electronically yours, special squad, kuolleet lehdet

This week I listened to the audible version of Martyn Ware's Electronically Yours, Vol. 1. As you know, Ware was the prime mover in the Human League in its first incarnation and then went on to be a central force in Heaven 17. The second Human League album, in particular, is one of my favourite records ever, it's called Travelogue and I agree with Ware's own assessment of it - that it sounded like nothing else when it came out and it still doesn't sound dated. It's a remarkable record. 

I was most interested in the early stuff here - particularly the HL material - though I was also disappointed by a lot of the approach. I couldn't help feeling that Ware really needed an editor, which I'm pretty sure he didn't have (someone to elicit more detail on some things and less blah on others). Ware was there, so he doesn't seem to appreciate what we would want to know. For instance, he goes into great detail about 'Marianne' which is, you know, an ok song, but says completely nothing at all about 'The Black Hit of Space', which is, of course, an amazing work of genius. He barely touches on 'Empire State Human' which is extraordinary, remarkable, and immense (actually, he might not even mention it, I can't remember). The rise of the HL is unbelievably fast and things like the release of their first record is practically an afterthought. I'm pretty sure, too, that he gets important things wrong - like John Lydon's review of 'Being Boiled' in the NME which I'm 1000% sure was two words: 'trendy hippies' but Ware says it was 'fucking hippies', in fact, he says it twice. 

Update 10 July: It also occurred to me how extremely little Ware says about '(We Don't Need This) Fascist Groove Thang' which was a revelation and an amazing statement of intent for Heaven 17 - it was their first single. The bass playing of John Wilson (inc. a hell of a solo) was a remarkable feature of this single and how Ware, Marsh and Gregory came across Wilson is entirely avoided, I am not even sure he's discussed at all. That's all pretty weird, right? It took a lot of gumption to launch H17 the way they did, and a lot was made of Wilson, in particular, at that point. Wilson appears in group photos etc (I'd never seen him before but I gather he's here second from right) and yet, not a mention. 

Of course it could be that I stopped listening/paying attention for a while and/or that I accidentally skipped a bit (I definitely skipped one section about football, so maybe he segued into discussing John Wilson then as well) so who knows?

Ware is a very dedicated socialist, which I approve of, and a football fan, which is a bore. He really likes art and values creativity and adventurousness which I admire. His book is full of the usual crapola about hot women and drinking too much which is a drag but apparently necessary in books like this. Simultaneously to H17 he became an extraordinarily successful record producer though he gives us precisely no information about what a record producer does or is (I suppose I'm fine with that). OK I think I've about said all there is to say about this. By the way it's hard to be sure whether he's providing his own interjections reading this book for audible or whether the interjections are in the original book, I guess I'll never know. 

Meanwhile I've been watching a lot of another Crawfords show made in Melbourne in 1984-5, called Special Squad. It's a peculiar production which apparently sought a certain measure of gritty realism. In one sense it might as well be Homicide '84; it's three men in an elite section of the police force, always in car chases, each episode a neat solving of crime with a lot of the usual moralistic elements (no crim ever gets away). One odd aspect is that the first episode absolutely does not even slightly bother to introduce you to the police characters - you are just thrown in at the deep end. I'm still confused about who these three men are. 

What else does it have? A lot of interesting actors. Red Symons as a terrorist (I'm not even sure he has a speaking role, but it's him) and Frankie J. Holden as an undercover cop, for instance. Norman Coburn is a corrupt cop in another episode (see below). The storylines are, on the whole, not magnificent* and if it wasn't for the intriguing mid-80s technology (phones and computers in cars!) the above mentioned actors and the locations I wouldn't really be bothering, I suspect. Oh, but every episode does end with someone making a lame joke** and the frame freezing, which is pretty amazing to see in the wild. 

Last night my mother and I went to see Kuolleet Lehdet, a low-key Finnish film which surprised me no end by including Maustetytöt in one scene. 

Oddly enough I knew they were in a film because I saw this poster a few weeks ago on the Maustetytöt fan club facebook group but I didn't realise that this was the same film I had already bought tickets to. Just 'cause I'm dumb. 

They don't have lines or anything just a crucial moment in the action, where they convince one of the main characters to stop drinking by dint of their extremely depressing song. It's pretty cool. 

Overall the film is probably worth it. I am still thinking about it. 

* to be fair, I haven't been paying 100% attention

** or just a pointed comment. 

yep, you know, stuff...

So Bert Costello is dead. He died in an old mineshaft in episode 210. It was a weird death, because so unexpected. There was no meaningful shot of him and no otherwise inexplicable monologue about how he was looking forward to seeing his mother on the weekend or maybe he'd pop the question to his (admittedly he had no real backstory other than that he was Italian and born in Walgett or something like that) girlfriend or anything else to make his death poignant. It was like they decided during the episode that they'd found a good way to get Lionel Long out of the show, 'let's chuck him in the mineshaft and blow it up off-camera' And yes, it all takes place offscreen but we do get to see him dead:

I mean who knows what the circumstances were of LL leaving the show after a reasonably short tenure (fifty or so episodes) but I think he was in some ways an underutilised resource, and he did a pretty decent job all through his time on the program. He could even reel off some credible (to me) sounding Italian which is a talent for someone without an Italian background, he wasn't like Con the Fruiterer or anything. So it was sad. The other characters have not mentioned him since he left, at all, not once. The first episode after he went was based on the Robert Ryan case, so a Pentridge warden is shot, and they are all talking about 'going to the funeral' and I assumed they meant Costello's funeral but no it's the warden's. So, I guess Poochie died on the way back to his home planet. Long (who by the end of the year was hosting an hour-long country and western show on ABC radio, so win/win) is replaced by Norman Yemm, who I have to admit, is spectacular. 

Weirdly Long/Costello only lasted a few episodes after the departure of Inspector Connolly, the last original cast member to leave. Connolly got quite a send-off, with a whole lot of back-and-forth about how he didn't want a party with speeches. A lot was also made of the notion that Connolly wasn't retiring, but going on long service leave for six months. Even the other characters seem confused about whether this is a fake way of saying he's retiring. His replacement is Alwyn Kurts.

I just went looking through IMDB to get clear when Connolly left and Costello died, and it looks like there's a whole disc on my DVD box (8) which I actually haven't watched, lol, or the episodes were so unmemorable I might as well not have watched them. Anyway I think there are probably only about six episodes with this as the opener:

The four men are cleverly in shadow because you know what? I think this might still actually be John Fegan in there not Kurts. When Norman Yemm joins they stripped him into the guys-getting-out-of-the-car opener (perhaps they even shot it on the same day! Looks like the same light) and then did a less in-the-dark ending to the sequence. 

Norman Yemm is already incredible, what a guy. I mean it's chalk and cheese and each was talented but Lionel Long, right, can slip into big international films like The Amorous Adventures of Moll Flanders as 'singer in prison' (apparently, I haven't seen it) and be a functional presence. Norman Yemm couldn't have a bit part in a film, he's just not wallpaper, he's of it. Look at him drawing the charisma away from Leonard Teale here. That takes some doing. 

So that's where I'm at in Homicide. Mid-1969. 

Other things I'm loving right now include the debut album by Maustetytöt, which is called Kaikki Tiet Vievät Peltolaan. The title translates as All Roads Lead to Peltola; obviously this has a local meaning that only locals can understand (Peltola is a small industrial area outside Turku; means nothing to me obviously, I'm surprised it even has an english-language Wikipedia entry).  

According to Finnish wikipedia the duo (sisters guitarist Anna Karjalainen and keyboard player Kaisa Karjalainen) are from Vaala (an hour on the train from Oulu) and live in Kallio, a suburb of Helsinki. Wikipedia (via google translate) continues:

They listen to traditional Finnish iskelmä, and their role model is Leevi and the Leavings. Oskari Onninen says in Helsingin Sanomat that the band is "downright suspiciously 'authentic' and non-commercial". According to Sound's Antti Luukkanen, the songs contain "everyday realism and the glamor of downright misery".

I mean sure, but this is an album that is completely beholden to references to 80s pop and the joke I saw somewhere that they were Finland's Pet Shop Boys is not really a joke (Anna is a complete Chris Lowe in all performances, immobile and deadpan). There is also a song called 'Se Oli SOS' ('It was SOS') which kicks off with a musical reference to that ABBA song. The lyrics are seemingly sardonic depresso slacker stuff that is frankly hard to resist. 

There is another song - I'll find it somewhere - which is basically a translation into Finnish of the general concepts from the Smiths' 'There is a Light That Never Goes Out', which I mean is, no judgment, but lazy songwriting (there's a live clip on youtube where Kaisa says something like, she wasn't glamourising death, just translating Morrissey!). But like I said 'slacker'. Anyway, they're an excellent band and also, considering I am currently in the throes of trying to get some basic Finnish via duolingo, the fact that they almost always include the song title in the chorus is good practice for me. I can already pick out some words. By the way, the name 'Maustetytöt' means 'Spice Girls'. 

So yes I have spent a long time the last couple of weeks absorbing this kind of thing: 

It's actually pretty satisfying to turn your mind off a bit and feel it rather than try to figure it out. Often works, though clearly, duolingo has a hell of a process that reinforces you a lot for what is basically guesswork/deduction. 

So that's been my last couple of weeks. Going back to my earlier point, vale Lionel Long. He was only 59 when he died, that's a shame, he was good.