Motorcycle Display Team
MDT new single out on July 4th called 'Oh country, My country' which is off their upcoming compilation album which is due out in September.
Alternative rock band Motorcycle Display Team (MDT) have released a remastered version of their hit single 'Oh Country, My Country' ahead of their highly anticipated compilation album. The legendary band, which consists of Dublin drummer Morgan Condon, singer Steve (Steveknievo) Hinds and bass player Brad Larroquette, are re-releasing this stomper, on July 5th.
The single is based on how a person's location of birth is irrelevant.
Speaking about the single, singer Steveknievo said: "MDT is an international affair, first and forever we're just members of the human race. A person's location of birth should be trivial but they're nudged and cajoled a million little ways from the beginning to believing otherwise. Which seems to have dragged us to the present political spiral down into isolationism and xenophobia. Well fuck that."
The band's album, Populism- The Manifest Destiny of Motorcycle Display Team, is due for release on Friday 26th September and it will be available digitally and on vinyl.
'Oh Country, My Country' will be available on all music platforms on July 4th.
My Lovely Man - Red Hot Chili Peppers
Morgan: Trying to pick a song from your favourite album is not easy, but I picked this one purely for Chad Smith’s drumming. The breaks and hi-hat work are so slick and unique to his powerhouse style of playing. He makes it sound so easy, but it isn’t. I’ve ripped off this style so much. If he ever heard me play, he might be calling his lawyer, or maybe not as I’m still a long way from his level of skill. Not only that, Flea and John Frusciante are totally locked into each other and the interplay between them is the outcome of a very special chemistry. This is a brilliant example of excellent musicians who are clearly in sync with their bandmates.
Three Days - Jane’s Addiction
Morgan: Lots of people give credit to the Pixies for the ‘loud-quiet-loud’ structures to their songs, but for me, the band that had the best sense of dynamics and making a quiet song explode is Jane’s Addiction. Without question. The way this song builds and builds to the band all going for it in the climax is something I’ve never got bored of. You really get to hear the talents of all members shine through without showing off or becoming a jazz quartet. Plus, the song’s subject matter (a three day long threesome on heroin) is not something you often hear about in music. Years after first hearing it, I found out that Jane’s Addiction weren’t all in the studio together at any time during the recording of the album this song is from, Ritual De Lo Habitual. Add to that, the bass and guitar are single takes on this song. Dave Navarro has since said that he was so strung out, he has no memory of recording this.
Memphis Soul Stew - King Curtis
Morgan: If I had to pick one genre of music to listen to for the rest of my life, 60s/70s Motown and Atlantic would be my choice. When I was a kid I found an old Atlantic compilation belonging to my father and this song was included on it. Given my parents really only listened to Irish country and showband music, this, for me, was a real find. What I love about this song is you really appreciate the role each musician plays and how it contributes to the song. The idea of adding each instrument in the same way as an ingredient to a food dish is so simple but brilliant. Not only that, when it gets going, it’s a proper banger.
Star Me Kitten - REM
Steve: Automatic for the People was probably the first LP I was ever obssessed with. I had it on a yellow plastic cassette and completely wore it out playing it on my Walkman continuously for months on end before I went through their back catalogue of LPs. Star Me Kitten begins emerging from the mist with Mike Mills' sampled vocal on synth, like I'm Not In Love by 10cc. It has such a warm and dreamy quality that falls over everything like a sheet of stars drifting from the sky. Michael Stipe sings softly in a register that blends with the music like a lullaby. Back then I never understood much of what he was singing, instead I learned all the syllables phonetically and sang along whatever. It was always about the feel, the colour and the shape of the music that caught my imagination.
Soma - Smashing Pumpkins
Steve: It's hard to overstate how much influence MTV had on our teenage musical tastes in the early nineties. After seeing the video for Today by Smashing Pumpkins I was hooked. Siamese Dream duly became my new squeeze and in particular Soma – again a kind of dark lullaby. It follows the loud-quiet formula that juxtaposes extremely sweet melody with thick layers of grinding fuzz feedback. The first time I tried to play songs on the guitar that I loved were from this album. I was so delighted to find it was possible. I recorded and overdubbed my guitar and vocals by plugging directly into our hifi headphone jack and layering tracks across the two tape decks.
Living In Another World - Talk Talk
Steve: The Colour Of Spring for me is the sweet spot of Talk Talk's stellar repertoire. The tunefulness of the early synth pop married to the maturity of the later meditative and spacious albums. I particularly love how the key changes between the verses and choruses always make it feel as though the song continuously moves up through the gears. The bassline in the chorus is so distinctive, and in addition it also features perhaps the best harmonica solo I've ever heard. The live performance of this at Montreaux on YouTube is great. Mark Hollis was a true original. When he died a couple of years ago it really upset me in a way I didn't expect.
Big Eyed Beans From Venus - Captain Beefheart and his Magic Band
Steve: Notorious for driving his excellent musicians hard to play weird and unorthodox structures and melodies often in synchronous counterpoint, coming to love Beefheart was an intentional and arduous journey for me in my twenties. With true unswerving loyalty to his own artistic sensibilities Don van Vliet was an inspiration, putting even his old friend Frank Zappa in the shade. This track is relatively traditional by his standards, from the very fun Clear Spot LP. Even so the red hot playing is evident here as the insistent slide guitar coaxes a sustained intensity that gives me tingles.
My name is Mud - Primus
Brad: The instant I heard that bass sound I knew which instrument I wanted to play. It was as if Les Claypool was hammering and plucking an industrial sized dirty metal spring with every tap of his fingers one minute, and then smacking a broken drum in a cave the next minute. The echo synchronised and perfectly blending in with the drums, while the distortion took the lead. I never managed to play like Les, but it made me realise there could be a lot more to the art of playing bass than most bands would even consider. It felt like a novelty album in many ways but the percussive bass playing on this song and Hamburger Train were on another level to anything I'd heard before.
Repeater - Fugazi
Brad: This song among many others the band produced managed to retain the anger and urgency of their punk roots, while fusing such captivating rhythmic hooks and grooves I just never get tired of them. There's urgency and intelligence to what they do but without the pretention or elitism that similar bands seemed to evoke. I love the way each instrument adds a distinct yet simple layer to the composition, each element works so well together; The dub inspired rhythm section keeps everything moving, and all the guitar needs to do sometimes is scream. This song in particular though seemed to remain catchy and succinct despite the fact it's structure evolves unexpectedly stripping all the layers down to a simple beat before eventually blending in to the next song as if it were some extended jam. The whole album is a masterpiece for me, I often try to imagine what fugazi would do when writing individual parts for songs.
Your Mama Wants Ya Back - Betty Davis
Brad: It's hard to say how influential Betty Davis was since she was highly censored in the 70's and even blacklisted due to her explicit lyrics and provocative performances. But decades later and she's been called the queen of funk and widely credited as having introduced her husband Miles Davis to the world of Jimi Hendrix and Sly Stone. His shift in appearance, and musical style on albums like Bitches Brew and pioneering Jazz Fusion is often attributed to Betty Davis. My mum had this record and to me as a kid this album represented raw 1970's feminism. Though I found her eccentricities amusing, the music and her delivery had so much energy i imagine it could incite a serious riot if given the opportunity. I love the initial sparse bass groove that starts this song before exploding into longer and longer bass runs as the backing vocals and lead vocals all start to overlap. I don't know what happened to Larry Johnson, but i prefer his bass playing to Larry Graham's work on her first album. This album deserves much more recognition as a bold statement from a fiercely independant woman before the world was ready to listen.