Oh, no... here comes Tokyo

First of all, I officially declare Cl*p Y**r H*nds S*y Y**h to be BANNED. I'm sorry, but there's too much clamor and not enough payoff or motivation. It's like the Arcade Fire all over again, except without a record label and with more comparisons to Talking Heads. No Clappy-Clap for a few months, at least, until the hype dies down.

So there's that.

Now then. Seeing as though Dan has posted twice, both times offering something to actually listen to, whereas all I offer is a random picture, I have decided to give you the best of both worlds:

stevie wonder- intro- contusion (musikladen).mp3

Ah, yes. Musikladen (formerly Beat Club). Home of German people, bad graphics, and kick-ass live performances. Okay, there were a few lip-syncs (the Village People, obviously, and 10cc's "I'm Not in Love" even started with a tape slip). When the bands were live, however, they were splendid.

Case in point: Stevie Wonder's performance, apparently taped on July 16, 1975.

Now, VH1 Classic has a few Beat Club chestnuts they air all the time, but for each clip in their library, there are two that aren't (more when you factor in the German bands... be sure to seek out Can's performance of "Paperhouse," which I believe is on their DVD). So it goes with Stevie Wonder: "Living in the City" and "Superstition" (complete with end credits!) are in the channel's rotation, but "Intro/Contusion" is not.

Shame, too. I would've liked to have seen the visual component of this.

"Intro" is just that: a slow, soulful jam that doesn't show up anywhere on his albums. Oh, and Stevie quotes "Signed, Sealed, Delivered I'm Yours."

Yeah, not too much to say there.

At about 4:30, he shouts, "CONTUSION! RIGHT NOW!" This is the kind of moment that makes me wonder (nopuntendo) what kind of a bandleader Stevie is. Note also the last couple minutes of "Do I Do" and the shouts of "Earl's playing by himself, MAN!" kinda lead me to believe he's kind of an asshole, but if so, why doesn't anyone ever bring it up?

Anyway, what follows is a raw, furious version of "Contusion," Stevie's requisite incredible, ignored instrumental (see also "Journey of the Sorcerer"). Keeping in mind that the Beat Club session was taped more than a year before Songs in the Key of Life was released, it's amazing to see how "there" it is, how much it sounds like a live version of what wound up on the album. (I wonder if he wrote this before or after the famed "We're Almost Finished" shirt.)

VH1 Classic's failure to show this is a hideous example of cherry-picking, showing only the songs they think general audiences would know and want to see. Result: twenty-four hours of the same damn thing over and over, the only counterexample being King Crimson's amazing performance of "Larks' Tongues in Aspic, Part 1."

In conclusion: if you want something that sounds so much like Talking Heads, just buy the Brick. If that doesn't work, try buying an actual brick and bashing your skull in.

it feels like years since a new shins record came out. time was, pre-chutes too narrow, that the prospect of another (and another and another) in the same vein as their debut would hit the spot -- i never wanted that band to change. oh, inverted world was an album i bought as pure candy but which ended up being a wholesome as portabella sandwich with fresh spinach on a kaiser roll. it was that good.

their follow-up soured that deal. i really really liked it, but it didn't feel like the work of a man possessed by song anymore. it felt like an collection of shins songs, not an album. it hasn't aged well, and i'm curious to see how it's aged for my friend arthur who proclaimed it better than inverted in his year-end round up.

that having been said, here's the shins doing a magnetic fields cover from an in-studio radio performance. i like it! i still like the shins, you know. but have you heard the nature bears a vacuum ep? it's gold.

the shins - strange powers