Los Microwaves — David Javelosa (aka David Microwave), Meg Brazil (Brazill) and drummer Todd Rosa (Rosencrans) — were a San Francisco trio in which synthesizers predominated. Although they issued 45s as early as 1979, their debut album came out in 1981, by which time leader Javelosa (who’s since done other production/playing jobs and runs the Hyperspace Communications label) had done a five-song, 12-inch EP on his own, using musicians outside his band.
Life After Breakfast shows promise, employing machines to make music that is arty but not obtuse; the vocals (by Brazil and Javelosa) don’t display the same restraint, sometimes wandering off a bit off key into dissonance. While the album has its moments, it drags at times. Forty-four years later, with both Posh Boy founder Robbie Fields and Brazil dead, Javelosa — now a professor of Interactive Media at Santa Monica College — reissued it (after a fashion) as a double album on colored vinyl: one disc (at 45 rpm) of six remixes and one (at 33 1/3) of ten instrumental tracks. Considered decades after the era of synth-pop came and went, there’s a lot to admire here, especially the moments that resemble other artists, from Devo, Sparks and the Human League to PiL. The youthful voices and absurdist lyrics keep this clearly of its time, but the clever music holds up surprisingly well.
Javelosa’s David Microwave solo effort offers straightforward (for synths, that is) pop music with swirling keyboards (including familiar-sounding organ), acoustic drums and engaging vocals. The record shows polish, but retains a slightly amateurish sense, making it paradoxically complex and simple at the same time.
Baby Buddha, which involves Javelosa and some of Los otro Microwaves, is a concept piece — one side of his originals, the remainder irreverently synthed-up covers of such standards as “My Generation,” “Stand by Your Man” and “All Shook Up.” Although portions are both funny and fun, too much of it is merely an overly weird in-joke.