Sound Check — Geoff Carter: With any luck, ‘Go Go’ will reach goal of rattling neighbors

Friday, Sept. 8, 2000 | 10:01 a.m.

Geoff Carter's music column appears Fridays. Reach him at carter@vegas.com.

My parents had a stereo test record in their collection entitled "Stereo Dynamics to Scare the Hell Out of Your Neighbors." The cover depicted two skeletons hanging by the neck between encroaching wave patterns.

I had never seen anything so cool in my life. I've no idea what was on that long-player -- the sound of jets taking off and the "1812 Overture," most likely. And I don't want to know. Since I first saw that cover, my entire life's purpose has been to find music that would scare the hell out of my neighbors.

The objective is not to annoy the neighbors, mind you. I could easily blast Japanese hardcore at our shared wall all day and get arrested without beginning to hip them to the Boredoms. (Let's not go there.) Likewise, I could startle the neighbors with jet sounds at 3 a.m., but that won't accomplish what the label of the record promised: a window into the bottomless pit of possibility. The mind recoils. The neighbors' skin jumps off their bones.

While Ursula 1000's "All Systems Are Go Go" is unlikely to achieve the desired effect, it comes closer than anything I've heard in years. While it's not a disturbing record (quite the opposite, actually), it's eccentric enough to make my neighbors think that I'm engineering the return of "Laugh-In," or that I've somehow turned into Peter Sellers.

As compiled and mixed by Ursula 1000 (born Alex Gimeno), "Go Go" is lounge music from the swankiest circle of Hades -- 18 tracks of funky, rump-shaking, Trader Vic's-inspired pop lunacy. Imagine Martin Denny in a clinch with Dee-Lite, or simply pick up anything by Washington, D.C., duo Thievery Corporation, whose Eighteenth Street Lounge label released "Go Go." Simply digging up the lounge records of the 1960s is one thing -- reinventing them, as have the 18 artists on "Go Go" have, proves newer can be better.

The singsong bop of ECD's "Direct Drive" kicks the set off with a blast of horns and chunky bass, and sets a standard that is not only maintained, but also bettered with every consecutive track. Skeewif's "Skeewif vs. Big Les" beautifully dirties up a Latin beat; Lemon's "Mr. Bongo" evokes tropical evenings; Trio Electrico's "Good Times Machine" brings big beat techno into the '60s.

Being a gracious host, the master of ceremonies waits until the end of the set to play one of his own. Ursula's "Polyblend" almost beats Fatboy Slim and Esquivel at their own respective games -- it's an addictive, beat-savvy track that seems almost giddy with its own inventiveness, one of those rare dance tracks with a life of its own.

"All Systems Are Go Go" may not scare my neighbors, but it will sure make them feel as if the sound waves are closing in, relentless and hundreds of feet tall. There's no way out but to shake your thang down to the ground, and hope your skin stays in place.