My iPod is fucked.
It's a long story that I won't bore you with (this time), but suffice to say -- YES, I still use an iPod. I resent streaming, I don't stream, and I basically think less of people who do, so suck on that.
Anyway, to make a long, potentially argumentative story short, with my more recent 160 GB iPod Classic on the afore-mentioned fritz, I exhumed an older one that I'd retired for some long forgotten reason from my desk and made do with that, this morning, although its contents cannot be updated. As such, since I couldn't listen to anything new, I just selected a random shuffle of the songs that were on it.
During the course of same, the propulsive strains of "Krupa" by Apollo 440 filled my headphones just as I was crossing the expanse of Houston Street, almost instantly providing a purposeful bounce to my steps into SoHo. Part of the same generation of largely electronic British outfits from the mid-to-late 90s like Basement Jaxx, The Prodigy, The Propellerheads, Fatboy Slim, The Lo-Fidelity Allstars, The Chemical Brothers, et al., Apollo 440 made beat-heavy "dance music," for lack of a better term (I believe they were calling it "Big Beat" over there and "Electronica" over here, at the time), but with way more personality than the EDM bullshit that today's horrible douchebag-youth listen to (Deadmau5, Chainsmokers and their vile ilk). The first track I heard of Apollo 440's was "Ain't Talkin' Bout Dub," which gave one of Eddie Van Halen's more celebrated riffs (from "Ain't Talkin' Bout Love," duh!) a frantic drum'n'bass-y makeover. That may not sound promising, I realize, but it worked really well, at the time.
Based on our appreciation of that single, my friend Rob and I went to go see them, on a lark, perform a semi-secret gig at the Bowery Ballroom at some point in the late 90's. Not entirely knowing what to expect, we were surprised to see that Apollo 440 was a fully-functioning, multi-piece band, not just a couple of dudes pushing buttons. They had two drummers, a bass player and a guitarist I recognized as Noko, formerly from Howard Devoto's largely abortive post-Magazine band, Luxuria. An added surprise was the addition of Mary Mary Byker (a gentleman), the curiously named former lead singer of erstwhile "grebo" ensemble, Gaye Bykers on Acid (Mary Mary also served in the ranks of Martin Atkins' anarchic Pigface, for a spell). In that line-up, Apollo 440 launched into a genuinely entertaining set, with Mary Mary often just dancing around and grinning like a loon, given that a wide swathe of their material was purely instrumental.
I vividly remember the song below, "Krupa" from that set. Performed live, I recall Rob and I both remarking that it sounded a bit like a happy version of Cop Shoot Cop. The studio version didn't really bear that out, although it does indeed cook (as you'll hear below). I was also chuffed to find that it features a suitably New York-centric video. See below. Recognize any locations?
The main vocal sample throughout the song, incidentally, is a line of passing dialogue from Martin Scorsese's "Taxi Driver." The invocation of "Gene Krupa's synchopated style" is uttered by an actual gentleman named Gene Palma, formerly a fixture on these Manhattan streets, who held court on variety on midtown corners, demonstrating his drumming skills. That's him above circa 1975, courtesy of a photograph named Ernie Viskupic.
Anyway, go put on your dancing pants and push play.
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