Thursday, December 06, 2012

It's Dutch Invasion Week: Part Three!!!

From 1973 (and The Midnight Special) please enjoy -- if that's the word -- Netherlands prog-rockers Focus making the world safe for demented yodeling with their international smash hit "Hocus Pocus."



Prog with a sense of humor or just a complete piece of pretentious crap -- YOU make the call.

Personally, I always thought that Tales from Topographic Oceans was pretty funny, but then again -- as Chuck Barris famously said, what do I know, I like cold toilet seats.

10 comments:

buzzbabyjesus said...

This pretty amazing, really. It's got riffs and the yodeling is funny and not a joke at the same time.
It's kinda like "Frankenstein" by the Edgar Winter Group. A reminder that once there were chops evident on top 40.

mister muleboy said...

prog with a sense of H

steve simels said...

As I said over at Facebook -- I appreciate this one on the level of a novelty record, but I remain unconvinced they meant the yodeling to be funny.

Noam Sane said...

If you like prog, the Focus catalog is pretty deep. Fun is fun, yodeling or no.

racymind said...

Entertaining, but I can't imagine a whole concert of the group. The yodeling isn't really funny, but I would have liked to see Andy Kaufman doing it.

Billy B said...

I liked the tune when it first came out, but it got overplayed on the radio to the point I couldn't stand the tune. Same with EWG's Frankenstein.

Unknown said...

Absolutely magnificent. This is one of my favourite music clips available on YouTube. Jan Akkerman's guitar playing is simply astounding.

As far as deciding what kind of performance that was, my view is:

This is a band that doesn't take itself seriously.

(Warning: Self-Promotion Alert) I posted "Hocus Pocus" over at my blog a little while ago.

Anonymous said...

The Dutch "invasion" continued this very fall with Anne Soldaat's new album. His second recorded with and mixed by Jason Falkner, so the power pop credentials are sterling.

Anonymous said...

Seymour Stein or someone at Sire heard a hit in this and they were right. Pretentious? No way.

adelfons said...

Oh, they're just having fun. And you can't say they ain't musicians! (Won't someone give the drummer some?)

Once you go Dutch, you won't go much. Also.