From the Pop Cassettes 12″ EP “My Love Is Like a Gift You Can’t Return,” 1989
This past St. Patrick’s Day, I was standing around talking to a couple of members of a local Thin Lizzy tribute act (Lawrence possibly has more Thin Lizzy tribute bands than Dublin) about local musicians we admire, and Mike West’s name came up. Mike is known and respected as a local producer as well as a fine songwriter, and with his wife, half of Truckstop Honeymoon, New Orleans refugees who settled in Lawrence a few years back. Anyway, Eric Mardis (of Splitlip Rayfield fame) says “Yeah, he was in this band when he lived in England called ‘The Man From DelMonte’.” My jaw dropped. I think Eric was surprised that I knew what he was talking about. Eric said “Yeah, I saw the video on YouTube. He had floppy hair and the whole bit.” So basically, Mike was doing in the early 90s exactly what I wanted to be doing at that time.
The studio works of The Man From DelMonte were rounded up on the now-defunct Vinyl Japan in 2000 or so (2 LPs or 1 CD). Besides their debut 45 “Drive Drive Drive,” which appeared on one of those Leamington Spa comps, this song, from the aforementioned video, is my favorite. It’s a fine example of post-C86 indie pop, breezy and witty with that familiar Motown rhythm. While it might seem long ago and far away, it is nevertheless driven with a similar spark and attention to detail that fire Mr. West’s current endeavors.
Are you guys familiar with these compilations called Bubblegum Motherfucker? There are a whole bunch of them making their way around the Internet, and it’s unclear to me whether or not they ever actually existed on CD; my intuition is “no,” as I’ve never seen any of them offered for sale. Anyway, it looks like there are 40+ volumes, and the compiler or compilers are clearly banana splits for this much-maligned genre. I’ve made it through about six, and it’s taken a couple of months. It’s not really something I can sit through for an extended period, as some of it is proof that “catchiness” alone does not equate to listenability. Really, some of the tracks could cause cavities, but others do the damage by inducing gnashing.
Like many cultily-adored sub-genres, however, there are enough gems and surprises that the effort is well-rewarded. This single by Ohio’s Jordan Parker Review was an immediate favorite. It fits within the parameters of bubblegum, but has an almost garagey sensibility that is seldom found on these things. Nice organ solo, too…
From C86’s less celebrated but arguably more awesome predecessor C81 comes this original version of one of my favorite tracks from Aztec Camera’s debut album. You can hear the outlines of the bigger-sounding, more ornate later arrangement here, but what I find interesting about this take is the way it doesn’t really sound much like anything else that was going on in the Scottish post-punk scene at the time. If anything, it sounds more like one of Bryan McLean’s Love songs or something. Dunno what’s up with the drummer, though: he definitely has it in for that crash cymbal. Other bands on C81 include the Television Personalities, The Gist (Stuart Moxham’s post-Young Marble Giants outfit), the Red Krayola, Robert Wyatt and Josef K. It’s around, if you look for it.
Australian indie-pop gem, first heard on one of Brian Kirk’s long-lost mixtapes. I love the vocal, which sounds kind of hushed and desperate at the same time and the contrapuntal trumpets on the chorus. Also, the drummer’s name is Felicity Dear, but I’m pretty sure that’s made up. They had an earlier 45, “Big Letdown” on Easter in ‘86, which is also worth hearing. I’m thinking that there was also a CD release in the early 90s, although I’ve never seen a copy.
Seeing the contribution from Aaron Milenski a while back reminded me that I’ve been meaning to rave on Patrick Lundborg’s The Acid Archives book for some time now. The Acid Archives, which was co-authored by Mr. Milenski, spelunks in our nation’s thrift stores and Goodwills to uncover a mess of small-press curios, many of which barely exist. The most appealing thing about the book is that Lundborg, Milenski, et al. manage to write knowledgeably, and often passionately about these artifacts, but they never seem to slip off the cliff and plunge into the hyperbolic abyss of eBay sellers and rare-record dealers (”Forget that fake psych like the Beatles. This is the REAL SHIT!”). An excellent volume to have lying around.
Among the hundreds of listings of records you will never actually hold an original copy of in your hands is a New England LP by the Ones, a bunch of teenagers who were probably among the first casualties of the British Invasion. The album came out in ‘66, and as it was mostly a covers job, I won’t be searching frantically. However, in his review, Aaron mentioned that one original track from the LP, the one heard here, was a) issued as a single and b) excellent beat pop. We were, of course, interested in hearing this track at what we felt would be a more appropriate RPM-age. The single was scored and we present it here for your consideration. I think Aaron got it right.
Now if someone could e-mail a couple of sample tracks from John Scoggin’s album on Tiger Lily, that’d be great.
The Acid Archives is out of print, but the content is accessible at the website.
-Jon Harrison
When I knew Cecil Castellucci, she was a grown woman who still slept on Star Wars sheets. (Not that I ever saw them, mind, but she told me about them.) A native of Montreal who went by the nom de twee-pop of Cecil Seaskull, she more or less was Nerdy Girl, who released a handful of records in the mid-’90s. This song about her childhood Star Wars fixation was her signature tune, but my other favorite was always “Single Bed,” from Nerdy Girl’s sole full-length, 1996’s Twist Her. After she dropped the Nerdy Girl moniker, Cecil released an album around 1998 called Whoever, and then we pretty much fell out of contact. (Frankly, I fell out of contact with a lot of people around 1998 — it was a really bad year.) I googled her just now out of curiosity, and I learned that she lives in Los Angeles now, where she’s had several young adult novels published. People tended to have extreme reactions about Nerdy Girl: I knew some people who found both the diary-entry quality of Cecil’s lyrics and her undeniably polarizing voice just the height of preciousness. Me, I have to admire someone who starts a project with a very specific aesthetic, stays true to it for as long as it’s viable and then retires it when she’s taken it as far as it can go.
From The Bob #33 Flexidisk, outtake from “Wives, Weddings & Roses,” 1988
My last big break up fueled what became the first mixtape I circulated beyond the particular girl I was after at the moment. Of course the original mix was for myself, but then it seemed good enough to share with another friend or two (and stubbornly, the originator of the heartbreak too). A year or two later, I kicked off making annual mixes for friends….
“The Heart Broken Soda Fountain” kicked off with “You Say You Don’t Love Me” and went on from there in some predictable and some more eclectic directions. More than a decade later, I set about reconstructing the mix the other day to pass to a bud after a beery evening of hearing his tale of recent heartbreak. A fair bit I already had in digital form naturally and blog surfing was surprisingly productive, turning up all but one track from the old 90-minute tape.
“Hanging on Threads” was the one track I could turn barely even a reference to anywhere via Google, which is astonishing. I’m not terribly familiar with Mr Kusworth’s work, but this is as penetrating a bitter pill as I’ve heard anywhere, yet it doesn’t seem to even be included as one of the bonus tracks on reissues of the album it’s an outtake from.
In the summers of 1985 and 1986 I worked a succession of menial jobs in and around Boston and spent way too many idle hours listening to college radio (mostly WMBR and WZBC, but also WERS and others), which was sort of having a heyday in that college-saturated town. I’d tape many broadcasts and then bounce the songs I was super-psyched about onto my roommate’s borrowed deck. The first tape is labeled “The Great Radio Tape”, the second “It’s The Next Radio Tape!” and so on. I really need to digitize those tapes if they have not already dissolved. The track listing reads like, well, like Little Hits. I found out about Sweden, Austin, and New Zealand (heard the Chills “Pink Frost” for the first time one July evening). Many of these tunes are still all-time favorites, which is not all that surprising, seeing as how one’s tastes basically congeal and harden in one’s early 20’s. I’ve since collected many of these releases and still am on the hunt for a few more.
One of the tunes that appears on the Next Radio Tape (a Maxell XLII, no noise reduction) is Ed Keupper’s “Master of Two Servants”, a rollicking folky jangle with an ominous Celtic tint and skiffle beat. Only now hearing it again for the first time in ages do I realize that there are no guitars on this, just drums, bass, and multi-tracked mandolin…ok, wait, maybe there’s an acoustic guitar in there. Hard to tell. Kuepper was in the Saints, but the two solo records I have by him from around that time are much removed from the Aussie punk of “I’m Stranded”. No tape hiss on this one, as I digitized it from the vinyl. Should you be at all curious, here’s the track list from that first tape from ‘85. I’m half tempted to just to post the whole 90-minute thing as a sound file. If for some reason you think this might be a useful exercise, let me know. I’ve got four of these suckers, so be warned.
Side A:
Echo and the Bunnymen – Angels and Devils
Screaming Tribesmen – Move a Little Closer
Lulu Kiss Me Dead - Walk Away
13th Floor Elevators – I’ve Got Levitation
The Rain Parade – Look Both Ways
The Pushtwangers – Lies
The Salvation Army – She Turns to Flowers
Pere Ubu – Non-Alignment Pact
The Lyres – How Do You Know?
Lime Spiders – Slave Girl
Alex Chilton – Bangkok
The Easybeats – You Said That
Red House – 25 Reasons
Biff Bang Pow – There Must Be a Better Life
The Flies – All Hung Up
Side B:
Love Tractor – Neon Light
Diff Juzz – (unknown instrumental, probably “Soarn”)
Winter Hours – Hyacinth Girl ((original and superior demo version)
The Sound – Monument
Chuck Berry – No particular Place to Go
REM – Burning Hell
Zeitgeist – Freight Train Rain
Plan 9 – Step Out of Time*
Busted Statues – A Light in August
The Sid Presley Experience – Public Enemy Number One*
Wire – Map Reference 41°N 93°N
Flesh For Lulu – Seven Hail Marys
Because My Bloody Valentine arrived in the US fully formed with the Isn’t Anything and Loveless albums, it wasn’t until after the fact that American audiences heard the records that led to that point. The 1987 single “Strawberry Wine,” originally released on the Primitives’ Lazy Recordings label and collected in this alternate mix on the 1988 compilation Ecstasy and Wine (along with the Ecstasy EP, also from 1987), is one of the band’s more intriguing dead ends, probably the single most immediately tuneful song in the band’s entire catalogue. In retrospect, this sounds like it could be a cover of one of Lee Hazlewood’s mid-’60s tunes for Nancy Sinatra.
I have spent the last several years listening to and writing about rare privately pressed records. While many of the bad ones have some charm, the fact is that most are pretty dire, some are interesting and inspired but deeply flawed, a few are extremely pleasurable despite (or, in part, because of) their flaws, and a very, very small number are both enjoyably unique AND legitimately good. This 1975 album is one of the most pleasant surprises I encountered during my quest. The title tune is as good a song as I’ve heard from that era by anyone. Looking at it now, it easily could pass for a new wave or indiepop song from several years hence, but when you know it’s 1975 it makes perfect sense. Only that time period could have produced an album that includes Beatlesque pop, quasi-prog metal and a 10 minute jazz-rock instrumental. Though most of the album is very good, this song stands head and shoulders above the rest: Two — count-em, two — lovely melodies, the buildup, that killer (and, for once, subtle) synth bit that introduces the guitar solo, and the (long) solo itself, one of my all time faves. Silent Partner were from Athens, Georgia, and I have to think that R.E.M., Mitch Easter, the dBs, et al, must have seen them at some point and been influenced by them. “Hung By A Thread” most definitely sounds like the precursor to the whole melodic/jangly guitar 80s wave of southern rock.
