Dave: Alright Hello and welcome to side one side b with Dave and Steve. I'm Dave.
Steve: And I'm Steve
Andrew: and we have a guest with us today
Andrew: Andrew
Dave: who is from our band The Ailliterates. We are bringing an album that Andrew brought this time this is one that I also know front and back, forwards and backwards. This is one of my all time favorite records.
Dave: Steve, what do you know about the band sparks?
Steve: Nothing
Dave: Nothing? Nothing At All?
Steve: Zero. Zilch. Nada.
Dave: All right, not a so they were the core of the band are two brothers from California. Ron and Russell male Ron played piano was the principal songwriter, Russell's the vocalist. They started out as kind of like an art pop kind of Kings influence thing in California. And then they decided to move to the UK and got in on the glam rock thing. My main source for a lot of this is there was an excellent documentary that came out a couple of years ago directed by Edgar Wright, who is most known for directing like Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz.
Steve: I thought I recognized that name.
Dave: Yeah, They have a reputation. Yeah, they have a reputation of being kinda like your favorite bands favorite band, and they are amazing.
Steve: Are they Black Sabbath favorite band?
Dave: Black Sabbath definitely knows them.
Andrew: I think Black Sabbath might be Black Sabbath's favorite.
Dave: That's probably true. Yeah.
Dave: But then Yeah, after having a couple of really successful like Glam Rock Records, they sound a lot like the more piano driven Bowie records from that era, like, like hunky dory, but imagine that with like Freddie Mercury singing.
Steve: Oh, I like Freddie Mercury singing.
Dave: Yeah, they're really good that they tried to like in 1977. They tried to do kind of like an American pop sounding record.
Andrew: Yeah.
Dave: And with introducing sparks that ended up being like a commercial and critical failure. And they ended up being without like a backing band and just kind of out on their own. But before we get into where they got with them with this is going to be their eighth album, Andrew, what is your history with the band sparks?
Andrew: How I got introduced to sparks was we had this excellent punk rock dive bar in town called brothers. And they had an album best of sparks in the jukebox. And so I would often play sex Town USA and angst in my pants. When we use the jukebox there are so many good songs on that album. That is an excellent album. The other thing that I do remember happening was buying angst in my pants as a tape. When I was on a road trip with friends and heading back from a concert I apparently was a little bit silly, and I kept playing moustache on repeat
Dave: was that when you had the mustache and would wear cut offs all the time?
Andrew: It often was. it was those are some good times listening to sparks. They were a lot of how spark sounds in terms of their hits. Sounds a lot like indie pop in a surprising way. Yeah, this album does not
Dave: This album is was a huge change in direction it was this one yeah, they didn't have a full backing band. They offstage they kind of bullshitted their way into working with legendary producer giorgio moroder and murder by telling him basically that that they had a deal for him lined up for the next album when they didn't. It ended up working out but yeah, the musicians on this one, it is just the two brothers with some help from a session drummer and moroder himself and like some other people helping with like additional synth programming and backing vocals, whether this is pure electro pop disco at this point, this is a complete change in direction for them.
Andrew: So imagine an indie pop band in 1979. Putting this album out, it feels very cutting edge, but also, in my opinion, a little bit more cohesive than some of their other albums in terms of feel for the album. Sparks is very funny, just in general.
Dave: Yeah they were one thing that I kind of left out in my description of like hunky dory David Bowie, with Freddie Mercury's with Freddie Mercury on vocals was that they they've tended to be a lot more clever. Both queen and Bowie would often times you know, like be a lot about kind of straightforward songs about things while sparks were a lot about you know, like jokes and wordplay and puns and things like that.
Andrew: And at the same time, thanks to my parents, for example, is a fairly straightforward song in terms of meaning and symbolism, but also very fun was angst
Steve: Was Angst in my pants a reference in your Gongfermour song?
It was. angst my pants is a later album, we will get to like at some point, this podcast we're going to do more sparks we're going to do some of their earlier glam stuff. And then some of the like after this, they did another kind of like disco album like this only they added some guitar to it. And then after that, they decided they didn't want to like to her anymore with all like the sequencers and setting up all that kind of equipment and wanted to do more of a straightforward band again, and they did kind of like a new wave thing for like five or six albums.
They're still around. They're still putting out stuff they've done. All kinds of records still they are. They're an amazing band. Like if you watch the documentary with them, you get all kinds of fun interviews from all kinds of different musicians from all kinds of different genres because they ended up being incredibly influential. This record in particular is what led me to my theory that Joy Division would have eventually sounded like New Order, because this album was the favorite like came out of 1979. About the time Joy divisions first record came out. And then while they were starting to work on their second one, this was a favorite of Joy Division, especially if their drummer Stephen Morris, and so like I think this would have eventually been what Joy Division would have landed on if Ian Curtis was still alive.
Andrew: Interesting. That's a bold take, Dave
Dave: I will defend it if anyone wants to argue it.
Andrew: Let's post on the Joy Division subreddit.
Steve: But is Black Sabbath the Christian metal band?
Dave: Yes.
Steve: All right, well, let's take a look at the cover art here. It looks like you have a promo copy because somebody nicked it here with a with a bandsaw. But on the front, we got a picture of a scientist kind of with what the fuck I'm blanking on what those things are called
Andrew: I'm gonna go with microscopes?
Steve: Microscopes! That's a brain fart. So I guess a scientist here with a microscope a sparkplug which symbolizes that this band is sparks. And then on the back it's pretty much the same thing, but with a different model and minimalist.
Dave: Yeah, name of this album was number one in heaven. You should look at the inside sleeve and look at look at the brothers male. How would you describe them?
Steve: Ooooooh..... Somebody has a Charlie Chaplin mustache.
Dave: That is what he said that mustache was
Andrew: and the other one looks like Benedict Cumberbatch.
Dave: Eventually, Ron Mel got tired of being compared to Hitler when he really was going for Charlie Chaplin. And like, by like the 80s he was doing a John Waters mustache. That was probably the better choice. But yeah,
Steve: I forget which comedian it is. But my dad quotes him all the time when he's like Hitler put a kibosh on that whole mustache thing.
Dave: Yes. This is the only person I know of who tried to do that mustache after World War Two who wasn't? Who wasn't a Nazi,
Steve: Michael Jordan.
Dave: Oh, yeah. Michael Jordan did that. That was embarrassing. Yeah.
Steve: Well, buddy, we don't always make great decisions, do we?
Okay, well, let's take a look here. At the first side, we got tryouts for the human race Academy Award performance and La Dolce Vita.
Dave: Yes.
Steve: So we got three songs that you mentioned, this one's on the on the shorter side. So what kind of songs we do? Are these two sides distinctly different? Or are we going to be expecting similar things on both sides?
Dave: pretty similar things on both sides. This is one album that I think is consistently good all the way through. Yes, there is one song that I consider kind of filler, but it's good. That one's on side two. But the best song of the album is the closer in my opinion. So it's yeah, it's all good.
Andrew: It's a very tight album. Yeah.
Steve: And this producer, that's the that's the name of the guy on the Daft Punk record, right?
Dave: Yes
Steve: Random Access Memories.
Dave: He's he's a very well known he was one of the pioneers of synthesizers and bringing the instrument and like the kind of sequencing you could do with it into dance music. One of his best known songs that he worked on was I feel loved by Donna Summer.
Steve: Yeah, on the on Random Access Memories. It was a very untraditional song because it's basically just an interview. But I really enjoyed not only what his history that he went through when he was talking about that song, but I remember reading how he talked about using like different microphones depending on the era that he was talking about. So that's an interesting connection. That's cool to see.
Dave: Let's get it started.
Andrew: Side One
IF YOU'RE FOLLOWING ALONG AT HOME, HERE IS WHERE YOU PAUSE AND START THE RECORD!
Dave: And we are back, Steve, that was the first three spark songs you've heard, what did you think
Steve: I really liked them, I thought that they had a really great energy, it really reminded me of some of the kickass music that I had here in like JRPGs on the Super Nintendo. And that's really cool. But also at the same time, it kind of in some ways reminded me of like European power metal in a way probably because all the arpeggios and stuff going around.
Andrew: Sure.
So it's like it's like power metal without the metal part. I can easily see I don't know, like Nightwish covering those first two tracks, at least Academy Award winning performance, I thought tryouts for the human race and Academy Award performance in particular had a sense of urgency that you'd hear a lot and in a genre that utilizes arpeggios like like power metal would, so yeah, I thought that was really interesting and La Dolce Vita was a nice change of pace from the other two. It's slowed down a bit but and then towards the the other half of the store I can kind of brought those elements back in. I really enjoyed it.
Dave: Yeah, one of the things I really liked about this particular like this band does this a lot but this particular era is to keep your ear during you know like these songs are slightly longer than their glam era. They went from doing like three minutes songs to six minute songs at this point. And so like to keep your ear they would just they They would start out with a kind of simple part and then just kind of keep layering different sequences and over it till at the end, there's just like a bunch of things going on
Steve: reminds me a lot of our process and lucid fugue, although I'd imagine that this came out in 79. Right?
Dave: Yep, this may be a major influence on me for what I do like more repetitive electronic music.
Steve: I could hear that I'd imagine back in 79 it was probably a lot harder to sequence things then like like what we do today?
Dave: Oh, yeah. Like now what we can do on the computer like you've seen the pictures of like the modular sense with all like when they create it like this is a patch and and just be like a giant wall filled with a bunch of chords. That was that era. But yeah, each individual song go through them a little bit here tryouts for the human race. Love that baseline that doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo. That's speeds per minute. These are really fast. These are great songs to have at a dance party. They keep people moving. They are not so sure that people are clearing the floor out
Steve: It worked great for my ADHD brain, like never really got boring. And then when it got to the point where I thought it might have been, it changed to a different crazy arpeggio. So yeah.
Andrew: I feel that it would have been more appropriate if I was moving around rather than you know, sitting in a comfy chair.
Dave: I stood up while we were listening to it because I have to stand up while I listen to this. Unless I'm driving. It is good driving music too, though.
Andrew: Sure.
Dave: Tryouts for the human race is fun, too. What do you think that song is about?
Steve: I assume it's... I don't know.
Dave: It is a POV song of sperm.
Steve: Oooooooh......
Andrew: That's why they're a quarter million strong.
Dave: Yeah. And then there's the line. I just want to be someone. This is yeah, it's a song about sperm.
Steve: I don't think I've ever thought about life from the first person's perspective of a sperm. So that's, that's interesting.
Dave: Yeah. It's a great way to open up the album to like, it's,
Andrew: it's weird. It's oddly compelling. I don't know.
Dave: And like, if you look at this whole album, you can also see it as kind of like the lifecycle because it begins as sperm and it ends in the afterlife with heaven. So we'll get to when you get to the last song, but yeah, Academy Award performance, a lot of fun. It's just it's about an actor.
Steve: I either imagined it was about that, or I assumed it was sarcasm of some kind.
Dave: Yeah, with Sparks, There's often irony and stuff.
Andrew: Yeah. And they also seem to talk about a lot about like, gold diggers and alimony and stuff which, yeah, go for it.
Dave: Yeah. La Dolce Vita, yeah, has a lot about about gold diggers and alimony and has like some kind of casual nihilism at the end with repeating the refrain. I'm gonna read it word for word just so you get it right. Life isn't much but there's nothing else to do La Dolce Vita
Steve: We're nihilists Lewbowski
Dave: There's kind of a reason why even though they were never part of the punk movement, Steve Jones from the Sex Pistols was one of the interviews that featured more heavily in the documentary that a great did about them.
Steve: There's something I really like about cynical nihilistic pop music.
Dave: Yeah. It's, it's a lot of fun. And you know, like, you can just kind of enjoy it at the surface level where it seems like this is a fun song. And then when you when you get into it a little bit more. Oh, looking real bored is what you pay me for La Dolce Vita. It's great. It's a lot of fun.
Steve: Yeah, we're recording this on the same day that we released the Cabaret Voltaire episode, and I was listening to that album while we were while I was editing it. And I really love the irony of the song why kill time when you can kill yourself and a lot of that same type of humor I could tell wason this.
Yeah, one thing I thought was interesting just in terms of the feel of the album, especially with the first two tracks versus Dolcevita is there are a lot of frills and arpeggios which are fun to listen to, which is great. The groove of the song for the first two is really driven by synth bass and en la dolce vita. It's more an electric bass.
Steve: I did notice that too. And I was listening to it switched vibes, which I think is welcome because it helps break up the album. But yeah, I noticed a distinct difference you're pointing out here,
Andrew: I probably would have liked a little bit more funkiness to the groove of the electric baseline. But there's enough going on in the song anyway that it might take away from that. So yeah, yeah, that that's just kind of my taste, though.
Dave: Yeah, my favorite song on this album we're yet to get to. I think my favorite like, as much as the baseline drives these songs. My favorite baseline is tryouts for the human race. That's just it makes you want to get up and dance
Steve: it made me want to get up and then go collect the seven crystals so I can go fight God Himself and dethrone him
Dave: you know, first person perspective from a piece of sperm. That's not something they would have tried in a JRPG because they would have known they would have gotten censored in America for it, but it is like an anime plot.
Steve: Kind of reminds me of the plot of the game Earthbound.
Dave: Yeah.
Andrew: Okay. Yeah. On a personal level, I still can't get over that Final Fantasy seven is basically you're the hero, but you're in a terrorist group that's bombing nuclear reactors. And that's all right.
Dave: That is all right. So there's this book called How to blow up a pipeline. Anyway, we are gonna move on to the next side. Yeah, this side what you have to look forward to is you'd have another like kick ass dance song to open it up. And then you have kind of like a little weird experiment for the middle track and then number one and heaven I'm just going to let you experience and not tell you what to expect for it.
Steve: Andrew, are you gonna rock out with your cock out?
Andrew: maybe I'm gonna try and keep it a little bit low key this time. We got into a weird tangent there. I don't want to end up in too many watch lists. So...
Steve: well, you know, it's marked explicit. So just letting you know. All right, flip it dave. flip it good.
FOR THOSE FOLLOWING ALONG AT HOME, FLIP TO SIDE 2!
Andrew: You do want to have me back for the Olivia Newton John album...
Dave: that would be that'd be a really, really fun change of pace All right. We rollin?
Steve: we are
Dave: all right, we are back and that was side two of number one in heaven by sparks that Steve, what do you think?
Steve: I enjoyed it. I enjoyed side one a little more than side two. But side two, I also thought was quite enjoyable. So take what you will have that my favorite track was probably the opener Beat the Clock.
Dave: yeah, probably one of the shorter songs on the album to just kind of straightforward stop here it is. Edgar Wright was talking about what his favorite songs by the band was when he made the documentary and was doing you know, like features for The Alamo Drafthouse and all that to play before the show. That was the one off this album that he said was his favorite, too. So you're in good company there.
Steve: Yeah. And then the other two, I also enjoyed quite a bit.
Dave: The other voice that one was the least dancey song on the whole album, it was just kind of a slow song it seemed to be like, I still think that calling it the other voice was a reference to Let's Play with the vocodors the most on this one or the other.
Andrew: I think what's interesting to me just about the album as a whole, it does feel, to me at least more of a concept album than a lot of other sparks do in terms of cohesiveness. A lot of other sparks albums are mostly about hits is what I would say what you like best of sparks is fantastic. There are always a lot of good songs, but on this side, it was interesting to beat the clock slow down from the first side a little bit while still having a consistent dance beat and then it moves on in a little bit of a slower direction until they bring back in the sound and win number one song in heaven really hits that second part.
Dave: Yeah. Number one selling in Heaven is my favorite spark song ever. That's just such a fantastic song. The synth choir sounds ethereal. It's my favorite Russel Mael vocal performance to just like the way he hits the high notes and that it really complements, just you know, like, yeah, the heavenly chorus sounds that the synth is doing I love like the slower part before the break. And then like when it hits the break and hits like what is that like 180 BPM probably without looking it up just like it goes. It's a perfect song to conclude a dance party with because like at the beginning, like it's at the end of the night, everyone's exhausted, they want something they can sway to. And then the sway part kicks so much ass that when the beat drops at the end, everyone just gets that second win to just finish off the night with just like a big high energy dance or the dripping sweat everywhere and flinging it across the room and singing along while holding their partners. It said it's an amazing song. My best moment with hosting a dance party involved that song that when I lived at the old punk house, they lived out for a big chunk of my 20s one time on New Year's Eve they put the song on we didn't time the beat drop right for midnight, because that's kind of hard to do while you're hosting a party. But you know, we had it so that the song was slowing down at the point when midnight hit and so everyone got to you know, like do the countdown and then toast to cheer kiss and all that and then like right after it got through like the toast and cheer and kiss and all that it picked back up again into the dance part and everyone was smiling and sweating and joyfully dancing their asses off. It's was an amazing moment.
Steve: That sounds really cool. Overall, what I what I really liked about it is it had a pretty diverse range of songs I'd say there were some really fast ones there were some like slower ones you can groove to and then yeah, it closed out with a really epic song I'd say
Dave: yeah, and it was they never did exactly this kind of thing again either. Like because their their next album was still kind of like a electronic disco song. But they brought in the electric guitar with that and some and then after that they decided that they didn't like playing live with this kind of setup and went back to playing with the full band again. So this was a small moment but one of their most influential moments. It was Interestingly enough, it was kind of panned in the UK press at the time we released because everyone thought they were like jumping on a trend a little too late. But it ended up being like in the long term, probably their most influential album, it really you know, kind of picked up and I kind of anticipated like where things would go with synthpop in the next couple of years. Like I said earlier, Joy Division loved it, especially Stephen Morris. It was the record that Joy Division was listening to when they were recording level terrorists apart, which also has its own like cool synth stuff with that Bernard Sumner made himself from a kit and so yeah, like I really think when you look at documentaries were different like synthpop bands are asking like how they what they're inspired by their answers are windy Carlos is soundtrack to A Clockwork Orange and sparks number one in heaven.
Steve: The big question I have to ask is since this album came out in 79, and KISS' disco album came out in 79. I mean, we're just gonna have to listen to both to see which one was better.
Dave: : Yeah, we are.
Steve: So Dave, get the chains because Andrew, you're staying for overtime.
Dave: What's funny too, is that the the bands that really pulled off disco were the ones that had to are the ones that had pop sensibilities to begin with. It was like, really the best ones were this album and then blondie. They did like Heart of Glass with a chart of glass came out on the parallel lines album, which I think was 78. We're going to do parallel lines episode at some point. But yeah, sure,
Steve: Dave, you have heard Megadeth attempt at disco from our, our project that never got off the ground. So who did a better Megadeth or kiss?
Dave: Let's say Megadeth.
Steve: Someday we're gonna do the risk album again. And you'll be able to say that line that you were proud of
Dave: Yeah. But yeah, this was this was a very forward thinking album. This was it's my favorite sparks album. Other people have a different favorite sparks album and there's a lot of right answers. Yes. Oh, yeah. Andrew, what's your favorite sparks album?
Andrew: angst in my pants just has a lot of great hits on it.
Dave: Yeah.
Andrew: It's a lot of fun to listen to front to back. Although I do love the hits, especially
Dave: Angst in my pants is really good.
Andrew: One thing I would say about this album that's interesting to me. And I should probably learn a little bit more about music history and things like that. But this is a little less than a decade after Lalo versus Powerman, for instance. Right. And I mean, Kraftwerk, Autobahn 74, five years after that, it's just very different than what was coming out then. And it's interesting to think about a lot of the changes that have happened over the history. So yeah,
Steve: ySo since one of my favorite things to do is to listen to bands, either hand or underrated or forgotten albums. Is there a sparks album that would fall under that category?
Dave: Yeah, probably big beat, which was near the tail end of their glam era, that one probably would be the one right before this one introducing sparks where they're going for more of a conventional pop sound. That one's kind of overlooked, too. It's, it's a good album, it was just kind of panned at the time, they had such a long career like they do. They're still active.
Steve: Yeah, I looked up their Wikipedia page. And it's funny to see the picture of them because they don't really look like they looked when they were younger.
Dave: If you really want to see like their overlooked stuff, I would go towards the end of certain eras. Like a lot of times people know, like the, you know, the beginning of their glam phase, or the beginning of their new wave phase. But
Andrew: honestly, I'm gonna leave indiscreet here for you to listen to if you want. It's very different. And I'm not saying that's an overlooked album, or certainly not a battle album. It's a very good album, but they've just put out so much stuff. It's hard to say, well, this is one that wasn't really loved as much.
Dave: Yeah, it was like right in the middle of their glam era. So it's not the one that people remember. But it's also not one of the ones that people are starting to get sick of it for.
Andrew: But it also was $2 at the record store when I bought it. So that should tell you something.
Dave: An interesting album by theirs. It's not an overlooked one necessarily, but an interesting one is one called plagiarism, where they work with a lot of like bands that respected them, and just kind of like basically cover their own stuff.
Steve: Oh, cool.
Dave: And so like, I'm gonna look up who all they had on it, because it'll be interesting.
Dave: Faith, no more. Eraser.
Steve: Oh, wow.
Dave: Jimmy Somerville, Tony Visconti. It's, they were like, yeah, very wide ranging, well respected bands. And like, you will be surprised that like, when you look into it, like who all cites them as an influence, like, if you can think of a genre, you can find an influential person in that shot? That genre who lists Sparks is a major influence.
Steve: Yeah, I can hear a lot of different types of music from all sorts of genres in this that yeah, I can certainly see somebody from back in the day that you may not even necessarily you would expect to listen to this kind of music, but I could see, you know, listening to it just because it had so much variety. I think, you know, a lot of times when you hear about dance music, you just kind of think of you know, the the most generic examples, like whenever anybody says disco sucks, it's like, Well, you probably mean the most obvious examples of it.
Dave: Yeah, like Like the kind of novelty disco hits that a lot of people knew like, you know, Disco Duck. Yeah, that did. There's a lot of like cool stuff going on with disco and it really pushed the forum forward. But yeah, like this. I think this is one of the best starting points for the band sparks this this is a great album. Like other good starting points, though, for jumping on some of the better known ones to like Kmart on my house, which was the one like their big breakthrough with the glam stuff. It was the one with their probably best known song, which is this county big enough for the both of us. I really like we've talked about it before, but thanks to my pants, it was like their second new wave one. But were they really started to gel with the backing band, they just assembled like the first one that they did that band was good. But this one, it really comes together more and it just has like a good solid string of songs. And then I think one that people really should check out as their 2002 record will Beethoven where they incorporate more like chamber pop and like classical music instrumentation to it. That one, like my favorite song off of that one is called My baby's taking me home. And those are all the lyrics to it. But it's delivered like differently throughout the song with different senses of urgency and like the instrumentation doing all kinds of interesting things. And it is kind of designed as an exercise and how you can deal with lyrical repetition but with their musical variation, but yeah, they're they have a lot of good albums they have some albums are better than others, but they're also one of those bands that never really bottomed out in any way. There's times when like the critical establishment ignored them more than others. But there's hidden gems throughout all of it. And they put out so many things that I haven't even heard all of it. So it's just worth exploring. And it's also never hurts to get started on a best of album because you can kind of find the songs you especially like and then check out the albums that they're on.
Steve: I think a best of album for a lot of bands, especially one with this much legacy a greatest hits album or a live albums probably the best way to go.
Dave: Yeah, their first album came out in what year was the 1971. So they've been at this for quite a while.
Andrew: And this one I do. Like I said it's a cohesive album, which I really like a lot of the time it does feel like they're chasing the top of the pop sort of thing, which is fun, but this one lands a little bit differently because of how it's produced. Alright.
Dave: Anyone else have any more more thoughts on the record?
Steve: I do not.
Dave: Alright
Andrew: Cool
Dave: since Andrew plays in our band, I his pluggable is our pluggable so you can catch all the information on how to access that on the little bumper at the end of the show,
Steve: or check the description
Dave: or check the description. If you are interested in Sparks or want to know where to go next after listening to this album, I just gave a bunch of great recommendations but also really do check out that documentary by Edgar Wright. It's very good it's called the sparks brothers and also if you're interested in like reading up on them, they have put a lot of information out there they they do interviews pretty frequently and you can you can find them online or on their own website. But yeah, this was side one side B with Dave and Steve, catch you on the flip side.
Steve: We ain't fancy enough to have headphones like those funded podcasts.
Steve: Side One/Side B is a Floof Goof Studios production. check us out on the interwebs by going to my website kilrockmusic.com k-i-l-r-a-v-o-c-k music dot com. And there's a tab for Side One/Side B and additionally you can check out me and Dave's projects the ailliterates and lucid fugue respectively.
You can also check us out on Instagram rounds at kilravockmusicsws and Dave_diction
you can also check out our subreddit side one side b and there I post various updates and memes and other bullshit.
Thank you
