Tim Brough's Black Leather Bookshelf

She Comes In Colors
3 Out Of 5 Stars

"So many years ago on the radio/She crept into your soul and learned to love you." Yes, and we loved to love you, too, baby. Donna Summer sounds happy to be making a new record, some 17 years after her previous album, but she sounds conflicted. Does she want to reclaim her position as Queen of Disco ("I'm A Fire") or just be the Queen and you should lover her for it? "The Queen Is Back" (from which the opening lyric is taken) is a reminder that, when she was a superstar, she had the world in her pocket.

Her performances are decent, yet the material is hap hazard. Did a voice as powerful as Summer's really need to be vocodered on the title track? Ziggy Marley drops in to make the song more credible and the message seems to be a reflection on her old controversy with some of her gay audience. "Fame" does the same thing, with a auto-tuned chorus. Granted, it's not as blatant a ploy as the high NRG dance ploy of 1989's "Another Place and Time." It's just that the album sounds generic. If it weren't for the quality of Summer's singing, this could be any-woman music of the 90's, even if it was released in 2008.

The highlights are "Stamp Your Feet," "The Queen Is Back," and bluesy "Slide Over Backwards." It's a shame she never got to release any more music, because despite the plainness of the songs (and it should be noted, she co-wrote all of them), Summer is obviously relaxed and enjoying herself on "Crayons."


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The Best of the Available Donna Summer Collections
4 Out Of 5 Stars

The passing of Donna Summer has given her work a much needed critical review, with mention now of finally inducting her into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame after many years of snubs. This double CD "Gold" collection is a great overview of her multifaceted and multiple label career, hitting time with all three major labels as well as additional latter singles. The glory days of Casablanca take up all if disc one, the her resurgence on Geffen and comeback on Mercury, finalized by the surprising return to the top ten on Atlantic.

Granted, her pairing with Georgio Morodor gave her that first taste of success with the orgasmo-"Love To Love You Baby," but you can also see that she was on Casablanca's hit-making treadmill for the first few songs. Summer was blessed with a choirgirl voice, which makes the mediocrity of "Could This Be The Magic" or "Love's Unkind" bearable, yet it was when both Summer and Morodor made a quantum leap in style that the duo hit stride. Morodor's electronic pulse and Summer's coo made "I Feel Love" a song that was decades ahead of the curve, and from that point on, the hits kept coming.

Summer and Morodor tweaked the conventions of disco in ways that made Summer's diva-tendencies sparkle, like the ballad-intro to the dynamic "Last Dance," or the inventive recasting of McArthur Park" into a plaintive dance-floor wail. They were also among the first to fuse rock to their thumpes, with Steely Dan/Doobie Brothers Jeff Baxter laying down that burning solo that made "Bad Girls/Hit Stuff" irresistible. And how could anyone fight off the dynamic pairing of Summer and the other reigning 70's diva, Barbara Streisand on "No More Tears"?

However, this was about the time Casablanca collapsed under it's own weight, and Summer became one of the first artists to sign with the fledgling Geffen label (whose company at the time included John Lennon and Elton John). Disco was in its death throes, and Summer knew it. Disc Two begins with a turn towards danceable pop. It also marked a cold spell for Summer, as only "The Wanderer" and "Love Is In Control" made the top ten after a string of continuous big hits. Some of the material holds up quite well, like her version of "State of Independence" and the Quincy Jones helmed material. Still, things looked like Summer was going to fade like so many of the other 70's disco mavens.

However, Mercury Records claimed that a contract dispute following the collapse of Casablanca meant they were owed an album. Rather than phone in a quickie, Summer responded by turning in "She Works Hard For the Money," driving her back to the dance-floors and into the top ten once again. The follow-up single with one-hit Wonders Musical Youth ("Unconditional Love") is also a winner. Momentum back in her corner, she made another run at Adult Contemporary pop with Geffen that gave a great single (written by Brenda Russell) "Dinner With Gershwin" and a fine version of "There Goes My Baby." But it looked like diminishing returns were coming back to haunt her.

That is, until the pop production powerhouse of Stock Aitken Waterman convinced Summer to hook up. Having established a sound with hits by Kylie Minogue and Rick Astley, SAW set Summer up with "This Time I Know It's For Real," and lightning hit one more time. The titular album and the follow-up, "Mistaken Identity" are criminally out of print, as are the Geffen sets, which makes the second disc the best place to get some under appreciated songs. of the rest, "Carry On" is a deliciously retro-reteam with Morodor, while "You're So Beautiful" has a deep vibe to it. There's also "Dream-Alot's theme" recorded specially for "The Journey" but missing is "The Power Of One" from Pokemon. All around, though, this is as good as it will get until the inevitable reissue of the OOP albums with bonus tracks and remastering takes place.



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Sweating to The Oldies
3 Out Of 5 Stars

For a good chunk of the disco craze, especially in the gay disco world, there was a subset of artists that specialized in taking relatively current hits and then rearranging them into club items. Paul Parker may have been the best known of these men, and the biggest hit version was when Nikki French took Bonnie Tyler's "Total Eclipse Of The Heart" to number 2 in the 90's. Colton Ford's "Under The Covers" mines that same turf, plucking out songs like "By Your Side" by Sade, "Lithium" by Nirvana or "Losing My Religion" by R.E.M. and clubbing them up. There's also a surprisingly supple rock-dance cover of Faith No More's "Ashes to Ashes."

Unfortunately, Ford and his producers decided to include a capella interludes of other songs that bobble the flow of the disc. I'm not sure why these snippets were inserted between several of the songs (they aren't used as lead ins, these are strictly stand-alone cutlets). These sap the energy of away from an otherwise enjoyable dance album. Also, the cover photo? The remix version of the dosc has a more seductive and color friendly picture than the blue-tinted current picture. Ford is a man who made his bones as an adult film star, so why the totally unattractive pic? The music is OK enough to hold its own, the cover puts the CD at a disadvantage.







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Vanished like a Spirit in The Night
3 Out Of 5 Stars

One of the mysterious to me is that this album, by Casablanca recording act The Skatt Brothers, has never made it to CD release. I will go out on a limb to say that it's an incredibly dated record, had one minor dance classic and another single that became a huge hit in - of all places - Australia. But except for its extremely minor and devoted cult following, "Strange Spirits" remains utterly unknown.

That really sucks. There are a lot of reasons this should be better known, the greatest of which is historic. This may be one of the earliest efforts by a band that was outre' gay on a major label. Granted, there was plenty of lyrical gender bending, but when the biggest hook on one of your best songs is "give your love to the cowboy man" being song in a campy, uber-deep voice over a near disco beat, well, the gaydar should be hitting 8.5 by then.

There's also the band's pedigree. The late Sean Delaney was one of the lead singers, played keyboards and did a fair chunk of the songwriting. Delaney was openly gay, was lovers with super-manager Bill Aucoin (who repped the Skatts), and was an early contributor to the stage show of Kiss. He was also one of the men who discovered seminal 70's rock band Starz, brought them to Aucoin, and recruited their bassist, the late Peit Sweval, to play on "Strange Spirits." And if the background vocals sound familiar, it's because some of the men here were regular contributors to Village People albums.



Which is what The Skatt Brothers seemed to be positioning themselves for; something not as gay as the VP's, but exploiting the homo-eroticism of Kiss. There are a few moments here that come close ("Life At The Outpost" and "Fear Of Flying," alleged to have been written about fisting), and some that are outright comical ("Fear Of Flying" and the soft-rock attempt at a harmonic power ballad). Sean's "Midnight Companion" is the better ballad, and I knew several old-school LA men who swore up and down that Sean had written it about/for them. (The album's cover was shot at Griff's - now the Faultline - leather bar, adding to that back story.)

But there's one moment of pure genius: that comes from "Walk The Night." A song that makes no attempt to hide the fact that it's about cruising for some hard-core gay SM action, the darn thing became a major danceclub anthem and still gets played. The makers of Grand Theft Auto acquisitioned it for one version of their game, and it is the only Skatt Bros song to make a CD appearance (on "The Casablanca Story" collection, and as a CD single along with a Village People cut). Even with the campy/sinister vocal singing lead, buttressed by horror movie laughter and screaming, there's no mistaking these lyrics:

Upon his lips the taste of pain
venom kiss of love insane.
He's got a rod beneath his coat
he's gonna ram right down your throat.
Make your grovel on the floor
spit up and scream and beg for more.
He'll whip ya good,
and strip ya down.

Yep. They just don't write 'em like that anymore. Still available on auction sites.
 
 
PS - The guys in this video are NOT the band, seems an Australian Promo company made the vid on their own when the song took off down under.