Okay, so I want to run a specific scenario by
you to kick things off today. All right, I am
ready. Put yourself in the shoes of a world -famous
rock musician. It's the late 1980s. You are currently
in the middle of a massive recording session
with your incredibly famous band. Right, it's
setting the scene. But you have to hit pause.
You actually leave the glamorous life behind
and head back to your hometown in the Midwest
simply to help out your mom. Okay. Yeah, that's
quite a pivot. Right. And while you're there,
you decide you want to keep working. So you walk
up to some local kids, you ask them where the
best recording studio in the city is, and they
point you towards someone you actually knew from
childhood. Naturally. You go to this guy's studio
and you end up recording a massive, globetrotting,
funk rock hit. I mean, it really sounds like
the inciting incident of a highly stylized indie
film. But looking through the detailed encyclopedia
entry we're using as our source material today.
Yeah. This is the very real, very grounded origin
story for Jerry Harrison's 1988 funk rock single.
Yeah. Rev it up. Exactly. Released under the
moniker Jerry Harrison Casual Gods. And that
is exactly our mission for this deep dive. We
are unpacking the surprisingly triumphant and
honestly incredibly unconventional creation process
behind this track. Because it defies almost all
conventional music industry logics. It really
does. Because as I was reading through the source.
The detail that immediately jumped out wasn't
just that he went back home to Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
It was the physical location of the studio itself.
Right, where the magic actually happened. Yeah,
so the local kids point him to David Vartanian,
who was an old acquaintance. And he rents Vartanian's
studio. But this wasn't some polished, soundproofed
room in a commercial park. No far from it. Here's
where it gets really interesting. Vartanian had
built his recording studio inside a literal Cold
War era bomb shelter. Which immediately makes
me question the logistics. I mean, a concrete
bunker sounds like an audio engineer's worst
nightmare. Acoustically speaking, it usually
is a complete disaster. Right, because of the
echo. Yeah, a bomb shelter is designed for structural
integrity against massive external force, which
means you have thick parallel concrete walls,
low ceilings, and absolute isolation. None of
which you want for recording music. Exactly.
Yeah. That kind of architecture creates standing
sound waves and really harsh flutter echoes.
You usually want high ceilings and irregular
surfaces to let the sound breathe. But he made
it work. He did. Because if you consider the
psychological impact of that space, it completely
shifts the creative dynamic. Oh, I see what you
mean. You have a musician taking a break from
the high pressure, highly visible environment
of talking heads retreating underground. into
a space built for hiding and survival. Wow. Yeah,
that's intense. It cuts you off from natural
light, city noise, and all external distractions.
It basically forces a hyper -focused, pressurized
vacuum. And what he creates inside that vacuum
is almost the entirety of his second solo album,
Casual Gods. The source notes there was only
one exception on the entire track list. Just
one track, right? Yeah, a song called A .K .A.
Love. which was recorded at Sigma Sound Studios
in New York City. The rest of the album was captured
right there in that Milwaukee bunker. And that
contrast is really what makes the resulting music
so compelling. You are injecting vibrant kinetic
funk rock. into an environment fundamentally
rooted in Cold War paranoia. It's such a wild
juxtaposition. Let's talk about that specific
sound, actually, because Raid Up served as the
opening track for the album. It sets the tone
perfectly. Right. And Harrison himself described
it as sounding like an Eddie Cochran track. So
you have a baseline of classic driving rock and
roll, but it's heavily layered with the funk
rock genre tag. Which is a really tricky balance
to strike. So how do those two distinct styles
actually mesh? in a subterranean setting like
that? Well, it requires an incredibly tight rhythm
section to pull off. Rockabilly, or early rock
and roll like Eddie Cochran's work, is characterized
by a very straightforward driving 4 -4 momentum.
It just chugs along. Exactly. It's designed to
push forward aggressively. Funk, on the other
hand, is all about syncopation. The groove. Right.
It focuses heavily on the downbeat. the ones
and then plays with complex rhythmic subdivisions
in between the beats so you have the drive of
rock but the bounce of funk yes infusing the
driving momentum of rock with the intricate pocket
of funk means the musicians have to be locked
in flawlessly especially in a dense acoustic
space where loose playing would just turn into
a wall of muddy echoes Which totally explains
the caliber of musicians Harrison brought into
this bunker. He didn't just bring in local amateurs.
No, not at all. The primary guitar riff for Rev
It Up didn't even come from a meticulously planned
composition session. It was born organically
out of a jam session with Alex Weir. Which is
huge. Yeah, if you follow funk music, you know
Weir from the Brothers Johnson. Having Alex Weir
in that room is a massive catalyst for this track.
Spontaneous generation of a hook through jamming
is essential. essentially a conversation between
players. And Weir brings a lot to that conversation.
He comes up with this killer syncopated riff,
and they build the instrumental foundation around
it. And then you look at who else is joining
the jam. You have Bernie Worrell on P -boards.
Bernie Worrell from Parliament Funkadelic. I
mean, that's royalty. Exactly. One of the primary
architects of the P -funk sound, known for his
revolutionary use of synthesizers. Then you add
Chris Spedding on bears. Rick Yeager on drums,
and Jim Liebman handling the horns. It's an all
-star lineup. These are heavyweight session players
and genre pioneers. They're taking that dense,
complex funk rock arrangement and anchoring it
perfectly, despite being in a bunker. So they
build this massive, intricate, instrumental track.
Harrison, who also produced the track, then sits
down to co -write the lyrics with John Seeger
and Ernie Brooks. And this is where the song
takes another unexpected turn. Yeah, because
given the pedigree of the musicians and the intensity
of the music, you might expect some avant -garde,
highly abstract lyrical concept. Something very
conceptual. Right. Instead, Harrison bases it
on what he called a very familiar topic. He writes
a quintessential Americana narrative, a boy and
a girl driving in a car. Which is actually a
brilliant strategic choice on his part. How so?
Well, when an arrangement is that complex and
rhythmically demanding, pairing it with highly
abstract lyrics can alienate a broader audience.
They lose the thread of the song. Exactly. The
instrumental track inherently feels like kinetic
movement. Like a motor running, hence the title,
Rev It Up. Oh, that makes perfect sense. By grounding
that heavy funk rock groove in the most universally
understood trope in American popular music, driving
fast on the open road. You create an anchor for
the listener. It gives you something familiar
to hold on to while the music goes crazy underneath.
Exactly. It translates the complexity of the
music into a narrative that any listener can
instantly grasp. It's a fantastic juxtaposition.
You have a stationary claustrophobic bunker producing
a track entirely dedicated to the freedom of
driving down a highway. The irony is pretty great.
But Harrison completely subverts that Americana
trope when it comes to the visual representation
of the song. We have to talk about the music
video. Oh, the video is a whole other level of
weird. It was directed by Harrison himself and
produced by Bell One Productions in New York.
And given the literal nature of the lyrics, the
expectation in the late 80s would be a very straightforward
visual. Right, just show a car. Classic cars,
desert highways. Perhaps some literal interpretation
of the boy and the girl driving around. But no,
instead, Harrison takes a hard left turn into
deliberate surrealism. The imagery they actually
went with features Literal babies. Yes, literal
infants. Placed inside a dark, gritty biker bar,
riding around on brightly colored plastic big
wheels. I mean, just picture that. It is so bizarre
and is a calculated use of cognitive dissonance.
It really throws you off. In the late 80s, the
music video landscape was often saturated with
highly literal interpretations of lyrics. The
literal visual translations of whatever the singer
was saying. MTV was full of that stuff. Harrison
deliberately broke that mold. Placing innocent
infants on children's toys in direct opposition
to a rough adult biker establishment creates
a jarring visual contrast. It almost forces the
viewer to pay closer attention. Eddie Cochran
inspired funk riff. You're listening to lyrics
about revving up a car and your brain is just
trying to reconcile all of that with the sight
of a toddler navigating a tricycle past leather
clad bikers. And that right there is the mechanism
of a memorable aha moment. When art presents
you with something that absurd, it sticks with
you. Because you can't quite figure it out. The
viewer remembers the song because the brain is
actively trying to solve the visual puzzle. It
elevates the track from just another catchy funk
rock tune to a memorable cultural artifact. And
looking at the chart data provided in the encyclopedia
entry, that artifact absolutely resonated on
a global scale. It wasn't just a niche hit. Not
at all. It was released in the United States
as the lead single in January of 1988, and it
climbed to number seven on the Billboard album
rock tracks chart, spending 16 weeks in the top
50. A solid run. But the international distribution
is where the story gets really interesting. It
didn't just succeed in the U .S. It became a
massive, unexpected anthem across the southern
hemisphere. The way different cultures latch
on to specific genre blends is always a fascinating
map to trace. It truly is. In Australia, it hit
number three on the Australian Music Report in
May of 1988. Number three is huge. Right. And
in New Zealand, it peaked at number six on the
RANZ singles chart, holding strong for 15 weeks.
It even crossed over to South Africa, hitting
number four. on the Springbok radio chart. Which
is incredible reach. It's wild to think about
a track born in a Milwaukee bomb shelter dominating
the airwaves in Oceania and Africa. It is. But
the European charts present a distinctly different
narrative. It's an anomaly worth examining. Right.
The source material notes that in the UK, it
peaked at number 90. In West Germany, it peaked
at number 45. A pretty sharp drop compared to
Australia. On paper, those seem like minor blips
compared to its success elsewhere. But there
is a crucial caveat attached to those numbers.
Revy It Up remains Jerry Harrison's only charting
solo single in both the UK and West Germany.
Which speaks volumes about the track's unique
penetration. How so? Well, the UK market in the
late 80s, for instance, was heavily dominated
by synth -pop acid house and very polished dance
music. A gritty, rockabilly -infused funk rock
track was a distinct outlier. It didn't fit the
mold at all. Not even a little. Yet the groove
was undeniable enough that it managed to break
into the charts however briefly in markets where
his solo work hadn't traditionally gained a foothold.
I want to pivot to how fans in those markets
and globally really actually consume the song
in 1988, because we have to discuss the physical
release formats. Oh, absolutely. The single didn't
just exist as a uniform radio edit. The release
history between January and September of 88 includes
standard seven inch vinyls, larger 12 inch vinyls
and CD singles, particularly the maxi CD format
in Europe. Exploring those formats gives us a
window into a completely different era of music
consumption. It was a tactile experience. Exactly.
Today, a single is largely a standalone digital
file. In 1988, a physical single was a tangible
artifact that served as a gateway to an entire
ecosystem of alternate audio. And the track listings
for the B -sides and alternate mixes listed in
the source are just phenomenal. They get really
creative. Listeners flipping over their vinyl
would find a track called Bobby, specifically
the Aboriginal mix, which is nearly seven minutes
long. Seven minutes on a B -side. Then you have
the alternate cuts of the main single, the To
Heller and Back mix, and an incredibly specific
title, Bad Bruce's Wisconsin Dub. Titles like
that perfectly encapsulate late 80s remix culture.
And it's important to understand what a dub mix
actually entails acoustically. Yeah, break that
down for us. Originated from Jamaican reggae
and dancehall dub mixing, it wasn't just about
adding a new drum beat. It involved taking the
original multi -track recordings and radically
deconstructing them. So stripping away the main
vocals to focus on the rhythm. Exactly. An engineer
would isolate the bass groove, drop the guitars
in and out sporadically, and ride the mixing
faders live to apply massive amounts of analog
delay and reverb. so it completely distorts the
original track often just to a single snare hit
or a vocal echo yeah it transforms a tight three
and a half minute pop song into a sprawling atmospheric
sonic landscape it totally changes the relationship
between the listener and the music it makes it
an exploration yeah you buy the seven inch record
because you like the catchy driving hook you
heard on the radio but when you take it home
and flip it over You find yourself lost in a
massive, echoing, six -and -a -half -minute Wisconsin
dub version that you had no idea existed. It
rewards curiosity. The artists and the producers
were building an extended sonic world around
the core track. It turns the consumer into an
active participant who is physically uncovering
new layers of the music. It's just a fascinating
journey from top to bottom. A world -famous musician
steps away from a massive band to simply go home
and support his mother. A very humble start.
He ends up renting a studio space housed inside
a thick concrete Cold War bomb shelter. He invites
funk legends into that claustrophobic space to
jam, resulting in a kinetic Eddie Cochran style
funk rock track. An impossible blend. He pairs
that complex sound with the quintessential Americana
imagery of driving a car, but then visually promotes
it by filming babies on big wheels in a biker
bar. And that highly specific, deeply weird concoction
goes on to chart globally spawning seven minute
dub mixes named after Wisconsin. The narrative
serves as a potent reminder of how original ideas
are actually formed. It really does. We often
assume that world -class, globally resonant art
requires frictionless environments. Multi -million
dollar studios with perfect acoustics and predictable
formulas. That's what the industry sells us anyway.
But the reality is that constraints, limitations,
and unusual environments often force the most
innovative choices. Creativity doesn't require
a glamorous setting. Sometimes it just requires
returning to your roots finding an isolated,
deeply unconventional space and engaging in a
genuine musical conversation with the right collaborators.
That is a brilliant point to end on. But there
is one final detail buried in the release history
of our source material that I think is worth
mulling over before we wrap up. What's that?
Among the standard vinyls and CDs released in
88, there was one format listed specifically
as a European CD video single. Oh, wow. The CD
video. Yeah. This was a peculiar piece of transitional
technology that contained three standard audio
tracks and one three minute and 48 second video
track. right on the disc. Barely a blip in media
history. Exactly. It makes you consider the fragile
nature of how we interact with art. We just spent
time analyzing the deliberate surrealism of babies
in a biker bar. Right. What happens to that specific
intentional visual experience when the highly
specialized physical format it was packaged for
goes completely obsolete? It just vanishes. It
really makes you wonder how much brilliant subversive
art from the past is currently sitting in a box
somewhere trapped inside a piece of of plastic
that we no longer possess the machines to decode
it's a haunting thought honestly so keep exploring
those physical media crates keep digging into
the b -sides and we will catch you on the next
deep dive