— Cliff White
It was still a couple months prior to John F. Kennedy's famous "We choose to go to the Moon" speech but the launch of the first Telstar satellite in 1962 was a key moment in the Space Race. Having been embarrassed by the Soviets with Sputnik and Yuri Gagarin (and even Laika), the first NATO-friendly communications satellite was a coup and was probably even looked upon favourably even by those who considered lunar travel a waste of time and resources. We were now upon an era of instant communication, even if the mail remained slow and it could take months or even years for a pop hit to cross the Atlantic.
Just twelve days later, nutcase genius producer Joe Meek gathered with his wards The Tornados to record "Telstar". As extraordinary as its namesake, it is three minutes of instrumental surf rock with effects that still dazzle, particularly with its distinctive use of the clavioline. Though obviously futuristic, it retains a charming primitive quality and one can practically see the string holding up the spaceship as it hurtles its way through space. The music wasn't made by computers, it was cut and mixed by dour men in lab coats and, indeed, so too were the shuttles being sent out to orbit the Earth. Rather than being built by robots or 3D printers, they were very hands on projects with music critic Neil Kulkarni observing that last year's fiftieth anniversary footage of the Apollo 11 Moon landing showed a ship that was very "Blue Peter".
If we then jump ahead to the late seventies the landscape has altered. Space exploration has been culled, the glory days of space rock — from The Byrds' "Mr. Spaceman" to Pink Floyd's "Set Controls for the Heart of the Sun" and on to all kinds of prog rock nonsense — have been and gone and, yet, machines are beginning to take over as man becomes redundant. Young children had Star Wars figurines to maintain the illusion but to many technology was showing its ugly side and it wouldn't be for another three or four years as families began buying up home computers and VCRs that the average citizen could at least be placated by a sense that they were getting something out of it.
This void of progress leaving everyone behind is the backbone of "Remember Russia" by Berkshire group Fischer-Z. This being 1979, it's tempting to take the skeletal reggae, hyper-dramatic vocals and tight, choppy group performance as being not unlike The Police, albeit with the added attraction of an unsettling organ as an add on. Repeated listenings, however, begin to expose the differences. Where Sting could never quite remove tongue from cheek, lead "Fish's Head" John Watts means every word he sings. I've belittled earnestness in the likes of Jim Kerr but here it works well. Watts refuses to spell out the incidence and one YouTube comment helpfully points out that "this song is amazing and has real meaning to those that understand" but even that misses the point. You don't have to have lived through some sort of technological wasteland to feel moved by this song. When Watts screams "damn those satellites to hell!" you're right there with him.
It's easy to take "Remember Russia" on face value, that it's a diatribe against Communism and the planned economy, but there's nothing to suggest that's what Watts had in mind. Instead, I propose that he's arguing that the Soviets place little value on human life and, while we in the West are meant to be against everything our Iron Curtain counterparts stand for, it's beginning to spread throughout the world. Tech is leaving us all behind and we're even letting it happen. We're now more than forty years on from then but this is still relevant, if not more so. And it still sounds great. Maybe it's every bit as futuristic as "Telstar".
Just twelve days later, nutcase genius producer Joe Meek gathered with his wards The Tornados to record "Telstar". As extraordinary as its namesake, it is three minutes of instrumental surf rock with effects that still dazzle, particularly with its distinctive use of the clavioline. Though obviously futuristic, it retains a charming primitive quality and one can practically see the string holding up the spaceship as it hurtles its way through space. The music wasn't made by computers, it was cut and mixed by dour men in lab coats and, indeed, so too were the shuttles being sent out to orbit the Earth. Rather than being built by robots or 3D printers, they were very hands on projects with music critic Neil Kulkarni observing that last year's fiftieth anniversary footage of the Apollo 11 Moon landing showed a ship that was very "Blue Peter".
If we then jump ahead to the late seventies the landscape has altered. Space exploration has been culled, the glory days of space rock — from The Byrds' "Mr. Spaceman" to Pink Floyd's "Set Controls for the Heart of the Sun" and on to all kinds of prog rock nonsense — have been and gone and, yet, machines are beginning to take over as man becomes redundant. Young children had Star Wars figurines to maintain the illusion but to many technology was showing its ugly side and it wouldn't be for another three or four years as families began buying up home computers and VCRs that the average citizen could at least be placated by a sense that they were getting something out of it.
This void of progress leaving everyone behind is the backbone of "Remember Russia" by Berkshire group Fischer-Z. This being 1979, it's tempting to take the skeletal reggae, hyper-dramatic vocals and tight, choppy group performance as being not unlike The Police, albeit with the added attraction of an unsettling organ as an add on. Repeated listenings, however, begin to expose the differences. Where Sting could never quite remove tongue from cheek, lead "Fish's Head" John Watts means every word he sings. I've belittled earnestness in the likes of Jim Kerr but here it works well. Watts refuses to spell out the incidence and one YouTube comment helpfully points out that "this song is amazing and has real meaning to those that understand" but even that misses the point. You don't have to have lived through some sort of technological wasteland to feel moved by this song. When Watts screams "damn those satellites to hell!" you're right there with him.
It's easy to take "Remember Russia" on face value, that it's a diatribe against Communism and the planned economy, but there's nothing to suggest that's what Watts had in mind. Instead, I propose that he's arguing that the Soviets place little value on human life and, while we in the West are meant to be against everything our Iron Curtain counterparts stand for, it's beginning to spread throughout the world. Tech is leaving us all behind and we're even letting it happen. We're now more than forty years on from then but this is still relevant, if not more so. And it still sounds great. Maybe it's every bit as futuristic as "Telstar".
~~~~~
Also Reviewed This Fortnight
Joe Jackson: "Sunday Papers"
Wags didn't know what to do with disco and punk but at least they had pub rock that they could wrap their heads around. Elvis Costello and Dave Edmunds and Nick Lowe and Graham Parker & The Rumour: they all wrote classic pop-rock with just enough chords and they all had humour. Joe Jackson never quite fit in with this lot but he got lumped in with them all the same. More strident and with a knack for taking empathetic situations and making you side with whoever did him wrong, he churned out some great but unlikable tunes over the years. "Sunday Papers" is a prime example: nicely played and sung (assuming you can stomach Jackson's voice) but with an undeserved smarminess, like that guy on Twitter who makes hackneyed observations but is convinced they're original thoughts. And for all his bluster about press, I'm sure he's right there with them when they go on about the nanny state and how political correctness is the greatest blight currently facing humanity.
Wags didn't know what to do with disco and punk but at least they had pub rock that they could wrap their heads around. Elvis Costello and Dave Edmunds and Nick Lowe and Graham Parker & The Rumour: they all wrote classic pop-rock with just enough chords and they all had humour. Joe Jackson never quite fit in with this lot but he got lumped in with them all the same. More strident and with a knack for taking empathetic situations and making you side with whoever did him wrong, he churned out some great but unlikable tunes over the years. "Sunday Papers" is a prime example: nicely played and sung (assuming you can stomach Jackson's voice) but with an undeserved smarminess, like that guy on Twitter who makes hackneyed observations but is convinced they're original thoughts. And for all his bluster about press, I'm sure he's right there with them when they go on about the nanny state and how political correctness is the greatest blight currently facing humanity.
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