BY SMOKEY CAMPBELL
smokeycampbell@wavelengthtoronto.com

“Is this from the new Broadcast album?”
-- question posited by many music fans when DJs play The United States of America

Since the inception of this column in November 2000 I have tried my best to put forth two artists that, on first listen, seem to have nothing in common, and piece together some sort of connection (I must admit that some of these have been a little far-fetched). This month I chose these two artists because there are times when they sound exactly the same! As their debuts came out almost thirty years apart these brilliant bands raise many questions about timelessness, technology, artistic theft and the joy of finding something rare and special in a morass of seeming musical stagnation.

Background: The United States of America was formed in 1967 by Joseph Byrd, experimental composer and ethnomusicologist, along with singer Dorothy Moskowitz in Los Angeles. Like their East Coast cousins The Velvet Underground, the members of the band were mostly classically-trained and extremely serious in their approach. And like the Velvets, the ego conflicts among such strong personalities and the machinations of an immature record industry ensured that they only left the world one album. Broadcast was formed in 1995 in Birmingham, England. After a spate of early singles (collected on Work and Non-Work), they continued working meticulously to create great albums on Warp Records, very much in the cinematic avant-pop tradition of the unknown United States of America.

Sound: No late-'60s rock band in America (with the exception of the Silver Apples) was using (pre-Moog) synthesizer technology the way the USofA did- instead of using the synthesizer to replicate other instruments Byrd played it like a new instrument. Strangely, its use is among the least dated aspects of the album. (The most dated is the social commentary aspects of some of the lyrics -- The Mothers of Invention the USofA were not.) Dorothy Moskowitz' vocals married the ice-queen mezzo-soprano of The Jefferson Airplane's Grace Slick and the ice-queen alto of The Velvet Underground's Nico (who tried to join the band after Moskowitz' departure). Check out “The American Metaphysical Circus” and “Hard-Coming Love” (which destroys the Airplane's “Somebody to Love” similarly to how the Velvets destroyed American Folk Music) for a voice so affecting yet so detached. Every member of the group used elaborate live set-ups to create the sonic landscapes that 21st century technology makes much easier to produce.

Broadcast's use of (at that point) ancient analogue synths was one of the things that fans and critics first noticed about them, along with Trish Keenan's Moskowitz-esque vocals. Unlike many of their peers, Broadcast exuded pop acumen reminiscent of very sinister film music of Ennio Morricone's non-spaghetti western guise or '˜40s jazz ballads and, of course, The United States of America.

Springboard vs. Template: In my July 2002 article, I criticized The Strokes for sounding so much The Velvet Underground it was hard to tell the difference. So why are Broadcast immune to such skewering? Broadcast use the USofA as a springboard for their music, like they are picking up where the USofA left off. They use the best technology of the past 30 years to create a cinematic and unique sound because it allows them to. There is no nostalgia to them nor do they sound like a 21st century band -- they are timeless. Contrast that with using a band as a template, merely taking the sound and image of a classic band without adding anything new.

Smokey Highly Recommends: Broadcast: Work and Non-Work (1997), The Noise Made by People (2000), HaHa Sound (2003). USofA: s/t (1968 -- issued on Columbia Records who didn't know what the hell they had on their hands. This was a similar phenomenon to the signing frenzy that major labels underwent post-Nevermind where they tried to bring new exciting new bands to the mainstream and failed miserably. This is the kind of psychedelic rock that is not encumbered by its era, and when Moskowitz is singing it is fantastic.) Also: Richie Unterberger -- Unknown Legends of Rock and Roll. This book is an excellent source of information on 60 unsung greats of rock history and is the only decent reference on the USofA that I found.