Saturday, March 21, 2009

Rename - The Hack

Here is a story - A Different Drum decided to release this song only on 7", bu t within a few days of release it was , ahem, hacked, and posted as an mp3f file. Cool song, regardless. You can also watch the video and place an order for the autographed 7-inch vinyl here (ONLY $4) here :

http://www.adifferentdrum.com/artist.php?n=ADDWAX2


Friday, March 20, 2009

Koto - Jabdah

Italian wackiness or sheer genius? You decide. Koto was a big synth guy in the 1980s, this is a cash in on Star Wars (he is meant to be in Jedi robes, not Karate!)
From Wikipedia:
"Koto is an Italian synth pop group that originally consisted of Anfrando Maiola and Stefano Cundari. Their most popular songs were "Visitors", "Dragon's Legend", "Chinese Revenge" and "Jabdah", released in 1983-1988. Koto is often associated with a genre of music called Spacesynth, a music style streamed from Space Disco. Unfortunately, it has been reported that Stefano Cundari died some time between 1991 and 1992 from a brain tumor."






Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Bonus video for humpday- Phil Oakey and the Pet Shop Boys

Get over 2 hours of synthpop for under $6



Electrosquad - Envy

Here's a classic video, well made. The band broke up but now one member has released material as Space March.



Buy CDs for Spacemarch at A Different Drum

iTunes
-Spacemarch

-Electrosquad




Amazon has Espionage

Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Primary Sources- Hot Butter "Popcorn"

Let's go wayyyy back to the first synthpop song most people heard and clearly one of the first electronic top 40 hits, back in 1972!


Here is an updated version from Marsheaux


Of course nothing is ever simple, in doing research I found that Hot Butter was not the first "band" to record the song. Here is what Wikipedia has to say
"Composer Gershon Kingsley (of Perrey and Kingsley) first recorded it for his 1969 album Music to Moog By. In 1971 the song was re-recorded by Kingsley's band First Moog Quartet. Stan Free, member of the First Moog Quartet, rerecorded the instrumental with his band Hot Butter in 1972. "

A Different Drum has the CD with Marsheaux's version.


Also there seems to be a verison by Crazy Frog, here is one band's interpretation....


And the "original" crazy frog


ok, that's enough....

Amazon has the Moog soundtrack, worht picking up and not just for the Hot Butter version of Popcorn

Monday, March 16, 2009

Little Boots - New In Town (Fred Falke Mix)

Littel Boots has been getting mad press in the UK, she even recorded a song with Phil Oakey of the Human League!
I found this remix and really like her style, a sort of more modern sounding ladyhawke imho.



iTunes has an EP up (but not with this song on it:
The EP sounds much more synthy btw.

Name Change?

Hi
I am thinking of changing the name of this blog so that I can post things like news and MP3s of synthpop not just videos.

Any ideas?