The Drink Tank 249

The Drink Tank 249 [email protected] Mo Starkey, that’s all I have to say about The Forgotten Recorded Decade that cover. Everyone knows I have a thing for abstraction, and this is a fun little abstract that Part Eight: Workin’ the Net Mo sent my way! So, the last couple of issues have been OK, this one’s a good bit longer than whole and hearty. That Clarkes issue was a the previous, largely because I had access to monster, but I have to say that I’m proud of the the makers. This story isn’t just about the work James did in getting all that great writing recording, though that is certainly about how together and I think I even pulled my weight! this is the best possible representation of I’ve been re-reading Phillip K. Dick is Dead, Alas, modern a capella there is, but it’s also about which is one of my faves from the early years of what it meant to me and how a couple of the Clarkes, and I’m really enjoying it. I’ve read eMails brought everything back. I talked a The City & The City for a third time now. It’s little about this in the Fifth Annual Giant Sized just so good! Annual, but this is a much fuller story. I’ve been reading a lot lately, which isn’t Also, this one’s for my Uncle Wayne, much of a surprise, I’m always reading some- who first introduced me to what I still consider thing, but I’ve started work on what will likely to be one of the ten best albums I’ve ever had be the longest and most thorough issue of the the privilege of hearing. Thanks Wayne! Fall- The Stephen Baxter issue. I love Baxter’s OK, this one’ll be a little different. I’m stuff, and I’m planning on reading at least five gonna follow-up my reasoning for why What’s mor eof his books before the issue, which I’m In The Bright Pink Box with an interview with the hoping will be out around my birfday. It’ll sorta four members of the Flips. They were so kind be a present to myself. I’ll be lookign for folks as to let me ask them questions and they were who have something to say about the guy, so so kind as to answer them. if you read ‘im, lemme know and you’ll be dra- In the 1980s, there were several a gooned into the process! cappella groups that rose to some prominence. As for other theme issues coming up, These included San Francisco’s The Bobs, who there’s Trains II and the Whiskey issue. I’m also were a pretty good group and could always planning a special issue dedicated to...well, you’ll be counted on for a good show. There were have to wait to see. It’ll be a fun summer. The Nylons, Canadians, who I remember So, what’s this issue all about? Well, it’s a from a cassette tape that made many long car general issue, the same as most of the last 248, trips with us. Popsicle Toes is the song I best but it’s got a long piece about one of my favor- remember for some reason. Anyhoo, these ite albums ever and why it is the perfect addi- were the best known a capella groups going tion to the National Recording Registry. There’s at the time, but, as always happens in these also Taral Wayne, Walt, Letters and so on! stories, there was another. The Flips. You’ll hear more about the formation of the Flips later, but let’s just say they came directions in which the songs go. think of a better song to illustrate the power of together in the mid-1980s and recorded an And, of course, part of it is that the a capella. Yes, when you hear the phrase a capella, album. personnel were so damned talented. Great you think of Under the Boardwalk and the like, That album is the perfect example of voices, but you can expect that with just about but Cloud Nine, in both tone and execution, is 1980s a capella. It’s not an album of covers, any a capella group, but the way they bounced so different. It’s complex, the speed increasing, though there are a couple on there, but it’s off each other, particularly when they’re playing the frenzy growing, the lyrics getting only more a record of brilliantly written songs that tell counter-point in songs like Cloud Nine. The four gnarled, harsher. stories. There’s a certain magic to the entire of them were just magic on the album. The first verse- Mist was rising and the piece, it flows, but even better than that is that Why does What’s in the Bright Pink Box night was dark, me and my baby took a walk in the it’s one of those albums that manages to be of belong on the Registry instead of something by park. He said be mine and you’re on Cloud Nine, the time, not just in the time. It is the 1980s. The Nylons, Rockapella or The Bobs? Part of it is better watch out when you’re on Cloud Nine. Love, life, sex, religion, aging, art, and so on all the fact that no other album I’ve ever heard feels Sang sweetly, gently, wisely. happen in the songs that are featured on What’s more like it’s time. When I think of the 1980s, I The Final Verse- Bride 65, the other one in the Bright Pink Box. These are songs that take think of the songs on What’s in the Bright Pink Box. seventeen. They fucked in the back of a limousine. the best of what was going on lyrically at the Not when I think of 1980s music, when I think This is followed by a frenzied and time. There’s some Lennon & McCartney in of the 1980s. There has to be something to the marvelous breakdown. It’s remarkable. It’s there. There’s some Sondheim. Some Cash, King, lyrics and the vocal presentation that just brings stunning. I was listening to it just a minute ago. Brecht and Jones. It’s amazing to think of the it out. There’s a certain emotion timbre to just I had a moment. That’s the power of the song. about everything that feels very 80s, a After having heard it hundreds of times, it’s still brightness, authentic falseness perhaps. able to bring that sort of power. That’s never If I had to put my finger on it, it’s in happened to me with a Nylons song. Never a song called Working the Net. This is with anything from The Bobs (except for the not about the internet, that was still time they sang House of the Rising Sun for me a dream waiting for Tim Berners-Lee and three of my friends who happened to be in to pound it out on his NeXT Cube. the room at the moment). This is amazing stuff, This was about dating, how things had the kind of songwriting that you so seldom find. gone to the point where trying to It’s simple. I was going to count how many total make new connections wasn’t about words and I’m sure it’d add up to something really connecting as much as collecting like 200, and every single one of them mattered. business cards, names, people. I was Every one pushed the whole thing forward. It’s 13 when I first heard it, and I kinda exactly the kind of song you end a side of a got it, but when I first tired dating record with, which is where it was placed on the after leaving college, I got it. I really album. understood where it came from. I got This is an album that combines timeless it. songs (Cloud Nine, Eyes in the Dark) with That’s not the only one. There’s songs that are ultimately of their time, which a song called Cloud Nine. I can not I think is a great thing for the Registry. Songs like Workin’ the Net and I Got The News and The Flips: An Interview… Just a little background on how the Spy (For the Moral Majority) are so very 80s group got started: We were all theater students that they’re practically definitions. The album slightly after the fact. at San Francisco State University doing shows is a combination of so many different aspects together. Kevin and I were roommates in the of singing and songwriting combined with After I bought What’s in the Bright dorms for a year (1983-84) and Shanna and Patti remarkable fluidity and just plain fun. It’s amazing Pink Box off of eBay, I was hooked. I listened were roommates in an apartment together the stuff. to it non-stop for the first time in more than following year (1984-85). Somehow in various I could go on. This is the album that a decade. I then thought, ‘Hey, this was only configurations of Kirk & Shanna, Kirk & Kevin, defines a cappella for me, and it represents the 23 years ago, I wonder if I can find them?’ Patti & Shanna, we were constantly singing best in the genre and it’s period of creation.

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