Ha! -Ha! -Ha!

Ha! -Ha! -Ha!
Studio album from Ultravox!
Publication (s)	October 14, 1977
Label (s)	Island Records
Format (s)	CD, LP
Genre (s)	Rock , new wave , synth-pop
Title (number)	8th
running time	34:31
occupation	Singing: John Foxx Vocals / bass / keyboard: Chris Cross Vocals / drums / percussion: Warren Cann Keyboard / violin: Billy Currie Guitar: Stevie Shears
production	Ultravox, Steve Lillywhite
Studio (s)	Phonogram Studio, London
chronology Ultravox! (1977) Ha! -Ha! -Ha! Systems of Romance (1978)
Single release October 14, 1977 ROckWrok

Ha! -Ha! -Ha! is the second studio album by the British band Ultravox! . The album was released on October 14, 1977 on Island Records . Although commercially unsuccessful, the album includes The Man who Dies Every Day and Hiroshima mon Amour, two experimental pieces with synthesizer melodies and, in the case of Hiroshima mon Amour, an electronic percussion, which became groundbreaking for the band's sound.

Ha! -Ha! -Ha! is the second collaboration with aspiring music producer Steve Lillywhite and is the final album with guitarist Stevie Shears. Shortly after the album was released, the band gave up the exclamation point as part of their name and called themselves Ultravox from then on.

History of origin

Despite the numerous negative press after the debut album, John Foxx still had a British version of the American Velvet Underground in mind, with him in the role of Lou Reed as the observing lyricist of taboo subjects and Billy Currie in the role of John Cale as a classically trained musician with an experimental inclination on the viola. The collaboration with Brian Eno on some of the tracks on the debut album led the band to the realization that only more electronic instrumentation and greater use of studio technology would be able to produce the sound that the band wanted to implement. However, the British music press reviewed the debut album as a Brian Eno production; Foxx in particular felt frustrated by this.

On May 28, 1977 the single Young Savage (dt. Young Wilder ) was released on Island Records, which is not included on the album. Foxx describes aspects of superficiality and ambiguity; in interviews he referred to a group of strange youngsters he knew at the time:

"Money rents you insulation / Tenderness asphyxiates you / Somenone else's flesh to borrow / Sling it from your bed tomorrow / Live too fast for love or sorrow / Look behind the face, it's hollow."

"Money buys you protection / tenderness suffocates you / lend you meat from someone else / throw it out of bed tomorrow / live too fast for love or mourning / look behind the facade, it is hollow."

- from the lyrics of Young Savage

The band appeared on August 27, 1977 with a total of eleven tracks at the Reading Festival and played five tracks from their debut album and Young Savage as well as five tracks from the not yet released new album. The band Gloria Mundi performed on the same day as Ultravox. Music journalist and book author Mick Mercer describes Gloria Mundi together with the better-known Bauhaus as an early Gothic band. The CC named saxophonist from Gloria Mundi has a guest appearance on the album version of the track Hiroshima mon Amour .

The album was recorded with co-producer and sound engineer Steve Lillywhite at Phonogram Studios on Stanhope Place, London. It was in these studios that the band and local engineer Lillywhite recorded numerous demo tapes between 1975 and 1976, some of which were re-recorded for their debut album at Island Studios on Basing Street.

The sarcastic album title, several cynical interviews between Foxx and the UK music press after the release of Ultravox! as well as a deliberately inappropriate music production and a stage show in which Foxx always wore black suggest that Ha! -Ha! -Ha! can be understood as an answer to the antipathy on the part of the music press.

Style and texts

In addition to a synthesizer for string sounds, Currie integrated a synthesizer from the American manufacturer ARP Instruments into several pieces. The British progressive rock bands are not considered to be influences, but mainly Krautrock bands like Neu! , Can and Faust , whom Brian Eno also loved. From new! took over Ultravox! also the exclamation mark as part of the name. The powerful sound of the ARP Odyssey becomes a musical trademark of the band, which Currie achieved primarily through his phrasing and pitch bending . Currie saw this as an opportunity to expand his image as a classically trained violist:

“Can you imagine what that was like, playing viola in front of a punk crowd? So I wanted to show them just how powerful a keyboard could sound. I wanted to blow their heads off. "

“Can you imagine what it was like to play the viola in front of a lot of punks? So I wanted to show them how powerful a keyboard can sound. I wanted to blow their heads off. "

- Billy Currie in a 2006 interview

Cann experimented with electronically generated percussion on some tracks. The non-programmable rhythm machine Roland TR-77, actually developed for the rhythm accompaniment of home organs, was used in the style of Hiroshima mon Amour and recorded for the album.

"We'd previously done a" demo "of Hiroshima mon Amour in a rocker type of arrangement but it presented an ideal opportunity to try out the drum machine, so it was rearranged for the TR-77."

"We had previously recorded a demo version of Hiroshima mon Amour with a rock-style arrangement, but the title was an ideal way to test the rhythm machine, so we rearranged it for the TR-77."

- Warren Cann in an interview with Jonas Warstad

The play shares its title with the film by Alain Resnais , although Foxx stated in interviews that he was not directly inspired by the film, but only by its title. First recorded with Cann on drums and Currie on viola and released as the B-side of the single ROckWrok , the rhythm machine was used for the album version by Hiroshima mon Amour with a significantly slower beat. Synthesizer surfaces instead of the viola and a saxophone have turned the piece on the album into a ballad.

The title of the single ROckWrok , which goes back to the Dada magazine Rongwrong (July 1917) published by Marcel Duchamp , Henri-Pierre Roché and Beatrice Wood about 60 years earlier , for which Duchamp had made an illustration with two dogs, serves as a synonym for Sexual intercourse, which Foxx associates with the term rock 'n' roll:

“I discovered that rock 'n' roll was black slang for sex. It seemed hilarious that the whole world was dancing to this stuff, so I wrote a literal rock song. The title was a nod to Duchamp's Rongwrong Dada piece. It was his first work when he arrived in New York from Europe. Seemed appropriate. "

“I found out that rock 'n' roll in African American colloquial language means intercourse. It was hilarious to have the whole world dancing to this stuff, so I wrote a literal rock song. The title was a nod to Duchamp's Rongwrong Dada piece. It was his first job when he arrived in New York from Europe. Seemed appropriate. "

- John Foxx in an interview

publication

On October 7, 1977, Island Records released ROckWrok as the band's third single. On the B-side of the single was the recording of an alternate version of Hiroshima mon Amour . The single was sent by the BBC despite the clear text:

"A strangle tango in the dark, dark / Fuck like a dog, bite like a shark, shark / Austerity makes you want to ROckWrok, ROckWrok"

"A strangling tango in the dark, darkness / fuck like a dog, bite like a shark, shark / deprivation awakens the desire to ROckWroken, ROckWroken"

- from the text by ROckWrok

The album followed on October 14, 1977. The first 10,000 copies also contained a single with a live recording and the title Quirks . Following the release, a tour began with three appearances in Sweden, where the debut album had already hit the charts. The second album could not place in the charts.

On November 21, 1977 Ultravox played a peel session in Studio 4 of Maida Vale Studios in London , which was broadcast on November 28 by the BBC radio program. Three weeks earlier, the band Rich Kids had also recorded a peel session with Scottish singer Midge Ure on guitar. Seventeen months later, Ure became the band's guitarist and vocalist and ushered in the commercially successful phase of Ultravox.

The first appearances in Germany took place in March 1978 in Berlin ( Kant-Kino ) and Hamburg ( Onkel Pö ), after the band appeared on the ZDF-produced music program Rockpop in January 1978 with the title The Frozen Ones to a broad German-speaking public had been made accessible.

In 2006 a digitally remastered edition of the album was released in CD format. Young Savage in the version of the second single and as a live recording is one of the bonus titles as is the alternative version of Hiroshima mon Amour , which was published as the B-side of the third single. Quirks was included with the first copies of the vinyl album. The release also includes a remix and a live version of The Man who Dies Every Day .

reception

Like the debut album, the British contemporary music press acknowledged Ha! -Ha! -Ha! with mostly negative reviews because they didn't want to be classified. Pete Silverton from Sounds missed humanity in the band (“Humanity is the least thing you will find in Ultravox!”), And Julie Burchill from New Musical Express found the band to be clichéd and too old [for punk] (“they're too oooooold ! "). Andy Gill from the NME criticized Ultravox! as a bomb band ("a dynamite band") around John Foxx, who has rather dubious talents. The British Sounds called the band the survivors of a nuclear disaster ("survivors of a nuclear disaster"). The band has a strange, crooked sound that you can read JG Ballard about.

Rock music journalist and book author Dave Thompson reviewed the album with a significantly longer time lag for the music database Allmusic and awarded three and a half stars out of five. He thinks the title on the album is a tsunami that embodies the fire and anger of the time. If they had celebrated the destruction on their debut album, they would now stand on the brink and look dismayed into nothing. The sheer vehemence of the album still impresses Thompson decades later.

Steve Malins notes in the liner notes for the digitally remastered edition of 2006 that Ha! -Ha! -Ha! on Pretty Hate Machine (1989) by Nine Inch Nails , Songs of Faith and Devotion (1993) by Depeche Mode, and Mechanical Animals (1998) by Marilyn Manson .

Track list

1. ROckWrok (Foxx) - 3:33
2. The Frozen Ones (Foxx) - 4:05
3. Fear in the Western World (Cann, Cross, Currie, Foxx, Shears) - 4:00
4. Distant Smile (Currie, Foxx) - 5:20
5. The Man who Dies Every Day (Cann, Cross, Currie, Foxx, Shears) - 4:10
6. Artificial Life (Currie, Foxx) - 4:59
7. While I'm Still Alive (Foxx) - 3:13
8. Hiroshima mon Amour (Cann, Currie, Foxx) - 5:12

Bonus (digitally remastered 2006 edition)

1. Young Savage (Cann, Cross, Currie, Foxx, Shears) - 2:56
2. The Man who Dies Every Day - Remix (Cann, Cross, Currie, Foxx, Shears) - 4:15
3. Hiroshima mon Amour - Alternative Version (Cann, Currie, Foxx) - 4:54
4. Quirks (Cann, Cross, Currie, Foxx, Shears) - 1:40
5. The Man who Dies Every Day - Live (Cann, Cross, Currie, Foxx, Shears) - 4:15
6. Young Savage - Live (Cann, Cross, Currie, Foxx, Shears) - 3:25

Individual evidence

1. ^ Andrzej Lukowski: Artist 'n' Artist - Gary Numan talks to John Foxx. In: DrownedInSound.com. July 24, 2009, accessed December 22, 2012 . 
2. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g h i} Steve Malins in the liner notes for the digitally remastered edition of the 2006 album.
3. ^ John Foxx Official Website. In: metamatic.com. Retrieved December 22, 2012 . 
4. ↑ Warren Cann and Jonas Wårstad: Ultravox The Story: Warren Cann interviewed by Jonas Wårstad. (PDF: 4.4 MB) In: Ultravox official website. 1997, accessed December 22, 2012 . 
5. ↑ Rongwrong (cover). (No longer available online.) In: usc.edu. Archived from the original on May 16, 2013 ; accessed on December 22, 2012 (English). Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
6. ^ John Foxx Official Website. In: metamatic.com. Retrieved December 22, 2012 . 
7. ↑ BBC - Radio 1 - Keeping it Peel - 11/21/77 Ultravox. In: bbc.co.uk. 2005, accessed December 22, 2012 . 
8. ^ John Peel Session: October 31, 1977 - The Rich Kids. In: allmusic.com. Retrieved December 22, 2012 . 
9. ↑ Dave Thompson: Ha! -Ha! -Ha! - Ultravox: Songs, Reviews, Credits, Awards: AllMusic. In: allmusic.com. Rovi Corp., accessed December 22, 2012 . 

Web links

• Ha! -Ha! -Ha! at Allmusic (English)
• Lyrics of Ha! -Ha! -Ha! in LyricWiki