« Video: Vampire Weekend - "Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa" | Main | Football: the musical »
January 18, 2008
Works in Progress: the Monochrome Set
We've mentioned the Monochrome Set before; partially, wordlessly, or tangentially to other points. But we've never gone into any real depth on the unsung post-punk pop combo and there's no time like the present. It also gives me a chance to dust off the ol' Works in Progress feature, diffusing its specious neglect suit against us in the bargain.
The Monochrome Set rose from the ashes of a collegiate group called the B-Sides, that also included the future Adam Ant (called Stuart Godard with eyes unlined). Singer Bid and guitarist Lester Square also fled for more fanciful monikers, having been born Ganesh Seshadri and Thomas Hardy, respectively. Drummer John Haney bravely stood pat, and a revolving door bassist policy makes it hard to parse the nomenclature there. Like alot of post-punk bands littering London at the time, the Monochrome Set fancied themselves some sort of smart guys, though their mocking tone and playfully funny compositions let any residual pretension go down smooth.
One of their signature tunes is the self-mythologizing "the Monochrome Set," later gaining the clever "(I Presume)" allusion when included on their first, and I'd claim best, album Strange Boutique. It's always a risky proposition to name a single after yourself. If it falls flat, the embarrassment is more potent because it's harder to generate distance from it. There will be no doubt in the minds of your detractors that you are intrinsically bad, because they listened to your bloody theme song! Rest assured, dear readers that the MS approved "MS" is more "Tallulah Gosh" than "In a Big Country" quality-wise.
the Monochrome Set - "the Monochrome Set" (7" single)
the Monochrome Set - "the Monochrome Set (I Presume)"
The 1979 Rough Trade single version of this song puts its lurching, hopping rhythm first. It possesses a loose, slightly wild feel at odds with the hyper-cultivated boasts of its lyrics. The jangly guitar, always the hallmark of an indie-pop song, is muted, sounding like an echo bleeding in from another room of the recording studio. Bid's showy language is silly in a very British way, its insulting essence tempered by foppish rhymes ("I'm adorable, you're deplorable," "I entertain your tiny brain, so spuriously" etc.). The gang shouts add some enthusiasm, an odd Russian radio signals amps up the lovable inscrutability. The song's rough edges are winning enough that I wouldn't feel a production void if I'd never heard a different version, but since I have...
As heard on Strange Boutique, "The Monochrome Set (I Presume)" is even more beat dominated, exponentially so. A jungle beat (and, for kicks, jungle sound effects) dominates the song's first half. The guitar line is more clearly recorded, gracefully snaking through the din. Two and a half minutes in, when Bid finally fights through enough foliage to get to his microphone, his dapper dandy persona is much more composed than ol' H.M. Stanley's was when he stumbled from the brush. The sloppy gang shouting has been reduced to laser-precise bursts, that oddly choose "the" as a key point for emphasis. The wit is perhaps enhanced by sounding like the work of actually accomplished performers and not amateurish punks having a laugh. Elitism demands at least an illusion of being among the upper crust, you see. It's a pretty perfect snob anthem in this perfected form.
Works in Progress is where we look at the evolution of songs by comparing and contrasting their various stages of being. It pops up now and again when you least expect it.
Previous Works in Progress Columns:
- Radiohead/ Television Personalities
- the Glove
- Xiu Xiu
- Clap Your Hands Say Yeah
- Arcade Fire
- the Velvet Underground/ Lou Reed
- Revl9n
- Unicorns/ Handsome Furs
Posted by Jeff Klingman at January 18, 2008 01:00 PM
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.merryswankster.com/movabletype/mt-tb.cgi/1298
