Day After Day #267: Baby's on Fire

Day After Day is an ambitious attempt to write about a song every day in 2024 (starting on Jan. 4).

Baby's on Fire (1974)

When you think about Brian Eno, you may think of the incredible production work he's done with the likes of David Bowie, Talking Heads, U2 and others. Or you might think of his role as a member of Roxy Music and the crazy-ass glam costumes he used to wear. But you probably don't think of three-minute mind-blowing guitar solos, but that's exactly what you'll find on his classic song "Baby's on Fire."

A self-described "non-musician," Eno was a founding member of Roxy Music in 1971 after meeting saxophonist Andy Mackay at a train station. On the band's first two albums, Eno played synths and provided tape effects, backing vocals and production work. At first, he didn't play on stage with the band, instead operating the mixing board and singing backups from there. He eventually joined them on stage to play the synth and was known for his wildly flamboyant costumes and makeup. Eno left the band in 1973 after clashing with lead singer Bryan Ferry.

Eno wasted no time starting a solo career, collaborating King Crimson guitarist Robert Fripp on the 1973 album No Pussyfooting. The album was groundbreaking in its use of tape loop and delay systems, which later was dubbed Frippertronics. Fripp also played guitar on several songs from Eno's 1974 solo debut Here Come the Warm Jets, including the aforementioned "Baby's on Fire."

"Baby's on Fire" is a sinister-sounding track, pulsing with menace as Eno snarls out the lyrics about a burning woman.

"Baby's on fire/Better throw her in the water/Look at her laughing/Like a heifer to the slaughter/Baby's on fire/And all the laughing boys are bitching/Waiting for photos/Oh, the plot is so bewitching/Rescuers row row/Do your best to change the subject/Blow the wind blow blow/Lend some assistance to the object/Photographers snip snap/Take your time she's only burning/This kind of experience/Is necessary for her learning/If you'll be my flotsam/I could be half the man I used to/They said you were hot stuff/And that's what baby's been reduced to."

At this point, Fripp launches into an extended, angry, twisted and amazing guitar solo, taking Eno's bizarre premise and pummeling it in the best way possible. Fripp has played incredible solos before and since, but this may be his greatest. There's some online conjecture that Paul Rudolph may also contribute to some of the solo section. But whatever the case, it's goddamn incredible.

Eno jumps back in on vocals after the solo ends to close out the song.

"Juanita and Juan/Very clever with maracas/Making their fortunes/Selling secondhand tobaccos/Juan dances at Chico's/And when the client are evicted/He empties the ashtrays/And pockets all that he's collected/But baby's on fire/And all the instruments agree that/Her temperature's riding/But any idiot would know that."

The song (and album) was so ahead of the game, it was post-punk before punk even emerged. It was unlike anything that had come before. And Eno would make one more rock album (Taking Tiger Mountain) before switching gears and getting into ambient music, which he has primarily stuck with for nearly 50 years. But again, he's better known for his production work, which is legendary. Still, "Baby's on Fire" doesn't get nearly enough love as one of the best guitar songs ever.

Stuck In Thee Garage #548: October 4, 2024

Forty years ago, the Cold War was still going strong, the drinking age went up to 21 in the U.S. and everybody was saying, "Where's the beef?" This week on Stuck In Thee Garage, I played songs from 1984 in hour 2, in addition to new music from John Davis, Bleeding Star, Franz Ferdinand and Lucius. It'll rock you like a hurricane, or even like Gene Simmons playing the bad guy in a Tom Selleck movie.

That ain't no love gun, hon:

Hour 1

Artist - Song/Album

John Davis - Please Be My Love/Jinx

Bleeding Star - Disintegrate/Sympathy

The Bug Club - Actual Pain/On the Intricate Inner Workings of the System

Franz Ferdinand - Audacious/The Human Fear

Dale Crover - I Waited Forever (feat. Ty Segall and Rob Crow)/Glossolalia

Johnny Foreigner - This is a Joke/How to Be Hopeful

Nada Surf - Losing/Moon Mirror

The The - Zen and the Art of Dating/Ensoulment

Lucius - Old Tape (feat. Adam Granduciel)/Single

Phantom Handshakes - Apart/Sirens at Golden Hour

Kal Marks - Motherfuckers/Wasteland Baby

X - Struggle is Surreal/Smoke & Fiction

The Jesus Lizard - Moto(R)/Rack

Oceanator - All the Same/Everything is Life and Death

Fake Fruit - Venetian Blinds/Mucho Mistrust

Emerald Comets - Stuck on the Moment/Single

Hour 2: 1984

Husker Du - Something I Learned Today/Zen Arcade

Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds - Cabin Fever!/From Her to Eternity

The Cult - Spiritwalker/Dreamtime

Hoodoo Gurus - Tojo/Stoneage Romeos

Prince - Darling Nikki/Purple Rain

INXS - I Send a Message/The Swing

Joe Jackson - You Can't Get What You Want (Till You Know What You Want)/Body and Soul

Echo & the Bunnymen - The Killing Moon/Ocean Rain

U2 - Wire/The Unforgettable Fire

Meat Puppets - Plateau/II

R.E.M. - (Don't Go Back to) Rockville/Reckoning

Van Halen - House of Pain/1984

Iron Maiden - Flash of the Blade/Powerslave

Judas Priest - Freewheel Burning/Defenders of the Faith

Put a digital dime in the music machine RIGHT HERE!

Day After Day #266: Echo Beach

Day After Day is an ambitious attempt to write about a song every day in 2024 (starting on Jan. 4).

Echo Beach (1980)

The transition from the '70s to the '80s was exciting for those of us who were around at the time. It felt like we were moving into a more futuristic decade, although a lot of that was built up by science fiction and movies like Star Wars. Another shift was in music, where the rock dinosaurs of the '70s were losing some (not all) traction to new wave and post-punk acts. Keyboards and synths were in vogue, guitar solos not so much. 

In Toronto, where I was a 12-year-old voraciously listening to top 40 radio, some of these new sounds were becoming popular: The B-52s, Gary Numan, Devo, Madness. And then a local act came out of left field with a catchy little song that caught fire around the world (if not the U.S.).

Martha and the Muffins was formed in 1977 when Ontario College of Art students David Millar and Mark Gane decided to start a band. They got Martha Johnson as lead vocalist and keyboardist, Carl Finkle on bass and Gane's brother Tim on drums. The band was chosen as a counterpoint to the aggro names of many of the Toronto punk bands at the time, with plans to come up with a better name at some point. Millar left the band in 1978 and was replaced by Martha Ladly, who played keyboards and sang backup vocals.

After independently releasing a single, they scored a record deal with Dindisc, a U.K.-based imprint of Virgin Records. The band traveled to England in 1979 and recorded their debut album Metro Music, which was released in February 1980. 

The first single was "Echo Beach," a song written by Mark Gane about his experiences working at a boring job (in his case, in a wallpaper factory after his first summer at art school) and dreaming of being somewhere else. The song starts with a circular guitar riff before Johnson comes in on the Ace Tone organ; Gane said he was very influenced by Roxy Music, both lyrically and musically.

"I know it's out of fashion, and a trifle uncool/But I can't help it, I'm a romantic fool/It's a habit of mine, to watch the sun go down/On Echo Beach, I watch the sun go down/From 9 to 5, I have to spend my time at work/My job is very boring, I'm an office clerk/The only thing that helps me pass the time away/Is know I'll be back at Echo Beach someday."

Gane came up with the second verse when hanging out on the shore of Lake Ontario and seeing the city skyline at night.

"On a silent summer evening, the sky's alive with lights/A building in the distance, surrealistic sight/On Echo Beach, waves make the only sound/On Echo Beach, there's not a soul around/From 9 to 5, I have to spend my time at work/My job is very boring, I'm an office clerk/The only thing that helps me pass the time away/Is knowing I'll be back at Echo Beach someday."

Sax player Andy Haas provided the solo before the extended end section. Johnson has said she had a cold when the song was recorded, and the final line "Echo Beach, far away in time" (which was repeated many times) made her voice sound a little deeper than it actually was.

While there are many Echo Beaches in the world (including in Saskatchewan and Australia), Gane has said he just made up the name.

The song never clicked in the U.S., but it hit #5 in Canada, #6 in Australia and #10 in the U.K. and it won the Juno award for Single of the Year (the Canuck equivalent of the Grammy Awards). Martha and the Muffins ended up opening for Roxy Music that year at Wembley Arena and in Glasgow, but then Bryan Ferry got sick and the rest of the tour was cancelled. 

The band released their second album, Trance and Dance, in October 1980, but it didn't have any hit singles. Ladly left the band, followed by Finkle, who was replaced on bass by Jocelyne Lanois; her brother was then-unknown producer Daniel Lanois, who ended up producing the group's next three albums. In 1983, the group changed its name to M + M because Gane was sick of the original name; they stuck with M + M for three years before going back. The group's 1984 album Mystery Walk scored a hit with "Black Stations/White Stations"; it was a hit in Canada and got to #2 on the U.S. dance music charts but many stations refused to play it because it was about stations refusing to play a song about mixed-race romance. 

In 1987, British singer Toyah Wilcox covered "Echo Beach"; the song hit #54 on the U.K. Singles Chart. Wilcox is now married to Robert Fripp, who was in attendance at the band's first show in New York City in the late '70s.

Johnson and Gane kept the group going as a duo, releasing an album in 1992 that didn't sell well. That year, the couple had a baby and shut the band down. They released a children's album in 1995 (credited to "Martha"), and played occasional reunion performances over the next decade. In 2010, a new Martha and the Muffins album was released, and in 2013, Johnson crowdfunded a solo album. The band released an odds-and-sods compilation in 2021 and said at the time they were working on a new album, but nothing has come out as of yet.

"Echo Beach" still sounds fresh to me all these years later, even as it reminds me of being 12 years old in the Toronto burbs and not relating to being bored at a job yet. But it was catchy as hell and remains so.

Day After Day #265: Stars

Day After Day is an ambitious attempt to write about a song every day in 2024 (starting on Jan. 4).

Stars (1995)

Every so often a song would come along that I got really into, whether on the radio or MTV or wherever, I would listen to it a ton, but then would sort of forget about it and the artist. That was the case with "Stars" by the Chicago band Hum, which was all over stations like WFNX in the summer of 1995. I dug the song a lot, but never bought the album or followed up in any way and lost track of the band for about 25 years or so.

The band was formed in 1989 by guitarists Andy Switzky and Matt Talbott, bassist Akis Boyatzis and drummer Jeff Kropp. They practiced in Boyatzis' basement for a few months, going through another drummer before adding Bryan St. Pere after hearing him playing along to a Rush album through his apartment window. Hum went through several lineup changes before recording a demo in Steve Albini's basement. 

Switzky was the primary singer, guitarist and songwriter on the group's first album, Fillet Show, which was released on a local indie 12 Inch Records in 1991, straddling the line between punk and metal. After another bassist left, Jeff Dimpsey joined on guitar and Talbott switched to bass. After some creative differences, Switzky quit and the band brought in Tim Lash on guitar. The band went into the studio to record their second album, 1993's Electra 2000, with producer Brad Wood, who had worked on Liz Phair's Exile in Guyville. Talbott and Dimpsey switched instruments and Talbott took over lead vocals. 

The album didn't have any singles, but it caught RCA's attention and Hum soon had a major label deal. The band's third album, You'd Prefer an Astronaut, came out in April 1995. Before it was even released, "Stars" was getting heavy airplay on Los Angeles radio station KROQ, causing RCA to release it as a single a month before planned. Soon other stations across the country followed suit.

"Stars" had the loud-quiet-loud dynamics popularized by bands like the Pixies and Nirvana, but it also bore a resemblance to the heavy riff-driven sound of acts like Helmet and Dinosaur Jr. Talbott's affectless vocals start the song almost quietly as the band holds an extended chord.

"She thinks she missed the train to Mars, she's out back counting stars/She thinks she missed the train to Mars, she's out back counting stars."

Suddenly the band kicks in, almost drowning Talbott out as it pounds out a monster riff.

"She's not at work, she's not at school/She's not in bed, I think I finally broke her/I bring her home everything I want, and nothing she needs/I thought she'd be there holding daisies, she always waits for me/She thinks she missed the train to Mars, she's out back counting stars."

Not to be overlooked in the guitar-driven fury is St. Pere's thunderous drumming.

"I found her out back sitting naked looking up and looking dead/A crumpled yellow piece of paper, with seven nines and tens/I thought she'd be there holding daisies, she always waits for me/She thinks she missed the train to Mars, she's out back counting stars."

The band even got the "Beavis and Butt-Head" treatment, although the boys grow impatient at the quiet intro and change the channel before the songs starts rocking, which they would have loved.

"Stars" ended up peaking at #11 on the Billboard Modern Rock Tracks chart and the album sold 250,000 copies as a result. 

The other singles from the album, "The Pod" and "I'd Like Your Hair Long," didn't produce the same buzz, but Hum toured behind the album into the next year. They released Downward is Heavenward in 1998, getting critical acclaim but failing to generate much interest. Hum was dropped from their contract in 2000 and broke up at the end of that year.

Talbott formed the band Centaur, which released one album. Dimpsey restarted an old side project called National Skyline, while Lash played in the bands Gifted and Balisong.

Hum reunited for a festival show in Alabama in 2003 and afterward played occasional club shows and festivals. In 2007, "Stars" showed up in a Cadillac commercial after Talbott received an email from advertising firm asking about it. The band continued to play sporadically in subsequent years before releasing their fifth album, Inlet, with no fanfare in June 2020. The album, which was strong, got some good notices. 

Sadly, St. Pere died in June 2021 at the age of 53. Hum hasn't officially called it quits, so hopefully they'll release more music someday.

Day After Day #264: Uncontrollable Urge

Day After Day is an ambitious attempt to write about a song every day in 2024 (starting on Jan. 4).

Uncontrollable Urge (1978)

When Devo first burst onto the scene in the early '70s, they must have really blown some minds. They've always been unrepentantly weird in the best way possible, which at that time was pretty rare. Hell, even by the end of the '70s, people didn't know what to make of them.

The band got its start at Kent State University in Ohio, when keyboardist Mark Mothersbaugh joined forces with Gerald Casale and Bob Lewis. Casale and Lewis were art students who had introduced the concept of "de-evolution," or the regression of mankind. The first version of Devo played at the 1973 Kent State performing arts festival, with Casale, Lewis, Mothersbaugh, Gerald's brother Bob Casale and friends Rod Reisman on drums and Fred Weber on vocals. That was the only performance with that lineup; a year later, the group featured the Casale brothers, Lewis, and brothers Mark and Jim Mothersbaugh. 

They played around the Akron area and put together a 9-minute short film called The Truth About De-Evolution, which won a prize at the Ann Arbor Film Festival in 1976. David Bowie became aware of the film and helped Devo get a contract with Warner Music Group. The following year, Neil Young asked the band to participate in his movie Human Highway; it wasn't released until 1982, but featured the band as "nuclear garbagemen."

Devo released their first single, "Mongoloid," in March 1977, with "Jocko Homo" as the B-side. They followed that up with a robotic cover of the Rolling Stones' "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction." Originally, Bowie had planned to produce the band's debut album, but the job ended up going to Brian Eno because Bowie was working on a movie (although he did help Eno with some of the production). The band had already debuted all the songs in concert and didn't want to deviate from their demos, despite Eno's suggestions. 

The songs were written by Mark (vocals, keyboards, guitar) and Bob Mothersbaugh (lead guitar, vocals) and Gerald Casale (vocals, bass, keyboards) between 1974 and 1977; those three were joined by Bob Casale (rhythm guitar, keyboards, vocals) and Alan Myers (drums) on the album. Called Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo!, the album was released in August 1978.

The band was written off by many critics as a novelty act, largely thanks to their yellow suits, herky-jerky rhythms and decidedly unserious demeanor. But Devo was a major influence on many bands to follow, whether they were punk, new wave or art rock. 

The opening track, "Uncontrollable Urge," just reaches out and grabs the listener, a high-octane song about sexual frustration that has Mark Mothersbaugh getting right in your face.

"Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah!/Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah!/Got an urge, got a surge and it's out of control/Got an urge I wanna purge 'cause I'm losing control/Uncontrollable urge, I wanna tell you all about it/Got an uncontrollable urge that makes me scream and shout it."

The other band members chime in: "He's got an uncontrollable urge (I've got an uncontrollable urge)/He's got an uncontrollable urge (I've got an uncontrollable urge)."

When the band would play the song live, they choreographed their movements to pivot in place, jump during the synth part and then get into a tight formation at the end. 

"It's got style, it's got class/So strong, I can't let it pass/I gotta tell you all about it/Make me scream and shout it/I got an uncontrollable urge, I wanna tell you all about it/An uncontrollable urge, make me scream and shout it."

The album, which featured a painting of golfer Chi Chi Rodriguez on it (who at that age bore a slight resemblance to Tom Brady), got to #78 on the Billboard 200. Devo was the musical guest on Saturday Night Live in 1978, playing "Satisfaction" and "Jocko Homo" and getting a whole lot of exposure. They released Duty Now for the Future in 1979, but their mainstream breakthrough came in 1980 with the album Freedom of Choice, which had their best-known song, "Whip It." The video, which featured the band wearing their red "energy dome" hats (which resembled flower pots), became a hit and the song hit the top 40. 

They released a few more albums before 1984's Shout, a synth-pop album that fared poorly critically and commercially. The album is dominated by the Fairlight synth and it ultimately led Warner Bros. to drop the band. Myers left the band and Mark Mothersbaugh began composing music for the Pee-Wee's Playhouse TV show. Devo reformed in 1987 with a new drummer and released two more albums before splitting up in 1991.

Mothersbaugh began composing music for TV and films and Gerald Casale began directing music videos for bands including Rush, Soundgarden and Foo Fighters. Devo reunited in 1996 at the Sundance Film Festival and on part of the Lollapalooza tour. The band has played occasional tours since, releasing a new album in 2010. Bob Casale died of heart failure in 2014 at the age of 61; Myers died the year before.

Devo toured this past May, with a lineup feature Mark and Bob Mothersbaugh, Gerald Casale, Josh Freese on drums and Josh Hager on guitar and keyboards, and earlier this year, a documentary on the band was released.