Wall of Voodoo EP (Index/IRS) 1980
Dark Continent (IRS) 1981
Call of the West (IRS) 1982
Granma's House (IRS) 1984
Seven Days in Sammystown (IRS) 1985
Happy Planet (IRS) 1987
The Ugly Americans in Australia* (IRS) 1988
Los Angeles' Wall of Voodoo made junk music that can be extremely entertaining as long as you don't expect too much from it (really?). Working in the same general cinematic groove as Devo, only taking their cues from Westerns and film noir rather than science fiction, Voodoo generated a stiff (though human) sound that furnished a vivid backdrop to Stanard Ridgway's semi-catatonic vocals. Poised uneasily between machine music and rock'n'roll, Wall of Voodoo embodied the conflict between old and new for the serious-minded: classy Halloween music that's scary, but pleasantly so.
The four-song debut EP (later expanded and reissued as The Index Masters) includes a wacked-out version of Johnny Cash's "Ring of Fire."
The band displays more polish on Dark Continent, with tunes like "Back in Flesh" and "Full of Tension" benefiting from colorfully morose guitar and keyboards.
Call of the West's execution is livelier and more articulate, but just as spooky. It contains the now-classic "Mexican Radio," which crystallizes the band's loopy approach in one memorable number (but there is much more to the LP than Mexican Radio).
Ridgway left Wall of Voodoo in 1983 for a solo career; the band decided to replace him and continue.
The 1984 compilation album, Granma's House, contains all of Voodoo's best tracks, from "Ring of Fire" to "Mexican Radio." (nothing on here that we don't already have).
Unveiling new singer Andy Prieboy and a new drummer (Joe Nanini had departed in the interim), Wall of Voodoo returned to action with Seven Days in Sammystown, their first new album in three years. Ridgway's absence forced a major rethink of the band's sound and purpose; the record is adequate, but somewhat short of character and thus uncompelling. "Far Side of Crazy" (ostensibly about John Hinckley, Jr.) and a dirgey cover of the old mining song "Dark as the Dungeon" are quite good, but the rest falls short. And Prieboy's failed attempt to mimic Ridgway (on "Big City") is a major faux pas (again, really?).
The vanishing Devo left a wide open field of informed weirdness, but a uniformly costumed Voodoo failed to make anything more of the opportunity. Happy Planet reveals an intact sense of humor left dangling by an utter lack of demented invention. The band works over the Beach Boys' "Do It Again," converting it to their idiom but adding nothing substantial which would make it worth hearing; the rest of the album likewise takes aim at assorted cultural artifacts but lacks the requisite inspired oddness to make the songs truly original.
The Ugly Americans in Australia* is a rambunctious live disc recorded in Melbourne and (here's where the asterisk comes in) Bullhead City, Arizona. Stripped of studio comforts, the quartet (plus keyboard guest) gamely confronts old material like "Far Side of Crazy," "Mexican Radio" and "Ring of Fire" and introduces several newies. (The cassette and CD add "The Grass Is Greener" and "Pretty Boy Floyd.") Trouser Press
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