FM - Surveillance

FM is one of those bands I knew of as a kid but had never heard anything by them. Over the years I'd hear the song "Phasors On Stun" and knew about Nash the Slash but that was about it. They were a mystery wrapped in bacon and stuffed into an enema.

I recently found a couple of the band's records (not at the same time, but close enough that they were both sitting on the shelf waiting to be played) and I figured I'd play the first one. Surveillance was released in '79 and featured Cameron Hawkins on vocals, keyboards and bass, along with drummer Martin Deller and Ben Mink on stringed things (guitar, violin, mandolin) who replaced Nash after he'd left to pursue a solo career. This was Ben's second album with the band.

The first time through I have to admit I wasn't really paying attention but it was cool, and I really enjoyed the science fiction vibe. Musically it was kind of progressive but it had enough of a straight ahead rock feel to keep me interested. It wasn't just musical noodling. This was sci-fi rock, rocket-roll baby!

As I sat back and settled in, the album really opened up. I really liked Cameron Hawkins' vocals. He may not have had the best set of pipes, but I really liked how he sounded and it was almost laid back. It wasn't lazy or disinterested, but it felt calm and in control. Ben Mink was a real surprise, the guy was a monster. At times very tasty and other times it a cacophony of frenzied notes that bordered on noise (okay, that was only on one song, and it was very much like an Alex Lifeson solo). It's a far cry from the Ben Mink I was familiar with from his work with k.d. lang. I'm not sleeping on Martin Deller the guy held it all together and the drums still sound good. The whole album sounds great and it was mastered by the legendary George Marino.

It's always fun listening to bands who acknowledged the end of the decade and here the band paid homage to the future, "Now the seventh decade is behind us / time to face the eighties / will nations find a peace, conforming to survive / or like a dream will it all fade away. If I had been listening to this as a kid with the future about to unfold this would have been like a promise of better things on the horizon, and now over forty years later it makes me feel sad for the future we got.

The more I listened to Surveillance, the better it got. "Come Tomorrow" is a cover of The Yardbirds classic, and it was an interesting choice. It wasn't a straight cover, the guys attempted to make it their own, and it's sort of hit and miss. I liked it, but the tension between the kick pattern seemed to hold the song back, and the galloping urgency of Ben Mink's guitar was held in check by Martin Deller. This was no doubt on purpose as it creates a weird tension that never seems to resolve. 

Probably the coolest song was the mostly instrumental "Sofa Back" that really conjured images of Rush and their 1981 instrumental "YYZ" from Moving Pictures. It was bugging me a little and I tried to google if anyone else noticed the similarities, and nothing popped up. I figured I'd ask ChatGPT and it said I was right to draw comparisons between the two. It then spit out almost a page of bullet points laying out the why and how.  This was the most salient bit for me:

“YYZ” is famously in 10/8 (especially the intro riff), and FM's “Sofa Back” shares that off-kilter rhythmic tension—not necessarily the same time signature, but the groove feels syncopated and driving in a similar way. That choppy, mathematical rhythm is a hallmark of instrumental prog rock.

Now you may be asking, "If you know how to use ChatGPT how come you don't use it to clean up your blog posts so they're not so disjointed and hard to read?" I just don't think I need to. I'm not saying I'm good at this, it's just that it's real and not barfed out by a robot. Of course I suppose if I used the prompt, "Write me a shitty blog post about FM and their 1979 album Surveillance that doesn't make any sense or say anything it'd probably be close to what you're reading.

Dagnabbit, now I've gone and derailed my train of thought.

Oh well. I'll just wrap things up then.

Surveillance was a really wonderful surprise and it's too bad I'm so late to the party as this would have totally been my jam as a kid. 

I'm looking forward to hearing the band's 1980 followup City of Fear.