Turn Me On, Dead Man

Maybe You've Been Brainwashed Too   by  New Radicals

                                                       

There are certain songs that you forever associate with one special summer / lover / event , each and every time you hear it.  For me, New Radicals' "You Get What You Give" evokes such a time, such a person and such a moment.  It was the summer of '98 and I was visiting a longtime friend in San Diego.  As we drove to the Temecula Valley wine country, this song came on the radio, and it was love at first sight.   

Official video for "You Get What You Give":



Even though there were collaborators on the New Radicals' lone album (most notably Danielle Brisebois, former child actress best known for playing Stephanie during the waning days of  All In The Family), the "band" was really just one guy. 

Gregg Alexander was a teen wunderkind from Michigan who'd already recorded a solo album for a major label at an age when most of us were contemplating who to go to the prom with.   Nothing much happened with that album, so Alexander hunkered down in his apartment and recorded a stack of demos, playing all or most of the instruments himself.   He had befriended a producer Rick Knowles, who midwifed a deal with MCA Records, pitching Alexander as a group.   MCA put out Maybe You've Been Brainwashed Too and heavily promoted "You Get What You Give" and "Someday We'll Know" as singles.  Both were doing well, and MCA insisted that "the band" hit the road on a national tour.  

Gregg Alexander was overwhelmed, certainly by the immense success of "You Get What You Give", but mostly by the thought of perfoming his songs live.   On the eve of the tour, he did an about face.   He cancelled the tour, fired his touring band and went into seclusion.  For all intents and purposes, from that moment, New Radicals was no more.  Total lifespan: less than a year.  

However, while Alexander hasn't issued any new albums of his own, he's hardly been silent.  Remember that HUGE smash song by Santana and Michelle Branch a few years back?  "The Game Of Love" was written and produced by "Alex Ander" (a very transparent pseudonym).  And across the pond, Ronan Keating had his biggest British hit song ever with another Gregg Alexander-penned-and-produced tune, "Life Is A Rollercoaster".

Here's Gregg Alexander's demo of "The Game Of Love":
 


Maybe You've Been Brainwashed Too  is a stunning album, bursting with melodic invention, singalong choruses and spirited lyrics.   Some of the songs come across like anthems to the youthful joy inside all of us, no matter our physical age.   "Jehovah Made This Whole Joint For You" is a modern hymn celebrating the beauty of the world around us and the fact that it's all there for us to enjoy (and respect).  Conversely, "I Hope I Didn't Just Give Away The Ending" is the tale of two druggies looking for their next big thrill and finding something very different instead.     

More people should hear this album.   It's too good to be forgotten.


[First Released: 1998     KEY TRACKS: "You Get What You Give", "Jehovah Made This Whole Joint For You", "Someday We'll Know", "I Hope I Didn't Just Give Away The Ending"] 

Admittedly, this is Andru's series, but I'm going to jump in here with my own picks. For my first entry I'm heading straight to obscuro territory. I wish the 1970 album Head would be reissued in some form. Head is the first album by Nik Raicevic, who released six albums over the course of his musical career, which seems to have ended in the mid-1970s. Head was released on the Buddah label, but they quickly dropped him because this drug-obsessed album of electronic sounds was too "out there." The album contains only three tracks, at 17:30, "Cannabis Sativa" takes all of side one, while side two is divided between the six-minute long "Methdrine" and "Lysergic Acid Diethylamide," which runs for almost nine minutes. Though the dust jacket exclaims that Buddah Records is "Where Tomorrow Begins," Buddah apparently thought this album was too druggy. But of course, that was the idea, as this poem on the back cover explains,

The sound of numbers
for soaking in soft dreams.
Sweet moments and private notes
making a rhyme
into a habit.
An album that creates
the ultimate environment
for the smoke generation.
Taste it.

They don't make 'em like that anymore. Actually I'm not entirely sure that Nik Raicevic was the performer. He is credited as the composer and producer of the album, as well as source of the alien-landscape cover photo, but the credits state, "Moog Synthesizer played by: 107-34-8933" What that means I don't know (Nik's SSN?), but it's fitting given the overall tone of the album. The rest of Nik Raicevic's albums (released under his own name, as well as Pascal) were released on his own Narco label.

I spent years tracking down this album. I first heard "Cannabis Sativa" while listening to Beaker Street, but I had no idea what it was. Clyde Clifford, DJ and engineer for Beaker Street used "Cannabis Sativa" as an audio bed for his between-song commentary. It served the purpose of drowning out the background noise in the makeshift studio, but it also lent the show a spacey aura that really drew me in. I heard this strange track one more time several years later on KFAI, community radio station in Minneapolis/St. Paul, but didn't call the studio quickly enough to find out what it was called. Finally, a few years ago I wrote to Clyde Clifford and asked him what he played in the background on Beaker Street all those years ago, and he courteously replied with the info. Apparently he gets asked this question a lot, as it appears in this interview on the Beaker Street FAQ page.  I bought a scratchy copy of Head in an Ebay auction (for $36 as I recall), but my copy (like most used copies) no longer contains the coloring book that came with the album. As the front cover message explains, "INSIDE YOU WILL FIND SOMETHING COLORFUL TO DO WITH YOUR HANDS WHILE YOU"RE LISTENING TO THIS ALBUM." They really don't make 'em like that anymore.

The back cover reveals that Head was also released on "Ampex 8-Track Cartridge & Cassette Stereo Tapes" A decent rip of Head may still be available on the music blog Redtelephone66, but would a CD reissue be too much to ask?