Did you ever have that band that you liked okay, but you didn’t get nearly as hugely into as some of your friends, and you never really figured out why? Tsunami were that band for me in the mid-’90s. Liked them fine, bought the CDs, even saw them live once. But a lot of my friends were just absolutely mad for them, to an extent that I never was and never really could be. In retrospect, I think it’s because most of the bands I was really crazy about in 1997 or so sounded very much like this song, and “Double Shift” is really the only song Tsunami ever did that sounds like this. Oh well. Still like this song very much, especially the extremely Sean O’Hagan-sounding horn section.
A favorite tune from one of Little Hits’ most beloved bands, the Sneetches. Although the US/UK quartet were regularly tagged as “Beatlesque,” this is one of the few songs of theirs that I really think sounds like an homage, specifically to the Revolver era. Although the later Alias comp 1985-1991 is my favorite Sneetches album overall, I think Sometimes That’s All We Have is my favorite of the proper albums. The title track is particularly lovely.
I had extremely mixed feelings about that whole “lounge revival” thing in the mid-’90s. Mostly, the “lookit me, I’m so ironic ‘n’ shit” gurning really bugged. I just generally have a problem with the concept of the guilty pleasure, and for the most part, that’s the idea the whole revival was built on. Which is a shame, because I really, unironically, like a lot of easy listening music, and several of my favorite artists have used elements from it. But surprisingly, this 1997 compilation is largely smarm-free, despite some winking inclusions like Ben Folds Five doing the Flaming Lips’ “She Don’t Use Jelly” a la Equivel, or first-gen lounge power duo Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gorme doing an utterly straight cover of Soundgarden’s apocalyptic “Black Hole Sun.” There are a number of goodies to be found here — P.J. Harvey and Eric Drew Feldman turning Was (Not Was)’s “Zaz Turned Blue” into a torch song, for example — but Pizzicato Five’s manic, glitchy take on the Jobim classic “The Girl From Ipanema” is my favorite. I’m most impressed by the perfectly-timed pauses.
I never liked Juliana Hatfield’s solo career as much as I liked the Blake Babies, because John Strohm’s contributions to the group were pretty crucial. But then, although I really liked his immediate post-BBs group Antenna, I was never really crazy about his solo career either, so there you go. Everybody needs a foil. This song, from the band’s final release, is a good example of what I liked about Strohm’s songs — mostly that I just really really liked his guitar sound.
I’m gonna come right out and say it: not only is “Play Myself Some Music” my favorite song I have ever posted on Little Hits, there are times when it’s my favorite song of all time. There are various other R. Stevie Moore songs that vie for that title as well. And also “Dancing Queen.” “Play Myself Some Music” is available on the new Cherry Red Records anthology Meet The R. Stevie Moore! Go buy it, or download it from eMusic.
Although guitarist Roy Montgomery played in the Pin Group, who released the first single on Flying Nun Records back in 1981, I don’t really think of him as part of that aspect of the New Zealand pop scene. In my mind, he’s more of a piece with Alastair Galbraith, the Dead C, the awesomely named Wreck Small Speakers On Expensive Stereos and the rest of the whole experimental/noise Xpressway Records scene. But really, he doesn’t fit there either: his records are more approachable than that. So really, he’s his own cool little thing. As the liner notes point out, “Dawn Fades Over Ocean” is based on elements from Joy Division’s “New Dawn Fades” and the Velvet Underground’s “Ocean” mutated into its own placid, meditative wash of guitar tones. The EP may be called Winter Songs, but it’s also entirely appropriate for a thunderstormy summer night like this one.
In their original two-man incarnation, the Method Actors were probably the purest iteration of the pre-R.E.M. sound of Athens, Georgia. The pop leanings of the B-52’s and Pylon’s occasional feints into jangly melodicism have no place here: this is where rock-crit buzzwords like “jittery,” “herky-jerky” and “skronky” are born. As a result, the Method Actors never could really sustain my interest for more than a couple-three songs at a time. (Vic Varney’s yelpy vocals in particular start to wear at my nerves.) But I still really dig “Dancing Underneath.”
From the Amigo Records EP, “Hard To Find, But Worth the Effort,” 1984
This year, Kit and I did something we hardly ever do. We took a vacation. You see, we’re both kind of homebodies, and we worry unduly about the cats while we’re gone, which I know is pathetic, but that’s how we (don’t) roll. Anyway, the purpose of this adventure was to meet up with her family at the famous Cedar Point, an amusement park in Sandusky, OH, noted for the effectiveness of its rides in disorienting and dizzying its patrons. As I prefer bourbon to achieve these ends, I found Cedar Point only somewhat amusing, although I did enjoy hanging out with my nephew and niece, who are a fabulous pair of kids.
As you might have expected, I managed to pencil in a few hours for vinyl amassation in Columbus and Cleveland. I arrived home triumphantly with a big box of records, and I thought I might share some of the mid-to-highlights with you.
The first item on my vacation hit parade was scored at the swell My Mind’s Eye record store in Lakewood, a Cleveland suburb. They had a solid selection of 12″ vinyl and an excellent mass of cool and unusual 45s that were very reasonably priced. (Most of the common stuff had been pulled out and marked at $1.00 or 50 cents, so there was probably some good stuff in those boxes too. I didn’t look.) The gentleman behind the counter was extremely kind and helpful, as were ALL of the record store employees I met in Ohio. (Bite me, Nick Hornby.)
This Public Address 12″ caught my eye because of the Amigo label (home of the Nomads and other Swedish neo-garage finery) and as it was so cheap, I stuck it into the pile without a second thought. Upon getting it back to the safety of the Little Hits West archives, I gave it a spin. It’s not Nomads-type garage, but more like the super produced power pop bands that were making the scene in mid-80s Australia like Ups and Downs, or perhaps fellow Swedes The Pushtwangers. To these ears “Take It Out” is the standout track. (A couple of tracks have horns; it isn’t clear to me that they are either a benefit or a hindrance.) The Address are obviously more geeks than visionaries, as demonstrated by 1) covers of Badfinger’s “No Matter What” and Bram Tchaikovsky’s “Girl of my Dreams,” both serviceable, 2) the title of the record; probably the most effusive praise they ever imagined their little gem receiving, and 3) a thank you list that references Dwight Twilley, the Beat, Fat Freddy’s Cat, and The Swedish Chef, among others.
A special shout out to the beloved Kit, who was a patient and understanding record-store wife. She also pulled out a very clean promo copy of the Louvin Brothers’ “When I Stop Dreaming” while thumbing through the C&W boxes at Hodad’s Music International, also in Lakewood, just a couple of blocks from My Mind’s Eye. (They’re only open in the evenings during the week.)
Lene Lovich Angels Lucky Number Home
(from the 10″ EP 1980 Global Assault, Stiff-Epic Records 1980)
This is the b-side of a promo-only EP released by Epic Records in 1980, recorded live at the Paradise, one of Boston’s longest-running music venues, which coincidentally is about four blocks from my house. (The a-side was recorded at the Lyceum in London.) I’m not certain, but I think this is one of the tours where Thomas Dolby was playing keyboards for Lovich. What really strikes me about these three songs is how noisy and energetic they are — Lovich’s records were a bit more genteel than this, and the rougher edges suit her.
Yes, this is the third Icehouse song to appear on Little Hits when many other, far more worthy bands haven’t shown up once yet, but when I re-tackled the long dormant Big Ten Inch Records series tonight, I discovered that I had misfiled my copy of Icehouse’s 1981 single “We Can Get Together” and I’m just OCD enough that I can’t just entirely skip over it. This is one of the two b-sides. The first is a kind of awful AOR pop/rock song called “Send Somebody,” while this one is more of a synth-poppy mood piece that’s more in keeping with the vibe of the group’s first (and by some distance, best) album.
