Fall Monday Playlist #24

Fall Monday Playlist #24 - Insects

- January 11, 2021

Happy Monday to you all.

Since last August, I've posted a themed ten-song Fall playlist every Monday (full list here), and - with only a couple of exceptions - I've avoided duplication of songs. Given that there are 500ish Fall songs and that this is number 24, it won't be a surprise that I'm starting to run out of themes! So, after this one (and next week's final instalment of the group's 'borrows') I will be going off at a few different tangents.

But for now, there's one topic that I haven't yet covered, namely MES's interest in entomology.

Spotify Playlist

YouTube Playlist

The Aphid

This piece of scratchy, grimy garage-rock from Cerebral Caustic is an obvious starting point. Possibly inspired by Philip K. Dick’s A Scanner Darkly, in which the main character imagines himself covered in aphids ('it's what Philip K. Dick people who were on drugs would do in 1962', MES explained).

Cyber Insekt

The Unutterable opens with a piece of lively sci-fi skiffle that has a curiously wobbly guitar line and is broken up with a couple of spacey, Gong-like interludes. Kazuko Hohki of Frank Chickens (Grant Showbiz's wife) contributed the deadpan, robotic vocals without ever meeting any of the group.

Two Librans

Oprah Winfrey, of course, studied bees. As we've already had the original in the 'Celebrities' playlist, this is the version from Live in San Francisco, recorded at the Great American Music Hall on 19 November 2001.

Dangerous

A b-side on the CD and 12" versions of the Free Range single that would become 'So-Called Dangerous' on Code: Selfish. Like 'Free Range', it featured the phrase 'insect posse will be crushed'.

Ladybird (Green Grass)

The lyrics were at least partly inspired by that ubiquitous rock ‘n’ roll topic, the Thirty Years’ War. The German version of the ‘ladybird, ladybird fly away home’ nursery rhyme referred to in the song is thought to be about the seventeenth century conflict. Fought between 1618 and 1648, the war saw the deaths of around half of the population of Pomerania (‘Pomerania is burning down’).

Neighbourhood of Infinity

This Perverted By Language track was only played live eleven times. This performance - which featured on the 1987 compilation Palace Of Swords Reversed - was its last outing, recorded in Munich in April 1984. The album version doesn't have any insect references, but here it's 'the time of the giant moths'.

Mere Pseud Mag. Ed.

Once again, this is a live version of a track that doesn't have any insect references in its album incarnation. The connection here is a little tenuous - the WASP synthesizer (a budget keyboard) is mentioned - but it's a great excuse to include this wonderfully ragged and intense version from Hip Priest And Kamerads, recorded at St. Gallen, Switzerland in February 1983.

Idiot Joy Showland

'The locusts are all queuing in'. This version is from The Twenty-Seven Points, an album where it's far from easy to establish where and when the tracks were recorded. This pacey take followed an unsuccessful first attempt.

In These Times

The song is perhaps more memorable for its feline references - 'my Aqua-cat is where it's at... fishcat mother... feline nutter' - but also includes the phrase 'flea brain' (the title of a Gene Vincent song).