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.