Wall of Voodoo -

Wall of Voodoo was an American new wave band that mixed jagged electro-pop with Spaghetti Western sounds. They cut a 1980 indie EP and the 1981/82 IRS albums Dark Continent and Call of the West, which spawned the early MTV hit “Mexican Radio.” After singer Stan Ridgway’s departure, they made the 1985–87 albums Seven Days in Sammystown and Happy Planet.

Members: Marc Moreland (guitar), Chas T. Gray (keyboards, bass), Stan Ridgway (vocals, harmonica, keyboards, guitar, 1977-83), Joe Nanini (drums, percussion, 1977-83), Bruce Moreland (bass, keyboards, 1977-81, 1985-88), Bill Noland (keyboards, 1982-83), Andy Prieboy (vocals, guitar, 1983-88), Ned Leukhardt (drums, 1983-88)

Background

Wall of Voodoo formed out of Acme Soundtracks, a film score business operated by musician/composer Stan Ridgway (b. 1954). Acme’s office sat directly across the street from The Masque, the epicenter of Hollywood’s punk/new wave scene.

In late 1977, guitarist Marc Moreland (then of Angelino punks The Skulls) frequented Acme and started jamming with Ridgway. Two fellow Skulls, bassist Bruce Moreland (Marc’s brother) and keyboardist Chas T. Gray, joined in along with Joe Nanini, erstwhile drummer of The Bags and Black Randy & The Metrosquad.

The name Wall of Voodoo stemmed from a sound that Ridgway created with overdubs of the Kalamazoo Rhythm Ace drum machine. He remarked that it sounded like Phil Spector’s “wall of sound.” His friend, musician Joe Berardi (later of The Fibonaccis), quipped that it sounded more like a “wall of voodoo.”

Wall of Voodoo (EP)

In November 1980, Wall of Voodoo debuted with a self-titled EP on Calif. small-press Index. It clocks at 19:46 with five proper songs: the band originals “Longarm,” “The Passenger,” “Can’t Make Love,” and “Struggle,” plus the Johnny Cash cover “Ring of Fire,” which interpolates the theme of the 1966 spy-fi comedy Our Man Flint. The EP concludes with the instrumental postlude “Granma’s House.”

A1. “Longarm” (3:44)
A2. “The Passenger” (4:07)
B1. “Can’t Make Love” (3:47)
B2. “Struggle” (2:14)
B3. “Ring of Fire” (4:59) is a 1963 song by Merle Kilgore and June Carter; first recorded by her sister, Anita Carter, and popularized by June’s eventual husband, Johnny Cash. Blondie perform a live cover in the 1980 film Roadie.
B4. “Granma’s House” (0:55)

Wall of Voodoo self-produced the EP with engineer Jim Hill, whose two-year credit list ran the gamut from Poco and Nigel Olsson to Lenny Williams, WAR, and fellow boundary pushers Assassin of Silence (a Suicide/Hawkwind hybrid). The EP appeared in a monochrome sleeve that shows a black ceramic dog in a warehouse setting, pictured from the outside (front), inside (back), the top of a stairwell (inner-sleeve), and silhouetted (labels).

Soon after this release, Wall of Voodoo linked with music entrepreneur Miles Copeland (brother of Police drummer Stewart Copeland), who ran a slew of UK post-punk labels including Illegal Records and its just-launched North American division, IRS.

Dark Continent

Wall of Voodoo released their first album, Dark Continent, on August 18, 1981, on IRS (North America) and Illegal (abroad). The album contains eleven group-written originals, including “Red Light,” “Back in Flesh,” “Crack the Bell,” and the single sides “Call Box” and “Full of Tension.”

Dark Continent showcases the clenched vocals of Stan Ridgway, the paranormal synth tones of Chas Gray, and the clipped, twangy guitar lines of Marc Moreland; all set to the sprinting metronomic pulse of Joe Nanini. Ridgway and Bruce Moreland play additional keyboards.

A1. “Red Light” (3:05)
A2. “Two Minutes Till Lunch” (2:15)
A3. “Animal Day” (3:14)
A4. “Full of Tension” (2:12)
A5. “Me and My Dad” (3:23)
A6. “Back In Flesh” (3:40)

B1. “Tse Tse Fly” (3:59)
B2. “Call Box” (2:32)
B3. “This Way Out” (2:59)
B4. “Good Times” (2:28)
B5. “Crack The Bell” (3:31)

Wall of Voodoo co-produced the album with Jim Hill and co-engineer Paul McKenna, a concurrent soundman for The Cramps and Bpeople. Their rookie assistant, Kirk Ferraioli, proliferated on subsequent R&B titles by Dynasty, Shalamar, Glenn Jones, and Evelyn “Champagne” King. Hill handled Dark Continent in sequence with albums by Craig Mirijanian (A Perfect Fit) and John Entwistle (Too Late the Hero).

IRS photographer Scott Lindgren took the saturated imagery for the Dark Continent packaging, which shows a slated valley monolith (front), a hillside group pic (back), and a silhouetted side-to-side with short-story text (inner-sleeve).

In Australia, Illegal lifted “Call Box (1-2-3)” as a single (b/w “Full of Tension”).

Wall of Voodoo perform “Back In Flesh” in Urgh! A Music War, a 1981 concert film and double-album with live numbers by Athletico Spizz 80 (“Where’s Captain Kirk”), Devo (“Uncontrollable Urge”), Echo and the Bunnymen (“The Puppet”), Gary Numan (“Down in the Park”), Gang of Four (“He’d Send in the Army”), Magazine (“Model Worker”), Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark (“Enola Gay”), Pere Ubu (“Birdies”), Skafish (“Sign of the Cross”), Toyah Willcox (“Danced”), XTC (“Respectable Street”), and fellow LA new wavers Alley Cats (“Nothing Means Nothing Anymore”), Go-Go’s (“We Got the Beat”), Oingo Boingo (“Ain’t This the Life”), and X (“Beyond and Back”).

Call of the West

Wall of Voodoo released their two album, Call of the West, in September 1982 on IRS. It features a four-piece lineup of Stan Ridgway, Chas Gray, Marc Moreland, and Joe Nanini.

Call of the West contains ten group-composed originals with Ridgway lyrics, including “Tomorrow,” “Look at Their Way,” “Factory,” “On Interstate 15,” and the single “Mexican Radio,” the band’s signature song. US Cassette copies contained “Exercise,” an otherwise unavailable eleventh track.

Gray takes on a dual bassist/keyboardist role. His arsenal includes Minimoog and the Oberheim Eight Voice polyphonic synthesizer. Moreland plays six- and twelve-string guitar while Nanini uses the Roland TR-808 Rhythm Composer and Kalamazoo Rhythm Ace drum machines.

A1. “Tomorrow” (3:03)
A2. “Lost Weekend” (5:00)
A3. “Factory” (5:15)
A4. “Look at Their Way” (3:18)
A5. “Hands of Love” (3:53)
A6. “Exercise” (cassette, )

B1. “Mexican Radio” (4:09) They recorded the song through amplifiers (instead of direct inject) for “radio effect.”
B2. “Spy World” (2:40)
B3. “They Don’t Want Me” (4:31)
B4. “On Interstate 15” (2:43)
B5. “Call of the West” (6:00)

Sessions occurred in June 1982 at Hit City West in Los Angeles with Englishman Richard Mazda, a part-time musician (Tours, Cosmetics), who also produced IRS titles by Alternative TV, The Fleshtones, and Tom Robinson. He played supplemental bass and programmed drums on Call of the West, which compatriot Jess Sutcliffe engineered on the heels of Benelux new wavers Once More, TC Matic, and Jo Lemaire + Flouze.

Ridgway co-created the cover with conceptualist Scott Lindgren and designer Francis Delia, whose photography depicts a standalone door in a foggy valley under crimson night sky (front) and a sepia group pic (back). The lyrical inner-sleeve shows a dim-lit room with mannequin heads, framed vintage portraits, and table-top bovine fixtures.

Illegal lifted “On Interstate 15” as an October 1982 UK single, backed with the non-album “There’s Nothing On This Side” (6:36), an experimental beat-box jam.

In December, “Mexican Radio” became a single in all territories (b/w “Call of the West”). “Mexican Radio” reached No. 18 in Canada, No. 21 in New Zealand, and No. 33 in Australia. In the US, the video received high MTV rotation while the song reached No. 58 on the Billboard Hot 100.

Lineup Change

On May 28, 1983, Wall of Voodoo played the second US Festival, a Memorial Day weekend cultural event in San Bernardino, California, with sets by Berlin, Judas Priest, Missing Persons, Ozzy Osbourne, The Pretenders, Quarterflash, Scorpions, Stevie Nicks, U2, and Van Halen. Voodoo played on Saturday (New Wave Day), which also featured A Flock of Seagulls, The English Beat, INXS, Men at Work, Stray Cats, and The Clash (their last show with Mick Jones).

Stan Ridgway left Wall of Voodoo and recorded a film score for director Francis Ford Coppola’s Rumble Fish, a neo-noir crime drama starring Matt Dillon, Mickey Rourke, Diane Lane, and Dennis Hopper. Joe Nanini also left at this time.

Wall of Voodoo hired singer Andy Prieboy and drummer Ned Leukhardt. Prior bassist Bruce Moreland rejoined the band. The first released of the Gray, Prieboy, Leukhardt, Moreland brothers lineup was “Big City,” a 1984 IRS single backed with “Room With a View.”