It’s a good hook, sometimes that’s all you need!
3 Likes
you have diplomatic immunity
1 Like
Oh hell yeah! Cue Seven Days in Sammystown!
1 Like
It hit a time when
- people were hungry for a new sound
- synths reached availability to your average person (over the cost of a large home or truck) and
- scrappy MTV gave music videos a rotation.
1 Like
what casio or whatever is the model the keyboard player is holding in the video?
it epitomizes the affordable home synthesizer, it’s those details which makes me feel like they weren’t necessarily concerned with representing themselves as serious musicians so much as making the video.
And you are correct in what you are implying, mtv gave them rotation but music videos were nothing new.
this song sounds like the misfits playing elvis costello.
1 Like
Music videos themselves weren’t new, but a channel of the New Wave of them (with edgier approaches and influential aesthetic) certainly helped mainstream a lot more unconventional pop.
“ We found that we had a lot of things in common: We both really enjoyed Brain Eno, and Kraftwerk was a big band for us at the time. So it was fairly natural for us to get together and play music.
…
The instrumental track for “Mexican Radio” was built up from a foundation of two different rhythm machines: a Roland 808 and a Kalamazoo Rhythm Ace, a primitive box that had once been owned by Daws Butler, the voice of Yogi Bear and Huckleberry Hound. “There’s some of it on ‘Mexican Radio,’” Ridgway says. “I believe it’s in the ‘Western Mode.’ We recorded it through an amp.”
In fact, nearly all the synths and keyboards on “Mexican Radio” were recorded through amps — from Fender Twin Reverbs to AC-30s — rather than direct. “We had the Minimoog set up in the studio room, as was the Oberheim-8 voice sequencer,” Mazda says. “They would’ve been going through amplifiers in the studio room so Joe [Nanini] could play along. A certain amount of it was pumped into his cans, but it was also recorded in a semi-live fashion. A lot of the synths on Call of the West I would have taken a live feed and a direct feed, and tried to mix them together. I was also a big Brian Eno fan: He used to take feeds off Phil Manzanera and Brian Ferry [of Roxy Music] and shove it through his EMS suitcase synth to screw with the song. So that was a general approach I took with synthesizers — I very seldom recorded them direct. I always did something to the sound.”
As for the ultraspeedy Oberheim sequencer part that opens “Mexican Radio,” Mazda says, “I didn’t have to do much to that because the voltage-controlled amplifiers on the Oberheim were very unreliable — they hadn’t sorted out some of the voltage problems. But it was just the effect we were looking for.”
4 Likes
Berkeley boy here, that 80% thing that Rasputin’s had was responsible for half my vinyl to cassette collection as a teen. The good ol days 
3 Likes
I think it’s quintessentially an American thing. Almost no one outside of the USA (except for Celtic Frost) is familiar with Mexican Radio.
There are bands and songs incapable of crossing the Atlantic. Huge in the USA, not even a blip on the radar in Europe. Spoon and Dave Matthews Band spring to mind instantly.
I used to dj semi-professionally for 18 years. American new wave bands were familiar to me. I played Devo, Talking Heads, Blondie, Violent Femmes, and the whole New York No Wave scene with Arthur Russell, Suicide and what not. I never heard about Wall Of Voodoo.
It was only in 2001 that I bumped into this great version of the song, did my research and found out about the Celtic Frost and the original versions of the song.
4 Likes
I have never heard this version of the song, this is wild. thanks for the analysis also! interesting points.
1 Like
Todd in the Shadows did a pretty insightful episode on Wall of Voodoo - according to his research, the band wasn’t that unfamiliar in Europe. It’s just that this wasn’t their big hit (it seems to have been “Camouflage” instead).
4 Likes
I’m not familiar with todd in the shadows but after looking at a bit of this, I feel like if he gets together with demos in the dark something big might happen.
he’s also talking about the exact phenomenon I was questioning, whether the popularity is in essence manufactured, the first real influence of mtv bearing it’s fangs on a youth market. Is it so catchy it would have enjoyed the popularity it did as a one hit wonder without MTV? I’m starting to think, no.
1 Like
All I know is that El-P sampled it for «Iron Galaxy» by Cannibal Ox.
1 Like
yes, doug mentioned it above. it was very forgettable for me even though I used to have the album - not that the album was forgettable, just the sample.
1 Like
3 Likes
I’m going to have nightmares about those fish.
1 Like
I agree. From what I gathered about some of the weird stuff from the early Eighties, they probably wouldn’t have had even that one hit were it not for MTV. It’s that “wink, wink, we’re so wacky and goofy” attitude that reminds me of Thomas Dolby, Buggles or Men Without Hats (heck, even “Dog Police”). They were, as was Stan Ridgway/Wall of Voodoo, serious musicians that painted themselves in a corner with that oddball image - which worked great as long as MTV had just a handful of videos in rotation. But as soon as big budget videos and carefully crafted images entered the scene, they never stood a chance.
(And I have to correct myself - “Camouflage” was Ridgway solo after he left Wall of Voodoo. Great song nonetheless.)
2 Likes
I keep thinking there’s a big talking heads rip off going on but it’s so campy and genre specific it’s easy to miss. Plus unless your voice is all over the place like david byrne it’s harder to pinpoint. I honestly have to say this todd guy is right, I don’t hear anything I’m liking…
Frankly, I would not have made this post just to chit chat about the appeal of this song. I really don’t get it but some blocks are starting to stack…
1 Like