Monthly Archives: November 2010

Song of the Day: Yello – Goldrush

Yello
Goldrush I
Goldrush II
She’s Got A Gun (Live at the Palladium N. Y.)

Vertigo 884 877-1
Music composed and arranged by Boris Blank
Lyrics and vocals by Dieter Meier
Produced by Yello
Thanks to Billy Mackenzie (backing vocals),
Chico Hablas (guitar),
and Ian Tregoning (mixing assistance).
Cover by Ernst Gamper



Song of the Day: Yello – Vicious Games

The mind works in mysterious ways. It remembers random things.
I remember hearing ‘Oh Yeah’ in the movie Ferris Beuller and watching the credits to find out who made this wierd song. (That may have been the origin of my habit of not leaving the theater until the entire movie – credits and all – is finished.) And thats how I discovered Yello.

I quickly picked up the 12 inch single for Oh Yeah. And after listening to it over and over again I picked up my first Yello album – Stella – a week or two later.

Yello was a unique animal then and now. It was 1986 and Yello wouldn’t exist without the synths and samplers they used but it was quite different from previous synth / new wave bands or the new house sounds emerging from Chicago. House was about taking this new, affordable technology of drum machines and samplers and sticking it in your face. But Yello used these things not as the primary focus but as subtle tools. And with them they created sonic landscapes like Stalakdrama – a soundtrack to a film you’ve never seen.

My friends and I would go out on Friday night and see a movie and then head over to Sound Warehouse to spend any cash we had left. We would look through the entire store and finally purchase our goods at midnight as the store was closing. So I got home close to 1am with my copy of Stella. I was working my first job back then – Noahs Ark pet center at Woodfield Mall. I had to get up the next day at 6 or 7am to get to work, but I had to listen to Stella. I sat there in my room with headphones on and experienced my first Yello album from start to finish, mesmerized from the very first note. I may have even listened to it twice that night – knowing that I would be getting about 4 hours sleep but I couldn’t pull myself away from these sounds.

I’m not much of a nostalgic person, but Yello was never big in the US and it was fun trying to track down their music. Today, a band’s entire discography is a single torrent away, but back then I had to work to get my Yello. Getting ‘Another Excess’ was easy but the first two albums? I went to college the next year and worked at the radio station there. They had Yello’s first two albums and at the end of the semester I asked the station director if I could have/purchase some albums from their collection. He said ‘maybe’ depending on what I wanted. When I told him the first two Yello albums, he said ‘no way!’. He wasn’t parting with those. I never did get those first two on vinyl. And it took many trips to Rolling Stone records to complete my Yello CD collection. And that was just for their albums. I couldn’t begin to count all the trips to Importes Etc, Gramaphone Records, all the used record stores on Clark Street, record swaps at hotels, the yearly ALS Mammoth Music Mart – mostly on the hunt for obscure/rare house music but always keeping an eye out for a Yello or Sigue Sigue Sputnik single. Yeah, it was hard work back then – and now it’s as simple as a Youtube search. You’re welcome!

Yello
Vicious Games

Elektra ED 5039
Written by Boris Blank and Dieter Meier
Produced by Yello
Remixed from the Elektra LP ‘Stella’



Song of the Day: Yello – Call It Love

Let’s see if I can get through some of my Yello backlog this week.

Yello
Call It Love (Remix)
Call It Love (Dub)
Call It Love (Extended Version)
Call It Love (Trego Snare Version) (mislabeled as Instrumental on back cover)
L’Hotel

Mercury 888 994-1
Music composed and arranged by Boris Blank
Lyrics and vocals by Dieter Meier
Thanks to Billy Mackenzie (backing vocals),
Chico Hablas (guitar),
Beat Ash (drums),
and Ian Tregoning (mixing assistance).
Cover by Ernst Gamper.
Produced by Yello
Remix and additional production by Francois Kevorkian and Alan Gregorie
Original version from the Yello album ‘One Second’