To the extent that Ellen Foley is remembered at all these days, it's for two odd little footnotes: she spent a season as the public defender on the '80s sitcom Night Court before she was replaced by Markie Post, and she was the centerpiece of the weirdest Clash offshoot ever, the over the top, artsy Spirit of St. Louis, produced by Mick Jones (listed in the credits as "my boyfriend") and written by Jones, Joe Strummer and Clash entourage member Tymon Dogg. A respectably weird bit of art-rocky new wave, Spirit of St. Louis really needs to be heard in full to be appreciated. So here's an earlier Ellen Foley single, from her 1979 debut Nightout. Produced by Mick Ronson and Ian Hunter, "Sad Song" is part of that whole neo-Spector movement that was so big in the New Wave around this period. (see also: Blondie's "In the Flesh," or Little Hits' song of the day for November 10, 2005, "Girls' Night Out" by Karen Lawrence and the Pinz) Foley was a commanding, if slightly overdramatic, singer with some obvious talent and a rather appealing New York Bad Girl look vaguely reminiscent of the Shangri-Las, but she was forever overshadowed by the company she kept.

-Stewart Mason

Information about Atlanta's Lovely Lads is hard to find, which isn't surprising, considering that they were proffering this kind of collegiate sweater rock as late as 1996, almost a full decade after its heyday. "Daytime All Around" features a terrific melancholy chorus which sounds remarkably to my ears like Big Dipper. This likeable disc occasionally gets a bit cranky (as on "Fucking, Fighting, Crying Upstairs"), but is always smart and engaging. I believe they had at least one other album. I think this one stumbled into the store as part of a college radio station spring cleaning; I grabbed it despite it's ugly packaging because I assumed the band's name was a Spinal Tap joke.

One of the first really blatant examples that I’ve come across of Americans singing with a British accent. Or if the singer is actually British, then massive points off for trying so hard. This was, after all, a band from Boston, another in a long line of Boston outfits trying single-handedly to create some sort of mod movement in town and failing miserably (the Prime Movers come to mind). They left this track and a disappointing ep in their ripple. Dig the Political Statement lyrics. But man, it all works. The verses are Close Lobsters (we’ll get to them in a future post), the choruses are Jam, and the instrumental break is top-notch Echo and the Bunnymen, all wrapped up in an endearing mid-fi neophyte bundle. Maybe they should’ve moved to England. One of the guitarists/vocalists was a John Dragonetti, who latter turns up leading the band Jack Drag. Seems he grew up in the Middle East, attending various elite schools, so it’s likely that he’s our boy. Don’t know if we should give him his points back, though.

-Andrew Chalfen

Me, I'm a coffee man, have been ever since high school when I used to bunk off homeroom at Monterey High and go to the doughnut shop across the street for a chocolate glazed and a cup of black, no sugar while I read the Dallas Morning News. Plus, I'm from Texas, where tea is served iced or not at all. But over the last couple of years, I've developed a fondness for what the veddy English Roy Wood terms a jolly cup of tea. It's supposed to be good for you, for one thing, but it's also a nice way to clear your mind and sit for a few minutes in the late afternoon or evening. In fact, there's a cup of Wilson Select Earl Grey from Upton Tea Importers (www.uptontea.com) just to my left as I type, being sniffed curiously by Angus the Scottish Ninja Kitten, who serves the same editorial function here at Little Hits New England that Mickey does at the home office.



I can think of no band with a greater disconnect between their hit singles and what their actual albums sounded like than Roy Wood's Wizzard. Remembered almost solely these days for their great glam rock 45s "See My Baby Jive" (acknowledged by Bjorn and Benny as the direct inspiration for ABBA's chart-topper "Waterloo") and "I Wish It Could Be Christmas Everyday," Wizzard's albums were unfailingly odd. The weirdest by far was their 1973 debut Wizzard Brew (released in a different sleeve as Wizzard's Brew in the US, by the same label who mistakenly named ELO's untitled debut No Answer after a staff member's note about an uncompleted call placed to EMI's London office was misinterpreted). Containing none of the four UK chart hits Wizzard scored in 1973, the album is basically the Move's sludge rock epic Looking On distilled through a combination of Gary Glitter and Chuck Berry. But smack in the middle, ending side one after the 14-minute boogie "Meet Me At the Jailhouse," there's "Jolly Cup of Tea," a two-minute salvo of bizarre music hall nonsense setting chanted mass vocals against a Salvation Army parade band. This was released by a major label, folks. It hit the album charts. The 1970s were much weirder than many people give them credit for.

-Stewart Mason

The purest pop the Individuals ever came up with was tucked away on the B-side of the "Dancing With My Eighty Wives" single. More generally they were quirkier and less melodic/60s influenced than say, the dB's, but the LP which spawned the aforemention single, Fields, still retains a substantial amount of period charm and has a few Mix Tape Test™ winners like "Leap Of Faith" and "White." We've never seen a copy of their debut, the "Aquamarine" EP. After the Individuals became just that, Glen Morrow formed Rage To Live and helmed the Bar/None label, Janet and Doug Wygal formed the Wygals, and Jon Klages made an EP for Coyote backed by Yo La Tengo.

My high school years were marked by a succession of Boston bands that were trumpeted as the next big national thing by local heavyweight rock radio station WBCN. And why not? After J. Giles, Aerosmith, and, well, Boston became huge, it seemed like the town was developing a reasonably high batting average. The success of the Cars, though, really sent the hype into overdrive. I recall a slew of hyped bands that had big local followings but which never quite achieved escape velocity, probably for the classic reason that their (mostly) major label debuts never lived up to the excitement of the live shows. There were the Stompers (the local Springsteen/South Side Johnny guys), the Jon Butcher Axis (Boston’s answer to Jimi Hendrix), the Rings (Cars wannabe’s who played my high school, much to my glee), Robyn Lane and the Chartbusters (I guess the female Tom Petty, though that’s not quite accurate), and Robert Ellis Oral (sort of a dough-faced one-man Hall and Oats, only with a keyboard). And then there were the Atlantics.

The Atlantics were cuddly skinny red and blue tie new wavers, and they had a pretty big following for a spell into the early 80’s. I think Big City Rock was their only album (what marketing bozo came up with that desperate title?), and it contained their only local “hit”, the catchy ditty “When You’re Young”. ABC records must’ve been a terrible label for the Atlantics, or for anybody around that time. I spent years trying to hunt down a copy of the thing—in Boston, no less. Its first spin on my turntable only brought disappointment. Super clean, bland production and performances. The only time I saw them (at Boston University, in 1981), they were a smokin’ well-oiled rave-up hook-crankin’ machine. They had it going on the way Blondie had it going on. Only without the hot babe. What was it about these Boston bands who suffered through years of lame production and terrible cover design? Maybe that trauma was a national thing. New sounds shoved into a 70’s template for success. Major labels have learned a lot since then, huh?

-Andrew Chalfen

One of the most notoriously weird b-sides of the '60s, and a song that's stayed surprisingly obscure over the years, even among Turtles fans, "Umbassa and the Dragon" is basically the middle hour of Peter Jackson's King Kong condensed to a little over three minutes. Not so much a song as it is a story in sound that includes a bit of singing, "Umbassa and the Dragon" is about as racially sensitive and anthropologically accurate as the old B-movie adventures that inspired it, but it's still oddly impressive. How many bands would go to the trouble of making something this weird for the flipside of a single (the 1968 flop "Sound Asleep," not really one of the Turtles' best efforts) that most people were going to listen to once, if that? Testament to the overall sloppiness with which the notoriously shady L.A. indie label White Whale treated their cash cow, the label doesn't even get the song title right, dropping a key word. Listening to this, it's not surprising that when the Turtles broke up, almost all of them (not just singers Howard Kaylan and Mark Volman, who renamed themselves Flo and Eddie around the same time, but also drummer John Barbata and bassist Jim Pons) went on to play with Frank Zappa.

-Stewart Mason

Released in 1987, the self-titled debut by Colorblind James Experience sounds like nothing before or since. Over long, repetitive riffs, singer Chuck Cuminale spun bizarre, narrative tales that drew equally from Herman Melville and Lewis Carroll. Carroll’s great riddle was, “How is a raven like a writing desk?” Cuminale’s was “Why’d the Boy Throw the Clock Out the Window?”

The origins of the Colorblind James Experience go back to 1978, when Cuminale, an Italian-American who came from a large, working class family, formed the first incarnation under the moniker Colorblind James and the Nitecaps. After a move to San Francisco in 1980, the name was changed to the Experience. It was at this time that Cuminale’s brother in law Phil Marshall was drafted to play lead guitar, and he proved to be a mainstay of the band’s lineup and sound for the next 12 years. (Marshall now writes an entertaining and informative blog about CJE at rexhavoc.blogspot.com)

In 1982, the group recorded seven songs with Peter Miller, known to many psych hounds as Big Boy Pete, a legendary engineer and all-around weirdo who recorded the immortal “Cold Turkey.” Of all the songs the band recorded with Miller, only “Why’d The Boy Throw the Clock Out the Window?” made it to the band’s self-released debut.

After seven years of obscurity, the band’s unassuming debut actually yielded a minor hit in England, with the typically droll “Considering a Move to Memphis.” John Peel was largely responsible for the band’s success abroad, and the band went on to tour the UK three times. Although the debut was picked up and re-released by Fundamental back home, CJE were never able to achieve anything more than cult status there.

The group went on to release five more albums before Culminale passed away of a heart attack in 2001. He was 49.

-Mark Griffey

No, not the Dominique Durand/Andy Chase/Adam Schlesinger band. This Ivy is British, and they just barely predate the more well-known Franco-American trio, releasing two singles in the waning days of the Sarah label and, as far as I know, nothing else. The fact that the two bands are completely unrelated hasn't stopped a lot of people who you'd think would have known better from confusing them. (Similarly, some unscrupulous dealers have been known to hawk this single on eBay with "Fountains of Wayne" as a keyword phrase.)

But enough about what they aren't. What they were was perhaps the closest that Sarah ever came to a band that could possibly have made it in the American alternative pop scene of the early '90s. "Wish You Would" is a hazy, distorted and sludgy record, with the requisite My Bloody Valentine influence sharing space with a singer who sounds a lot like that girl from the Cranberries (complete with a trill that would likely have gotten really annoying over the course of a full album) and a lead guitarist who has apparently worn out all of his Smashing Pumpkins records. I suspect there are a lot of diehard Sarah Records fans who kind of hate this song, but while it sounds rather dated in a way that most of the Sarah 45s definitely do not, there's something kind of charming about this record.

-Stewart Mason

Okay, yes, I know, a New York minimalist composer is not what you came to Little Hits to find, but hear me out. It's all about the context. This single was released in the UK in 1983, not too long after Laurie Anderson scored an actual chart hit there with "O Superman." Indie labels like Factory Benelux and Les Disques du Crepuscule were releasing records by "serious" composers like Gavin Bryars, Michael Nyman, Andrew Poppy (as The Lost Jockey) and Wim Mertens (as Soft Verdict), records that were aimed at the same artsy-studenty post-post-punk scene that bought records by, I dunno, Crispy Ambulance. And remember, during this period Philip Glass himself was producing records by a great and sadly un-remembered New York new wave band called Polyrock. (Given that Interpol in particular are biting huge chunks of Polyrock's look and sound, the time is right for a Polyrock revival -- look for a Little Hits post of their one semi-hit "Romantic Me" soonish.) All of this was a rare and wondrous occurrence, one of the few times that pop music and "serious" music were in easy co-existence. "Facades" is part of that odd little moment in pop history. And furthermore, it's really VERY pretty.

-Stewart Mason

Chuck Warner's Hyped2Death site has a delightful history of the Throbbing Lobster label, which released an impressive number of good records in four short years. The story of Cowboy Mouth (NOT the currently active New Orleans band) is documented good naturedly by Mr. Warner there. I'll let him tell that story, but I'll give you a hint: It involves a famous artist father, and a wheezy analog synth. The latter is employed to wonderful effect on this gem from their delightfully quirky LP. Like much of the LP, this song hints at the influence of/fascination with cowboys and open spaces and moving West. The Morricone rip on the synthesizer, the space in the arrangement, and the chorus harmonies combine to evoke perfectly the song's subject.

1967. Hendrix. Pepper. I Can See for Miles. Satanic Majesties. The Tremeloes? In hipster London circles you might as well have been talking about whatever the UK Lawrence Welk equivalent was. Ok, so Here Comes My Baby was a bit of fun in the Caribbean a la the Hollies Hey Carrie Anne, and extra points on that for pepping up a Cat Stevens plodder, but Silence Is Golden? Suddenly You Love Me? Yeeuchhh! Giving the people what they want, I guess. I liken them to the Association, professional do-gooders making the sun shine through inoffensive rainbows. Only with less talent.

So to my surprise upon receiving from a friend a box of 45’s from the 60’s (mostly crap, with some Bee Gees, Box Tops, and Brenda Lee floating around) is the Here Comes My Baby single with this killer psych-pop B-side. Smoothly delivered vocal melody, nice tambourine action, and that great echo-laden bass driving things along, louder than every other instrument (awesome that the bassist misses a note in the middle of the first chorus). I love the way the arrangement keeps changing during that really long instrumental break (for a pop tune), the drummer kicking it out near the break’s end with the crazy bass runs. Remarkably, aside from the verses, the back-up ooh-ahh-doo-doo vocals pretty much are in effect for most of the tune, something you just don’t hear these days, certainly not in indie rock. Such great stupid lyrics, too: basically advice about how partying with your boys all night in the swinging clubs will cure shyness. Of course, the booze helps.

This song led me to pick up a Tremeloes collection, and man is it weak (though Even the Bad Times are Good has a few good points). Nothing else like Gentlemen of Pleasure, though, which isn’t even on it. There is a comp out now called “What a State I’m In” which allegedly contains the secret freakbeat/psych-pop Tremeloes rarities. Dare I risk getting burned again for a sweet taste?

Andrew Chalfen

When the book is written about the great UK indie labels of the post-punk era, it's going to go down as a Beatles vs. Stones-style matchup between Factory Records and Cherry Red. Factory had a much longer period of relevance, for sure -- Cherry Red's most interesting period by far was the three years that Mike Alway was the label's A&R director, '81-'84 -- plus Factory had Peter Saville's gorgeously unified design aesthetic and an overall patina of hipness that the more earnest Cherry Red never could quite pull off. But for those three years, Cherry Red was making some of the best British indie records of all time. For sure, if you wanted to know where Sarah Records copped most of their ideas, Cherry Red is the place to begin.

The first Cherry Red band I knew was Everything But the Girl, but before that duo formed, both Tracey Thorn and Ben Watt had already released albums on the label. Thorn's gorgeous solo acoustic record A Distant Shore and her earlier records with the adorably inept Television Personalities protégées the Marine Girls are more well known, largely because they're simply better. Ben Watt is a remarkable arranger/producer and a talented songwriter, but he simply can't match Tracey Thorn's dead gorgeous voice as a singer. But there's a delicate charm to Watt's solo works, which I prefer to his vocal turns in Everything But the Girl because he doesn't seem to be trying so hard. This miniature, the flip of the 1982 single "Some Things Don't Matter," is a personal favorite.

-Stewart Mason

Excellent UK power pop 2-sider. I think Low Down Kids assembled an LP of all of this band's available recordings, but it appears to be gone now. In the punk/powerpop era, the US, the UK, and Australia all had pop bands called the Singles; there are currently some kids from Detroit using the name as well, and they're a pretty fair band too.

In 1985, I was a high school kid in Lubbock, Texas, listening mostly to a bunch of precious, highly literate Brits like Everything But the Girl, Lloyd Cole and Prefab Sprout. Unbeknownst to me, my future wife was in Boston listening to Big Black, Volcano Suns and Gang Green. We brought a lot of different records to our shared collection, and this is one of hers. Boston skate-punk legends Gang Green were kind of the antidote to the moralizing humorlessness of the DC straight-edge scene, a bunch of goofballs led by Chris Doherty, a dude who could possibly drink even Shane MacGowan under the table. "Alcohol" was THE Gang Green song, a two-minute blast of straight-up hardcore unapologetically celebrating what is still the number one leisure-time activity among Boston's student population. Never been much of a drinking man myself, and the careening crowds of drunken students on warm weekend nights are absolutely the worst thing about life in Allston, but I do sort of have to admire the clarity of message here.

-Stewart Mason

One of the all-time great Boston post-punk singles, every bit up there with Mission of Burma's "Academy Fight Song," the Girls' "Jeffrey I Hear You" still sounds forbiddingly weird today, over a quarter century after it confounded crowds at the Rat. The band's only release in their tumultuous two-year existence, "Jeffrey I Hear You" was produced by David Thomas and released on Pere Ubu's own Hearthan label, and Ubu's influence is keenly felt, especially in Robin Amos' wriggly, Allen Ravenstine-style synth lines. Early Feelies is also a good touchstone, but as tightly wound as the Hoboken boys often were, they never quite sounded this unhinged. (The story I've heard is that "Jeffrey I Hear You" is about singer/drummer Daved Hild's brother, who died when they were kids, but I don't remember where this interpretation came from.) Amos is still active in the Boston art-punk scene as a key member of the long-running Cul de Sac, and Hild has made some appealingly odd records with Ralph Carney (Tin Huey, etc.), but here in Boston, this is still what they're best remembered for.

-Stewart Mason

Since this record has been comped on Bloodstains Across Belgium, I will assume that is indeed the Gate Crashers' country of origin, but what's really interesting about this record is it's new wrinkle on the age-old question "Does the presence of a Farfisa organ automatically change 'punk' into 'new wave?'" Either way, we're quite pleased with the results, and wish there were more like this.

1979 was a good year for Th’ Dudes. After three years of building a large and loyal following in New Zealand, they delivered a debut album that was a critical and commercial success. The group toured 22 high schools to promote the album, often causing Beatles-style hysteria among the young, impressionable girls. Critics also fawned over the group: the Christchurch Star called Th’ Dudes “the best power pop group we have,” The Sunday Times said Right First
Time is the most impressive album ever recorded in New Zealand,” and the album’s first single, “Be Mine Tonight” was voted song of the year at the National Music Awards.

By 1980 however, the group was in disarray. Encouraged by their fast-talking manager Charley Gray, the group had been demanding star treatment wherever they went, often paying more for their dressing rooms and booze than they were actually paid to play. When the group toured in 1979, they used an imported sound system and employed the largest crew of any band in
the country. In addition to their mounting debt were the usual trappings of success: booze, girls, and ego clashes between the group’s two principal songwriters Dave Dobbyn and Ian Morris. The group lasted just long enough to record their second album, and then they were gone.

Dave Dobbyn, who wrote and sang “Be Mine Tonight” went on to have a successful solo career in the ‘80s. His heartbreaking ballad “Loyal” is still commonly heard in pubs all over New Zealand

-Mark Griffey

I gotta say, big ups for the Swedes. I've been in something of an orgy of Svenska Pop lately, having just consumed the entirety of the recent The Complete Studio Recordings box set by ABBA, DVDs and all, but just in general, big fan of our Nordic friends. Love the Volvo, especially the really boxy old ones. Love me some lingonberries. Oddly fond of IKEA. But for me, the best thing about Sweden is that in the '90s, there was an actual government program where you could apply for a grant for your band and if you were accepted, you'd get money for instruments and recording time. I don't remember if Gentle Tuesday benefited from this remarkable display of socialistic largesse (I received this single as part of a demo package for my label, which I turned down because this was the only one of their songs I really liked), but "Chanson de Geste" is a perfect example of where Swedish pop was circa 1995: trumpet, organ, acoustic guitars and an agreeably weedy, thin voice on top of it all. The Cardigans took this sound to the charts, but they were just the beginning.

-Stewart Mason

Flowchart -- who for all intents and purposes was just a guy named Sean O'Neal -- started out making records that sounded so much like Stereolab that some people thought they were meant as some kind of parody. After a couple of records in this style, O'Neal started incorporating a lot of other influences into Flowchart's sound, and they ended up being a really interesting, varied project. My favorite, however, is this 1996 single on a clearly Sarah Records-obsessed Japanese label called Motorway. "Sideshow All the Way" is rather unique in Flowchart's oeuvre because guitar takes precedence over keyboards, and the strummy-strummy-la-la melody and gently bossa nova-ish rhythm is much more Blueboy than Stereolab. Still, he doesn't leave the electronics completely out of the picture: what sounds like a crackle of vinyl surface noise at the song's beginning quickly reveals itself to be an integral part of the song's rhythm track.

-Stewart Mason

A new-wave tribute to a couple of our favorite TV characters. First, SF's Eye Protection uses the always classy spy jazz motif and a probable Rezillos influence to pay tribute to Judy's brother. This single was the entirety of their output, save for a comp track; they are perhaps most noted because singer Andy Prieboy replaced Stan Ridgeway when the latter left Wall Of Voodoo. More obscure yet are the Jurassics, two guys known as Jet Screamer (another Jetsons reference) and Surfer Joe Atomic who used two very fuzzy guitars and a very loud drum macine to create this open letter taking the original Starship Captain to task ("But now they call you Shatner, or worse, T.J. Hooker"). They then stuck it in a very DIY photocopy sleeve, mailed it out to a few fanzines, and disappeared.

Tim Best is a sporadically active singer/guitarist from Melbourne, Australia. I don't know what his connection to Parasol Records is, but he's had a home there since the early '90s, when he led the shimmering indie-jangle trio Girl of the World. (Incestuous trivia: another third of Girl of the World, guitarist Bart Cummings, later co-led the Shapiros, whose "Gone By Fall" was Little Hits' Song of the Day on November 29, 2005.) "Travel" was the title track of Girl of the World's four-track debut, which was one of Parasol's earliest releases, and it's a textbook example of a certain kind of shambolic, winsome indie pop that was seemingly everywhere in the first half of the '90s. Best's later records as Hispana Tim and finally under his own name have been less interesting, but I strongly recommend Parasol's Girl of the World compilation, titled Wonderboy and containing just about everything the group recorded.

-Stewart Mason

Kirsty MacColl was a lifelong Beach Boys fan who covered a few of her idols' songs during her career (most notably "You Still Believe In Me" on a 1981 single and "Don't Go Near the Water" a decade later), but "Please Go To Sleep" was her own tribute to Brian Wilson's vocal arrangements. The flip of 1985's "He's On The Beach" single, the song sounds as if it was intended as a lullaby for MacColl's infant son with producer Steve Lillywhite, who provides a swirling violin line and a few simple synths as a bed for an unadorned showcase of what made Kirsty MacColl so special: she was a one-woman Beach Boys, by some distance the greatest harmony singer in rock and roll history. Famously capable of creating overdubbed self-harmonies on the fly in the studio simply by standing in slightly different spots in front of the microphone, she had an intrinsic, intuitive gift that remains unmatched. Kirsty MacColl died off the shore of Cozumel, Mexico on December 18, 2000, hit by a speedboat whose driver still has not been charged with a crime. (Details at www.justiceforkirsty.org)

-Stewart Mason

Sometimes even the most shlubby of bands rises to the occasion and manages to capture lightning in a bottle, probably completely unaware that they’re doing so. Philadelphia’s Monkey 101 wasn’t around very long, played the occasional really sloppy show around town, and put out two singles. This is the first one, and boy did I have high hopes for them after hearing it. This recording sounds simultaneously tossed off yet full-on. Wonderfully trashy in all aspects, the clanging bass, the fuzz vibrato guitar, the mid-lo-fi production, the line “I’m so damn impatient/why the fuck didn’t you call”. Close listening reveals back-up spaghetti western vocal ahh’s, adding swagger and sonic glue. A bit Embarrassment, a bit Volcano Suns, and pretty much like a thousand punk bar bands across America, but with a great power chord hook and that “look Ma, the car’s got no breaks!” flying-off-the-handle vibe. Their second single didn’t come close.

Andrew Chalfen

The Fun Boy Three weren't as huge a stylistic leap from the Specials as was claimed -- the Specials' 1981 cover of "Maggie's Farm" was basically FB3's dry run, even if only Terry Hall, Lynval Golding and Neville Staples knew it at the time -- but they were still one of the oddest pop acts to hit the UK charts in the early '80s. Mixing African rhythms, deadpan chanted lyrics and post-punk cynicism, their debut album was at times so just plain weird it seemed like a novelty record, but there's an undercurrent of desperation here that groups like Bananarama -- who many people don't remember were given their first big break when they performed the female vocals on the Fun Boy Three's "It Ain't What You Do" -- never quite got. It couldn't last, of course, and it didn't: Terry Hall pissed off to form the Colourfield after a second album, 1983's David Byrne-produced Waiting, which featured a mesmerizing cover of the Go-Go's hit "Our Lips Are Sealed," which Hall and his ex-girlfriend Jane Wiedlin had written a few years previous.

-Stewart Mason

I didn't know the backstory on the Television Personalities when I discovered this album at University Records in Lubbock in the late '80s, but let's just say that I wasn't surprised, long after first hearing it, to learn that head TVP Daniel Treacy has struggled quite publicly with mental illness and depression for most of his life. The first time most people hear "I Know Where Syd Barrett Lives," it sounds like a pisstake, but there's a definite feeling of empathy for the former Pink Floyd leader in that song. In fact, the entirety of And Don't the Kids Just Love It? -- the trio's debut album following nearly three years' worth of singles under a variety of band names -- has an ineffable sense of sadness, even in comparatively upbeat tunes like "The World of Pauline Lewis." Maybe it's the album's odd, lo-fi production, which gives it a curiously hollow, detached sound, or maybe it's the way Treacy's adenoidal voice can't help but sound "sad." Regardless, this album is a touchstone of modern British indie music: huge chunks of what happened in the UK between the Jesus and Mary Chain and Coldplay can be traced right back to this album.

Stewart Mason

Now largely forgotten, there was a small rush of UK bands signed to major labels around 1988; for lack of a better term, some members of the music press took to calling them the "blonde pop" bands, due to the uniformly bleached tresses of the female lead singers. The Primitives were the best of the lot, Transvision Vamp by far the worst, with Voice of the Beehive the ones who survived the longest. But the blondest of the blonde popsters was Andrea Lewis of the Darling Buds, whose locks were the color of the 80-pound linen resume paper from Kinkos. Like the others, the Darling Buds took a lot of their cues from a slightly earlier batch of UK indie bands, like the Shop Assistants and Talulah Gosh, but they added an unapologetic pop gloss to the basic sound of speedy little two-minute pop songs powered by fuzztone guitars. On their early singles and first album, the excellent Pop Said..., the Welsh quartet filtered the sound of Singles Going Steady through an unapologetically '60s-derived sense of bubblegum fun. Producer Pat Collier (Soft Boys, Wonder Stuff, etc.) kept things from getting too slick this time out, but the Darling Buds' later, more "mature" albums flirted with Madchester dance rhythms and synths, as well as considerably slower tempos.

-Stewart Mason

The Ecstatics were a pop-punk band hailing from eastern Long Island in the early 80s. I caught them as an opening band at My Fathers Place, a hub for all things new wave back in the day. The A side of this 45 "Breaking Glass" has a Distractions/Undertones feel and a cool driving tempo change toward the songs end. It is a melodramatic tune about doomed love ("she took the ride and then she died with me..."). Although the real tragedy here is that the singer Mark Gustafson was killed tragically by a motorist during a blizzard. As far as I know, this is the only record released by this promising young group. Guitarist Jon Ceparano went on to form the swinging lounge band Jet Set Six.

-Stephen Lombardo

Once again, the weather is depriving me of some of the atmosphere I require for my favorite entries. For instance, this Harvest Ministers single needs to be heard on a Walkman at twilight on a cloudy winter's day during the walk home from work. The temperature should be no higher than 40 degrees, and if there's a bit of mist in the air, so much the better. Yesterday, unfortunately it was 65 degrees (thats 18 Celsius), so my self-indulgent melancholies will have to wait. But I'm sure my wife is looking forward to them.

I think both Stewart and I have suggested that the second 50 Sarah singles were probably not as strong, as a batch, as the first 50. That said, there are certainly some wonderful records to be plucked out of the latter half; "You Do My World..." is the typical Sarah sighing over lost loves, but with folk instrumentation instead of jangly guitars. And it's nice. But for some reason, when that second acoustic guitar comes in at the end of the first verse, it absolutely breaks my heart. From there on out the song is just awesomely mournful, one of the easy highlights of the labor of love Matt and Claire so conscientiously fawned over for a few years.

Before "Suggestions," I really didn’t get twee. I mean, there was the occasional release out of the UK about fluffy clouds and holding hands in a gentle rain that would have a certain something, but nothing that conked me over the head. Twee doesn’t conk, after all. But there are good songs and then there are “gateway” songs, and before you know it you’ve gone from sampling some Uncle Tupelo to huffing bluegrass 78’s in the back of a grimy bookstore. To wit, "Suggestions." It’s not even twee, for the most part. It cooks. It has a great rollicking chorus with a nice vocal harmony and a chorus chord progression that’s the same as “Feel Like Making Love”. And then they get you with the endearing stuff: the cute kid on the cover (this was back when it was fun and innocent to put a kid on your cover. Now bands put birds on their record covers. Does that qualify as a paradigm shift?), the drummer’s name was Phoebe Summersquash, the bassist Alex Kemp tumbles over all the words he’s jammed together, a bit high strung and slightly out of key, the acoustic guitar power jangle (I just made that term up!), and before you know it, you’re hooked on the half-time twee bridge about birds buried in the back yard. "Suggestions" made it onto every comp tape I made around this time.

And let me tell you, the chicks picked up on Small Factory quicker than a free copy of Chick Factor. Their shows were packed and joyous, at least at the dawn of the indie rock club scene (at least in Philly—as opposed to its predecessor, the college rock scene—yes, I think there’s a difference). Their albums were decent, quality efforts, each one a little bit less so than the previous, probably because they were increasingly same-y affairs. I don’t get nostalgic about the cds as much as this single, though. It’s catchier than anything else they ever did.

Necessary disclosure: After Small Factory’s demise in the mid 90’s, I went on a mini tour as a guitarist in Joey Sweeney’s band (he of the Barnaby’s and the Trouble with Sweeney), and Alex and Phoebe were the rhythm section (They were still a couple at that point). We rehearsed for a few days in Alex’s Providence loft, then went on a six show tour of the Northeast. It was a lot of fun and we managed to get pretty tight as a band by our last show in Philly. Man, though, did they have potty mouth.

-Andrew Chalfen