Tag Archives: Dave Allen

Ragel Against The Machine

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I was so pleased with myself when I came up with that headline that I had to use it here. Jon Ragel, AKA BoyEatsDrumMachine has been doing pure mad mashups with Talking Heads Vs. Michael Jackson and The Cure…except these mashups are LIVE and feature Gang of Four’s Dave Allen on bass (ver’ nice) and Benjy Rickard on guitar and synth. The mashups have Ragel on vox and vinyl…tasty.

I tend to latch on to little things in the mix, and Dave Allen’s bass punctuations in the Psycho Killer riffs are sharp. It’s stuff like that that keeps the mix interesting. Also nice–Benji Rickard’s great minimalist one-note guitar lines. Jon Ragel keeps it real by not trying to hit those Psycho Killer high “aiieee aiiieee aiieeee aieeee” notes–wise move, my man. Not even DB hisself could hit ’em consistently.

The first one of these live mashups was fun–I listened and thought, “hell yeah!” but the new one, Billie Jean/Psycho Killer is nothing short of brilliant. The Billie Jean bass riff is massive in the right hands, and it is definitely in the right hands here. This is sweet stuff and it is FREE. And how about that image? The Billie Jean Byrne graphic is just sick, wrong and I wish it were poster size.

Pampelmoose blogged it here and Jon Ragel also has it as a freebie at his BEDM official site. Don’t forget to check out the other sonic treats at BEDM as there’s much to feast on. The P-Moose site also has a healthy stack of mp3 goodies.

Gang of Four Damaged Goods EP

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Gang of Four is a favorite from way back. I got my start with this band by picking up the compilation CD, A Brief History of the Twentieth Century. Once I heard the Damaged Goods track, I was hooked. As a bass player myself, I was amazed at the athletic playing of Dave Allen, and later tracks like Cheeseburger and the blistering live version of What We All Want.

Dave Allen recently offered up a lovely zip file of the three songs from the GoF vinyl Damaged Goods EP in a post on his excellent blog, Pampelmoose.com. I’m a complete fan of the site for a variety of reasons, but mostly because Dave’s a character and I enjoy the posts by him and his contributors. I’m also a bit hooked on the Portland music scene.

As the songs offered in the Pampelmoose entry are ripped from vinyl, they TECHNICALLY fit here, thought I’d much rather chase down the original record and pop it on the turntable. MP3s are fun, but I do love the size, smell and artwork of the good old stuff. MP3s just don’t have any distinctive features whatsoever except the audio itself. Me, I enjoy the whole package. The searching, the finding, the fondling…all of it. But I digress. Have a listen to these great tracks and see what hooked me so many years ago.