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