In our effort to bring you all of the Feelies-related stuff we can find, here's a track by the Trypes, the Feelies side project that eventually turned into Speed The Plough. The Trypes also had a lovely EP on Coyote, "The Explorer's Hold" which featured a cover of George Harrison's "Love You To," as well as "The Undertow," a track that would later appear on a Feelies LP.

Sorry about the noise on this track. I tried several copies of this album, and none of them were terribly satisfactory.

There is no way of knowing for sure,what with memories being eroded by age and abuse and the notion that things used to be better, so just grant me this: The 'Trippers version of the Kinks' "See My Friend" may have been the best cover I ever heard. They never recorded it, but it was on the set list purt' reg'lar for awhile. Drummer Mark Bruggeman flailed about in an eerily Moon-esque fashion while bassist Scott Stecklein did some McCartney bits and the whole thing just exploded in a whirl of modcolor. It was friggin' HUGE, I tell ya...

Iowa City's Dangtrippers are one of my favorite bands of all time, because they played in Lawrence quite frequently throughout the late 80s, and my friends and I had wild crazy drunken intellectual bad-dancing FUN every time. They were a great cover band; among the ones I can remember are: "In the Street," "Foxhole," "Bangkok," "Dr. Robert," "Glory," "Lucifer Sam," "Changeless," "Brontosaurus," and "When You Dance I Can Really Love." They cranked out great renditions of these classics, for they could all play and sing very nicely, and they did so long before playing a Big Star or Television song would impress more than four people in the audience. Their original material was fine as orange juice as well, as a listen to their albums demonstrates. When the What Gives actually became a band, I had the Dangtrippers in mind as the live act I would most like to emulate.

Their recorded output, compared to their strength as a club attraction, is merely magnificent. It didn't capture the full-on sonic wallop of the rhythm section, and isn't quite as wired as the band was onstage in a sweaty bar. Nevertheless, it is all well worth seeking out, especially the Days Between Stations LP on REM manager Jefferson Holt's Dog Gone label, which neatly explored the tension between Devin Hill's pure pop longings and Doug Roberson's quirky psychedelic leanings (though Roberson certainly knew his way around a hook as well).

As DBS was being released, Devin Hill left the band to be replaced by Pat White, trading winsomeness for some muscle without affecting the quality of the band much. Hill went on to make a couple of nice records for the short-lived Big Deal label. The Dangtrippers dissolved in the early 90s, at which point Roberson formed Head Candy who did an LP on Link that I really should track down. When that folded he went the retro route, first with some of his Dangtrippers pals in the Bent Scepters, and then with the Hammond grooving Diplomats of Solid Sound, where he currently resides. (According to their Website, they're appearing in Lawrence on Saturday at the Gaslight.)

Not exactly punk according to any orthodoxy, this compilation of lo-fi recordings of some of the Urinals' favorite (mostly) Californian contemporaries is an absolute joy, from the fake funk of the Earwigs to the junkyard exotica of the Human Hands and way out beyond. Oh yeah, there's this great early Gun Club track too. The new re-issue contains one bonus track apiece from all of the bands what appeared on the original comp, plus the tracks from the Urinals-based Happy Squid Sampler 7". A wonderful document to place on your shelf right next to the Homework CDs from Hyped2Death.

Also, some kind folks have seen fit to issue the Warfrat Tales compilation from 1983 in a new unabridged version which, like the Keats CD, contains tracks from the Gun Club, 100 Flowers, The Earwigs, and the Urinals, as well as stuff from the Last, Rain Parade, Wednesday Week, and more.

This is one of my favorite pop records of all time, and I can't decide which part of it I'm supposed to go aroung singing. Too many hooks! This LA band, of which Emmit Rhodes was briefly the drummer, has had their 45s compiled on a Gear Fab CD. This track also appars on the first Nuggets box.

Wow! This record actually rises to the level of greatness suggested by the sleeve. A record that is NOT as good as the sleeve is the Stomachmouths' Voxx Records LP, which consists of demos and live stuff and isn't a patch on any of their proper Swedish releases that we've heard.

Folks will go on about Dinosaur Jr. and pre-WB Flaming Lips, but to me, these guys were THE psychedelic guitar band of the 80s. The extremely inventive interplay of Guy Kyser and Roger Kunkel's snaking guitars was supplemented nicely by judicious use of feedback, and whether the rhythm section was the weird and weedy one (first two albums) or the relentlessly piledriving one (everything else) there was always a splendid backdrop for Kyser's truly damaged world view and Tom Petty-as-possessed-by-Satan vocals. We lean a little more to the early records, but this band never did anything halfway.

This was one of many recorded TWR covers, many of which were rounded up on the odds and sods compilation Spoor (Frontier). Another one we like a lot is their version of Can's "Yoo Doo Right," from Sack Full Of Silver, which I find far more exciting than the original.