Eagles of Death Metal – Save a Prayer (Duran Duran)

The Eagles of Death Metal is the collaboration project of two high school buddies Jesse Hughes and Josh Homme, you may know also Josh as the lead man of Stoner rockers Kyuss and more recently QOTSA. It started out in 2004 as a fun side project, but The Eagles of Death Metal turned into a full-fledged band, that toured extensively and recorded several albums. This track is from the album Zipper Down.

In 2015, two months after the release of Zipper Down, on tour in France, the band played the Bataclan in Paris, when terrorists attacked the venue. The terrorists killed 88 audience members, plus the band’s merchandise seller. The band members cancelled the rest of their European tour and set up a charity campaign, with all proceeds of their songs “I Love You All The Time” and of this track “Save a Prayer” going to the victims and survivors of the attack.

Jesse Hughes suffered from depression after the attack, but still, the band wanted to make a statement and show that they would not yield to terrorism. They returned to Paris a month later and played a concert together with U2, with free admission for all Bataclan survivors.

Red Lorry Yellow Lorry – Nothing Wrong

Get ready for a real tongue twister of a band name “Red Lorry Yellow Lorry”. They did that on purpose so people would be curious to what it means and look into this band (they stated this in an interview). I shall now refer to them as “The Lorries” to prevent mis-pronunciation and save myself a lot of time editing the podcast.

This Post-Punk band formed in the UK in the city of Leeds in 1981. That’s also the city where The March Violets and the Sisters of Mercy have their roots. They were heavily influenced by Joy Division, but Throughout their career offered plenty of variations and an own distinctive sound to break free from their main influence. 

Despite their playful choice of bandname, they are a band that offers just the kind of ferocious intensity that I look for in Darkwave and Goth Rock. The vocals are doomy, the drum machine patterns are aggressive, and the guitars are distorted and layered. I also noticed that almost all of their songs are under 4 minutes long, most are even at or under the 3 minute mark.

The Lorries were also blessed with the interest from John Peel. In fact, they were one of John Peels most favorite bands. With this support and after releasing a few singles and performing live, they  released their first album in 1985 ‘Talk about the Weather’. After this, 3 more albums would follow. Talk about the weather is regarded as their best work, and can be found on Spotify. Instead I picked a song from their 3^rd album “Nothing Wrong” from 1988 that is not on Spotify unfortunately. But we solved that for you, give me a minute and we’ll blast it.

This album is even darker and more ominous sounding than their previous work. It’s definitely an album with a lot of atmosphere – if you like raw and bleak. Also the lyrics have that character, and they outline the cutthroat nature of the modern world and the underlying insanity and pressure on people that brings along. Anyway. For me, this record took on a life of its own, and remains one of my favorites of all time.

Let’s enjoy the song “Nothing Wrong” from the self-titled album. Here we go.

The Cure – Lament (Flexipop Magazine Cover Release)

This goes out to Jessica, or BlueJ, who listens to The Infected all the way from Arkansas, USA. She is part of an excellent local fringe scene and is also a Associate Producer of the Podcast “Shadow Transmission” which also features dark and alternative music. https://open.spotify.com/show/4QfF7u8Ms3RAfyJ0AINhvS?si=Ig-yJkezSleeL_nDQQ6sqQ Recommended!

Besides Shadow Transmission, Jessica has another tip; The Luna Negra Online Streaming festival which will take place on January 29^th 2021, so if you see this in time, go check it out! And Jessica loves B-sides by the Cure, so we had this special treat lined up…

You may know the song La Ment from the Japanese Whispers EP? Ring a bell? Well, that is a re-work version. What we’ll play in a minute is the original version of the song. Officially by The Cure… but it’s not, really, by the Cure.

So here is what happened. Remember, Blue Sunshine? As discussed in an earlier episode The Cure were so divided during the Pornography tour for their dark, fourth album that it came to fist fights between band members and they parted ways in the midst of the tour, Gallup leaving the band, others no longer on speaking terms.

Convinced that they would never play again, Robert disappeared to the Lake District, leaving no forwarding address.

Several weeks later, Flexipop magazine asked Robert if The Cure could write a flexi-disk track, that would be cover-mounted on their magazine. Robert was faced with a dilemma. Either he had to come up with something by himself or he would have to admit publicly that the Cure existed no more.

So, he decided to do it himself and playing his trusty old Woolworth’s Top 20 guitar, he wrote a song called Lament.

Although the track was credited to The Cure, in fact it was recorded by Robert Smith and Steve Severin, the bass-guitarist of Siouxsie and the Banshees, who were also having a tough time. Smith wrote the guitar and bass parts, then booked the Garden Studio in London. He phoned Severin and said, ‘Get some stuff, we’re going to record a song.’ He went along with his Woolworths guitar, a bass, a drum machine and two wooden flutes.

Severin was officially the producer, but he actually spent most of the session gripping the edge of the mixing desk and laughing as Smith staggered in and out of the control room asking, “What was that like then?” The volume of the high-hat in the mix, the wild ‘fish-panning’ and the dubious coherence of the vocals are a bit of a give-away as to their states of mind….”

So let’s check it out! Here is the original Lament.

The track is about a river that was called La Ment, lending the title to a double meaning. I looked it up, it must have been on Holiday in the South of France. It is about a memory Robert had as a boy. He watched a dead man get pulled from the river. Even though Robert did experience this as a boy, he doesn’t seem too very disturbed by the memory. The man who kills himself is smiling, and, although cold, seems perfectly happy to ‘walk’ into the water. Rather than a horror story, the lyrics are quite surrealistic.

Scars – All About You

There’s a good chance you haven’t heard about Scars yet. They were a post-punk band from Edinburgh, Scotland. Founded in 1977. They were supporting act for Siouxsie and the Banshees who were also fans. After releasing a few singles in the late 70’s, they released their first and only album in 1981, called “Author! Author!”. Still this one album is a piece of art in my book. These Scotts managed to create an original and interesting blend of Ska, Dub-like combined with post-punk. I like the singing, the vibe, and there’s obvious talent and musicianship here.

On the surface their music sounds a bit poppy, but with the right amount of darkness through its ten tracks. The single “All About You”, sounds like it could have become a hit (its promo video is on YouTube). The song has a drive, is melodic and mysterious. Almost like an artier, more subtle counterpart of “I Will Follow” from U2.

However, it was not a hit and, after some changes in the band lineup, they split-up in 1982.

Perhaps in a less crowded market than the one in 1981, they would have made a mark. Also the album is quite unpolished, and a bit messy here and there. In a time where Post-punk was being commodified for stadiums and bigger audiences, that maybe didn’t help them.

Dagon – Eternal Void

This is our Insta Outcast. This is a track from the Ultra Fresh album Adam Krueger, which was released just last week, so January 2021. Dagon is a follower of The Infected, so that’s how I picked up on his release. There is a tip in there for others as well; follow The Infected on Facebook or Instagram and we’ll follow back so we can see what’s new with you. Who knows, you might end up in the show!

About Dagon then. It’s quite hard to find information on the web about this artist, especially since Dagon is A. the name of an ancient fertility god, B. the title of a famous story by HP Lovecraft and C. another Dagon is the leader of the Dark Metal band Inquisition, a controversial guy. But today we are talking about Dagon a.k.a. George Georgalas, an independent artist from Greece. He truly works according to the punk DIY, do it yourself mentality. He specializes in electronic music in many forms. He writes the songs, writes the lyrics, produces and performs them. Dark tunes, bold lyrics and uplifting beats, that’s what Dagon is about. Poli Kala.

The Big Picture + Paul McCollough – Passage to Normal

It is music that you can hear in the last scene and end credits of the 1990 remake of Night and The Living Dead. So logically, we kept this for the last part of this episode.

Originally, they were going to call this movie from 1968: Night of the Flesh Eaters. But it turned out that there already was a movie with that exact name, can you believe it?? So that’s why they renamed it to Night of the Living Dead.

The director and creator, George A. Romero was a bit young and naïve at the time. He did not put a copyright notice on the new title, and also his zombie concept (namely that zombies were creatures that were resurrected from death, slow moving, with a specific appearance etcetera. So the movie was basically released into the public domain and had countless spin-offs and rip-offs like “Return of the Living Dead” and so much more.

They have been prosecuting copycats for over 30 years now, and didn’t make the money they should have on the original movie.

Part of the reason to do the remake in 1990, was motivated by those copyright issues. They thought it would help to fight the case again, by now tying the right copyrights to the title. And also make some actual money this time round.. It wasn’t a big hit, so I doubt that they made a lot of money this time round. 

Anyways, It resulted in a “Frame by frame” remake of the original, but in 1990. What I like about it that it stands the test of time much better, the acting is great, and mood even better than the original. 

They had famous horror special FX artist Tom Savini (AKA “The King of Splatter”) direct this one in 1990. He actually played a zombie in the original from 1968.

It’s one of my favorite Zombie or horror movies of all time. And the soundtrack is great too. The song we’re about to sign off with is in the last scene and is called “Passage To Normal”. 

8-Bit Minute

This whole season, we’ll end the show with an 8-bit minute
This is episode 1’s 8-bit track:

If you can recognize the artist and track, send us a message on social or via theinfected.nl
At the end of the season, the best listener wins a luxury, back printed The Infected T-shirt!