I have a paper due next Tuesday, and I'm going to be very busy thinking of ways to avoid working on it until then. So in the interest of being allowed to ignore this blog for awhile, here's a stack of thematically related Little Hits.

We've discussed in several entries the enormous effect R.E.M. had on the American indie scene in the early 80s; how overnight there seemed to be hundreds of similar bands with a spindly guitar sound and obscure, mumbled vocals. For me, it is very easy to understand how this happened. When I heard "Chronic Town" for the first time, I thought, "Wow! Someone has heard our prayers and is coming to save us." (Most of us had no inkling of the existence of the Hib-Tone 45 until R.E.M. had already become the "Beatles of College Radio.") When I bought Murmur, the only track I heard for the first two weeks was "Radio Free Europe," because I just kept playing that one song and over. In short, I was a raving, smitten fan; to this day, R.E.M. remains the only band besides the Embarrassment that I have ever written a fan letter to. For some reason I recall as a high school kid sitting at the dinner table with my father as he gave me a lecture about what a ridiculous bunch of queers all these rock musicians were with their outlandish costumes and such. I handed him some fanzine I was reading with a picture of R.E.M. on the cover. "What about these guys?" I asked. He regarded the photo carefully for a moment and then said, "Well, they look OK, I suppose you could look like them if you wanted to. Heck, you can even have a Nehru jacket." So you see, they could charm anybody.

And so they did, to an almost unhealthy extent. Many of these bands were centered around the band's Athens home base. For instance, the Kilkenny Cats. Their debut 45 was so obviously influenced by REM as to be comical; nevertheless, my pal David Ring and I played it incessantly. Exactly what the hell the singer is groaning about is unclear to me, but the temerity of that ridiculous three note guitar solo speaks loud and clear. Dreams so Real were also from Athens. Their debut 45 is J-A-N-G-L-Y, and perhaps their best-ever tune. Their subsequent LP on Coyote suffered from mediocre songwriting, later LPs on Arista brought them some national attention, but had a much more commercial sound that I didn't find nearly as appealing. A bit up the road, Atlanta's Blue TV made only this one 45 to my knowledge. New York's Erratic Sculpture, again laughably imitative, had a similarly lengthy discography. The Chant, from Florida, made two surprisingly strong LPs. Their devotion went so far as to name a song "Heaven Assumes" after a bit of lyric in "Perfect Circle," though they were probably equally influenced by garage psychedelia. (Their debut LP contains a swell cover of the Nightcrawlers' "Little Black Egg.") And perhaps the best of these is the gem from Idiot Savant, a Minneapolis combo who made just this 12" EP. "Throw It Away" demonstrates the power of an inspired moment of catchiness to render its trappings irrelevant. I should mention that one of the members of Idiot Savant, Kent Militzer, is the flash guitarist behind Little Hits Hall of Famers/cartoon rockers the Vandalias, as well as the soon-to-be-famous Stingray Green.

R.E.M.'s inspiration was inevitably a mixed a mixed blessing that grew worse as the influences narrowed. R.E.M. made some wonderful records by combining the influences of the Byrds, The Velvet Underground, country music, and many other idioms and artists. Then along came a horde of bands like One Plus Two that seemed to be influenced solely by R.E.M. without benefit of knowledge of any of the bands R.E.M. loved. Then we got to the point where we were one more generation removed; where bands were influenced solely by one of the bands that mimicked R.E.M. and of course things were pretty weak and diluted at that point. The same thing would happen a few years later to an even greater degree with a band known as Pavement.

My love affair with REM continued for several years through the beautiful Reckoning, the flawed but intriguing Fables of the Reconstruction, and the increasing clarity and commerciality of Life's Rich Pageant. For some reason Document threw a wrench in the works; I don't know if the chief cause was the gradual abandonment of the Byrdsy guitar sound, the competition with other bands and styles I was more interested in, or the fact that this LP contained the most annoying single of their career ("It's the End Of The World As We Know It"). I've never bought any of the WB albums, but I have never had the sense that R.E.M. was doing anything other than exactly what they wanted to.

Oh, and for you smart-assed youngsters who think it's safe to slag R.E.M. because they're beloved by yuppies and suburban moms: back around the time you were born, just as they were emerging as the biggest indie band in America, the members of this band (especially Peter Buck, who penned a wonderful manifesto in Record magazine called "The New Spirit of American Rock" shortly before he produced the Feelies' best album) were taking time in every interview to sing the praises of the American bands they saw as their comrades; bands like Mission of Burma, the Replacements, the Minutemen and other seminal, ultra-hip bands you discovered last year by reading about their reunion tour in Wire. Chump.

After many consecutive listens, and some spitting and hissing, we've decided that we prefer this Australian band's cover to the UK Roulettes' original. When we ponder the fact that the flip of this 45 (both tracks are on the Ugly Things series of compilation LPs) was the quite amazing "You're Against," we're forced to say that this must be one of the great two-siders of all time. Some of Mickey's other favorites off the top of his pointy head:

The Beatles-"Paperback Writer"/"Rain"
The Byrds-"Eight Miles High"/"Why"
Buzzcocks-"I Don't Mind"/"Autonomy"
The Rolling Stones-"Dandelion"/'We Love You"
The Velvet Crush-"One Thing Two Believe"/"If Not True"

What're yours?

While most of the Jam-inspired mods were out on the town on their Vespas, showing off their cool threads and talking about the young idea, the Gas were sulking and pouting at home, leaving only occasionally to barge into the club and confront their girlfriend (who was dancing to Northern Soul with a member of the Chords or the Jolt) in an embarassing screaming row. Perhaps the angriest of the neo-mod bands, their anger wasn't in the least political; check out some of their song titles: "Ignore Me," "The Finger," "Definitely Is A Lie," "Losing My Patience." We very much like their album and all of the singles we've heard, but this one has a distorted, thundering sound to it that is particularly appealing.

The boys and I would like to take a moment to belatedly pay our respects to one of the greatest cats who ever trod over a pile of $1 LPs, Cayenne. She was a sweet, delightful creature, and it was a privilege to have known her.

Stories of major label dashed dreams are pretty common in the UK signing frenzy that erupted after the punk explosion of '77. These future retail clerks were permitted two singles on Arista, but denied the shot at making the full length. Their first single, "High Rise" is typical, but quite good punk pop of the period, and would nestle in comfortably in a pile of singles by the Boys, Undertones, etc. They followed that with "Unfaithful," which was never officially released, and thus ended the very brief saga of the Trainspotters, or Train Spotters, depending on which of the two 45s you look at. This is the B-side of the latter.

Here's the real story on the Trainspotters from Steve Mitchell at Low Down Kids, which makes a lot more sense of the enterprise: "Trainspotters: this was Mike Read, the radio DJ. He'd been on Radio Luxembourg (actually based in Luxembourg - some kind of licensing loophole)
and had been in bands since the 60s, making records under all sorts of names. Immediately prior to the Trainspotters he'd released the "Are You Ready" 7" under his own name - not a great record, but on the pic sleeve he's standing outside the door of the Roxy club! By the end of the decade he moved to BBC's Radio 1, where he used to play guitar on his radio show and
it was at this point he did the Trainspotters singles. He even did a version of the "High Rise" number as a jingle: "Mike Read! Mike Read! 2-7-5 and 2-8-5!". After those two singles he released "My Town" under the name of The Ghosts, which is another good powerpopper. He's continued to make records ever since. Much of his Trainspotters/Ghosts-period gear has recently been comp'd on CD in Japan."

The Barracudas have released a good number of records over the years, progressing from an obviously retro 60s garage look and sound to a more traditional power pop sound that I suppose is equally retro, but never mind that. Everything I've ever heard by this band is worth picking up. When I first heard this song in the mid-80s it didn't seem that different than the popular "rock" music, and I wondered why I never heard songs like this or "Bigger Stones" by the Beat Farmers, or "White Lies" by Jason and the Scorchers on the radio. Which is, I suppose, why I like the iPod so much; on shuffle play, you can pretty much make it simulate a radio station where the top 40 chart dovetails perfectly with your taste and internal logic, and the world becomes a much more sympathetic place, at least until you take the headphones off.

This record is a fairly typical in many ways: teenage garage sound, low budget recording, not terribly sophisticated sentiment...why do I find it so perfect? In terms of construction, it has a bit more going on for it than most, the melody and harmonies are nice, but I think what really sells it for me is that it's just so...believable. The singer seems so sincerely distraught by this petty adolescent spat despite the fact he's not even direclty involved, and I find his concern just ludicrously moving. This is one reason I get kind of snarky when somebody (usually some punk rock kid in his early 20s) dismisses a band or song as "just pop" or "just a love song." Like they really spend more time fuming about the fact that their tax dollars pay for illegal wars in central America than they do mooning about their crush on the new teller. Wankers.

Not to be confused with the Journeymen, a "Mighty Wind" folk outfit, this Journey Men was a garage band from Florida that seems to have only made the one record. I fell in love with this song on some forgotten 60s comp that presented it in fuzzy, mediocre sound; when I saw that it appeared on a new comp CD called Total Raunch, I immediately picked one up, hoping for a sound upgrade. Well, it is a little better, but slower; I'm guessing the version I was used to was mastered at an incorrect, slightly faster speed.

Having recently scored a copy of the Dentists' "Strawberries Are Growing In My Garden (And It's Wintertime)" 45, I was pretty stoked about putting it up here, but Rhino is going to use that track on an upcoming box set called Children of Nuggets. That's OK, as I might like this one better anyway. The Dentists were a much beloved UK indie-pop band that was neither dour and introspective enough to fit in with the c86 crowd, nor interested in the sort of costumes that would have endeared them to the retro-60s clique. What they did have was a singer who sounded like he believed every word he sang no matter how ridiculous the concept, rushed tempos that added excitement, and some great hooks. Their best LP was probably Behind This Door I Keep the Universe, which actually came out on a major label in the US, which is why there are plenty of copies available for $1.99.

BTW, here's a tracklist for Children of Nuggets. The idea that some thread connects all of these bands is a bit dicey, but it is a load of great music, probably much more listenable than the more "serious" Left of The Dial box set.

Whenever I'm approached on the fabled Mass Street in Lawrence, either at one of our relentlessly hip nightspots or one of the many fine boutiques who look to me to spearhead the next fashion trend, it seems the adoring public but one issue on its anxious mind: "Jon," they ask, "What is the most blatant Psychocandy rip-off you've ever heard? Is it the Meat Whiplash 45? Is it the Raveonettes?" Well, maybe. Then again, it might be this 45 by a French band called Mary Goes Round. It has all the elements. Layers of fuzz, buried vocal that never even approaches middle C, and a pretty nice little tune in there somewhere.

The lone single by NYC's Nasty Facts is one of the few records coveted by punk rock collectors that is actually worth the absurd prices it fetches. All three tracks are great and have been compiled on some of the many Killed By Death/Bloodstains/Back to Front-type compilations of rare punk stuff. The story is that a few high school kids asked a slightly older woman named Cherl Boyze to be in the band because they thought she looked the part; she played bass, sang, and wrote the songs. She is also the only member of the band who seems to have disappeared.

One of the tracks from the great Tuatara compilation that introduced me to Flying Nun was the powerful and haunting "The Man With No Desire" by the Expendables. I remember this song being in heavy rotation on my Walkman as I took long, late walks accross the KU campus in the late 80s. Jay Clarkson was the voice and the songs behind the Expendables (sometimes credited as They Were Expendable); she had several releases on Flying Nun including an anthology CD called Packet. Her other huge Little Hit is the logical follow up to "The Man With No Desire," "The Boy With the Sad Hands," which was on the European CD of the second Flying Nun compilation, In Love With These Times. It has unforyunately been deleted from the current issue. We love 'em both, but "Boy" wins on the basis of being unavailable at the moment. We split the outcome by showing "Man's" picture sleeve, a good example of the wonderful DIY artwork the early Flying Nun bands came up with. Vinyl obsessives should note, however, that I've heard three copies of this 45, and all of them were so off-center as to be unlistenable.

Hey, if you don't own much Flying Nun Material why not hop on over to Smoke CDs and order Tuatara, In Love With These Times/Pink Flying Saucers, and the ten-year anniversary compilation, Getting Older. These four discs will set you back about $50 with shipping, and I can't imagine a better way to spend the money. If you do that, you can hear "The Man With No Desire," and one of the most shivering, desolate and utterly perfect guitar breaks ever committed to tape.

Perhaps the best of the Flying Nun records by bands who never saw any sort of US release were the Bird Nest Roys LP and the "Legless" EP by the Alpaca Brothers. The latter is notable not only for a great bass sound (lots of strings slapping against the fretboard in a distinctly non-thumb-popping kind of way) but also a strum-velocity that reminds me of the Feelies, and great quirky songs. The Alpacas included Steve Courname, who would later drum for the Verlaines, and featured guest musicians Peter Gutteridge (Snapper, The Clean) and Norma O'Malley (Look Blue Go Purple). Another of FN's releases funded by the QEII Arts Council, wherin the New Zealand Government gave grants to make punk records (usually 12" EPs, which is why Flying Nun seemed to like the format so much).

Here's the conclusion of the Doublehappys story we've been working toward for the past couple of days. The legend is that Shayne Carter and Wayne Elsey, along with a drum machine known as Herbie Fuckface, formed a new bass-less trio in 1983. The despised drum machine was later replaced by a human named John Collie, but the bass player never materialized. No matter. The Doublehappys made a 45 and an EP before Elsey's untimely death; both of these discs plus a few live tracks from 1983 (originally released on the Avalanche records EP "How Much Time Left, Please") are rounded up on Nerves. "I Don't Want To See You Again" is not Peter and Gordon's pop hit, but typically snotty Doublehappys sentiment that hints at why Shayne Carter always knew he was a rock star.

Here's the other half of the Doublehappys' nucleus in his formative stage. Shayne Carter was the very young singer for the very young Bored Games, who left only this one EP before they splintered. Carter, of course, went on to the Doublehappys, Straitjacket Fits, and Dimmer while Terry Moore and Fraser Batts became Chills. There's a humorous Snakes and Ladders-styled game on the back of the jacket which chronicles the band's existence and takes potshots at both the Clean and the Chills. But then, Bored Games were probably the most "punk" of all the FN bands, as "Bridesmaid" suggests. There's a great video for the song on the first Flying Nun DVD.

Dave Allman clued me in that Stylus Magazine is doing a feature this week on the Flying Nun label and the Dunedin sound, so I thought it might be appropriate to feature tracks by some of Dunedin's lesser-known combos. If the notion of a band having the temerity to call themselves the Stones seems rather unthinkable, consider that the band's singer and guitarist was Wayne Elsey, who later joined the equally reckless (and marvelous) Doublehappys. Elsey was killed in an accident while the 'Happys were on tour; accounts differ, but most suggest drunken hijinks on a train.

I know we just did the Marbles, but here's another great pop 45 by one of the lesser known New York bands, this one with a punk-glam edge, as opposed to the Marbles' dreams of being the new Raspberries. We thought about running their debut 45 from '79, because it has such a great picture sleeve, but instead we'll stick with this B-side of their Clem Burke-produced 2nd, because we love the affected sneer of the vocals and the rousing chorus. (As an aside, one of the more interesting peculiarities of this era was the tendency for guys to articulate miseries like "my girlfriend won't call me" in their best Johnny Rotten snarl. This may provide some clues as to exactly why she won't call; still, we believe this was overall a beneficial development.) There are unreleased Speedies tracks on the highly recommended Yellow Pills: Prefill CD.

27 Various singer/songwriter/guitarist/visionary/Susstones Records guy Ed Ackerson had previously been in the Dig, one of those unusual mod revival bands that was actually more influenced by the 60s than by the Jam's In the City (see also: Squire). Moving into a more overtly psychedelic realm, he proceeded to steer the 27 Various through five diverse and always interesting albums; when you see them in the cheap bins (and you will), pick 'em up. It wasn't easy to determine what their biggest Little Hit was, but this non-LP 45 is probably the one. It is a brilliant record for three reasons. In descending order of importance, they are: 1) The clever, daffy, Satanic Majesties-inspired "Granny Smith," 2) The hilarious mock-pretentious account of the band's formation on the inside of the sleeve, and 3) The Small Faces cover on the flip. Ed Ackerson is now in Polara, and while almost nobody seemed to care, the 2002 LP Jetpack Blues may have been the strongest work of his career.

The Marbles were there at the very beginning; this was the third Ork records 45 following Television's "Little Johnny Jewel" and Richard Hell's "Another World." During the label's brief existence, Terry Ork released a handful of classic punk/power pop/new wave discs. A lot of the geeky particulars are captured here. The Marbles 45 is one of the lesser known releases on the label; nonetheless it's a wonderful record, definitely power pop but recorded before the sound had been codified by the skinny tie-brigades. Upon hearing it, John Kass fired off an e-mail that pointed out that it sounds "just like the Shins." The Marbles had at least one other single on Jimboco that we don't like nearly as much.

Lane Steinberg is one of my favorite pop geniuses. He was in the Wind, whose Where It's At With the Wind is THE great lost LP of the early 80s; he also released an amazing solo album under the name Noel Coward's Ghost. He is currently in a duo called Tan Sleeve, who have generated some notoriety for the song "Condoleeza Will Lead Us" from the forthcoming CD American Blood.

Wall of Orchids was yet another of Lane's disguises. This 45 was the only release on a very short-lived offshoot of the much-loved Bus Stop Label called Pop Look and Listen Records. (Anybody know the reference?) Although "Come Back To Me" is the B-side, it seems to me the stronger, with a beautiful Brian Wilson melody and one of the best vocal performances of Mr. Steinberg's career. There is also a more recent CD EP that contains this track plus four more very nice numbers as well. Highly recommended.

This very British single by this very British band concerns a very British crimefighter, and as such, the cultural references are a bit lost on me, but still, I really like the song. The Whaam! label was founded by Dan Treacy of the Television Personalities and Ed Ball of the Times. Whaam! had a number of great records, perhaps the best of which was the TVPs "Three Wishes" 45, and yes, it's different from the LP version.

Sorry about the blip yesterday. I'll try to see that it doesn't happen again. The guys and I have recently spent some time revisiting our favorite 80s garage revival discs. I actually liked a lot of that stuff (including all of the oft-maligned stuff on Voxx), and it introduced me to a lot of the 60s classiscs that hadn't been unearthed on the more visible compilations like Nuggets and Pebbles. Sweden had a strangely large number of good 60s-influenced bands during this period: The Stomachmouths, The Nomads, the Shoutless, the Creeps, and many others. Shamrock J. Cat says this is one of the best, and despite never having actually been in a garage to my knowledge, he is quite an authority.

I have to make this quick today, as family obligations are coming up in about 30 minutes. Here for your amusement more than your pleasure, is a song by my old country band with Kory Willis, Paul Schmidt, and Guy Stephens. It's been featured on NPR's "Car Talk" a couple of times.

I hated grunge so much... stupid shirtless sweaty GUYS making ugly music with no pop sensibility and bludgeoning power chords in a wall of noise that precluded any interesting rhythmic or harmonic ideas. The whole business had more in common with Uriah Heep than punk rock. When I make a compilation of all my favorite records of the early 90s, I'm going to call it The Opposite of Grunge. Jason Reynolds' Summershine label could contribute some A-list material; this might be the single most cavity-inducing track that he released. The Carousel was the duo of Elizabeth Price and Gregory Webster, the latter of the Razorcuts. Amelia Fletcher of Talulah Gosh and Heavenly helped out. All of the Carousel recordings were eventually rounded up for a CD on Vinyl Japan.

Of course, later I found out that I was totally wrong about grunge. Nevermind is better than any Grand Funk Railroad album, if not nearly as good as The James Gang Rides Again.

I was waiting until it got really nice outside to break this one out. This unassuming Australian band left two singles and two 12" EPs as proof of their existence, and for some reason they seem uncommonly hard to track down. Not the loud guitar pop of the Someloves or Hoodoo Gurus here, but an approach more like the Go-Betweens or Apartments.

A quick look at what used copies of their CDs are going for on Amazon.com suggests the esteem in which this band is held by the few who managed to hear them, and it's no wonder; Kontiki is simply one of the handful of best pop records of the 90s. The ability of Robert Harrison to juxtapose great pop rock in the Beatles/Byrds tradition with strange psychedelic experiments that actually still hold together as tunes (something that bands like Olivia Tremor Control were NEVER able to pull off) is a rare gift, as is his ability to throw out damaged and achy love songs that recall Big Star's Sister Lovers. Something like Guided by Voices (of whom Harrison was a huge fan) with an attention span and an ability to distinguish their best ideas from their merely mediocre ones, they shared a similar lo-fi aesthetic, but where Guided By Voices' studio austerity sometimes seemed forced (Alien Lanes), Cotton Mather's seemed ingenious. A previous LP, Cotton Is King, had an inappropriate commercial sheen that took the edge off some pretty good material, as well as some truly horrible amateur alterna-indie artwork that would have discouraged most people who like their later records from ever picking it up. A later LP, The Big Picture, was nearly as glorious as Kontiki. Kontiki will be re-issued in the year 2013, after some advertising executive that used to be a college radio DJ places one of their songs in a commercial for whatever that year's new technology that encourages people to have loud, embarrassing conversations in public is going to be.