Living Colour's "Vivid" (1988): Track by Track

<v Speaker 1>And during the few moments that we have left, we
<v Speaker 1>want to talk right down to earth and the language
<v Speaker 1>that everybody here can easily understand.
<v Speaker 2>Hello everybody, and welcome back to the Shirley You Can't
<v Speaker 2>Be Serious podcast. We are here today talking Living Color,
<v Speaker 2>Damon Wayne's.
<v Speaker 3>And David Allen Green, Jim.
<v Speaker 2>Carrey, No sorry wrong, Living Color. We are here today
<v Speaker 2>to talk about the album Vivid. We are here with
<v Speaker 2>our good friend, original Patreon subscriber, mister James Buckley. How's
<v Speaker 2>it going, James?
<v Speaker 4>It is a lovely day in paradise. Anytime I can
<v Speaker 4>talk with you, guys is a good time.
<v Speaker 1>It's been about about a year or so since you
<v Speaker 1>talked to allis in chains with us, right, I guess
<v Speaker 1>that was last fall.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, for a while, but I figure you guys had
<v Speaker 4>hit the bottom of the barrel again. So you called
<v Speaker 4>me a favorite albums of all time.
<v Speaker 2>So this is part of our Summer of eighty eight series.
<v Speaker 2>This one came out the exact same day as Open
<v Speaker 2>Up and Say Ah by Poison? Did you buy both
<v Speaker 2>albums that day?
<v Speaker 3>Not that day?
<v Speaker 1>It took me until nineteen eighty nine to catch on
<v Speaker 1>to Living Color.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, James did, you know, living in Color before they
<v Speaker 2>started hitting the radio waves or MTV.
<v Speaker 4>I remember hearing Cult Personality before we saw the video.
<v Speaker 4>There was a local radio station out of Streetport which
<v Speaker 4>played had a pretty good selection of rock music, and
<v Speaker 4>they were playing Cult Personality. How can you not fall
<v Speaker 4>in love with that song? But it wasn't until I
<v Speaker 4>guess early eighty nine when I finally saw the video
<v Speaker 4>and wanted a pair of body glove clothing, you know,
<v Speaker 4>right away, but still of course, yeah, And I think
<v Speaker 4>that's around the time I got the cassette because I
<v Speaker 4>remember I was a freshman in college and a guy
<v Speaker 4>in my English class he was a bass player, and
<v Speaker 4>he went I would just sit at the back of
<v Speaker 4>the classroom and geek out over the musicianship on that album.
<v Speaker 2>The originator of this band is a guy named Vernon Reed.
<v Speaker 2>He's the lead guitarist at the band. I can remember
<v Speaker 2>talking to other guitarists at the time because this was
<v Speaker 2>about the time that I started playing guitar, I told
<v Speaker 2>Jason after nineteen eighty eight, and it was because I
<v Speaker 2>had started playing guitar, I got introduced to classic rock
<v Speaker 2>that I had never listened to before, and so I
<v Speaker 2>was listening to Led Zeppelin, Leonard skinnerd The Eagles, all
<v Speaker 2>these seventies bands in nineteen eighty nine. So unless it
<v Speaker 2>was a nuclear bomb song like Welcome to the Jungle
<v Speaker 2>or Cultural Personality, I didn't really know about it.
<v Speaker 1>I told you I was on a ski trip and
<v Speaker 1>our buddy Patreon, Chris Bauer. You know, it was back
<v Speaker 1>in the days when you were passing off headphones and
<v Speaker 1>that's how you would share music.
<v Speaker 3>Hey man, here, put my headphones on. Listen to this.
<v Speaker 1>It's play like dude, that song is awesome, And that's
<v Speaker 1>how I got to know culture Personality.
<v Speaker 3>Now.
<v Speaker 1>The release dates on this is it's tricky because this
<v Speaker 1>album was released on May third of nineteen eighty eight.
<v Speaker 1>It did not catch fire in my neighborhood until nineteen
<v Speaker 1>eighty nine. It was a slow burner for a long time.
<v Speaker 3>Before it actually caught on.
<v Speaker 1>Rolling Stone ranks this as the number sixty fourth best
<v Speaker 1>album of the nineteen eighties, and it's two times platinum.
<v Speaker 1>It has hard rock, funk, metal, jazz, pop, arena, rock,
<v Speaker 1>and punk all merged together on one album. And I'm
<v Speaker 1>like evangelistic about this album. I think it's great. I
<v Speaker 1>tell everybody about it. Most people know culture personality, but
<v Speaker 1>they don't know it's packed full of great songs.
<v Speaker 2>Trying to define this band or fit them into one
<v Speaker 2>particular category is pretty well impossible, they said. People would
<v Speaker 2>come up to us afterwards and go, you know, what
<v Speaker 2>kind of music is this? And they would say, well,
<v Speaker 2>what kind of music do you think it is? Because
<v Speaker 2>everybody had a different perspective on it, and it was
<v Speaker 2>they were taking from so many different musical fields and
<v Speaker 2>just amalgamizing them together. It was it was something that
<v Speaker 2>nobody had done before.
<v Speaker 4>The late eighties were a weird time in heavy metal.
<v Speaker 4>A lot of the hair stuff was starting to lose
<v Speaker 4>some of it's so lower, even though I still loved
<v Speaker 4>a lot of it. You had in the Northwest. You
<v Speaker 4>had Sound Garden who were starting to come out and
<v Speaker 4>they were combining my traditional black Sabbath tap and metal
<v Speaker 4>with psychedelia and punk rock. You had Faith No More
<v Speaker 4>who were cramming heavy metal in with everything from cabaret
<v Speaker 4>jazz to punk. And then you had a Living Color.
<v Speaker 4>I mean, as you said, it was everything. It was metal,
<v Speaker 4>it was punk, it was funk, free form jazz, all
<v Speaker 4>crammed into one album and I'm still listening to what
<v Speaker 4>thirty five years later.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah. Yeah, So Vernon Reed, trained as a jazz musician,
<v Speaker 2>was involved with the guy James that you had talked
<v Speaker 2>to us about, and you said you thought that his
<v Speaker 2>experience with this guy probably was key in sculpting his
<v Speaker 2>musical abilities.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah. He played with a jazz drummer named Ronald Shannon
<v Speaker 4>Jackson who was a free jazz guy. You know, being
<v Speaker 4>a North Louisiana guy, have obviously have an extensive background
<v Speaker 4>in free jazz appreciation. Of course, I took one for
<v Speaker 4>the team and I went and listened to some of
<v Speaker 4>the decoding Society stuff. He played with Ronald Shannon Jackson.
<v Speaker 2>Uh huh.
<v Speaker 4>And it's bizarre. It's like you'll have guys playing in
<v Speaker 4>several keys at the same time, several rhythms. Sometimes it
<v Speaker 4>seems like different times signatures, but they still found a
<v Speaker 4>way to make it resolve.
<v Speaker 2>There were a couple of different bands that Vernon Reed
<v Speaker 2>had called Living Color for the true Core grouperformed Okay,
<v Speaker 2>and they were more jazz. It was a totally different
<v Speaker 2>sound than what we end up with for Vivid.
<v Speaker 1>These guys, their influences are led Zeppelin, Leonard Skinner van
<v Speaker 1>Halen Prince. He said Little Red Corvette was like manna
<v Speaker 1>from heaven.
<v Speaker 4>Vernon also mentioned a band called The Bad Brains who
<v Speaker 4>I happened to love. And it's kind of an interesting
<v Speaker 4>story because the Bad Brains were four guys from New
<v Speaker 4>York who were like jazz musicians, but then they heard
<v Speaker 4>the Ramones and the Dead Boys and other punk bands
<v Speaker 4>and decided they wanted to start a band. And it
<v Speaker 4>was very fast, hardcore punk. I know the Living Colors
<v Speaker 4>covered their songs Sailing on a lot, but their guitarists
<v Speaker 4>was a guy named Doctor no Kunow. His real name
<v Speaker 4>is Gary Miller. I think Bernon also listed him as
<v Speaker 4>being one of his influences. So you can kind of
<v Speaker 4>see them as a follow up with the Bad Brains
<v Speaker 4>started back in the eighties.
<v Speaker 3>You sent me this morning.
<v Speaker 1>You sent me their cover version of Should I Stay
<v Speaker 1>or Should I Go?
<v Speaker 3>By the clash.
<v Speaker 5>Darling, you got to let men Noah.
<v Speaker 4>You can hear a lot of the Bad Brains influence
<v Speaker 4>and the way they did that the chorus that really
<v Speaker 4>sped up chorus, that's kind of more of the Bad
<v Speaker 4>Brains approached the song.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, it sounded like somebody was messing with the record
<v Speaker 1>player back in the day when you could switch from
<v Speaker 1>thirty three to forty.
<v Speaker 2>Five, you know, And they hit the double time.
<v Speaker 4>Now.
<v Speaker 2>They did the double time in the original Clash version
<v Speaker 2>as well, but they didn't do it. They didn't do
<v Speaker 2>it until like the end of the song, which is
<v Speaker 2>my ears. That's where you expected is it comes in
<v Speaker 2>on that end, but they kind of they took it
<v Speaker 2>and they really cranked it up right in the middle,
<v Speaker 2>and then they went back to slow again, and then
<v Speaker 2>they cranked it up again at the end as well.
<v Speaker 3>It's crazy, okay.
<v Speaker 1>So Vernon Reed and Corey Glover meet at a birthday party.
<v Speaker 2>It was birthday.
<v Speaker 1>This is Corey Glover's ex girlfriend's birthday party. So anyway,
<v Speaker 1>for what a reason, Corey Glover's ex girlfriend asks him
<v Speaker 1>to sing Happy.
<v Speaker 3>Birthday to her. Not everyone, right, Yeah, I want Corey
<v Speaker 3>to sing to me.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, And Corey, in an effort to win her back,
<v Speaker 1>is going to blow the doors off singing Happy Birthday
<v Speaker 1>to her, right. Yeah, He's trying to impress her. So
<v Speaker 1>here comes Happy Birthday. But Vernon Reid catches him later
<v Speaker 1>and says, hey, man, I'm putting together a band, and
<v Speaker 1>you have a very strong singing voice.
<v Speaker 3>How would you like to make music with me?
<v Speaker 2>Yeah. When he came to audition for the band, there
<v Speaker 2>was another guy who was there also auditioning for the band, right,
<v Speaker 2>that's true. Yeah, And they said, okay, so we'll think
<v Speaker 2>about this. We'll give you guys a call back. And
<v Speaker 2>he was expecting to hear something, you know, a day
<v Speaker 2>or two later, and nothing for several weeks, and so
<v Speaker 2>like after several weeks, he's like, I didn't get the job.
<v Speaker 2>He was right, he didn't get the job. But then
<v Speaker 2>they had set a gig. Whoever the guy was that
<v Speaker 2>they had hired to be their lead singer bailed on them,
<v Speaker 2>and so they called him up and said, can you
<v Speaker 2>come to the song Phil, we have this gig, and
<v Speaker 2>it was he was ready. He was ready to go.
<v Speaker 2>He had for those first several days he'd been learning
<v Speaker 2>the song and sees he thought, I got this, I
<v Speaker 2>got this. It paid off because ultimately he was able
<v Speaker 2>to slide in there.
<v Speaker 3>That's good.
<v Speaker 1>So after that they added Will Calhoun, who was an
<v Speaker 1>award winning Berkeley College.
<v Speaker 3>Of Music graduate.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, Will Calhoun, he's one of those guys up until
<v Speaker 4>when I first heard him in the late eighties. He
<v Speaker 4>really opened my eyes what you could do within a
<v Speaker 4>rock drumming context. Will came from a jazz background as well.
<v Speaker 4>I think he'd won the Buddy Rich Award. Why was
<v Speaker 4>it Burkeley, which I'm pretty sure they don't just hand out.
<v Speaker 4>When he joined Living Color, oh man, it was like
<v Speaker 4>they put John Bonham, gave him a little bit of
<v Speaker 4>musical steroids and threw in some of his jazz fusion influences.
<v Speaker 4>And Will Calhoun is just a monster. He still amazes
<v Speaker 4>me to this day.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah.
<v Speaker 1>Plus he looks cool. I love he's always wearing a
<v Speaker 1>tank top. He's muscled up, and he looks like he's
<v Speaker 1>on the way to the gym like he does.
<v Speaker 2>He looks fierce.
<v Speaker 3>He does look fierce. That's right, Hey, I'm on the
<v Speaker 3>way of the gym.
<v Speaker 1>I guess I can stop and play drums for you
<v Speaker 1>and a culture personnel.
<v Speaker 4>He does lots of cool little jazz influenced licks, but
<v Speaker 4>he does them in a way it sounds like a
<v Speaker 4>rock player playing. He doesn't sound like a jazz player
<v Speaker 4>trying to play rock.
<v Speaker 1>After that they added muzz skillings.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, a bass player. He was another. All these guys
<v Speaker 4>are from the New York Queens area, even though Vernon
<v Speaker 4>was born in England, which I guess explains why they
<v Speaker 4>have the OU in color.
<v Speaker 3>And really blame them for putting OU and anything.
<v Speaker 2>But keep going.
<v Speaker 4>I apologize. I see, yeah, Muzz was just an on. One
<v Speaker 4>of these guys had a jazz background. He played around
<v Speaker 4>town with some few people, and he played in some
<v Speaker 4>rock bands I think, some jazz, some funk bands, And
<v Speaker 4>I tell you, I was listening to the album closely
<v Speaker 4>this week, and he is a phenomenal player. He really
<v Speaker 4>throws in some really great bass licks.
<v Speaker 2>So they had a relationship with a bass player named
<v Speaker 2>Doug Wimbush before this, and he didn't he didn't play
<v Speaker 2>with this original setup of the band, but was still
<v Speaker 2>friends with them right ultimately in nineteen ninety two, whenever
<v Speaker 2>Muzz Skilling sleeves, he comes in to become the BA player.
<v Speaker 2>But he is a key ingredient to the reason we
<v Speaker 2>know this band. He's the guy that got Rolling Stones
<v Speaker 2>Mick Jagger to come to CBGB's and listen to these
<v Speaker 2>guys play.
<v Speaker 1>So I've heard a couple of different versions, but Mick
<v Speaker 1>Jagger was looking for musicians to play on his second
<v Speaker 1>solo album that was called Primitive Cool, and he invited
<v Speaker 1>Vernon Reed to come an audition for that. Corey Glover
<v Speaker 1>wasn't doing anything, so he just tagged along. Up to
<v Speaker 1>that point, Corey Glover was working as a security guard
<v Speaker 1>at Tower Records undercover, and his job was to keep
<v Speaker 1>people from shoplifting. He said, I was terrible at it
<v Speaker 1>because I let people steal records all the time.
<v Speaker 2>You go ahead and take them bananas. I brought Damon
<v Speaker 2>Waims back into it Color.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah.
<v Speaker 1>But when they got there, Vernon Reed and Corey Glover
<v Speaker 1>standing there and they said, well, I'm here to audition
<v Speaker 1>for your band, but we also have our own band.
<v Speaker 3>It's called Living Color.
<v Speaker 1>And Mick Jagger said, I've heard of you guys, and
<v Speaker 1>they said, really, you've heard of us, and he said, dude, yeah,
<v Speaker 1>i've heard you were great. They're like, well, guess what,
<v Speaker 1>we got a gig next weekend. Why don't you come?
<v Speaker 1>And so he says, I'll be there and they were like,
<v Speaker 1>oh my gosh, Mick Jagger is coming to hear his play.
<v Speaker 1>So they actually had to rope off a table for him.
<v Speaker 1>He came to CBGB's to hear him play, and he said, wow,
<v Speaker 1>we need to get you on an album.
<v Speaker 2>If Mick Jagger comes to Epic and says these guys
<v Speaker 2>are good, They're really really good, Epic is going to say,
<v Speaker 2>all right, well let's get him on the let's get
<v Speaker 2>him on the Parrol.
<v Speaker 3>Well, here's the thing. It didn't quite go that easy.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, they actually so Mick Jagger produced two demos for them.
<v Speaker 1>He produced Which Way to America and he produced the
<v Speaker 1>demo for Glamour Boys. When they started shopping those around,
<v Speaker 1>every record company in town said no, this is and
<v Speaker 1>this is with Mick Jagger.
<v Speaker 3>Hitting them up.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah.
<v Speaker 3>They even had one A and R guy.
<v Speaker 1>Their manager went to one AIR and R guy and
<v Speaker 1>he said, Mick Jagger, what's he done lately?
<v Speaker 3>Are you kidding me?
<v Speaker 2>Wow?
<v Speaker 1>So they ended up signing with Epic and Ed Stacium
<v Speaker 1>is the guy who produced this album. He had done
<v Speaker 1>albums with the Ramones, Talking Heads, and he was actually
<v Speaker 1>the producer for Permanent Cool for Mick Jagger, and so
<v Speaker 1>they recorded this album late in nineteen eighty seven.
<v Speaker 4>It's Staceyum. It's an interesting choice because you mentioned the
<v Speaker 4>talking Heads. That'll come up later, but ed it also
<v Speaker 4>in a couple of years he would produce my favorite
<v Speaker 4>Motorhead album, nineteen sixteen. I think the people he recorded
<v Speaker 4>pretty much reflects what you hear in Living Color Sounds.
<v Speaker 4>You got the kind of weird alternative stuff, you got
<v Speaker 4>the pop rock, and you've got heavy metal all thrown in.
<v Speaker 4>So Ed may have been the perfect choice.
<v Speaker 1>So this article that I read that you sent me
<v Speaker 1>this morning, James, I had no idea Corey Glover was
<v Speaker 1>actually I mean it kind of started off as an actor.
<v Speaker 1>I almost fell out of my chair when I realized
<v Speaker 1>that he was in the movie Platoon.
<v Speaker 2>Well, and he was also in an army recruitment commercial
<v Speaker 2>where he's sitting in a little diner with some friend.
<v Speaker 2>They're like, well, what are you going to do after school?
<v Speaker 2>I don't know what are you going to any He's like,
<v Speaker 2>do something special, you know, join the army. Oh something special, Vietnam.
<v Speaker 2>I'm gonna do something specially.
<v Speaker 1>Well, I'm gonna come out with this rock anthem that's
<v Speaker 1>gonna blow people's socks off, called Court of Personality.
<v Speaker 3>Are you ready to dive in?
<v Speaker 1>Track by track on this album, This is the Time,
<v Speaker 1>This is the time, Okay, first song out of the
<v Speaker 1>Gate is a song called Cult of Personality.
<v Speaker 6>You want to talk right down to the language is
<v Speaker 6>everybody here can understand.
<v Speaker 2>All I gotta say right now is I wish you
<v Speaker 2>guys could see what we can see, because there is
<v Speaker 2>a Louisian, a lawyer in a suit and tie with
<v Speaker 2>drumsticks swinging at the screen. It is absolutely fantastic.
<v Speaker 4>If that opening, like I was saying, if that opening
<v Speaker 4>doesn't get your blood boiling and your pulster racing, you
<v Speaker 4>may as well just go back to your favorite swift
<v Speaker 4>albums again. And I'll do apologies to the Swifties. I
<v Speaker 4>know there are a lot of you out there.
<v Speaker 1>But this is the power anthem. This is the best
<v Speaker 1>song on the album. This is one of the best
<v Speaker 1>songs of the eighties. You had it on your list
<v Speaker 1>of eighty eight. I think you had it on your
<v Speaker 1>list of eighty eight.
<v Speaker 2>You have so many new and different things going on here.
<v Speaker 2>Like we talked about the ability of these musicians to
<v Speaker 2>take different influences and shove them all together. But not
<v Speaker 2>only do you have that, you have a band that
<v Speaker 2>looks completely different than all of the other bands that
<v Speaker 2>we're seeing on MTV at the time. They are not
<v Speaker 2>only a band completely composed of African Americans versus all
<v Speaker 2>of these white guy bands that we're seeing, but instead
<v Speaker 2>of leather and chains, they're in like these bright spandex
<v Speaker 2>body glove style clothing, and it's just it's like, what
<v Speaker 2>the heck is going on? And then they're playing music,
<v Speaker 2>which is I mean, that opening riff is so led
<v Speaker 2>Zeppelin ish, but even more powerful because they're they're throwing
<v Speaker 2>those jazz influences in there and then coming with those
<v Speaker 2>crashing drums I mean, holy Cow. And then they put
<v Speaker 2>in hyper intellectual lyrics to the song, right, I mean,
<v Speaker 2>I didn't know what cult of personality was before I
<v Speaker 2>heard this song. I had to go find this stuff out, right,
<v Speaker 2>So and then once I learned about it, I'm like,
<v Speaker 2>holy Cow, this is an amazing phenomenon. So it comes
<v Speaker 2>from a Nikita kruzh Chef report on Stalin. The name
<v Speaker 2>of the report is on the cult of personality and
<v Speaker 2>its consequences, but Stalin is kind of that key definitive
<v Speaker 2>cult of personality guy, cult of personality being where you
<v Speaker 2>have this greater than life image, right, you know, creating
<v Speaker 2>an icon out of a human being, and that's what
<v Speaker 2>the song is all about. And not only do they
<v Speaker 2>talk about that that side of things, but then they
<v Speaker 2>also throw in, hey, this isn't just the bad guy Kamis.
<v Speaker 2>They're throwing in Kennedy right and Gandhi right. You know,
<v Speaker 2>it's this idea that, hey, we can take these mortal
<v Speaker 2>men and turn them into superheroes or super villains, no
<v Speaker 2>matter who they might be, because they've got some sort
<v Speaker 2>of charisma that, like, in our mind, creates a bigger
<v Speaker 2>and more powerful character.
<v Speaker 3>So let's do the list.
<v Speaker 1>You got Mussolini, you got Kennedy, yep, you got Gandhi,
<v Speaker 1>You've got Martin Luther King, you've got Malcolm X, you've
<v Speaker 1>got Jesus Christ alluded to you give them power in
<v Speaker 1>your God's name. But the one that they had to nick,
<v Speaker 1>they actually cut this one out.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah. I was gonna say, you may have to spell
<v Speaker 2>it because you know, the software out there picks up.
<v Speaker 2>We're talking about H I T L E R.
<v Speaker 3>And they're gonna like, thank you mix something I know
<v Speaker 3>right again.
<v Speaker 2>Hyper It's it's so I mean. And that's the reason
<v Speaker 2>they took it out is that it was they were
<v Speaker 2>worried that it was going to become too controversial. I
<v Speaker 2>can remember listening to the solo on this song and
<v Speaker 2>saying to myself, there is no rhyme or reason, there's
<v Speaker 2>no logic to what this guy is playing. And it's
<v Speaker 2>still blowing my freaking mind. Like it's all over the place.
<v Speaker 2>It doesn't follow any kind of you know, what you
<v Speaker 2>would expect as a pattern or scale, and it's still
<v Speaker 2>absolutely singable.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, it's like somebody.
<v Speaker 1>Spilled a box of belts, you know. It Just it's
<v Speaker 1>all over the place. It's chaotic and it's awesome.
<v Speaker 4>It's controlled chaos, and you look at Vernon's musical background
<v Speaker 4>you figure out where someone that came from. But like
<v Speaker 4>you guys said, it doesn't really make any melodic sense,
<v Speaker 4>but it somehow it works from the top of the
<v Speaker 4>guitar songs of all time, I think.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah.
<v Speaker 1>I heard the producer talking about it, said that Vernon
<v Speaker 1>Reed did it one time, hailed it. He said, he
<v Speaker 1>didn't give him any directions. He said, you don't f
<v Speaker 1>with art, right.
<v Speaker 2>They caught lightning in a bottle for sure. Yeah.
<v Speaker 3>So here's the interesting thing.
<v Speaker 1>They discovered this riff when they were trying to practice
<v Speaker 1>another song like they stumbled upon it.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, it actually came from Corey Glover humming something and
<v Speaker 2>then Vernon Reid hearing something in what he hummed and
<v Speaker 2>trying to recreate that on the guitar. That's where it hits.
<v Speaker 2>And then they're like, okay, well you know what are
<v Speaker 2>the lyrics? And Vernon Red opens up this little notebook
<v Speaker 2>that he has, first page that he comes to says,
<v Speaker 2>look in my eyes, what do you see? They called
<v Speaker 2>the personality?
<v Speaker 4>Reid said that that riff, he said it had a
<v Speaker 4>Zeppelin vibe, but it also had what he called a
<v Speaker 4>Mahavish New Orchestra vibe. Mahavish New Orchestra one of those
<v Speaker 4>crazy jazz fusion acts from the seventies who would play
<v Speaker 4>in Life one thirty seven eight times, gen for time
<v Speaker 4>signature and stuff like that. So once again there's this
<v Speaker 4>hard rock in his jazz influences getting slammed together and
<v Speaker 4>I'm up with one of the great risks of all time.
<v Speaker 1>By the way, in the studio, Ed Staceyum rearranged the song.
<v Speaker 1>So they had been playing this for years, right, they'd
<v Speaker 1>played this like thousands of times at CBGB's and stuff
<v Speaker 1>like that. Vernon Reid said, what you guys hear on
<v Speaker 1>the record is not what we had been playing for
<v Speaker 1>those first thousand times.
<v Speaker 3>He made us put the hook at the beginning of
<v Speaker 3>the song.
<v Speaker 1>When we look back on it, we're like, how did
<v Speaker 1>we not start with that great hook?
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, that's what a good producer will do for you.
<v Speaker 4>There's just a lot going on in the song. Man,
<v Speaker 4>it's all awesome.
<v Speaker 1>Let's talk about the importance of Michael Jackson's smooth Criminal
<v Speaker 1>on Curlt's personality.
<v Speaker 2>This is a story I've been waiting to hear. I
<v Speaker 2>deliberately did not go and look this up because you
<v Speaker 2>mentioned it. I'm like, this is a story. I want
<v Speaker 2>to just sit down and sit by the campfire and
<v Speaker 2>hear the story. Give out.
<v Speaker 3>Okay, all right, So here's the deal.
<v Speaker 1>Here's what we have to understand is that this album
<v Speaker 1>was released in May of nineteen eighty eight. It basically
<v Speaker 1>did nothing in the United States until April of eighty nine. Okay,
<v Speaker 1>so what's going on within that year, Well, they had
<v Speaker 1>released a couple of singles in Britain, but it hadn't broken,
<v Speaker 1>hadn't done anything in the US, and so Epic basically
<v Speaker 1>said to MTV, we will not give you Michael Jackson's
<v Speaker 1>smooth criminal video until you put Cult of Personality in
<v Speaker 1>heavy rotation.
<v Speaker 2>Wow.
<v Speaker 1>And at that moment when the King of Pop holds
<v Speaker 1>his video back, MTV is like, okay, deal heavy rotation
<v Speaker 1>for Cult Personality and that causes it to go through
<v Speaker 1>the room. So Michael Jackson and Mick Jagger have a
<v Speaker 1>huge impact on this success of Believing Color Awesome. By
<v Speaker 1>the way, they won the Grammy for Best Hard Rock
<v Speaker 1>Performance for this song. I watched the actual presentation. It
<v Speaker 1>was presented by Cindy Lauper and the B fifty twos.
<v Speaker 1>They also won the MTV Music Award for Best New
<v Speaker 1>Artist and Best Group Video. This was actually presented by
<v Speaker 1>Mick Jagger on stage because they opened. They opened for
<v Speaker 1>the Rolling Stones during the Steel Wills tour in September
<v Speaker 1>of eighty nine. Now listen, on this tour you had
<v Speaker 1>Living Color, Guns N' Roses and the Rolling Stones and
<v Speaker 1>James you just said your wife was.
<v Speaker 3>She just came out and told us.
<v Speaker 2>She was, that she was there.
<v Speaker 4>She saw it down in New Orleans.
<v Speaker 1>That would have been one amazing concert, especially at that moment,
<v Speaker 1>and actually Living Color kind of got in a war
<v Speaker 1>of words with Axel Rose over the lyrics.
<v Speaker 3>To one in a million.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, Axel, Yeah. He I think he had a daily
<v Speaker 4>list of people to tick off, and Vernon and the
<v Speaker 4>boys just happened to make it that day. The video
<v Speaker 4>blew away a lot of folks and opened up a
<v Speaker 4>lot of ears and eyes. I found that great quote
<v Speaker 4>from Tom Morello for Rage against the Machine.
<v Speaker 3>Yes, he said that.
<v Speaker 4>I was absolutely blown away that queerly there were other
<v Speaker 4>African Americans who unapologetically love led Zeppelin and wanted to
<v Speaker 4>shrew it.
<v Speaker 2>You know.
<v Speaker 1>De mentioned the body glove that Corey Glover wears in
<v Speaker 1>that video. He said when he was shopping, he was like,
<v Speaker 1>you know, I want something kind of splashy.
<v Speaker 3>I want to look cool.
<v Speaker 1>Well, body Glove took notice of that, and they started
<v Speaker 1>sending him stuff to wear for his concert. He said,
<v Speaker 1>everything that sent me looked more and more like superheroes. Okay,
<v Speaker 1>the Billboard Hot one hundred for May sixth, nineteen eighty nine. Okay,
<v Speaker 1>I've got to roll through this real quick. Okay, but
<v Speaker 1>what number did this? Do we know what number? The
<v Speaker 1>shit thirteen is where it topped out.
<v Speaker 3>That's nuts thirteen Okay.
<v Speaker 2>So that means that people thought there were twelve songs
<v Speaker 2>better than that.
<v Speaker 1>Now the twelve songs that are quote unquote better than this.
<v Speaker 1>I told you this is like a list of my
<v Speaker 1>mom's favorite songs from nineteen eighty nine.
<v Speaker 3>Okay, all right, so here you go.
<v Speaker 1>I want to start at fifteen because we're getting ready
<v Speaker 1>to do rain Man here in a few months. And
<v Speaker 1>so at number fifteen you have ico Ico by the
<v Speaker 1>Bell Stars, popular from the movie rain Many. Number fourteen
<v Speaker 1>rock On by Michael Damien, soap opera star Michael Damien,
<v Speaker 1>I actually.
<v Speaker 2>Liked that song.
<v Speaker 3>That's a good song.
<v Speaker 1>Then you have cult personality. Then you have the song
<v Speaker 1>thinking of You by Sapphire. Okay, gets number eleven Heaven
<v Speaker 1>Helped Me by dion Estes. She drives Me Crazy by
<v Speaker 1>the fine Young Cannibals.
<v Speaker 2>I would rather have a nail up my foot to
<v Speaker 2>can currect me. Please, don't you have room to move?
<v Speaker 1>By an emotion which we talked about last week. Right,
<v Speaker 1>you have Soldier of Love by Donnie Osmond. Oh my god,
<v Speaker 1>Donny Osmond beats out cult personality?
<v Speaker 3>Are you kidding me?
<v Speaker 2>Nuts?
<v Speaker 3>After all?
<v Speaker 1>By Peter Satara and share second Chance by thirty eight, Special,
<v Speaker 1>Forever Your Girl by Paula Abdul Funky, Cale Medina by
<v Speaker 1>Tone Loke, Real Love by Jodie Wattley, I'll Be There
<v Speaker 1>for You by Bon Jovie, and.
<v Speaker 3>Like a Prayer by Madonna.
<v Speaker 2>Wow.
<v Speaker 3>That's a little bit of a rough list.
<v Speaker 2>Some of those are decent songs, but most of them
<v Speaker 2>are not, and none of them are better than this song.
<v Speaker 2>I agree with that.
<v Speaker 1>I agree with that Cult Personality is the best song
<v Speaker 1>on that list for sure.
<v Speaker 2>Okay, guys, time to move on. I hate to do
<v Speaker 2>it because this is such a nuclear bomb of a song,
<v Speaker 2>but song number two on the album I want to Know.
<v Speaker 4>I think it's kind of funny that you're discussing this
<v Speaker 4>album in tandem with a Poison album, because honestly, the
<v Speaker 4>riff of this song I could have seen it being
<v Speaker 4>on any a big hair metal hit. It just shows
<v Speaker 4>the variety of the band. This is more of their upbeat,
<v Speaker 4>poppy side. I love it. It's got a great riff, great solo,
<v Speaker 4>Corey Glover singing his tail off as usual. This should
<v Speaker 4>have been a massive hit as well.
<v Speaker 3>I think you're right. I think it's poppy.
<v Speaker 7>I know.
<v Speaker 3>Side melodic, is kind of fun.
<v Speaker 2>It's toe tapper, Like you said, the music is some
<v Speaker 2>very hair band ish. Honestly, it kind of it predates it,
<v Speaker 2>I know, but it kind of reminds me of the
<v Speaker 2>song from Dumb and Dumber She don't eat meat, but
<v Speaker 2>she sure likes the bone song.
<v Speaker 4>What's that called? What was by a Louisiana.
<v Speaker 2>Band, dig new age girl, so similar, so out of that,
<v Speaker 2>And I said, I realized it predates it. The lyrics though,
<v Speaker 2>like it's almost like a new kid's on the block
<v Speaker 2>boy band style on these lyrics. I mean it's and
<v Speaker 2>he I think they've they've doubled his or maybe even
<v Speaker 2>tripled or quadrupled his voice to give that kind of
<v Speaker 2>harmony sound to it. But it is, it's very it's
<v Speaker 2>very boy band on the lyrics side of things.
<v Speaker 4>On the song, it's got an epic guitar solo at
<v Speaker 4>the end, which you know would not have been out
<v Speaker 4>of place on a darking song or something like that.
<v Speaker 1>According to vernon Read, this song is about unrequited angst,
<v Speaker 1>and he says there's some lyrics in this song.
<v Speaker 3>That he would take back today.
<v Speaker 1>So there's some things even when you talk about like
<v Speaker 1>a male crushing on a female. Some things he wrote
<v Speaker 1>in there, like I'm standing in the shadows baby, he
<v Speaker 1>said with the me Too movement, he's not as comfortable
<v Speaker 1>with those lyrics as he once was, and so he
<v Speaker 1>would probably change those today.
<v Speaker 3>But I don't care. I think this is a great song.
<v Speaker 3>I love it, or two for two right out of
<v Speaker 3>the gate for me.
<v Speaker 4>Well, I mean standing in the metaphorical shadows doesn't really
<v Speaker 4>quite have the same do it.
<v Speaker 2>So there's a Police song from nineteen eighty three that'll
<v Speaker 2>put this on the day, that's true.
<v Speaker 4>I do not skip a single track on this album,
<v Speaker 4>and I think almost any one of them could have
<v Speaker 4>been a hit. So this is clearly proves my point.
<v Speaker 3>I totally agree.
<v Speaker 2>Okay, moving on to song number three on the album,
<v Speaker 2>Middleman all Right, another Jimmy Page influenced click to start
<v Speaker 2>this song out the guitar on this is so freaking awesome.
<v Speaker 2>I love it. He's got a phaser in there giving
<v Speaker 2>it this kind of lanngee wah sound. I dig it.
<v Speaker 2>I like this song a lot.
<v Speaker 4>Was this one released as a single.
<v Speaker 3>This was released.
<v Speaker 1>This was the first single released in May of eighty
<v Speaker 1>eight in the.
<v Speaker 3>UK, not in the US, though.
<v Speaker 4>I can't understand this one not being a smash shit
<v Speaker 4>either mean lyrically, it's very deep. The music is it
<v Speaker 4>called fantastic music. Will Calhoun plays some incredible drums on
<v Speaker 4>the s Vernon plays another ethic solo. I mean, all
<v Speaker 4>the Living Color trademarks are here.
<v Speaker 3>Okay.
<v Speaker 1>The most amazing thing about this song is how we
<v Speaker 1>got the lyrics to it. This comes from the suicide
<v Speaker 1>note that Corey Glover wrote from when he was a teenager.
<v Speaker 2>Gosh, you know this story, Oh tell me more.
<v Speaker 1>So Corey Glover, I guess, had kind of had it
<v Speaker 1>with everybody. He was caught in the middle of everybody's
<v Speaker 1>mess and sort of the tug of life, and he
<v Speaker 1>wrote out a suicide letter, I'm sick of this. I'm
<v Speaker 1>tired of being in the middle. I don't want to
<v Speaker 1>be caught in this anymore, tired to be in the middleman.
<v Speaker 1>So when Vernon Reied writes the music to this, he
<v Speaker 1>pulls out that letter and that becomes song Middleman.
<v Speaker 2>But wow.
<v Speaker 1>Actually he was talking about this during an interview and
<v Speaker 1>Vernon reed this is the first song they collaborated on together.
<v Speaker 1>And Vernon Reed's sitting there He's like, what are you
<v Speaker 1>talking about? He had no idea they had written it,
<v Speaker 1>they had recorded it, they put it on the album,
<v Speaker 1>and he had no idea that it.
<v Speaker 2>Was written form a suicide note.
<v Speaker 4>Wow.
<v Speaker 3>I thought that was fantastic.
<v Speaker 1>By the way, whenever they opened for the Rolling Stones,
<v Speaker 1>this was the song they opened with. They took the
<v Speaker 1>stage and they said, hey everyone, We're a living color
<v Speaker 1>and no no, no, no, no, no no.
<v Speaker 3>And that's how they started.
<v Speaker 4>And then I know you liked the cross handed drum
<v Speaker 4>build up.
<v Speaker 3>I did.
<v Speaker 1>I text you say, hey, man, can you can you
<v Speaker 1>do that? You sent me a video about ten seconds later.
<v Speaker 1>Have you cross handed drumming?
<v Speaker 4>Yeah? It looks it looks cool, but it's not that
<v Speaker 4>hard compared to the rest of the stuff he plays
<v Speaker 4>on this album. Oh my god, guys, an absolute beast.
<v Speaker 4>This song is one of my top three or four
<v Speaker 4>favorite songs on the album.
<v Speaker 3>Okay, I love it, fantastic. Three for three, All right, yes,
<v Speaker 3>three for three.
<v Speaker 2>We're on to number four. This song is called Desperate
<v Speaker 2>People Now. On this one, I got all kinds of
<v Speaker 2>Aerosmith going on. This is so strong on the Aerosmith
<v Speaker 2>vibe that.
<v Speaker 3>Dun Dunda Dunda du du Yeah, Okay.
<v Speaker 2>This is a great, great build for the beginning of
<v Speaker 2>the song, and they keep on building, they keep on building,
<v Speaker 2>and then you get that primal yell by Corey. I
<v Speaker 2>was I was just like, whoa, this is going to
<v Speaker 2>go somewhere. And then when they come in with the lyrics,
<v Speaker 2>he's got that gruff voice going on instead of his
<v Speaker 2>more melodic voice, and it's hitting all those hair metal
<v Speaker 2>feels that I needed to hear back in nineteen eighty nine.
<v Speaker 4>I love it. I love how that chaotic opening sequence
<v Speaker 4>just goes straight into that monster riff and Corey's voice
<v Speaker 4>on this one. Man, I'm with d on this. I
<v Speaker 4>like he shows the more aggressive side of a singing
<v Speaker 4>and a couple of those whales he does this make
<v Speaker 4>the non existent hair stand up on the back of
<v Speaker 4>my neck.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, so you got that interesting that fast rock and start,
<v Speaker 1>and then it slows into this this power rock anthem
<v Speaker 1>You a Paper. I told Dee that I thought this
<v Speaker 1>was one of the best songs on the album. I
<v Speaker 1>love it, and I'm with you, guys, Corey's vocals on
<v Speaker 1>this song, outside of Culture Personality, may be the strongest
<v Speaker 1>on the album.
<v Speaker 3>I love what he's doing on this song.
<v Speaker 4>Particularly after the guitar solo that comes in, his voice
<v Speaker 4>even gets a little harsher and gruffer, and I like that.
<v Speaker 4>The intensity of the song just builds all the way
<v Speaker 4>to the end.
<v Speaker 3>So interesting.
<v Speaker 1>The lyrics on this song, Vernon Reed talks about how
<v Speaker 1>this song is definitely about addiction, but also about the
<v Speaker 1>people in your life that encourage addiction. He even brings
<v Speaker 1>up the old cliche that misery loves company.
<v Speaker 4>There was a line where says you get your sun
<v Speaker 4>shine from a tab of paper, which I guess I
<v Speaker 4>assume that meant somebody taking someone llucinogenics or LSD or something.
<v Speaker 4>So yeah, it was definitely its abuse element to this.
<v Speaker 1>There is a breakdown in the middle of this song
<v Speaker 1>that I just I love.
<v Speaker 3>I think it's fantastic.
<v Speaker 4>And that chunky rhythm part, Man, I love that the
<v Speaker 4>rhythm guitar in this burning is a mean. He can
<v Speaker 4>play these incredible epic solos and he can play just
<v Speaker 4>the most bad a rhythm part. You gotta love the
<v Speaker 4>guy again. I mean, we're what four for four now
<v Speaker 4>four for four not bad odds?
<v Speaker 2>Okay, we are moving on to what I would say
<v Speaker 2>is my second favorite song on the album. This one
<v Speaker 2>is a little slower, a little smoother. This one's called
<v Speaker 2>Open Letter to a landboll.
<v Speaker 8>Now you can terri banding down, but you canny race.
<v Speaker 7>Memory. These houses made of all.
<v Speaker 8>Down, but they have a vain you can't see.
<v Speaker 2>So again, just amazing change and still beauty. You've got
<v Speaker 2>Vernon playing this muted guitar. It's so subtle you almost
<v Speaker 2>don't hear it, but they're doing a little harmonizing behind,
<v Speaker 2>using the os behind it. Yeah, it's so like a
<v Speaker 2>choir at a church. He comes in singing such a
<v Speaker 2>soulful beginning to this song. It is sweet and beautiful,
<v Speaker 2>and then all of a sudden they come in with
<v Speaker 2>the drums and just start cranking away.
<v Speaker 4>Jason and I texting about this album, one of the
<v Speaker 4>things we both really appreciated was how they managed to
<v Speaker 4>address social issues without getting overly preachy. And this song
<v Speaker 4>was about the gentrification of some of the poor neighborhoods
<v Speaker 4>in New York at the time, how the buildings for
<v Speaker 4>people to live for generations were being torn down and
<v Speaker 4>replaced by newer buildings that the people who lived there
<v Speaker 4>previously couldn't afford and they make it to a really beautiful,
<v Speaker 4>compelling song, but it doesn't feel like they're preaching at you.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, I would say that the verse is are sad
<v Speaker 1>and angry, but the chorus is uplifting. I texted you,
<v Speaker 1>I'm like, this song is so beautiful it needs strings.
<v Speaker 1>I would love to hear this song played by the
<v Speaker 1>London Symphony or something like that.
<v Speaker 3>I read how Vernon Reid was talking about how.
<v Speaker 1>The Black Rock Coalition group that he helped form, was
<v Speaker 1>very concerned that some of the buildings had been torn
<v Speaker 1>down to make way for the gap.
<v Speaker 4>There was a guy named Tracy Morris who was another
<v Speaker 4>member of the Black Rock Coalition. He was more a
<v Speaker 4>poet than a musician, but evidently he worked with Vernon.
<v Speaker 4>He gave Vernon some of the stanzas and lines for
<v Speaker 4>that song, and Vernon incorporated it into the overall song.
<v Speaker 4>This is another great example of what incredible musicians these
<v Speaker 4>guys are. We talked about it. The dynamics, that soft
<v Speaker 4>general opening, really crunchy choruses, and at the end that
<v Speaker 4>big fade out with all the background vocals. It's just masterpiece.
<v Speaker 4>Did they perform this one on Satday Night? Live. Maybe
<v Speaker 4>I know they performed Cult of Personality.
<v Speaker 1>But it probably was this song that they did on
<v Speaker 1>Saturday Night Live.
<v Speaker 4>That article I've showed you guys. It was a funny
<v Speaker 4>line in it. There's a singer named was John Witherspoon.
<v Speaker 4>It's for a heavy metal band called seven Dust.
<v Speaker 2>Uh huh.
<v Speaker 4>I said, they just mentioned the title of this song
<v Speaker 4>to him, an instantly he sang the first verse. That
<v Speaker 4>was a pretty big influence on him as well.
<v Speaker 2>Okay, so this is one of the singles off of
<v Speaker 2>the album. Yes had a video with it. Yes video
<v Speaker 2>was directed by Drew Carolyn, who was the same guy
<v Speaker 2>who directed the Cult of Personality video. Uh huh. They
<v Speaker 2>shot a bunch of live footage at a place called
<v Speaker 2>Toad's Place in New Haven in front of a live audience.
<v Speaker 2>Adam Command. But this was right before they left on
<v Speaker 2>the Steel Wheels tour with.
<v Speaker 4>And I do know that from listening to this cassette
<v Speaker 4>over and over again, back and forth to school, that
<v Speaker 4>this was the last song on side once you know
<v Speaker 4>what that means.
<v Speaker 1>It's Bud your tap player, kick it out, flip it
<v Speaker 1>over for side to first song is funny Vibe.
<v Speaker 2>So the beginning of this song, I'm like, ooh, this
<v Speaker 2>is like STP came and stole this stuff from them. Man,
<v Speaker 2>this is so free grunge music. I'm totally digging it.
<v Speaker 2>And then all of a sudden they totally switch gears
<v Speaker 2>and they go into this very jazzy lead going on
<v Speaker 2>lead riff and must skillings is just slapping the crap
<v Speaker 2>out of the base on the song. And then when
<v Speaker 2>the lyrics come in, I'm like, are we channeling run
<v Speaker 2>DMC here? This is like total hip hop from eighty three?
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, I mean it's wrap, it's funk, it's rock.
<v Speaker 3>I get Prince vibes from this one.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, yeah, that too for sure.
<v Speaker 4>This is where the band's funk background really began to show.
<v Speaker 4>I mean, the guitar solo sounds like something Eddie Hazel
<v Speaker 4>from Harlam and Funkadela could have played. And of course,
<v Speaker 4>you know, we got sneak appearances by Chuck Dee in
<v Speaker 4>Flavor Flavor from Public Enemy shout out.
<v Speaker 3>Oh right, how cool is that?
<v Speaker 4>It sounds like it was based on more personal experiences,
<v Speaker 4>just people seeing in the streets and being threatened by
<v Speaker 4>them saying no, no, I'm just a normal guy trying
<v Speaker 4>to go about my life, not gonna hurt you, You're
<v Speaker 4>not gonna do anything.
<v Speaker 1>Just well, here's the deal. Yeah, So Vernon Reid was
<v Speaker 1>in a department store. He said he was having the
<v Speaker 1>best day of his life. He was in a great mood,
<v Speaker 1>and he got on an elevator and there was an
<v Speaker 1>older woman in the elevator with him and when he
<v Speaker 1>looked at her, he kind of looked at her smiled,
<v Speaker 1>and she sort of subconsciously clutched her handbag and moved
<v Speaker 1>to the corner. And he said, it just enraged him.
<v Speaker 1>And so the lyrics from this song came out of
<v Speaker 1>that experience. No I'm not gonna rob you, No I'm
<v Speaker 1>not gonna beat you, No I'm not gonna rape you.
<v Speaker 1>I saw a video during COVID and you had the
<v Speaker 1>drummer from Anthrax, Charlie Benante. Then you had the bassis
<v Speaker 1>from Suicidal Tendencies Rodiez, and then the guitarist from Butcher Babies.
<v Speaker 1>His name is Henry Flurry, and they got together over
<v Speaker 1>Zoom and they're gonna play their version of Funny Vibe,
<v Speaker 1>and so they said, well, we need a singer. But
<v Speaker 1>if you're going to cover Living Color, you got to
<v Speaker 1>get somebody who could really sing, so they called Corey Glover,
<v Speaker 1>and Corey Glover got on there with him and they're
<v Speaker 1>doing the four way zoom thing and it is awesome.
<v Speaker 3>You've got to check that out.
<v Speaker 4>Unless I'm mistaken, I think that at some point in
<v Speaker 4>the late eighties and or very early nineties, Living Color
<v Speaker 4>and Anthrax may have toured together.
<v Speaker 3>Oh wow, Okay, that's cool.
<v Speaker 1>I showed this as the last single from Vivid, although
<v Speaker 1>their schedule of releasing singles is so messy, I can't
<v Speaker 1>tell what's first and what's last. There's also so a
<v Speaker 1>false ending in this song that's really cool. It fades out,
<v Speaker 1>fades out, fades out, you think the song is done,
<v Speaker 1>and then it crashes back in.
<v Speaker 3>I love it.
<v Speaker 4>I'm swear I think we're six for six now.
<v Speaker 1>All right, let's move on to the next song on
<v Speaker 1>the album. This song is called Memories Can't Wait.
<v Speaker 2>Okay, so this.
<v Speaker 3>Is a cover?
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, it is.
<v Speaker 2>Is a cover of the Talking Head song Memories Can't Wait.
<v Speaker 2>It was off of their nineteen seventy nine album called
<v Speaker 2>Ear of Music. It wasn't a single off of that album.
<v Speaker 2>It wasn't some big hit. I'm not really sure why
<v Speaker 2>they chose this song. I mean, it's kind of interesting
<v Speaker 2>to listen to. Have you guys heard the Talking Heads version?
<v Speaker 1>No, let's listen to it. Despite evidence to the contrary,
<v Speaker 1>these are the same song.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, the drum I can hear the song the same
<v Speaker 2>drum beat. Beyond that seems like a very different kind
<v Speaker 2>of song.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah.
<v Speaker 1>So interestingly, the producer on this album, Ed Stacian, had
<v Speaker 1>produced for the Talking Heads, so there's that connection.
<v Speaker 4>Vernon Reed probably came up because of his age and
<v Speaker 4>the time he was in New York. I mean, they
<v Speaker 4>were a big part of the late seventies New York
<v Speaker 4>rock scenes, so I'm sure he was familiar with the
<v Speaker 4>band and their material.
<v Speaker 1>Well, yeah, Talking Heads were big at CBGB's and so
<v Speaker 1>he was also a fan of post punk, and so
<v Speaker 1>he said he felt a connection to them, and so
<v Speaker 1>he wanted to cover one of their songs. This one,
<v Speaker 1>to me is a little off Bullseye.
<v Speaker 4>I enjoy it just because you got those big booming
<v Speaker 4>drums that come in throughout the song. And again, I
<v Speaker 4>think Corey sings really well on It's kind of got
<v Speaker 4>a darker field than some of the other material, so
<v Speaker 4>it wouldn't be one of my top songs off the album,
<v Speaker 4>but I still enjoy it.
<v Speaker 2>It's kind of interesting to listen to. But this is
<v Speaker 2>not my style of.
<v Speaker 1>Music, right, Well, let's move on to the next song.
<v Speaker 1>Ladies and gentlemen, put your hands together, Broken hearts.
<v Speaker 4>Joy.
<v Speaker 2>Okay, So the introduction is a guy named Dennis Diamond
<v Speaker 2>saying doing the carnival barking there. Then we get a
<v Speaker 2>harmonica come in. You know who's playing the harmonica, Big Jagger?
<v Speaker 1>Oh well cool.
<v Speaker 6>Yeah.
<v Speaker 2>He was also involved with some production on some of
<v Speaker 2>the later songs that we're gonna talk about here in
<v Speaker 2>a second, but he played the harmonica on that. This
<v Speaker 2>song is it's got a very wild horses.
<v Speaker 3>On the rolling stones alte to it.
<v Speaker 2>But I think somebody forgot to tell Will Calhoun, like,
<v Speaker 2>you don't have a country honky tonk drum beat going on.
<v Speaker 2>You've got a big old boom boom boom, and I'm
<v Speaker 2>just like it works. I don't know why it works,
<v Speaker 2>but somehow we've got this steel guitar, this honky tonk sound,
<v Speaker 2>the harmonica, the doop de doo and big drums, and
<v Speaker 2>somehow they still make it work.
<v Speaker 6>Then change.
<v Speaker 1>Bernar Reid said this was a straight up love song
<v Speaker 1>and their attempt to mix country, blues and hip hop.
<v Speaker 4>I think this song pretty much belongs to Corey and Muzz.
<v Speaker 4>Corey sings beautifully throughout it, and if you listen, Muzz
<v Speaker 4>has that burbling bass going through the whole thing. He
<v Speaker 4>even plays a bass solo and which you don't really
<v Speaker 4>hear a lot in pop radio. He plays a very
<v Speaker 4>melodic bass solo that leads right into one of Burnin's
<v Speaker 4>most beautiful solos. So, yeah, this song definitely works for me.
<v Speaker 1>Berni Reid said that this song is just like Old
<v Speaker 1>Town Road just thirty years earlier.
<v Speaker 2>Well, I like this song better than that song. This
<v Speaker 2>is the one. This is the song on the album
<v Speaker 2>that was like the hidden gym for me. I had
<v Speaker 2>never bought this song, bego, I didn't have this album.
<v Speaker 2>I got to this song and I'm like, wow, I
<v Speaker 2>really really dig the song.
<v Speaker 3>It's great, great, it's great.
<v Speaker 1>Once again, Vernar Reed talks about the similarities between country
<v Speaker 1>and hip hop because they're both story based and they're anecdotal.
<v Speaker 7>Yeah, I love this song.
<v Speaker 3>I think it's great, it's pretty. It's the power ballad
<v Speaker 3>of the album yep.
<v Speaker 2>So is this a single? Yep.
<v Speaker 4>I don't think it was, which was a huge miss
<v Speaker 4>in my estimation.
<v Speaker 3>Okay, moving on.
<v Speaker 2>So I mentioned before Mick Jagger involved in the producing
<v Speaker 2>side on some of these songs. This is the first
<v Speaker 2>of those songs. Another big hit off the album song
<v Speaker 2>number nine, Lammer Boys.
<v Speaker 9>The Drama Boys, Well they are the Drama Boys.
<v Speaker 2>The grand uncle on song all right, give me a
<v Speaker 2>killer drum beat, yep, give me a funky bass line, yep,
<v Speaker 2>give me a happy little rhythm guitar yep. Now give
<v Speaker 2>me some lyrics with a melody that are an absolute hook.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah.
<v Speaker 2>I don't know how the song didn't chart better than
<v Speaker 2>it did. This is like a perfect little song.
<v Speaker 1>It's a great little pop song, right.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, funny, funky, great playing, funny lyrics, everything you need.
<v Speaker 3>No, this is so fun. It's it's a pop song.
<v Speaker 3>It's fun, it's catchy, it's radio friendly.
<v Speaker 2>You know.
<v Speaker 3>I love my radio friendly hits.
<v Speaker 9>Yes.
<v Speaker 3>I texted James this week.
<v Speaker 1>And I said, ps, I'm not a glamor boy, and
<v Speaker 1>he texted me right back, I'm.
<v Speaker 2>Fierce right, and they and they kind of they come
<v Speaker 2>in with a little harder guitar right there when they
<v Speaker 2>say I'm fierce, just so that they know that, you know,
<v Speaker 2>they're not just about being radio friendly. They are fierce.
<v Speaker 3>They are fierce.
<v Speaker 4>It's funny, it's funky, it's got those clever lyrics. D
<v Speaker 4>what's talking about? I mean this? This could have been
<v Speaker 4>a smash.
<v Speaker 1>Okay, have you guys seen the video to this song
<v Speaker 1>since nineteen eighty nine?
<v Speaker 4>No?
<v Speaker 1>Probably not Okay, so obviously it's it's putting down the
<v Speaker 1>sort of the party guys who spend all their money
<v Speaker 1>on clothes to get girls, but they have.
<v Speaker 3>No real substance in the video.
<v Speaker 1>They have these huge plastic like Kendall masks.
<v Speaker 3>That they wear around.
<v Speaker 1>They look ridiculous and it's funny, like there's they're really
<v Speaker 1>showing their sense of humor in this video.
<v Speaker 4>Does put them in a very dubious position. I love
<v Speaker 4>this song. It wasn't it nominated for a Best Rock
<v Speaker 4>Duo Performance like in ninety or ninety one?
<v Speaker 1>So I guess nominated for a Grammy for Best Rock
<v Speaker 1>Perfer Performance by a Duo or Group in nineteen ninety
<v Speaker 1>And just so.
<v Speaker 2>We don't leave it out, the Oklahoma Boys have to
<v Speaker 2>say they also put the Ou and Glamour.
<v Speaker 3>Yes, good job.
<v Speaker 4>Maybe Vernon's a secret fan.
<v Speaker 3>I think he is.
<v Speaker 1>This song reached number thirty one on the Hot one hundred.
<v Speaker 1>Do you want to hear the thirty No, I'm just kidding, Okay,
<v Speaker 1>I've got to read this to you because my mind
<v Speaker 1>was blown by this.
<v Speaker 3>Okay.
<v Speaker 1>The music video was directed by Graham Elliott and John England.
<v Speaker 1>Both these guys went to the Royal College of Art
<v Speaker 1>in London. They were the ones who designed the album
<v Speaker 1>cover for Vivid. Okay, so, and this is after Vernon
<v Speaker 1>Reid saw a postcard that they did and asked for them.
<v Speaker 1>When they started working on it, the album did not
<v Speaker 1>have a name and the band didn't have a logo yet,
<v Speaker 1>so they sketched a placeholder logo and inserted a temporary
<v Speaker 1>positioner where the album title would go with the name
<v Speaker 1>and design house they were working under the name of
<v Speaker 1>the design house they were working under, Vivid. That is
<v Speaker 1>how the album got its name. Vernon Reeds saw the
<v Speaker 1>album cover look said, looks great. That title right there
<v Speaker 1>looks great. We're keeping it living color Vivid.
<v Speaker 4>That's awesome And this is why I love you guys.
<v Speaker 4>That's a kind of deep dives you do not get
<v Speaker 4>anywhere else. All.
<v Speaker 3>Right, on to the next song.
<v Speaker 1>This song is called What's your Favorite Color Baby?
<v Speaker 4>Living Color?
<v Speaker 5>Ye, what's your favorite color baby?
<v Speaker 1>Okay, I told you guys all last night I was
<v Speaker 1>walking around my house.
<v Speaker 3>At the point of my daughter, I'm like, what's your
<v Speaker 3>favorite color? Baby?
<v Speaker 1>She didn't know to repeat back to me Living Color?
<v Speaker 3>But what's your favorite color baby?
<v Speaker 7>Y color?
<v Speaker 2>What's Yeah? It was still fun. This song sounds so
<v Speaker 2>much like the intro song for the series that would
<v Speaker 2>come out two years later. You had to have stolen, right.
<v Speaker 1>Well, I mean it's it's like a TV theme song, right, Well.
<v Speaker 2>It does. It sounds like that, but because I know
<v Speaker 2>it as a TV theme song, right, I mean, the
<v Speaker 2>guy who is the composer for in Living Color, the
<v Speaker 2>series that we reference at the beginning of the episode, right,
<v Speaker 2>is a guy named Tom Rizzo. They're not giving any
<v Speaker 2>credit to the Living Color. Oh, you guys, it's just
<v Speaker 2>seems very similar.
<v Speaker 3>Very similar. Let's listen to that theme song real quick.
<v Speaker 3>Sounds awfully familiar.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, in terms of copyright law, I don't think Homie,
<v Speaker 4>I don't think Homie likes that.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, Well, Homie did not play that one.
<v Speaker 2>I got a song about it. I'd like to hear
<v Speaker 2>it here go.
<v Speaker 1>Bernie Ree talks about how this is their theme.
<v Speaker 3>Song, right yeah, He's like Chic had a theme.
<v Speaker 1>Song, you know, you know, Bad Company had a song
<v Speaker 1>called bad Company. This is our theme song. What's your
<v Speaker 1>favorite color?
<v Speaker 3>Color?
<v Speaker 4>And this song should almost be a joke or a filler,
<v Speaker 4>but somehow it works. As you start off with that crunchy,
<v Speaker 4>metallic real then you get funky with a capital f
<v Speaker 4>u n k y. It's fun. I mean, there's no
<v Speaker 4>great lyrical significance to it. It's just a fun song.
<v Speaker 3>But it's only two minutes long.
<v Speaker 2>Just fyi. My favorite color is green, but I'm not mean.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah. Leading up to this, I was talking to a
<v Speaker 4>friend of mine named Jeff Bowders, who's an amazing drummer
<v Speaker 4>in Los Angeles, and because he was also a big
<v Speaker 4>fan of Will Calhoun's playing on this album, you know,
<v Speaker 4>we spent a few moments of geeking out about that.
<v Speaker 4>So hopefully you'll have a new listener out in Los
<v Speaker 4>Angeles for this is over with awesome.
<v Speaker 3>What's up Jeff howy doing?
<v Speaker 2>Buddy? Is he a Skins hitter? As well.
<v Speaker 4>He is. Yeah, he is to a very advanced degree.
<v Speaker 2>My drummer. My favorite line from high school was somebody
<v Speaker 2>was introducing my drummer to somebody and they said, this
<v Speaker 2>is Kevin. You can't go five minutes without beating on something.
<v Speaker 3>Well, Jeff, it's good to have you. I hope you
<v Speaker 3>enjoy what you're hearing.
<v Speaker 1>Hit us up on Facebook, hit us up on Twitter,
<v Speaker 1>send us an email.
<v Speaker 3>I love to hear from you.
<v Speaker 2>Welcome to the family, Jeff.
<v Speaker 1>All right, So that brings us to the last song
<v Speaker 1>on the album. This song is called Which Way to America?
<v Speaker 2>Muzzin will knocking it out of the park again. I
<v Speaker 2>mean he comes in with a machine gun style on
<v Speaker 2>the drums on this one, and then with the chorus,
<v Speaker 2>Vernon is playing this very funky, like you would describe
<v Speaker 2>as a Prince style rhythm. But then when they come
<v Speaker 2>in in a chorus, it's like heavy metal, hard rock,
<v Speaker 2>right in your face, crunchy guitar. They again, this is
<v Speaker 2>like every other song on this album, but it really
<v Speaker 2>kind of is the key to finish off the album
<v Speaker 2>of You Can't Put Us in a Box.
<v Speaker 4>It's got a really heavy, propulsive feel that I love
<v Speaker 4>and we talked to Earlie about their ability to work
<v Speaker 4>social issues into their lyrics without becoming overly preachy, and
<v Speaker 4>this one talking about how one person's view of the
<v Speaker 4>American dream may be a little bit different than the other.
<v Speaker 4>I thought they had some really deep lyrics. I changed
<v Speaker 4>the channel your America is doing fine. I read the
<v Speaker 4>headlines my America is doing fine. After the kind of
<v Speaker 4>whimsical nature of Glamour Boys and what Your Favorite Color?
<v Speaker 4>This is kind of a slightly more down song, but
<v Speaker 4>it's got very intelligent lyrics and the music is just incredible.
<v Speaker 1>Henri says, this is the difference between the idealized America
<v Speaker 1>home and heart and life on the streets. This is
<v Speaker 1>a little bit off center for me. I'm more of
<v Speaker 1>the Glamour Boys radio friendly hits, but it's impossible not
<v Speaker 1>to tap my toe to this one.
<v Speaker 4>These guys, even when they're heavy music and heavy issues,
<v Speaker 4>they still make it pretty. It is that funk background. Man,
<v Speaker 4>those guys make it tap your toe even to most
<v Speaker 4>serious songs on the album.
<v Speaker 2>I would be curious as to what they set the
<v Speaker 2>metronome at on this one. This This tempo is so
<v Speaker 2>freaking fast in this song, I've got to think it's
<v Speaker 2>like one forty or one fifty or something.
<v Speaker 3>I mean, it's cook it.
<v Speaker 4>It is definitely a fast one of their faster songs
<v Speaker 4>and share other songs they'll throw in these quick, almost
<v Speaker 4>speed metal parts and they work it in so seamless.
<v Speaker 4>So that's just I guess just how talented these guys are.
<v Speaker 4>They can blend the thrash with the funk and never
<v Speaker 4>miss a step.
<v Speaker 10>Okay, guys, So that does it for Vivid. We are
<v Speaker 10>now going into final judgment before Jason and James and
<v Speaker 10>I tell you what we think. We got Dale Selby
<v Speaker 10>to give us his opinion on Open Up and say,
<v Speaker 10>Ah versus Vivid.
<v Speaker 2>Well, what do you think, man?
<v Speaker 11>Well, we discussed it. Two very different albums. You probably
<v Speaker 11>couldn't put them on farther sides of the spectrum. You've
<v Speaker 11>got the one that's political, that's making a statement, very
<v Speaker 11>different kind of music, you know, You've got the wrap
<v Speaker 11>the rock kind of intertwined. Obviously, different types of guys
<v Speaker 11>who are doing the albums themselves. Right, both of them
<v Speaker 11>incredible albums from the year of nineteen eighty eight. I
<v Speaker 11>think Vivid for me is not as fun, right, it's
<v Speaker 11>not as rock and roll, maybe as as Open Up
<v Speaker 11>and Say Ah was has some great tracks on it.
<v Speaker 11>Cult of Personality was a mega hit when we were
<v Speaker 11>fifteen years old. Great song, great great song for me.
<v Speaker 11>I think in the end, though, when I was fifteen,
<v Speaker 11>I was into having fun and driving with the windows
<v Speaker 11>down and having Open Up and say Ah cranked. I'm
<v Speaker 11>gonna go with Open Up and say Aw.
<v Speaker 2>Not surprised, fantastic, not surprised.
<v Speaker 1>James, you're our guest. Please go first between Open Up
<v Speaker 1>and Say Ah by Poison or Vivid by Living Color.
<v Speaker 4>I had both albums. I love both albums. Open Up
<v Speaker 4>and Say Ah. It was I thought a fairly serious
<v Speaker 4>step forward for the band. There was some great riffs,
<v Speaker 4>the songwriting and improved, great production, and it was pretty
<v Speaker 4>much hop metal perfection. But over the decades, I don't
<v Speaker 4>find myself going back to it as much, and I'll
<v Speaker 4>hear some of the songs in the radio and enjoy it.
<v Speaker 4>But I listened to Vivid a lot still. Every time
<v Speaker 4>i'll listen to it, I'll get something new. It meant
<v Speaker 4>more to me as a musician and just a music
<v Speaker 4>lover than the other album did. I don't think there's
<v Speaker 4>any question that if you called the members of Poison,
<v Speaker 4>if you told them that they were glamour boys, they'd
<v Speaker 4>be okay with that. The Living Color and Vivid, it's
<v Speaker 4>fears and it takes the top spot for me.
<v Speaker 1>Wow, Okay, there's one vote for Vivid and one vote
<v Speaker 1>for Poison.
<v Speaker 3>Okay, all right, I'm going first.
<v Speaker 1>So I still contend that on that Poison album, you
<v Speaker 1>have the best party rock song of the eighties. You
<v Speaker 1>have one of the best power ballads of the eighties,
<v Speaker 1>the entire eighties, you have radio friendly hit after radio
<v Speaker 1>friendly hit, and that's my bag baby.
<v Speaker 3>On Vivid, you've.
<v Speaker 1>Got one of the best hard rock songs of the eighties,
<v Speaker 1>and then you've got a whole bunch of songs that
<v Speaker 1>are really great. So which one am I grabbing? I
<v Speaker 1>owned both, I love both. I could really go either
<v Speaker 1>way on this. If I'm walking out the door, I'm
<v Speaker 1>probably grabbing both. But if you put a gun to
<v Speaker 1>my head and you said you can only bring one
<v Speaker 1>album with you, I'm grabbing Vivid because there are more
<v Speaker 1>great songs on this album than on Open Up and say, ah,
<v Speaker 1>how about that?
<v Speaker 2>I think you are one hundred percent correct. I think
<v Speaker 2>you and James are both one hundred percent correct. The
<v Speaker 2>musicianship on Vivid is better, the lyrics are stronger, more intelligent.
<v Speaker 2>The best song on the album is better than any
<v Speaker 2>song on Open Up and Say Out, flat out better
<v Speaker 2>than any other song on the album. My problem is
<v Speaker 2>I did not own this album in the nineteen eighties
<v Speaker 2>or nineteen nineties.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah.
<v Speaker 2>I did, however, by Open Up and Say Ah when
<v Speaker 2>it came out on May third, nineteen eighty eight, and
<v Speaker 2>I played it on heavy rotation. This album, I know
<v Speaker 2>it's better, but it cannot overcome the memories from nineteen
<v Speaker 2>eighty eight and nineteen eighty nine. I think I think
<v Speaker 2>our band covered at least three different songs off Open
<v Speaker 2>Up and Say Ah. And so I have to say,
<v Speaker 2>I got to pick poison, and I'm picking my poison.
<v Speaker 2>And I fully acknowledge Vivid is a better album. But
<v Speaker 2>Walking Out the Door, just because of all the fields
<v Speaker 2>that it gives me, I'm picking up for it.
<v Speaker 1>Don't be ashamed, man, Spike the football dude, awesome.
<v Speaker 3>Well that's fantastic. Well, we want to hear from you.
<v Speaker 1>These are two gigantic albums from the eighties.
<v Speaker 3>If you are a listener. We definitely want to hear
<v Speaker 3>from you on this.
<v Speaker 1>If you're walking out the door, do you grab the
<v Speaker 1>feel good, fun, glitz and glamour of poison or do
<v Speaker 1>you grab the more serious, pounding rock of living.
<v Speaker 3>Let us hear from you. D what we got on
<v Speaker 3>the books next week.
<v Speaker 2>So we were talking about the villain in both Rumblefish
<v Speaker 2>and the store clerk in The Outsiders, and I was like,
<v Speaker 2>I didn't remember who this guy was, but he looked familiar.
<v Speaker 2>And I'm like, and it goes back to the old
<v Speaker 2>Clint Eastwood movie and you were like, oh, I love
<v Speaker 2>that movie. And we started talking. We didn't realize that
<v Speaker 2>we both loved these kind of movies that people don't
<v Speaker 2>really talk about anymore. Yeah, but we don't mind talking
<v Speaker 2>about him. We're going to be covering Clint Eastwood's Every
<v Speaker 2>Which Way but Loose and the second one, which is
<v Speaker 2>called any Which Way You Can, and we're going to
<v Speaker 2>be comparing those two movies for his birth month May.
<v Speaker 2>He'll be turning ninety three this year. Caw, holy cow,
<v Speaker 2>and talk about an icon. I mean, the guy was
<v Speaker 2>megastar decade after decade after decade, and we get to
<v Speaker 2>talk about a couple of his lesser known but really
<v Speaker 2>great movies that we remember from our youth.
<v Speaker 1>You say lesser known, but these are two of his
<v Speaker 1>bigger hits.
<v Speaker 2>Isn't that a crazy thing? Like most profitable movies in
<v Speaker 2>his catalog? Yes?
<v Speaker 3>Wow, how about that?
<v Speaker 2>You guys have to join us as we discuss those movies. James,
<v Speaker 2>you every which way, but loose any which way you can.
<v Speaker 4>Fan. I remember going to see the second one when
<v Speaker 4>I was a boy my cousin in Junction City, Arkansas,
<v Speaker 4>and for years afterwards, all we would say was right,
<v Speaker 4>turn Clyde.
<v Speaker 1>Right turn Clyde. James, thanks for being here with us, man.
<v Speaker 1>We love talking with you. We love kicking around these
<v Speaker 1>albums with you. We appreciate your patronage and friendship over
<v Speaker 1>the years. I hope you had a great time today
<v Speaker 1>talking about an album that you left.
<v Speaker 4>Talking about one of my favorite albums with my favorite podcast. Man,
<v Speaker 4>you can't beat It's a great way to spend a
<v Speaker 4>Friday afternoon.
<v Speaker 2>I think for the next album, we're gonna have to
<v Speaker 2>get your wife on though, because she that accent, that
<v Speaker 2>Louisiana accent that she's got, that's gonna that's gonna to
<v Speaker 2>melt some arts.
<v Speaker 4>Strong, but when she speaks Spanish, she sounds like she
<v Speaker 4>just stepped across the border from Tijuana.
<v Speaker 3>All right, everybody, that's it for us.
<v Speaker 1>Come back next week where we do the Clint Eastwood
<v Speaker 1>and Clyde The Orangutang Double Feature Way turned Clyde, what's
<v Speaker 1>your baby colored, Baby Living Color,