Glimmer

Some personal history from me.

Where the fascination with electro comes from to some extent.

Two ways: via Japanese video games, and Miami Freestyle.

Like many people my age I spent a lot of time playing 16 bit cartridge games as a kid. Sonic the Hedgehog was essentially my shit. The sound that I heard when playing the original two Sonic the Hedgehog games was Masato Nakamura doing his damnedest to sound like the Yellow Magic Orchestra given the sound quality available to him.

So I might have some fondness for the chiptune scene as well.

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With This

My grandfather, who has now passed on, was the farthest thing from being clued in on electronic music possible. But the one thing he was a certifiable car collector. He used to live down in St. Pete, across the Bay from Tampa, and one time when he bought a new truck the salesman threw in a favorite tape with the deal so that my Grampa could test his soundsystem.

Guess what was on the tape?

My fifty five odd year old Grampa drove up to Wisconsin blasting Freestyle the whole way. I had no clue what the music was or where it came from, but I thought it was awesome.

It had essentially the same production values and melodies as late 80s house, so I bet that explains my interest in that as well.

I’ve also got to say that I just love Minnesota for record collecting.

Thanks to Prince’s New Wave/Electro/Funk/Rock influence its fairly easy to find obscure old electronic records. Like say Yukihiro Takahashi’s 1981 opus Neuromantic.

Which is essentially a Yellow Magic Orchestra album.

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Ryuichi Sakamoto plays synths on nearly every track.

And oddly enough, Phil Manzanera (of Roxy Music fame) plays guitar.

It just further cements in my mind the link between late era Roxy Music, and Synthpop.

Its easier to find Gary Numan records in Minneapolis than any other city in the Midwest. I know that this may not be that interesting to those of you who live in the UK. In the US Gary was a one hit wonder, its hard to find any of his stuff here, much less the early stuff.

I’ve found tons of Sparks records, obscure late 70’s and early 80’s funk and disco. Milwaukee was pretty terrible for this kind of music, so its been really refreshing.

The one record I bought recently that made me wonder was Scritti Polliti’s Cupid and Psyche 85. I bought this expressly on K-Punk’s recommendation. And to me it sounds like a limp, effete, very British attempt to sound like, well… Prince.

What exactly is the difference between Post-Punk/New Wave musicians trying to sound like Soul and a Soul singer’s attempts to sound like New Wave?

I guess it really comes down to taste.