promptly breaks and falls off the reel is lifted from an aircheck of Negativland's 'Over the Edge Vol 4 - Dick Vaughan'

http://www.filmpolski.pl/z1/47o/7547_1.jpg

http://www.film.org.pl/images2/fearless_vampire_killers/plakat.jpg

http://www.comparestoreprices.co.uk/images/si/silver-cross-sleepover-classic-pram.jpg

http://www.indiatomorrow.net/health/images/lemonade.jpg

- le

great work, Milton!

This
http://www.yellowmelodies.com/e-zine/numero5/portadas/Stereol7.jpg

is supposed to be based on the comic series Pravda la Survireuse by Guy Peellaert.
http://www.bedetheque.com/thb_couv/pravda.jpg

Yes, this is a nice thread. Milton rocks.

nabisco, do they really reference _À Rebours_? That's one of my favorite books ever.

Here are the YouTube dissections of musical origins I was talking about. Apart from a couple things that seem too basic to see as steals (e.g., the Canned Heat), they're mostly pretty clear lifts or pastiches, without too many stretches -- and a couple disappointing "oh man, I can't believe you lifted the melody" parts. Mostly it's rhythmic grooves and feels they're snipping from things and using as a basis for their own stuff.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=IrFdR7I_kjM
http://youtube.com/watch?v=s9N1uwNEraM
http://youtube.com/watch?v=E9iiJy0jWSg
http://youtube.com/watch?v=LNAO-vqa6R0

Artists mentioned: Faust, Piero Piccioni, Canned Heat, Gal Costa, Krzystzof Komeda, Kraftwerk, Jean-Michel Jarre, Sun Ra, Snapper, Wanderlea, Laurie Anderson, the Association, the Archies, Serge Gainsbourg, Neu!, Silver Apples, Steve Reich, and Plastic Ono Band (as source of "Emperor Tomato Ketchup" bass line -- this was the only one that kinda surprised me!)

xpost turangalila I'm not 100% sure. 'against nature' is the title in translation and a direct reference would have used the original french. the lyrics do seem to me like a commentary or response to the book, I linked them upthread

if it is a reference it's admittedly not a very direct one (though I'm sure they've read it) -- with those lines about 'war', probably something else made the song's orbit as well

I actually liked this translation better, but I went for the pop edition to underscore the reference

You're talking about the bass line to "Metronomic Underground," I take it?
Yup, that's what I'm talking about, jaymc.

Milton I can't believe you didn't post this -

http://files.myopera.com/E.%20Driver/albums/35120/JohnCage.jpg

xxpost Milton

Hmm... yes. "Living fantasy of the immortal"

thanks!

I've actually only read it in Spanish. Going to buy this version you recommend!

Gastr del Sol opened for Stereolab at the Metro in Chicago back in the mid-90s, and a couple weeks before the show I bumped into David Grubbs at the Hyde Park Kinko's on 57th St. He showed me the gig flyer he was printing up which read "Stereolab - 'John Cage Bubblegum' / Gastr del Sol - 'Steve Reich n Roll'"

I didn't actually go that show tho. Dumb! I never saw Stereolab.

I HAVE THAT FIRST RECORD!

it's been so long, but they ripped the bassline for a song directly from a yoko ono tune from her first or second solo album

http://www.zenker.se/Books/the_stars_my_destination.jpg

http://www.see.com.au/blog/archives/Darren%20002.jpg

Prokofiev's Symphonie Diabolique:
http://website.lineone.net/~dmitrismirnov/image020.jpg

http://ec1.images-amazon.com/images/I/51It1cvE6cL._SS500_.jpg

if it is a reference it's admittedly not a very direct one (though I'm sure they've read it) -- with those lines about 'war', probably something else made the song's orbit as well

This is the future of an illusion
Aggressive culture of despotism
Living fantasy of the immortal
The reality of an animal

One of their tracks is based on "Disco Rough" by Mathématiques Modernes.

Can't think of anything less obvious right now (I thought I was a genius for spotting the 100 Years of Solitude thing once and then googled it and nabisco had already written about it on Pitchfork, thus I lose), but "Enivrez-Vous!" from Peng! takes its lyrics from a Baudelaire prose-poem.

I'd always wondered about some of these! Thanks.

Maybe someone knows what that French Disco line really is: Bubble Withdrawal?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucia_Pamela

I have her CD somewhere, it is bats!

I’m just hearing this album.

u lucky guy, it's great, total Can action

"The Long Hair of Death":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3HkESAaMDE
(Just noticed this today since it's now on Amazon Prime: https://www.amazon.com/gp/video/detail/B07JX589FB/ref=atv_dp_b07_det_c_UTPsmN_1_18)

I bet that "Allures" borrows its name from the Jordan Belson short film: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4HVo23jC7cs

Updated link for *Allures*

Exactly. It's worth pointing out for example that their song "The Free Design" doesn't actually sound like the Free Design, "Into Outer Space With Lucia Pamela" sounds completely unlike Lucia Pamela's album of that name etc etc.

― everything

But it does! I heard “bubbles” yesterday and it seemed like the template for the Stereolab song;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=thqQGV53tL8

what exactly was the in-joke/ref of the "LO BOOB OSCILLATOR" song title?

One of their songs namedrops about 40 different Blue Jam sketches, which is pretty awesome bizarre.

― Just got offed, Wednesday, October 24, 2007 10:09 PM (seventeen years ago) bookmarkflaglink

I've had wine and only speed read this thread but what was this song? (I feel like I might be being an idiot).

"Nothing to Do With Me" from Sound-Dust, iirc.

Fact checked myself, yep, from Genius:

The lyrics to “Nothing to Do With Me” are drawn entirely of quotes from Chris Morris’s radio series Blue Jam (and its' TV counterpart Jam).

from memory, tim said it was related to some L0 8008 oscillator maybe in a synth or farfisa?

ok, from my memory it was a 800B (Korg? Oberheim?)... surely someone knows the exact reference?

uh . . . shut up, shavis

I found some references in 1960s electronic magazines. It's a beat frequency oscillator. The brand is B.S.R., and the model is the L.O. 800B.

Here's a 1952 B.S.R. ad for the L.O. 800:
https://i.imgur.com/dVhpoCs.png

And references to the 800B in a 1960 issue of Electrical Review and a 1961 issue of Wireless World:

https://imgur.com/a/KA0QHSP

https://i.imgur.com/d4rpxJx.png

Trying that second image again:

https://i.imgur.com/5Da37pa.png

Here's a history of BSR (which originally stood for Birmingham Sound Reproducers): http://www.historywebsite.co.uk/articles/Dudley/BSR.htm

That makes more sense than my crap memory

What's your favourite Stereolab song title? based on title alone, not the song it's attached to.

I love "The Light That Will Cease To Fail" (serious title) and "Outer Bongolia" (jokey title)

Thankin' U RunJMC.

xp “Outer Bongolia” not being a Sleep lyric is genuinely surprising!

hadn't seen this thread, posted this elsewhere:

posted my Idful sessions tape dub from ETK (again) with the working titles listed in case anybody wants a challenge to determine which song is which. See me on facebook or instagram.

The answers were/are....

John Barry Pop pts I+II - Brigitte

Glass Pop - Les Yper Sound

Melancholy Chords - Spinal Column

Steve Reich Pop - Tomorrow is Already Here

Ono Band - Emperor Tomato Ketchup (Plastic Ono Band’s Why)

Faust Rhythm Pop - Motoroller Scalatron (J’aim Mai Aux Dents!)

Tony Conrad Bass - Anonymous Collective

Tortoise - Young Lungs

any debate?

thanks to all responders here and there (Ryan Nichols, Edmund Höbe, David Assassino, Paul Doliner)

The main guitar on "Changer" is playing Lou's rhythm guitar part on "Here She Comes Now".

There's a bunch of interesting stuff Tim wrote in the liner notes for the reissues of their early albums about influences. I knew VU was an obvious touchstone, but I didn't realize how much they were taking from Jonathan Richman or more contemporary stuff like MBV in those days.

Wow, thanks Moodles, no idea they existed and I found them online* and reading through them is really amazing.

Having "Anamorphose" as my favorite song of theirs (my #1 track on the Stereolab tracks poll, I was the only voter iirc!) only to read that Tim says it's Stereolab's finest moment as well feels pretty vindicating.

*https://stereolab.co.uk/sleevenotes

Kind of bums me out how much he hates Nihilist Assault Group though.