The Happy Club Review
by Corinna Wodrich
 |
When
yesterday I said I might not be able to write this review
because of most of my CDs being stashed away in boxes after
my roof burned down from being hit by a rather substantial
bolt of lightning, it later made me think about the whole
situation I am living in at the moment... I know I'm beginning to include all this personal stuff into the review again, but since I am writing about something which is rather personal to me, too, I think I might as well do it... Should I bore anyone with this, just skip down a bit. |
I'm
sitting in my living-room which fortunately wasn't affected
by the fire in the first place. My flat's got a top floor so
only the one room up there is, let's face it - gone. Initially
the fire only ruined a tiny attic room, accessible from the
hallway outside my flat, but when the builders started
demolishing that room, they soon realised that the smoke had
crawled thought almost the entire roof. Although the structure
was still supporting the roof, they said that any time the
sun would heat it up, the smell of burned wood and isolating
fabric would come back. Consequently the decision was made
to do things properly and just re-build the whole roof.
This was the point, when the fire did start to affect
my whole flat. It's impossibly to build a new roof without
making a LOT of dirt and dust, and the builders advised
me to store all my belongings into boxes and put them into
one of the two tiny downstairs-rooms that have doors which
can be closed. Be sure, I did. To
cut a long story short, my place is virtually empty, except for
some furniture which I couldn't store anywhere. My sofa is still
there and so it the stereo - although I wrapped each part of it
in a bin-liner, cutting small hole into the backs of the
bin-liners to be able to re-connect all its wiring. I now have
to zip them open every time I listen to music. It's a weird
construction but it does the job. A
was also lucky to find the CD all this is about in the top box
of one of my piles of boxes, so here we (finally) go: Room
19 (Sha La La La Lee) This
song and thus the whole album starts off with something which
sounds like a classical orchestra tuning up its instruments
before a concert. Alan Dunn is letting out the remaining air
of the accordion, Bob Loveday and Geoffrey Richardson are
tuning up their violin and viola respectively, and everyone
else is clapping, trying to find the rhythm of the song. Once
everyone's clapping synchronises, the song kicks in, starting
right with the chorus of Sha La La La Lees. A brave beginning to
an album, I think. These days most bands think really carefully
about the possible album-opener, making sure it's a song that
gets the listener's attention right from the first note. No so
with this song. I'm sure some people, when hearing the
tuning-up, might wonder if maybe the CD or the player is kaput!
Then again, that might be how to get someone's attention, too! The
song picks up things from where they were put down on The
Vegetarians of Love. It's the same folky approach, the same
line-up of musicians and instruments played and generally the
same cheerful and slightly nonchalant feel. The
lyrics are typically Geldof: Looking at a political or cultural
issue of relevance with a mix of knowledge and stubborn
arrogance but always with a great sense of irony, too. Back
to the music, Bob says that the song is terribly Country &
Western but - according to him - when you die, it's all Country
& Western' so that's why. Attitude
Chicken
Always
used to be and still is one of my all-time-favourite
post-Boomtown Rats songs. With Pete Briquette's fast and very
present, monotonous two-note bass-riff and Niall Power's
according drums, this song does kick in right from the word
go. In
my younger days, at live gigs, this song always got me to find
some space to dance like a spinning-top - admittedly, I think
when in the right mood, it might still do the trick for me. The
beat's just too good to sit still to! I
also love Bob's voice in that song. It's really rumbly and
hoarse. Add a saloon-like piano, a weird noise (I don't even
know which instrument this is!) that sounds like a twister and
some slightly out-of tune backing vocals - 'gobble, gobble,
gobble, gobble - cluck, cluck, cluck cluck' - and you got my
perfect song! Apart from all that, the lyrics to Attitude Chicken include some absolutely marvellous lines: I
ordered up some dew-soaked lettuce
The
Soft Soil
Everyone
knows that this is not one of my better-liked songs of
Bob. Might
be the lyrics are great - politically correct and relevantly
describing the words uttered at the graves of three brave and
young men, dying in the attempt to stop the early 90s Soviet
Union's Counter-Coup. Might be all the musicians outplay their
own talents in this song. Might be the song-writing is what the
world has been waiting for all this time. Could even be the
song's written in F double-flat minor or has an
impossible-to-play 7.5/13-beat - it still does not do the
trick for me. Reading
what lots of you wrote about this song when Bob first played it
live on his recent tour, it might do the trick for most of you. A
Hole To Fill
Sorry
to have to say this, but A Hole To Fill is another song I
don't particularly like. In fact, I think the lyrics are plain
stupid and the music's boring. Eddie
suggested the lyrics are about being gay, but since the songs
was written well before the Channel 4's TV series Queer As
Folk (which I spent watching all last night) I don't think
it is. That'd be too palpable, wouldn't it? Instead
my suggestion is that it's about everyone having a place
in life. Something, just anything, that this one person is
destined for. Albeit
all the chaos in my flat, I just managed to find some reference:
This song was originally written for 1990s album ' One World,
One Voice', an album which 'was first played to over a
billion people around the world in May 1990 - The climax of the
'One World' series on television. It is the ultimate global mix,
the brainchild of Kevin Godley. Filmed and recorded on the road,
it is a chain tape, each of the musicians adding a new
theme to the mix as Kevin's team toured the world.' On
this album only a portion of this song is featured and it is
played in a very different way: Much slower, in a musically more
harmonic version and underlain by a choir, repeatedly singing
the line we will meet again which is also the bridge
leading into the next snipped of music - I much prefer this
version. En
contraire, the album version on The Happy Club the
second verse and this features another of my favourite lyrics: I
left the pub last night I
just love that line about Bob's feminine side taking a morning
coffee break! I
will take a break now, too. Not to drink a coffee, though, but
to watch Senegal and Turkey kick it out on this summer's
Football World Cup! See ya in about two hours. While
it's half-time for Senegal - Turkey (0:0), I'd like to recommend
the last album of Kirsty McColl who so tragically and
unnecessarily died in a swimming accident last summer, to you:
It's a wonderful album, called 'Tropical Brainstorm', quite
Carribean-sounding in lots of songs, one of them including the
line 'now it's England 2 - Columbia Nil'; not relating to
football in Kirsty's case but I guess that's why I remembered
the song just now. Beautiful
song - beautiful album - highly recommended!!! Back
after the second half... OK,
Turkey is through to the semi-final, I've had a jubilation SMS
from my Turkish builder and outside, typically, all the Turks of
Hamburg have jumped into their cars to spend the rest of the day
circling the city hooting their car-horns... J The
Song Of The Emergent Nationalist
A
slow, quiet, sentimental number. The
drums are keeping this song grounded, while a swirling violin is
taking it up to a more spherical level. Most other instruments
are granted several ear-rising solos to make the song really
interesting to listen to. Musically this must be one of the most
ambitious songs of the album. It's
a real album song in the sense that this would never work as a
single on the radio - instead I could even imagine this song to
find its way into the soundtrack of a movie. My
Hippy Angle
My
Hippy Angel
on the other side could well have worked as a single. A catchy
melody with an even catchier chorus. This
is another song that effectively benefits from Bob's choice of
musician. Including violin, viola, accordion, mandolin, ukulele
and tin-whistle into his orchestra opens up a whole
catalogue of new flavours and colours to add to the normal rock
'n' roll line-up of guitar, bass, drums and voice. As far as I
know, all of Bob's musicians have originally taken a more
classical approach to learning their instruments and this is
still audible in lots of small inserts they keep adding to the
songs which otherwise might remain rather ordinary. Again,
Bob's lyrical ability is rather striking: Who else could be
singing about birdies and fishies without sounding
like an over-ambitious sissy? A few lines later the lyrics are
about the EEC, the USSR and the USA and at the end of the day,
this song is nothing but a love song. Amazing, isn't it? The
Happy Club
Really
the title track to the album - well, at least the track granting
the title to the album... If
I remember correctly, it's the story of a girl Bob used to know
back in his Dublin days who used to force her younger siblings
to join her Happy Club who's members were not allowed to
having anything but a happy time. Probably
no-one knows if becoming happy by just pretending to be
happy, worked for this girl or anyone in her family but at least
it's worth a try, isn't it? The
music of this song definitely helps to cheer the mood up. Background-noise
from outside: Hooooot Hooooot!! Hooooot!!! L Oh,
that's one of my favourites! Just
like Room 19 this song starts really slowly with some
weird noise slowly blending into each other to mark the
beginning of the song. When
Bob starts singing the first verse, all the instruments
break-off again, just the piano is accompanying Bob singing. His
phrasing is really surprising, very off-beat through most of the
verse. I think that only someone who does not think
theoretically about the music he's composing but just
sings/writes whatever feels good can come up with a song
like this. Writing it down as sheet music seems like an
impossible task to me. Even
more surprisingly each verse ends with a sharp 'YEP' marking the
launch into the chorus which is totally contradictory to the
verses. Filled to the brim with music, very loud, very strong,
very melodic. From
verse to verse more of the plying instruments playing the
chorus, keep on playing, so the song's really building. The
lyrics are getting longer from verse to verse, too until
eventually I keep wondering how Bob would remember all that he
has to sing but he does! Great
song! Too
Late God
Another
song that also could have made it onto The Vegetarians Of
Love. Very folky, Country & Western. A catchy melody,
pushed forward by the rhythm section of the band (bass and
drums). An electric guitar which is oh-so Jamie Moses! Merely
because of the fact that Jamie Moses is no longer part of Bob's
band, but was replaced by Johnny Turnbull, this song sounds
totally different when played live these days. Singing
like some soccer hooligans
Not
only does this perfectly resemble the Hamburg atmosphere of this
afternoon, it also captures the feel of the song, which is sung
and played very snotti - very spontaneously. Lovely! The
Roads Of Germany
This
song was inspired on Bob's tour of Germany in 1990, when his
tour-bus was curving down the winding roads of the Black Forest,
the place which so many foreigners to this country consider to
be most typically Germany. Personally,
I don't share this view as my typical Germany is the landscape
of the North of the country which is all lush green meadows,
cows, wind-bend trees and endless horizons. Still,
I can understand why the Black Forest stand as the typical
image. Although it is not part of Bavaria, its older
population fits the image of knee-slapping, lederhosen-wearing,
beer-drinking conservatives very well. The cuckoo-clock was born
down there and the trunks of the forest's tall, dark trees built
many a house. This song is as political as it is historical. It was written during a time when - shortly after the wall came down and Germany was flooded with former East-Germans looking for a new lif - there was, for the first time after World War II, a rather strong national movement going on. In parts understandably, a lot of Germans in search of work or a better life, too, couldn't come to terms with the fact that their situation was becoming harder and harder, while some newly-arrived found it rather easy to slip into the system and settle down. Sadly, a lot of violenc - almost exclusively aimed against Turks, who never had anything to do with the events of the early 90s but had been living and working in Germany for many years - broke out. I'm
not a very political person so I don't really dare to make a
strong statement here, but this - I think - is
the background for this song. Starting
with a very simple, repetitive chorus, recalling the historical
events around the times of Hitler the song eventually slips into
the second part in which Bob having a kind of nightmare,
thinking about recent events and what the might lead to. The
picture he paints is absolutely haunting! He's talking of
falling asleep in some dappled sunlit glade, dreaming of
something obscenely old stirring and shaking and awaking in
its putrid pit... Urgh! The
things - according to Bob - you cant help thinking about when
youre driving on the roads of Germany. At
the time of the release of this album, there were talks about
the release of a German version of this song. I still think this
would have been a very good idea. Not only would it have brought
many more people's attention to the song, it also would have
helped a lot of Germans to understand the explosive
nature of what this song is about. Bob's got the most amazing
range of vocabulary and he does not hesitate to use it either.
Admittedly, even being quite fluent in English, he's often using
words and phrases I have never heard before and have to look up
in the dictionary. When
trying to bring across a rather important message, this might
not be the easy approach... A German version of the song (maybe
even to be included on a local version of the album) really
would have helped. [Bob,
in case you're still interested, I still got the translation of
it - somewhere in a box - haha!] To
add a funny note to this otherwise not very cheerful song: Right
in the middle of it you can hear one of the strings on Bob's
guitar going with a great PLOP! Remaining true to his image of
the filthy popstar he is, he never even bothered to re-records
that part of the song! A
Sex Thing
True
to its title, this song I pure sex. The
beat is the heart-beat, beating its way through the whole song,
while the other instruments portrait the emotions coming and
going on a hot night. The urge and urgency, the passion
and the lust but also the uncertainty and the fear. Not to
forget the climax! You
don't understand what I've written here? Have
you ever understood anyone writing about sex?! Listen
to the song! The
House At The Top Of The Hill
A
sentimental journey back to Bob's youthful days in Dublin in
pre-motorway times. (Not that they have many motorways in Dublin
these days!!!) Memories of what times were like, how an
afternoon and evening would be spent and what friends and
friendship were like in those days. The
lyrics are spoken rather than song and there isnt a real musical
score to the song either, just spherical instruments underlining
Bobs story of the past. Right
then - time for me to join a bit of the party the Turks are
having tonight. Na, not quite true. I'll go to see a musical
twin-highlight tonight: Garbage and New Order are playing
the same festival tonight! Something
to definitely look forward to! Corinna,
June 22nd 2002 |