As a kid I spent more than a few weekend days feeding quarters into primitive video game machines and skating around in a giant circle under the flashing disco lights at the local roller rink. At the time one of my favorite tunes the roller rink DJ would regularly spin was the Disco/Funk/Rock single “Another One Bites the Dust” by the ever-versatile British Rock band Queen. The DJ would so frequently mix the tune with one of those Disco remakes of the Star Wars theme (The Empire Strikes Back was still freshly released) by Domenico “Meco” Monardo that in my young mind the two melded into one. I’d hound my older siblings, who were Queen fans, to find me that version, but to no avail. It wasn’t until many years later, as a cratedigger, that I came across the Meco records and finally figured out how poor a trainspotter my younger self had been.
Over the ensuing years — thanks in part to my siblings, Grandmaster Flash’s “Adventures on the Wheels of Steel,” that old video show Night Flight (which introduced me to “Under Pressure”), Classic-Rock radio, Public Enemy’s “Terminator X to the Edge of Panic,” the movie Wayne’s World and the awesome songwriting, musicianship & performing of the band itself — I remained fascinated by Queen. I was reminded that I’m not the only one so enraptured by the band or their flamboyant front-man Freddie Mercury when I caught a snatch of the iconic car-ride lip-sync scene during a recent broadcast of the aforementioned Wayne’s World on cable. This weekend’s re-airing of the “McStroke” episode of Family Guy where Peter and Brian debate Mercury’s sexuality in reference to the implications of growing a mustache reminded me of something else; the Freddie Mercury-esque vocals of Ghostland Observatory front-man Aaron Behrens and how I hadn’t paid his band any attention here on Blogarhythms.
With a title like Robotique Majestique I’d normally try to throw Austin, Texas-based duo Ghostland Observatory’s newly-released third LP into the “robot music” category and link them to Go-Bots, Cylons or some other such nonsense. And although the backing tracks conjured up by cape-friendly group member Thomas Ross Turner — largely comprised of synthesizers and electronic drums that recall Italo-Disco, ’80s Synth-Funk and R&B, and even Queen’s soundtrack to the 1980 film adaptation of Flash Gordon — could be called “robotic,” the glammy aspects of the band’s image and sound, and Behren’s Mercury-ian affectations stood out a lot more. I can only imagine that if Mercury hadn’t been felled by the AIDS virus in 1991 and lived to record with popular contemporary producers fond of the Electro-renaissance sound such as Timbaland, The Neptunes or even any of the cats down with Ed Banger Records, the result would sound akin to songs like “Heavy Heart,” “The Band Marches On” or the album’s title track.
Ghostland Observatory “The Band Marches On”
Singing like him is one thing, but I wish more modern artists were willing to match Freddie (and his band-mates) when it comes to experimental songwriting and stylistic range.
- El Keter