Fallen Through the Cracks: Be Bop Deluxe to Pete Berwick

by Chuck Eddy

This column's collection of unjustly forgotten music includes country from Russia, mambo from Germany, atmospheric extreme metal from Sweden, doo-wop from the Bronx, free jazz from Syracuse ... and all sorts of stuff from jolly old England.

Be Bop Deluxe: Weird, brainy, technologically minded Brit rock band, anchored by Bill Nelson's frequently heavy guitar, made a whole bunch of good albums in the '70s. Fun fact: split the difference between prog, glam, and new wave--the latter of which didn't even exist yet! Recommended: Futurama, Modern Music, Axe Victim

Daniel Bedingfield: London lad born Down Under made unusually songful working-class blue-eyed soul-pop over "garridge" beats that Americans like me don't much understand; might have been the Limey Justin Timberlake if anybody would have let him. Fun fact: better than his sister, Natasha. Recommended: Gotta Get Thru This

Lou Bega: Skipped Mambos Nos. 1 through 4, but did not skip Monica, Erica, Rita, Tina, Sandra, Mary, or Jessica. Fun fact: actually German! (And Sicilian and Ugandan, sort of!) Recommended: "Mambo No. 5 (A Little Bit Of...)"

The Belmonts: Dion's old backing trio, named for their avenue in the Bronx, returned in 1972, still without instruments but with voices intact. Fun fact: "The ultimate rock'n'roll lullaby," wrote Greil Marcus in his book Stranded. "The sound of men who were forced to grow up." Highly recommended: Cigars, Acappella, Candy

The Beloved: Unusually melodic Anglo-disco unit incorporated ethnic rhythms and house-diva namedrops to give the Pet Shop Boys a run for their money at the dawn of the '90s. Fun facts: also fans of Jean-Paul Sartre and Willy Wonka. Recommended: Happiness

Bergraven: Meditative black-metal doom-sludge-gunk sluggards from Sweden. Fun fact: I keep thinking that their name is Biergarten by mistake. Recommended: Dödsvisioner

Bering Strait: Six-person Russian Fleetwood Mac fans hit No. 98 on Billboard's country album chart in 2003. Fun fact: only charting country band whose hometown is Obninsk; only one with songs titled "Oy, Moroz-Moroz" and "From Ankara to Izmir." Recommended: Pages

Tim Berne: Syracuse-reared, r&b-schooled sax whiz has been a mainstay of the more listenable edge of New York's avant-jazz circles for decades. Fun fact: liked Motown and basketball first. Recommended: The Shell Game

Pete Berwick: Illinois country roughneck on micro-indie label has too flat a voice for slow songs, but his faster ones rock right through their platitudes. Fun fact: best when singing about rebels, Cadillacs, and trains. Recommended: Ain't No Train Out of Nashville

Comments

[scott woods]

Was a rather huge Be Bop Deluxe fan as a teenager, even went to see them live in Toronto (one of my very first concerts, though I knew even then that they kinda sucked that night, despite the fact the Metropolis clips they showed behind them were pretty cool). Saying they "split the difference between prog, glam, and new wave" is completely accurate. They really were all those things and yet not specifically any of them; it's one of the things that made them interesting but also kind of shapeless. I'm guessing in retrospect they're a band with a couple or a few good songs off each album.

[Chuck Eddy]

Glad you thought what I wrote made sense, Scott. George Smith -- who says Be-Bop Deluxe were one of his favorite bands in college -- insists I way over-rated *Axe Victim* (where Nelson had a different backing band, which didn't stick around afterwards), and he swears by *Sunburst Finish* and *Live! In The Air Age* instead. "Sunburst is the heaviest of [Nelson]'s 'play guitar' period and contains the band's two best tunes, 'Blazing Apostles' and 'Fair Exchange'," argues George, whose judgment on such matters is usually trustworthy.

[scott]

I probably agree (insofar as I even remember the details) about the live disc, as it seemed in a way to function as a greatest hits comp (though I think they eventually put a proper GH out, no?), and if I recall the guitars sounded somewhat like Lou Reed's band on *Rock & Roll Animal*. (It's been a long time -- I could be WAY off.) What I'm really curious to go back to at some point, though, is a later disc, *Drastic Plastic*, which me and one of my new wave friends adored at the time (he had the white vinyl) and listened to regularly. Much more synth-oriented and there was a song about Japan (the country), as was the vogue in those days, but I recall nothing else.