The other Taylors of Duran Duran, John and Andy, however, were sick of all that synth-pop hogwash and wanted to rock out. Which is why they teamed up with ... former Chic drummer Tony Thompson? First of all, just as I'd never realized that Duran Duran had a guitarist, I'd never realized that Chic had a drummer. I suppose they were as much of a funk band as a disco band, so it makes sense. Still, I'd heard of Nile Rodgers, even Bernard Edwards, but ... Tony Thompson? Normally the drummer in a band is an afterthought, but with the Power Station, the drums are turned way up in the mix. You can't miss 'em. Basically, if your idea of great music is extremely loud hair metal guitar coupled with extremely loud and overly-aggressive drumming, then the Power Station is the band for you.
But every great hard rock/synth-funk '80s band needs a singer. Wouldn't you know it, but at that exact moment, a certain artistically restless Yuppie Rocker was down on his luck and needed a tight ensemble to play behind him. From Wikipedia:
The original plan for this one-album project was for the three musicians (Taylor, Taylor and Thompson) to provide musical continuity to an album full of material, with a different singer performing on each track. Those who were approached included Mick Jagger, Billy Idol, Mars Williams (who eventually contributed brass to the album), Richard Butler (of The Psychedelic Furs), and Mick Ronson.So, if Arcadia sounds like Duran Duran, then The Power Station sounds like ... Robert Palmer. Never mind that the band wasn't really his idea. Of course, part of the reason the Power Station sounds like Robert Palmer is because "Addicted To Love" and much of Palmer's subsequent solo material ended up sounding like The Power Station (and actually featured backing from the other Power Station members). Which came first: the chicken or the egg? The Taylor or the Palmer? Either way, thanks to this freak collaboration, Palmer found himself with two US Top Ten hits - his first. Just when his career seemed dead in the water, the Power Station gave him that extra ... what's the word? Power.
The group then invited eclectic soul singer Robert Palmer to record vocals for the track "Communication". When he heard that they had recorded demos for "Get It On (Bang a Gong)", he asked to try out vocals on that one as well, and by the end of the day, the group knew that they had found that elusive chemistry which distinguishes successful bands. Before long, they had decided to record the entire album with Palmer.
It's always risky to cover a distinctive rock classic, let alone what is arguably the Holy Grail of glam rock singles, T. Rex's "Get It On (Bang A Gong)." The risks here were twofold: 1) how could an artist improve upon a song so magnificent, a song featuring Marc Bolan's most imitated guitar riff, without merely producing a re-tread of the original? And 2) how could another singer make his way through an absurd set of lyrics penned by the man I once dubbed "the world's greatest 'bad' lyricist"? How does one croon "Well you look like a car/You've got a hubcap diamond-starred halo" or "You're an untamed youth/That's the truth, with your cloak full of eagles" or "Well you're slim and you're weak/You've got the teeth of the hydra upon you" without sounding like a developmentally-challenged doofus?
Be the Power Station, that's how.
The first blasphemous alteration the Power Station makes is that Andy Taylor doesn't quite reproduce the proper Bolan riff note-for-note. Bolan's riff, as any self-respecting teenage male from 1972 could have told you, features three descending notes in the middle. But Andy Taylor says to hell with all that, essentially turning the riff into one staccato note. This ain't Phil Collins covering "You Can't Hurry Love," all right? The other smart touch, as befitting such a smartly-dressed man, is that Palmer sort of mumbles, groans, and grunts his way through the lyrics, treating them more like sexy gibberish than thoughtful poetic expression. Instead of sounding silly, he sounds like he's about to whip out his bondage gear. John Taylor even gets a bass solo! Did T. Rex's version have a bass solo?
Mostly it just sounds like a bunch of musicians who never expected to be playing together, suddenly finding a groove and not really concerning themselves with the results. So, despite all the potential pitfalls, the Power Station's cover of "Get It On (Bang A Gong)" rocks in a crunchy, danceable, radio-friendly fashion, as the original T. Rex version did, while managing to sound nothing like the T. Rex version. And look what happened: the single hit #9 in the US and #22 in Britain. Also, I'm partially convinced that Tony Thompson is banging a drum kit full of literal gongs, but the video, at least, suggests otherwise. It looks like the Power Station have found themselves jamming in a post-apocalyptic Manhattan apartment with a surprisingly reckless Alice in Wonderland. The only thing this video needs is more pink, green, and aqua. Oh, and why are there shots of the Twin Towers ... with airplanes in the background? What did they know and when did they know it???
In addition to being glam rock aficionados, apparently the Power Station were also big Billy Wilder aficionados, unless they had something else on their minds other than the Jack Lemmon/Tony Curtis/Marilyn Monroe comedy when they conceived "Some Like It Hot." Maybe it was a song about Kung Pao chicken. But yes, as the title implies, this one has a Latin/Caribbean feel, complete with peppy and supremely processed '80s horns. It's like they made the ultimate Miami Sound Machine hit ... before anyone had even heard of the Miami Sound Machine. Well, some like it hot and some like a hit: this one peaked at #6 in the US and #14 in the UK. As for the video, it sure looks pretty hot in that papier mache desert. Well, not only do some like it when Robert Palmer dresses up like a priest, but some men like it when they have a sex change: the "girl" in the video is actually the trans-sexual model Caroline Cossey, otherwise known as "Tula." All the references to shaving suddenly make a little more sense now. And you thought Caitlyn Jenner was a trailblazer.
I was watching a video on how to communicate with one's spirit animal guide (you have one don't you ?) and somehow wound up here what with the weirdness that is the internet. The spirit video was not so good - some mid 30s caucasian lady claiming to have been an Indian Shaman in a previous life or something. I kept watching only because she was hot in a "I married a rich guy but my life is so unfulfilling so I'll have an affair with the homeless looking acoustic guitar player at the coffee shop" kind of way. Oh but wait -
ReplyDeleteThe Power Station. Yea so I ran into someone who had run into Andy Taylor back in the day. Evidently AT was always wanting to "rock things up" and felt constrained by the synth dominated sounds of Duran Duran. Check out Hungry like the Wolf and it's a very Bolan-esque guitar riff so I wasn't too surprised when the Power Station rolled out Bang a Gong. I like what you said about Bolan's lyrics though it was his bleating sibilance that fans wanted to hear so I think he selected words that maximized that effect. Of course also consider that Bolan used Flo and Eddie as an effect to add that magic fairy dust to his productions (by the masterful Tony Visconti). Anyway, Robert Palmer always seemed to me like a guy on the verge of leaving the music business and moving in with the richest babe he could find and using the money to open up a restaurant. This isn't to say he wasn't talented just that he bounced around stylistically and somehow stumbled into that boxy, over compressed drum sound with distorted guitar chords production style that yielded "Addicted to Love" and "Simply Irresistable". Compare those songs to the "Clues" from a few years earlier. That video of him dancing with the duck was an early nadir. I notice that it can't be found on Youtube and seems to have been replaced with another video that, while still embarrassing, was not at the humiliating levels of the "duck" video. And then there was his older cover of Andy Fraser's "It takes every kind of people". That was a good song but again Palmer was all over the place - New Orleans/Meters stuff, World beats, Ska, some funk, and then dabbled with rock. Can't blame him - The Stones made their entire career doing stuff like that. Okay I liked the Power Station I must admit but like a summer fling it was over and I didn't give two flips when they "broke up" only to reform with that elfin second tier Michael Desbarres as a lead singer. Ugh. I think that was the end of those spontaneous super groups for a time.
Four words: Dionne Warwick and Friends. And Friends!
ReplyDeleteBut you're right, the "Hungry Like The Wolf" riff sounds just like "Bang A Gong." My ... GOD. It's one of those things I've always dimly realized without ever truly realizing it, like the fact that Kansas City is actually ... in MISSOURI.
The video of "Looking For Clues" that I posted a while back doesn't show him dancing with a "duck," but it does show him dancing with a penguin, a wolf, a sheep, a goat, Godzilla, and ... Goofy? I assume that's not the duck video? I wanna see the duck video!
Okay here is the long lost video although it doesn't have the duck scene.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1vxjf_robert-palmer-looking-for-clues_music
I was certain that this was the vid with the duck as he is in miniature pretty much the whole video and he is floating on a bar of soap in a bathtub next to a rubber ducky. The "hook" in the video was he would put a magnifying glass over his mouth while singing - a grammar school trick of course and back then video music "producers" threw in any trick they could. Oh yea And then he dances over the keys of a xylophone (again he is miniaturized) during the solo. Also relative to the song itself I never liked that doubling of the vocal line with an octave falsetto - it's also like he sang it in the wrong key or something. So the mystery of the duck continues.