OK, I’m revving up for the band’s show in New York on Monday. And of course I pick their greatest LP. This is still one of the most fascinating records I’ve ever heard. Yes, everyone loves the Singles Going Steady version of the band, and a few songs like that are found here too, in PETE SHELLEY’s “Paradise,” “You Say You Don’t Love Me,” and “I Don’t Know What To Do With My Life,” and STEVE DIGGLE’s stunning “You Know You Can’t Help It.” But all the strange little trips going on around those, like the rest of side two after “I Don’t Know…” are what get me to this day, and it sure doesn’t hurt that this CD tacks on six tracks from the three equally amazing and unusual singles that came after this, before they broke up at their absolute peak!!! So many times I have wondered where they would have gone from there, but I can at least play this CD 1000 times more in my life and drink it in!
Just like their set with NADA SURF a few months ago, Oakland’s Rogue Wave came across the country and knocked it out of the park on stage for the second time in a row—only much longer this time as this was a headline gig. They’re about ready to start recording a third LP, and two new songs suggested ZACH ROGUE is still not hurting for first rate material. Finally, covers of JOHN LENNON’s neglected BEATLES masterpiece “I’m Only Sleeping” and THUNDERCLAP NEWMAN were just fantastic!!! See them if you can.
This is one of the country CDs my wife and I purchased for our back-roads jaunt from Dallas to San Antonio through the little historic Texas burgs, like the WAYLON JENNINGS-song-famous tiny-town Luckenbach—a place that’s nothing more than a post office/bar and dancehall!! It’s a beautiful and soulful place to have a Lone Star or Shiner Bok, though, while a local singer of some age and ability plays some old songs for you out by the back trees sitting on a stump, and I can see why the gentle Walker recorded two live albums at this spacious and cool dancehall in the middle of absolute nowhere. It’s so small and friendly, it’s true what Jennings sang: “Down in Luckenbach Texas, ain’t no one feeling no pain.”
See directly above. Jennings is not my favorite country singer by a long shot, but he’s a very good one, and a good writer and this was perfect for the drive in question. By the way, did I mention how much I hated suburban Dallas. Hated!!! And was so glad to put these tunes on, hit the road, get out of there, and get to somewhere in Texas I could actually stand to be like San Antonio? Thanks Waylon, for helping.
As I noted in my last Top 10, lately, I’ve been replaying some of my old CDs and vinyl as I box up my office for its move to Brooklyn. This band’s 1967 debut The Piper at the Gates of Dawn is one of those truly remarkable records by a famous group that few average-Joe rock fans know of—even Pink Floyd fans—as it bears so little resemblance to the spacy-mood-rock the band became so known for later. This is down to the leadership of their original frontman SYD BARRETT, who left the band soon thereafter, and who lost his mental health not long after that (after two brilliant solo LPs). And Relics is the best place to head after digesting Piper, as it collects singles and oddities of the Syd period, for an equally compelling look. Just for “See Emily Play” alone (known by many via DAVID BOWIE’s superb cover on Pinups), this is worth the money. See where the 1977 WIRE largely got it from!
Well this is the original vinyl, back when it was on import only. Was 1979 an amazing year for the second wave of punk, or what? As the originals like BUZZCOCKS and WIRE grew more introspective, and new bands like THE RUTS and UNDERTONES completely expanded the original base’s appeal, this Belfast group completely exploded within the original more simple-direct CLASH-like frame. I remember playing this about 100 times that year, as I did the above Buzzcocks record. Who’d have thought then that I would see them on back to back nights in New York at the same Irving Plaza they used to play in the old days exactly 27 years later? Odd, I know.
Such a beautiful debut solo LP by THE POSIES veteran, I just keep playing and playing and playing this! Really lovely stuff, not at all like his band, much as I love them too. This is what solo LPs are for!
The affable Garrie seemed shocked and pleased to be rediscovered by a small sect of fans of late ‘60s orchestral pop, playing his first New York/U.S. sets (this one and the day prior at the Other Music store) nearly four decades after his recently reissued (on Rev-Ola U.K.) first LP (the first of only four he’s made) appeared. Playing acoustic only, he was fantastic, with a hard thick voice that was equal parts VAN MORRISON and RICHARD THOMPSON, playing folk-rock that was like the White Album BEATLES. I can see why he actually disdained the original orchestration grafted onto his LP against his wishes back then, much as I like it. He’s right, it’s much more powerful with just his voice and guitar. And he told one funny story after another of a well-traveled (in Europe, anyway) troubadour life that gave way to jobs teaching French in London and running a ski school!
Texas’s answer to THE SMITHS? Well, maybe on one song on this 2005 EP, but other than that (yet another reworking of “This Charming Man”!!!!), if you combine the songs from this debut with those on their new EP, you have the best album’s worth of songs by anyone of late. Yes, it’s odd that a group from the American South can sound so blatantly English, but unlike many anglophilic groups, they’re not coy, fey, or over-stylized, they’re just a first rate pop group with bite, and we should be proud to call them ours.
Of the two EPs, I think I prefer this new one, as it comes on harder and thicker, adding a decidedly American edge to their Brit-inspired multifaceted pop. Don’t miss.
