25 August 2008

Turn me on, dead man...

...is indeed a strange lyric but that formed the chorus of the title track of the last album by Beat Happening. This was a three-piece band from Washington state who mostly recorded on K Records. They were very minimalistic and lo-fi, not even using a bass guitar or anything more than a basic drum kit. However, their songwriting more than made up for this and came across well over the course of their five albums between 1985 and 1992. It was their last album "You Turn Me On" that I got to know of them and these three songs feature on it. The male singer, Calvin Johnson, sang in the baritone range and was the lead vocalist on most of the songs. I have included one that was sung by Heather Lewis to give you a flavour of her sung songs.
Beat Happening never announced a split and claimed to still rehearse once a month and they did release a single in 2000. Otherwise, nothing much has been heard about them in the last 16 years!

Beat Happening - Teenage Caveman
Noise
Pinebox Derby

Pinebox Derby video

1 comment:

Danchapmancol said...

'Turn Me On, Dead Man' is one of those Paul is dead rumours. It's from revolution #9 by The Beatles if you play it backwards, is it not?