I found this little record at Half Price books. I always peek through their discount 7" section when I go there, if I have time. It was worth the twenty-five cents I paid for it. I am always happy to see a name I recognize not to mention two that I recognize: Donna Summer and Giorgio Moroder. These tracks are from a full length album called Live and More. I am assuming the Heaven Knows is part of the & more; it doesn't sound live. Its a fun disco tune that reminds of some Harold Melvin stuff. She is accompanied on this record by Brooklyn Dreams. They were a trio that often collaborated with Summer. Heaven knows is said to be their biggest success. Its a decent enough disco track. My copy is pretty much burned. Due to its condition, I won't be incorporating it into any set lists. I might if I find another cheap copy but its not a priority. I have other stuff.
The B side, Only One Man, is a live track. She is sassing the audience at the beginning of it. Banter makes live tracks fun. The performers on stage personality comes out. Its not a particularly stand-out song.
Below is a Youtube video for Heaven Knows. It is not the exact same edit I have on 7". Mine is less than 2 mins long.
This the third in a series of posts where I listen to a record from my collection and write something about it.
This is a short post. There will be some of those. I will choose a more interesting record for the next post.
When I was a kid my parents were on a mission to make sure that we knew the human body was a natural not a shameful thing. I think they even said as much. The execution of that notion unfortunately misfired and tended to reinforce objectification. One such example is that my mom would go out and buy playboy for my dad, which he would then read on the deck by the pool. I remember several times, my sister gave my dad a playmate calendar for Christmas. I am not sure where he put the calendar. It wasn't in the garage or anywhere in the house. My assumption was that he brought it to work. I suppose you could've gotten away with that in the 80s. Thus I remember the joking confusion when my sister got Vanity 6 from my parents for Christmas. Dad:"Oh I thought that was for me!" I remember only catching a glimpse of it myself. I was nine, so for me it was all so confusing and one of those things that was embarrassing because I was ignorant. The same way kids at that age snicker at the word sexy.
There are a couple things of note about this era in my musical taste development. One is that my sister had, for where we lived, a really advanced musical pallet. This will show up later in my record collection for sure. The flip side to that coin is I faced utter demise if I touched her records. This made them more mysterious. She was a tremendous influence on the music I consumed. Though not being allowed to touch her tunes, she would make me a tape of certain records. Which was why I could be seen at 10 or 11 singing along loudly to the Violent Femmes on my walkman while raking the leaves.
See where one record takes you.Though I never heard much of it from her copy. Not being allowed in her room under threat of further demise prevented this. I bought this from the thrift shop because my sister had it at 13.
As far as the music goes, if your sitting around thinking, "Man, I wish Prince had made more music in 1982." Then there you go. Chances are if you are sitting around thinking that, you know more about Prince & Vanity 6 than I ever will. This record is soft core audio erotica set to a Prince beat. I don't think, I'll listen to this record around the fire on a cold winter eve to wind down.
With that said there are several tracks that I would use in an 80s mix or an electro mix. Track 3: (the first two are straight up Prince tracks) Drive Me Wild would be good for an electro mix. It would work well with Kavinsky, artists on the Italians Do It Better label,He's So Dull, reminds of an 80s movie montage music, that is if you needed a montage to point out how lame some dude is.
and some Kraftwerk, etc.
Side B: If a Girls Answers: ooh its a girl fight. The song is not a favorite, but there might be a good loop at the end where's its just the beat, light synth, bass, and the chorus of "Don't Hang Up." Make-up is a good track, more of the electro feel. Its ripe for a beat loop, or just mixing in an 80s set. Bite the Beat is a peppy synth track with claps that has hints of GoGos or B52s. 3x2=6 is the slow dance. So all in all there's a couple of fun things here. If you see it at a thriftstore/yard sale for $1, pick it up, otherwise skip it.
A few interesting notes about this group. After having seen A Star is Born, with Streisand and Kristoferson, Prince was initially looking to put together a female pop ensemble that performs in lingerie, but he wanted to call them The Hookers. He wrote all of the music for their album but gave them writing credit. After Vanity tired of performing in her undies, she found religion and quit music, movies, and modeling.
If you want a copy of this record, don't go to amazon for this one. Check out ebay.
This is the second in a series of posts where I listen to a record from my collection and write something about it.
I am not sure how I got this. My best guess is it was a thrift store find. Seeing the cover and the composer, I had to give it a shot. I have never seen this movie. Having read the plot outline on the web, I am intrigued. Maybe even enough to spend $3 on an online rental. The premise seems good.
Music. Since this is a film score. I have to mention the movie briefly. It is apparently about a psycho-killer that kidnaps a bank teller and her teenage sister to get the teller to steal money. I was surprised to find that the side A was very light. It has a three twists on it even a twist rendition of the main theme song. There's some possible loop material in Fluter's Ball and the twists can be given more umph with a B'more beat or a Breakbeat.
The B-side is much darker. It includes the main theme and some music that is meant to drive the suspense. During my first listen, I was surprised that there wasn't more of that. Then I realized that many of the tunes were supposed to support the setting rather than the action: tracks such as Final Out and Down by the Wharf.
Another interesting note about this is that on the liner notes they make a big fuss about Mancini having used two autoharps in this composition. It treated the instrument like something he should have to apologize for. "Although the autoharp is not a regulation instrument, Mancini used the unique sound of two of these instruments to create and exciting and interesting theme." Who regulates what a regulation instrument is?
All in all, this is a fun sound track to play. Its not overly repetitious as many are today. Given the topic of the film the music is mostly light and airy.
We've been listening to a lot of music in the last twenty-four hours. My wife and a friend suggested I move the records to the living room among making other changes. This inspired us to paint quickly. Thanks to all of the family that helped with that task. The picture above is the temporary solution until we buy shelves specifically for the music collection. These will be an Ikea hack that includes Kallax shelves and capita feet, base on many DJ console plans I found online. See my sketch below.
To the non-record owning person, it might seem that I have a lot of records. I don't dispute that I have a lot of music, over fourteen linear feet of twelve inch records and many 7's. Folks with my level of involvement in music often have much more. Grad school and having children tempered my ability to buy many records over the last decade. That being said, there have been many records that I have bought either because they look cool or I had some familiarity with them but had not heard the whole selection. Now that I think about it, this is how we used to buy music before the one-track-purchase-at-a-time-itunes era. I have come up with a fun way to explore and reacquaint myself with my collection. I am hoping to regularly update this blog with a picture, description, and review.
Stay Tuned!
I found this little record at Half Price books. I always peek through their discount 7" section when I go there, if I have time. It was worth the twenty-five cents I paid for it. I am always happy to see a name I recognize not to mention two that I recognize: Donna Summer and Giorgio Moroder. These tracks are from a full length album called Live and More. I am assuming the Heaven Knows is part of the & more; it doesn't sound live. Its a fun disco tune that reminds of some Harold Melvin stuff. She is accompanied on this record by Brooklyn Dreams. They were a trio that often collaborated with Summer. Heaven knows is said to be their biggest success. Its a decent enough disco track. My copy is pretty much burned. Due to its condition, I won't be incorporating it into any set lists. I might if I find another cheap copy but its not a priority. I have other stuff.
