It seems ridiculous thinking on it now, but back in 1981 when I was applying to colleges, I was genuinely concerned about what my quality of life would be like out of earshot of Boston’s FM radio spectrum. Between college stations WMBR, WERS, WMFU (when I could get it in), WZBC, WHRB, and the commercial WFNX (all still broadcasting), there were various chunks of the day when at least some underground rock was on the air. Some stations had special slants, such as WMBR, which was big on promoting local bands. WZBC out of Boston College in Newton was big on music from the UK as well as the many American bands which were heavily influenced by UK groups. Wire, Gang of Four, and anything on Factory Records seemed to be big influences. I probably heard the Method Actors, Way of the West, and Pell Mell on WZBC. These new sounds kind of shook me out of my Beatles-Who-Kinks-Buzzcocks-Psychedelic Furs-Jam-Pretenders-Devo reverie that was my interior high school soundtrack. Sure there was plenty of what I knew to be New Wave around, but tunes such as these three were not quite as accessible, as easily digestible, as my usual musical diet. More cerebral. I thought I knew cool, but apparently there was a special V.I.P. room of cool that had been kept secret from me.

And I was pretty sure that that room was the live music/bar scene, of which I was too young to be a part of, excepting the rare all-ages show. There were cool people dancing at those shows. And when I turned 20 and could get beyond the bouncer, there was indeed dancing. So I would go and dance my ass off. Really, bands would play and people would dance. Sadly, it’s a totally foreign concept nowadays. Folding your arms and nodding your head slightly just doesn’t cut it. I’m going to make the claim that these three tracks are dance tracks, only because this is the kind of stuff we danced to.

The Method Actors were a duo out of the diverse Athens, GA scene (Pylon, Love Tractor, and REM) who were into the funkier, no-wave side of post-punk. You’ve got to award them points for being way ahead of the curve on the duo thing. “Do the Method” is the only tune of theirs that I’ve ever locked onto with any enthusiasm, mainly for its Feelies speed, Mission of Burma/Tom Verlaine manic yelping vocals, and that great twanging bass (or guitar? Hard to tell) which oscillates sharp and then settles into key each time it’s played. Wish I still had the picture sleeve.

Way of the West I know nothing about. I suspect they were American, but detailed information about them on the web is non-existent, other than that they released a few singles and were apparently great live. Their debut single was “Don’t Say That’s Just for White Boys”, which is ringing some distant memory bells. “See You Shake” is a bit more emotionally flat than “Do the Method”. It has some great 1981-isms: the hi-hat heavy new wave dance beat, the minimal, vaguely pan-Asian guitar figures, the white boy funk bass, and unison vocals sung in a slightly robotic monotone, as though yearning to be the musical equivalent of a Russian Constructivist poster. Pass the clove cigarettes, comrade. This artsy affect is only amplified by one of the great lost goofy 80’s tropes, chanting. Especially chanting reminiscent of revolutionary slogans. Possibly missing from the shorter 7” version, the chanting is featured prominently on this extended mix. Add in overdubbed roto-tom fills and you’ve got yourself a hit. Well, Way of the West didn’t have a hit, but chanting and the overdubbed roto-toms would work their way into Thompson Twins hits. Remember the gal with the tall blonde hair who played those things? Even REM used overdubbed such tom fills on Murmur. So did the Bongos. They’re like carbon dating, really.

Pell Mell is hands down my favorite instrumental band. They had a long, if sporadic, run of nearly 20 years and 5-6 albums (if you count the cassette releases), most notably their three tremendous albums from the 1990’s. They had some line-up changes over the years, including the ’83 addition of future producer Steve Fisk and even later addition of guitarist extraordinaire Dave Spalding, made their way from SST to Geffen to Matador, and were known for writing by mail as the members often lived far away from one another (can anyone verify that factoid?). Hard to believe that at the height of grunge an instrumental band could make it as far as they did. Which wasn’t that far at all. But at least you’ve heard of them, right? Now you can’t turn around without a post-rock instrumental band rooting through your trash can. You should at least own the three 90’s albums Flow, Interstate, and Star City. Pell Mell were brilliant musicians, songwriters, and arrangers. I wish I was in Pell Mell.

Right. Um…now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, I can tell you that “New Saigon” was from their first record, an ep, done when they were starting out in Portland, OR. It’s kind of repetitive. I think that’s the point. I didn’t really understand and appreciate stasis in my rock music back then. It just sort of keeps going. It’s completely emotionless. It’s almost like wallpaper, but with a design that refuses to meld into the background of your attention. But at the same time it’s got hooks. It really challenged my listening habits and assumptions, in the same way that say, PIL’s “Poptones” did. I don’t even mind when it lodges in my head for half a day at a time.

-Andrew Chalfen

From the last half of 1983 to the first half of 1986, America's
college campuses were awash with former new wavers who washed most of the styling gel out of their hair, traded their Flock of Seagulls-inspired togs for jeans and long-sleeved button-down shirts and used their student loan checks to buy 12-string Rickenbackers. Most only managed a few frat parties, a privately-pressed DIY EP or two, and if they were lucky, an opening slot at Goober McCool's when Guadalcanal Diary came through town, before they split up when the bass player decided to go ahead and get his law degree. On behalf of all of those bands, I give you "Statesong" by Attention, the song for which the critical terms "winsome," "Byrdsy" and "adenoidal singer whose bollocks apparently haven't yet dropped" were coined. Big ups to the late night college radio show The Outer Limits on KTXT-FM, Lubbock TX, without which I never would have discovered this song, circa 1985, and to Aaron "Pudman" Milenski, who finally found me a copy of this EP (which I could never locate) at In Your Ear Records in Allston, MA about a decade later.

-Stewart Mason

You could still have regional radio hits in 1980, and the Vapors' "Turning Japanese" was very big in Boulder, Colorado: even Denver's AM Top 40 station KIMN played it regularly, and my station of choice, KBAC, even spun the followup singles "News At Ten" and "Jimmie Jones." They were one of the few though, and so the Vapors are consigned to one-hit wonder novelty status. Shame, because they were really quite good. Originally part of the short-lived Mod revival (the Vapors were the other band managed by John Weller, Paul's da, with some help from Jam bassist Bruce Foxton, who had discovered them), the Vapors quickly outpaced every other band in that circle, and I strongly believe that David Fenton's best songs are every bit a match to the best things Paul Weller was writing for the Jam between All Mod Cons and The Gift. And if you knew just how much I worshiped the Jam in junior high, you'd know that was high praise indeed.

Truthfully, "Here Comes the Judge" is not one of Fenton's best. Indeed, I think it sounds like an early song that was later cannibalized for parts. (The verses sound a lot like "Spring Collection," if you'll notice, and I hear a little "Trains" in there as well.) But it's interesting (and exceedingly rare, only recently finally turning up on CD) and it gives me an excuse to print a photo of this Japanese single sleeve (which is actually from my wife's collection; the emendations are in her handwriting), which features one of my favorite mis-transcribed Japanese lyrics: "Your eyes are hazel/Except it's a cloud."

-Stewart Mason

You might recognize Ellie Marshall as the woman who asked Jonathan Richman questions like "Have you ever been to Bermuda?" or as a guest vocalist on a Big Dipper B-side, but before that she had a band with her three brothers called, appropriately enough, the Marshalls. Besides this single, they made a couple of compilation appearances on the first volume of Bomp's Waves, and The Boston Incest Album, as well as a 45 with Professor Anonymous. I'm thinking there may have been a second Marshalls 45 as well, but perhaps I'm confusing it with the latter.