The Roger Moore Miscegenation Terrace

Date
June 26, 2015

Miracler
Nick Dedina

Location
San Francisco

Awwww
Yeeaahh.
Two words (one really, but it breaks off in this layout so I split it) which aptly describe this theme, this mix, and my feeling that fated afternoon last month when I chanced upon this elusive Uber Miracler on Second Street and reeled him back into the Prodge for a Season Seven Miracle. This is the genius, after all, behind 2009's  Coup de Stereo No. 4: Stepford Lives and Coup de Stereo No. 3 in 2008, and behind his Season 1 mix in 2003 which is still getting props from members of the original 3MPM lineup. If you know not of what I speak, read on and listen up, lucky!

Liner Notes by ND

To properly listen to this one, get yourself a rooftop deck, a pitcher of mojitos, an ocean view and maybe even some friends.  Please consider inviting me over, as I could use a rooftop deck, an ocean view and some friends.

This set is 100% free of authenticity, with guiding principles borrowed from the still often heard likes of Boz Scaggs’ “Dirty Lowdown,” Roxy Music’s “The Space Between,” Teddy Pendergrass’ “Love TKO,” and Robert Palmer’s “Every Kinda People.”  

For my first 3 Pop Miracle sets, I only picked great songs that deserved heavy rotation on either A.M. or F.M. radio but never got it. This time out, not everything here is hit single worthy… just a nice mix of multi-cultural appreciation (and appropriation) with music that sells out yet stays great (and in some cases, gets even greater by selling out).

Have you seen Diamonds Are Forever? It’s terrible – a concrete and dirt lot Las Vegas setting, ugly muscle cars, and a suddenly paunchy, hirsute Sean Connery as 007.  Roger Moore came in and saved the day for three fun films, starting with Live And Let Die, a shameless mix of Bond and Blaxploitation. Robert Palmer was the Roger Moore of R&B -- hated because he made a life in rock seem easy. It probably wasn’t. But, it’s fun to pretend.

1.       Ned Doheny, Give It Up For Love – Great mix of slick L.A. soft rock and freaky synths from a singer-songwriter who had everything going for him (family money, industry connections, likability) but couldn’t connect. His name probably didn’t help.

2.       Roddy Frame, Postcard – Perfect slice of sunshine folk-rock from the Aztec Camera front man tipping his hat to both San Francisco and the Sausalito studio where so many classics were cut.

3.       David Bowie, Right – American soul + blank-faced existential English despair = new wave, neuro, post-punk. Like almost everything here this classic was cut live in the studio.

4.       Jamie XX – Loud Places –  Being the standard issue socially awkward bespectacled white guy, EDM is my least listened to genre, especially the fast stuff. Love the new Jamie XX album, taking classic British melancholy to the otherwise contently coked up clubbed out masses.

5.       George Benson, Nature Boy – I still listen to a lot of G.B. and placed his peerless cover of Paul’s “OH! Darling” on my first Pop Miracles mix. Usually, it’s his amazing CTI crossover jazz records I listen to but this W.B. era number has such a swank bedroom disco-jazz vibe. Buy me a drink and I will tell you a tale of this song’s writer – the original sell-out (pre)hippy who modeled his look after Jesus – during the Swing era!

6.       Scott Walker with Goran Bregovic, Man From Reno – I discovered this song on a S.W. box set.  I respect his new avant-garde records but they are just too terrifying for repeat listening. This eccentric but slinky pop tune is what you’d think Walker would sound like now… if he was interested in sounding like this now.

7.       Roy Ayers, Papa Was A Rolling Stone – The original kept me spellbound as a kid and still does. This cover is just perfect. Guys like Ayers, Benson and Herbie Hancock figured out how to survive the ‘70s and ‘80s with their bank accounts full and their souls partially intact.

8.       Hall & Oates – Alone Too Long – Daryl was the real creative force in the duo but Oates had a few wonders up his sleeve – “I’m Just A Kid” and the chorus to “She’s Gone,” from their best album, and this up-tempo weeper, from their second best record.

9.       Ben Watt, Forget – Watt’s book Romany & Tom: A Memoir, about growing up between his creatively stifled, career destroying (and self) destructive parents has everything – alcoholism, suicide attempts, multi-generational nervous breakdowns, dementia, cancer and jokes about the clothes OMD wore on their first UK tour. Writing it got him to return to pop songwriting and the rich studio sound of the formative records he listened to while growing up.

10.   Paul Weller With Noonday Underground – This band creates wonderful sound collages but fan P.W. wrote a couple actual songs for them to perform. Like pretty much everything here, it’s not a dance tune but it gets your feet quietly tapping and shoulders nervously bobbing while you search for some canapés.

11.   John Lennon, What You Got – Franz Ferdinand obviously listened to this bristling funk-rocker more than the entire Joy Division catalog. From the second best Lennon solo set, most of which is polished and polite (with bite), but here John pops his (pre)post-punk buttons.

12.   The Sound, Counting The Days – This post-punk band had no luck. They played hard guitars and nobody cared. They got lushly produced, like here, and nobody cared. My brother bought this fine E.P. at the same cut-out, downtown record store where I bought my first Gil-Scott Heron records for $3.99. The store dust somehow got inside the plastic wrap on the LP covers.

13.   Arthur Russell, Get Around To It- I read about him in the Village Voice as an ‘80s teen but never even went looking for his stuff. Maybe scared of the pockmarks? Then, about a decade ago, Soul Jazz put out a CD comp and the UK rags started writing about him– so, of course, I listened. Lemming!

14.   Curtis Mayfield, Tripping Out – Like the Benson cover above, this one could just glide on forever. It kind of does.

15.   Steely Dan, Black Cow – I guess SD are the jazzy version of Rush – only the boys like them. Only Rush are now “ironically” love while The Dan are NOT cool for some reason. Weird, because they wrote and arranged great “cool” songs. Like how Mad Men was filmed in L.A., not sure how this duo made such NYC records (in sound and setting) while out West. Then, for Gaucho, they went back to N.Y. and cut an L.A. record!

16.   Herbie Hancock, Sun Touch – Not much of a tune here but it’s nice to just bob out into the blue water sometimes. Plus, I just love the sound of the Fender Rhodes.

17.   Benjamin Biolay, Rose Kennedy – The chorus translates as “With so few left alive, the nights must be long for Rose Kennedy” as a corrosive funk guitar riff and soaring strings slowly take over the song.

18.   Robert Palmer, Through It All There Is You – Palmer was my guiding principal on this list – an R&B and jazz fanatic who stayed in the game no matter what styles where thrown at him. I listen to his first LP and the synth-poppy Clues the most. I could listen to this song just for Bernard Purdie’s relentless drum work (best rock drum work ever!) and Steve Winwood’s organ licks but the way a dapper and restrained Palmer loses his shit by barely loosening his tie is worth more than a million screeching Janis Joplins.

***

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