Sunday, March 21, 2010

The Rise and Fall of the Dark Side of Hall and Oates: A Brief History

When was The Dark Side of Hall and Oates born? That question has perplexed scholars, music lovers, and theologians alike for years, and even now, in this nuclear winter of 2064, it continues to divide the Tribes of Earth. There is, of course, a small but particularly violent group of fundamentalists who insist that the project commenced the moment the Lurie brothers espied a $2.00 cassette copy of Hall and Oates: The Early Years in a Portland convenience store in 1993. Others point to the Christmas Eve in 2002 when the brothers stormed an open mic in Kingston, WA to deliver an extended take on “One on One”—complete with a rap that name-dropped Captain Kirk, Attila the Hun, and the mighty Australian ensemble Men at Work.

Researchers from Instanbul University work to unravel the mysteries of The Dark Side of Hall and Oates.

Archaeologists, however, have declared a recently unearthed email transcript (stardate 2004) the probable inception point for the album. In this missive, the elder Lurie encourages his younger sibling to “imagine Pink Floyd teaming up with Tom Waits to perform Hall and Oates songs on broken banjos.”

Then, frustratingly, the trail goes cold.

We have the recordings from the infamous “Lost Weekend” of 2008—the sessions that yielded “Adult Education,” “Had I Known You Better Then,” and “If That’s What Makes You Happy.” And we know from carbon dating that the cracked, brittle renditions of “Say It Isn’t So” and “Maneater (Reprise)” also hail from the same era—albeit from a different session.

In 2053, self-educated anthropologist Don “Doughboy” Doughty reported an amazing find: three cassette tapes buried at the bottom of a box of Hustler magazines in his recently deceased father’s attic, labeled “Swami Sessions.”  These turned out to be the legendary recordings of Swami Premananda crooning “Back in Love Again” seventy-seven times. Prior to this find, historians had concluded that the Swami himself was simply a fictitious creation—an embellishment that had crept into the accounts of the few survivors who’d heard the album in its entirety prior to its destruction.

Recent findings trace the origins of Koot Hoomi's Hall & Oates tribute album back to the year 2004.

As we well know, the Great War of 2011 is the reason for our shamefully spotty historical record. And we also know that the war itself was sparked by internecine violence within the indie rock community as radicalized Koot Hoomi fans and Bird and The Bee fans took up arms against one another. What had started out as a friendly rivalry quickly soured with the brutal martyrdom of Topher Blair (He was burned in a giant wicker man by ironic hipsters. One eyewitness account has them dancing lewdly and chanting the canonical works of Death Cab for Cutie while Topher’s flesh curled off the bone, but this has never been verified.)

From that point forward it was brother against brother, mother against daughter, alligator against crocodile, slug against snail.

The rest of the story you no doubt remember from your history lessons in elementary school: The Purge of 2013, the nuclear meltdown of the Blue Note Records pressing plant, the invasion of Rhode Island, and the birth of the squid baby.  It’s all too depressing to recount here. But for that one shining moment before the great cataclysm, the Lurie brother’s great dream had its day in the sun. And what a wonderful day it was.

Tuesday, March 9, 2010

The Dark Side of Hall and Oates: A Manifesto


We shouldn’t even be having this conversation. In a sane, rational world, one where talent and mastery of craft counted for something, I wouldn’t feel the need to justify my love for Daryl Hall and John Oates. Their greatness would be evident to anyone with functioning ears.

But if there’s one thing I’ve learned over the years, it’s that the hallowed, mystery-shrouded dark tower of “music criticism” is populated by lemmings. How else to explain the monolithic fawning over, oh, let me just pick one example, Patti Smith? Never mind that she sounds like a dying cat; that guy from Trouser Press said she’s the next Dylan!

Maybe the scribblers never paid any attention to Hall and Oates because they weren’t the “next” anything. Sure, Daryl Hall idolized and emulated the Philly soul singers he’d listened to in his youth, and yes, John Oates—in the early days at least—was enamored of bluegrass and folk songwriters. And both were fans of good old rock and roll. But they combined those ingredients to create a hybrid they called “rock and soul”—and that’s a calibration they retained, whether they were singing of rich girls who had gone too far, winged bulls scraping the sky like Icarus, Beanie G with his rose tattoo, private eyes who were watching you, or that nameless maneater, from 1970 through 1986 (what I regard as the golden era). Now, I’ve heard all the arguments that the self-appointed arbiters of integrity and authenticity have leveled against the dynamic duo over the years: that the songs are silly, the albums are slick and overproduced, and that the mustache is ridiculous. Well, let’s take these one by one.

I won’t deny that some of the songs are silly, but I would counter with Paul McCartney’s question: “What’s wrong with that?” Let’s face it: rock and roll itself is silly. It’s a medium filled with grown-ass men jumping around onstage in makeup, sometimes smashing their instruments for no apparent reason and generally conducting themselves in a manner that frat boys doing keg stands would find obnoxious. To paraphrase Martin Sheen in Apocalypse Now, “Accusing these men of being silly in the medium of rock music is like passing out speeding tickets at the Indy 500.”

I’m also wondering why Bowie gets a pass. Don’t get me wrong, I love me some Bowie, but stack “a she-cat tamed by the purr of a jag-u-ar” (From H&O’s “Maneater”) against “keeps all his dead hair for making up underwear” (from Bowie’s “Jean Genie”) and tell me which line is more ridiculous.

Are the albums overproduced? Well, sure, I suppose so. But what does that mean, anyway? Isn’t Pet Sounds overproduced? How about any of the records from the Lindsey Buckingham era of Fleetwood Mac? If, by overproduced, you mean polish and attention to detail, then I say guilty as charged. And if you want everything to sound like The Velvet Underground’s White Light / White Heat, there’s nothing I can do for you.

Lastly, the mustache. People fear it, as they did Samson’s hair. There is no doubt that it possesses occult powers. Oates himself had to eventually get rid of it, just as Spider Man broke free of the black suit. But make no mistake, that mustache defined an era and an ethos. All eyes went to it. And Oates was hardly alone. Need I remind readers of the unstoppable sexual magnetism of Tom Selleck?

Ultimately, this is all smokescreen. The pundits are trying to distract you from the fact that, when you get right down to it, the music of Daryl Hall and John Oates is simple, direct, true, and good. And that’s why it resonates. Koot Hoomi’s introduction of psychedelia, Tuvan throat chanting, backwards masking, and the occasional rap about robot invasions should in no way be construed as mocking the source material. You can’t improve upon perfection, so our only option was to do these songs in our own way. We sincerely hope that you enjoy the result.

The Dark Side of Hall and Oates is now available. Ordering info and streaming audio from the album can be heard at http://darksideofhallandoates.com.