The Shop Assistants are one of the great UK indie bands of the mid-'80s, trailblazers of the sound that the Primitives and the Darling Buds would soon take into the college radio charts and an incalculable influence on an entire generation of indie bands that followed, from Talulah Gosh on down. "It's Up To You" is an anomaly for this band, who mostly favored little two-minute buzzbombs on the order of the early Jesus and Mary Chain. This is as close as they ever got to pretty, and I can't help but think that the folks on the quieter end of the Sarah label (Blueboy, etc.) paid a lot of attention to this song.

-Stewart Mason

Taken From Trouser Press (and the liner notes of "Take That You Bastards"):

These Atlanta jokesters made an underground splash with Dig? a collection of goofy Simon and Garfunkel covers (plus a version of Paul Anka's "Having My Baby"). Amazingly, The Coolies followed the one-joke Dig? with the brilliant Doug, a trenchant "rock opera" about a skinhead who murders a transvestite short-order cook, gets rich by publishing his victim's recipes, falls into paranoia and substance abuse and ends up in the gutter. The sad tale is related through ingenious knockoffs of the Who ("Cook Book"), John Lennon ("Poverty"), The Replacements ("Coke Light Ice"), rap ("Pussy Cook") and metal ("The Last Supper"), and a comic book designed by Jack Logan of Pete Buck Comics fame. Doug is a work of demented genius.

The Coolies Take That You Bastards, which compiles Dig? and Doug (plus 3 bonus tracks) was released in 1995 on Casino Records.

-Michael Slawter

Not a lot of people remember this anymore, but prior to the semi-success of the Red Rockers' 1983 single "China" (like their labelmates Translator's "Everywhere That I'm Not," a song that people remember as being a much bigger hit than it actually was), these guys were politically-minded hardcore punks. "Voice of America" was announced as the band's next single just before Columbia took over their label 415 Records (part of the same deal that signed Romeo Void and Translator to Columbia) and relegated it to the flipside of "China," so there's no telling what might have happened if it had come out as an a-side. Probably not much of anything in terms of sales, but this fiery single is such a huge step up from the derivative Clash-lite of the Red Rockers' debut album that I like to think they would have become the darlings of the American political punk scene. They had the pedigree, anyway: the Red Rockers' drummer was Jim Reilly, formerly of Stiff Little Fingers.

-Stewart Mason

I have to give it up for any band who names themselves after a song from the Bee Gees' first album, but this is a complete gem of a song no matter what the band is called. Just under two minutes of neo-psychedelic guitars twisting back and forth underneath a sing-songy vocal melody (courtesy of Shirley Souter, another one of those wispy-little-girl singers I'm so fond of), "July Is A Long Time Coming" is one of the rare convergences of twee pop and freakbeat, styles that normally don't really go together so well. The heart of Red Chair Fadeaway -- which I believe only existed for this one single, of which "July Is A Long Time Coming" is one of two b-sides -- is guitarist Tim Vass, whose name will likely be familiar to the sort of people who collect Sarah Records singles.

-Stewart Mason

The flipside of the immortal "South Street" -- maybe the first pop hit to use the word "hippies," in 1960, yet! -- "Them Terrible Boots" is a perfect example of what was lost when the 45-rpm single basically disappeared. This is a classic example of a killer b-side, a silly knocked off novelty that's nonetheless performed with such vigor (dig the way that male voice slides in to deliver the title line in each chorus, each one goofier-sounding than the last) that in a way it's better than the flip. Shockingly, the recent Orlons best-of on the revived Cameo-Parkway label doesn't include this song. Yet one more thing for Allen Klein to be ashamed of.

Proof of how different the pop marketplace was in 1981, the unapologetic '60s throwback "Girl's Night Out" was released by a major label, if one can use that term to describe the post-Presley RCA, then as now a near-moribund label that never quite did manage to find its way in the rock music marketplace. "Girl's Night Out" is a gloriously Spectoresque bit of retro girlypop more or less in the manner of the Go-Go's or Josie Cotton, but the New York-based Lawrence was more of a Shangri-Las-style bad girl than her sunnier California compatriots. Comparisons to early Blondie are also entirely apropos: much as Blondie courted instant girl-group cred by inviting Ellie Greenwich to sing the backing vocals on "In the Flesh," the dramatic chorus of this song is sung by Arlene Smith, leader of the much-beloved Chantels.

-Stewart Mason

The only artists more consistently productive than Stephin Merritt in the '90s were Stereolab, who clearly must spend 23 out of every 24 hours in the studio, taking turns napping for a few minutes underneath one of the vintage Moogs, to amass the depth of catalogue they have. In this situation, a tiny wonder like "Fried Monkey Eggs," which boils down everything that's wonderful about the group's idiosyncratic blend of ABBA, bossa nova and krautrock to just under 127 seconds of relentless forward motion, can end up relegated to the b-side of a limited-edition tour single and never be collected on one of the band's frequent odds-n-sods compilations.

-Stewart Mason