Atomic
It should not make sense. NONE OF IT MAKES SENSE.
Three blind mice meets a marching band meets Sergio Leone in an underground New York disco, on a rollercoaster, where a punk rock drummer goading a blonde goddess to moan expectantly about forthcoming goddamn apocalypse in an ambiguous flux of major and minor. Rapture, atomic — there something apocalyptic about this sweet disco.
Three blind mice. Why start there? What has that got to do with anything? Why set it to a marching tempo, an upbeat rising crescendo, in a minor key? Are we happy or sad? But it soon comes to a premature end, an adolescent spurt — a jolt, un petit mort — sex is death & death is sex, a little cresting wave, a cog locomotive, chuffing up a hill to the top — drumroll — stop — then a kerrang of spaghetti western guitar and the rollercoaster clunges back down into the abyss. The drummer Burke calls the cadence for the following company and it is frantic, a brisk four-on-the-floor stomp, hauling the band along, at 135, but you know he’d go 150 if they’d only get a leg on — he’s drumming his fingers with the hi-hat as if to say NO RUSH GUYS JUST WHEN YOU ARE READY. As they cycle round the intro vamp, second go-round those hi-hat triplets are louder, more strident, tongue-clicking like come on man we haven’t got all fucking day there’s a sexual apocalypse going down man. But the cool Ennio Morricone guitars will not be rushed. Stein and Infante play this dreamy double tracked twang and you know that this is James Calvin Willsey learned everything he knew, God rest him.
The vamp has a minor vibe but there is something yearning and climbing up in it, that marching four beat is going somewhere— and boom there it is! Suddenly we're all major, the disco bass leads and the drummer Burke,is back in the pocket like he's saying I told you so, just cha-cha cheerleading now and here is the golden goddess and uh-hah, make it all right. Magnificent - Destri’s keys are pealing like church bells after a famous victory and it is all so major and positive — is that the ride over? No! boom — the ARP explodes onto line and oh your hair is beautiful we are thundering down into the depths once more in a beautiful minor - you can't understand joy if you don't know sorrow
Destri’s keyboard is reaching up, augmenting, yearning for something beautiful as if he can see it just above the grate
off on the rollercoaster Tempo and that drum beat
Bass solo A flanging denuded perfect fifth, neither major nor minor, a sequenced beat, and Nigel Robinson
The bass The arps The Ennio Morricone guitar