RIP Gary Garcia

The music world is abuzz about the death of legendary jazz drummer Paul Motian, I'll focus on a much lesser known artist this entry, Gary Garcia. Who?

Gary Garcia was one half of novelty musician duo Bucker and Garcia. Who? You probably know them best for this song:

http://youtu.be/kBdAPkk8yMM



The two met in Akron, OH (home of DEVO!) in the late 70s and recorded a few novelty songs, until they became cult heroes with the song "Pac-Man Fever" in 1982, which became a top 10 hit. This led to a major label deal with Sony, who then pressured them to release a full-length album about video games, which they called Pac-Man Fever. The duo never had another hit, but continued recording sporadically through the years. This year, the entire Pac-Man Fever album was released for the Rock Band video game.

Gary Garcia passed away on November 17, 2011. He was 63.


http://bucknergarcia.com/gary-garica-r-i-p/

Cancon round up for November 18, 2011

Been a while since I did one of these, but, as usual, little has changed in the commercial radio world:

Cancon roundup: Hedley (Top Canuck at #8), Anjulie, Victoria Duffield, Nickelback, Kristina Maria, Craig Smart, Simple Plan, Drake, Jason Aldean (9/40=23%, well below the national law of 35%).

Chart notes: In the US Charts, it's Taylor Swift day, with three new singles debuting in the Top 40. In Canada, it's the same old artists. Jason Aldean checks in with the latest horrible song title, "Tattoos on This Town".

RIP Heavy D

Heavy D and the Boyz, led by Jamaican-born Dwight Myers, were part of the late 80s surge of hip-hop/R&B hybrids, blending elements of vocal R+B love songs, dance style hip-hop and rapping. Heavy D was a big more on hip hop side of things, but they had several very successful hits in the late 80s and early 90s. Their first hit came in 1987 with "Mr. Big Stuff", but they are best known for the song "Now that We Found Love".

I was never a big fan of the band's work, but my brother loved this stuff in the early 90s. While I was starting into college in 1988, often all I would hear coming from my brother's room was Heavy D, Keith Sweat, Jon Secada and Bobby Brown. His work is written on my brain, but not for a love of his work.

Myers was in Jamaica when he passed away. He had recently begun to record reggae music. He apparently passed away from respiratory problems. He was 44.

http://youtu.be/NNEgUPKxk7A

Covers Courageous #3: Revolting Cocks - Physical

Back in the early 80s, it was impossible to turn on mainstream radio without hearing the pox of OliviaNewton-John's "Physical". I remember long car trips with the AM radio on, with some sweet voiced chanteuse singing every second song. Sometimes it was "Never Been to Me", but mostly it was Newton-John. To be fair, she captured the post-disco zeitgeist and turned in into sweet, sweet AOR fodder and made a tonne of money with what was probably her last hurrah in mainstream music. Good on her.

Enter Al Jorgenson.

Old Uncle Al has a knack for turning pop culture into sheer ugliness. His main band, Ministry, had been subverting music for years before he started branching out into numerous side projects, which included the infamous Revolting Cocks, formed with fellow industrialists Richard 23, Luc Van Acker and Chris Connelly. While they sounded a lot like Ministry, the Cocks were much more subversive, meldling sleazy disco with pounding industrial. In 1990, the Cocks released Beers, Steers and Queers, which featured a brutal and sleazy cover of "Physical".

Now, when this song came out, it was like a bomb going off. I remember being at CKUL in Lethbridge listening to the 12" that came in for this song. There had been rumours going around that the band was forced to change the song due to Newton-John's people having trouble with the sheer ugliness of the cover version. And, the rumours turned out to be true. There's an original version of the cover, and a cover that appeared on the album itself. The differences are significant. The original version's lyrics are much closer to the original Newton-John song. The second version can be more rightly termed as an homage to the original song, with altered lyrics and less obvious references to the original song.

The original (censored) version:


http://youtu.be/vpvHeTsgdUk



There's no Youtube video for the studio version of the album track, but there are plenty of live versions.