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Old 08-30-2009, 10:57 AM   #3 (permalink)
music_phantom13
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Location: Pittsburgh, PA
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Why thank you Bulldog . I apologize it's taking me so long to get started, I managed to actually get out last night for a change. Now, I'm sitting here looking at the first box I pulled out wondering where I'm going to start on this. As for my process, I'll listen to each album at least twice before writing (though I probably have the vast majority of them memorized). I think we'll start with something a bit obscure that hopefully will be new to a lot of you:

Fad Gadget - Fireside Favourites (1980)



1. Pedestrian – 3:20
2. State of the Nation – 3:48
3. Salt Lake City Sunday – 2:12
4. Coitus Interruptus – 4:39
5. Fireside Favourite – 4:31
6. Newsreel – 3:42
7. Insecticide – 3:09
8. The Box – 4:19
9. Arch of the Aorta – 6:17

9.5/10

Ah, what a fun album to listen to. Fab Gadget is the pseudonym used by Frank Tovey, a British new wave/electronic musician from the early 80's. This is the only album I've ever heard by him under any name, so I won't be comparing this to his other works but rather looking solely at this album. Fireside Favourites is, overall, a very dark, humorous commentary on society during the time it was released. It focuses heavily on synthesizers but also uses sounds recorded from every day items, from what I can tell - the album cover lists Fad Gadget as playing the ashtray, metal chair, and electric shaver, and John Fryer is Extra Fingers, Ashtry, and Metal Chair. Essentially, the album is darkly humorous synth pop and new wave music.

1. Pedestrian

This track starts off with a catchy little synthesizer rhythm, and then the electronic percussion kicks in. Fad Gadget starts singing in his monotone, somewhat droning voice, and if you pay attention to the lyrics, you're in for a good time. Pedestrian is essentially social commentary on everyone's addiction to automobiles, and he ends the song by saying "I'll lace up my shoes, I'll walk where I choose!" There is an interesting bridge in the middle that has some sounds that I can't quite figure out, and the end of the song breaks down into distortion and noise, leading into...

2. State of the Nation

There is a prevalent scratching sound that comes in about halfway through this song, and I think that may be the electric shaver kicking in. State of the Nation is about, well, you guessed it with a chorus that declares "Life begins when you're ready to face it." About halfway through this song, it begins to break down, with distortion and strange sounds becoming more and more prevalent, until finally for the last few seconds only a cacophony of noise remains.

3. Salt Lake City Sunday

Can anyone guess what this one is about? That's right, here he goes for the Latter Day Saints, aka the Mormons - "They march the Latter Day Saints, Salt Lake's sick residents, They want you to repent, they want your 10 percent." At one point, a military type snare drum roll kicks in, brilliant for a song talking about essentially the army of Mormons attempting to convert people. He ends the song "I slam the door in your face" which made me laugh, because that's what I do to. A very harsh synthesizer sound is used here in between each line.

4. Coitus Interruptus

This song's all about modern day relationships (at least at the time of release), and he uses some stupid puns ("Emission impossible"). At the end, a very out of tune background noise of some sort kicks in and Fad Gadget begins yelping, followed by an organ with some very harsh bizarre synthesizer noises over Fad Gadget just making strange noises.

5. Fireside Favourite

This song, to me, sounds bizarrely upbeat in comparison to the rest of the album. That's not to say it sounds like a happy song, per se, but the main verse music feels much brighter than the rest of the album. However, the lyrics are actually somewhat nonsensical and very, very dark, almost something out of a nightmare. Fad Gadget begins singing about sex in front of a fire, and it seems like a perfectly normal song, until the third verse arrives and there is just one line out of place - "Saliva's sweetness, we perspire, All things are one in front of the fire, Melting flesh on the front room floor, That's what my fireside favourite's for." From here he just gets stranger, first telling the girl to open her eyes and see the mushroom cloud, and lastly the final verse "Your head was on my shoulder, Now I'm kissing the skull." To me, it just seems like a nightmare in which things start out normal but just get more and more bizarre with no explanation.

6. Newsreel

Newsreel almost sounds like something you could find on a Skinny Puppy album. The song satirizes the news media, and they way they turn terrible things like interviewing a dead man's wife or a soldier shooting someone in war into something to be seen every day by the public.

7. Insecticide

This is just a strange song, with a loud pervasive cymbal sound that continues through the entire song, and a synthesizer sound that embodies the lyrics perfectly - they are written through the eyes of some sort of bug. This may not seem like it would be a particularly dark song, but Fab Gadget manages to make it an extremely hopeless song - "I've been here a year now and I'm getting restless... I'm smashing my face on a windowpane, I fall to the floor and I do it again."

8. The Box

The music to this song is dark, haunting, and foreboding, without the usual sound he puts in his music that gives them a clashing upbeat/dark feeling. Which is perfectly appropriate, as the song is all about premature burial. Probably the darkest song on this album, with verses like "A POV of man in carbon monoxide fumes are choking him, His face turns pink, And now we see him winding down, The window streaked excretion brown, We watch him sink" and a verse repeating "Let me out, I can't stand the dark anymore". I guess the thing is most of his songs are satirical or tell some sort of story are take a bit to figure out, while this is just blatantly depressing lyrics.

9. Arch of the Aorta

Just an outro song with some voices saying things with weird effects. It's a really cool song though, he uses a guitar to strum distorted chords with a synthesizer playing echoing sounds in the background with a pervading drumbeat. The end of the song is perfect for the album, slowly degrading into a driving, murky synthesizer chord and a lady saying "What?"

Overall this album scores very highly with me because I enjoyed the dark humor and satire of the album, particularly on the front (tracks 1-5). The second half is much darker music than the front, but still just as good. I also appreciated the times throughout the album that he headed in a more experimental direction, throwing in clashing sounds and heavy distortion to have songs slowly break down. The main rhythms and melodies are the driving force of the album, but it's these breaks and the sounds in the back that you have to pay attention for that truly make this album shine amongst my collection, and stand out from all of the other new wave/synth pop type stuff I've heard.
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