Song Of the Day, January 18, 2006
I figure every city had a group like the Slickee Boys in the early '80s. You can tell just by looking at 'em that they're no spring chickens -- receding hairlines, old-guy ponytails and all -- but they were inspired by the new wave to drop all the Grateful Dead covers and get a little modern. Most of these bands, it must be said, are incredibly lame. But then there's the Slickee Boys, who managed a killer single in 1983's "When I Go To The Beach." Surfy power pop that's just a hairsbreadth away from being corny, this is a great jumpy new wave gem. (P.S. Another good one by a buncha old-dude bandwagon-jumpers: the Monroes' "What Do All the People Know.")
-Stewart Mason
17 Comments:
I haven't listened to the mp3 yet, but that artwork evokes "I Wanna Be a Lifeguard" by Blotto for me, for some reason.
Is this the same Slickee Boys who were from late-70's Washington, D.C. scene?
James
Are you kidding. This is one of the best bands of all time, period. Had 5-7 incredible songs. There is a best of the Slickee Boys out there somewhere. "I gotta to tell you why,'' is unbelievable. Back of album said drunks at the Childe Harold made them sing it 4 times in a row.
Yeah - the Slickees were one of the best live bands ever, and still are (they tend to play a couple reunion shows in DC and Balto every New Years). Their live shows are up there with the Fleshtones, and their records were pretty good too. That "older guy" look might be what kept them from making a bigger splash in the image-obsessed 80s. If I remember correctly, they formed around 1976, so I wouldn't exactly call them bandwagon jumpers.
-Skizz
this single is actually from 1983, not 81. And Little Hits is a GREAT site, btw!
Bandwagon jumpers? Their first 45 is from 1976! They were connected to the Gizmos/O.Rex/Afrika Corps crowd and provided contacts for pic-sleeve printing to Pa Ubu (which, apparently, were glued together by Miriam Linna). There's also a connection to the White Boy/Doodley Squad scene. Maybe these guys were the bandwagon!
Nah, you got it wrong. They came from psychadelic, garage rock, prog and eno/roxy music side of things. Not a Dead-head among them. Great band live. Definitely the highlight of the pre-fugazi era of the DC music scene.
this reminds me of being 13 or so, & hearing my sister & her bff jeanne were always talking about the slickee boys & the 'scene'! i thought they were the coolest -- so hearing this takes me back to a much more innocent time.
It must be said as well that the Slickee Boys - Kim Kane in particular - were open to the younger DC hardcore kids from almost the beginning. Minor Threat, Teen Idles, SOA and many others opened for them. They may have been older, but nice to see they weren't threatened.
A fantastic band that I saw maybe 50x in the late 70s, early 80s all over the DC scene. Great guys too (Mark where are you? Leo?). Used to strap raw meat onto their clothes at some gigs. "gotta tell me why" is still a fantastic songthat gives the same buzz as Magazine's classic "The Light Pours Out of Me." Slickees were big in DC, not big in USA, but big in Germany - go figure!
One of the true greats of the era. Kim Kane also produced the very first Bad Brains session. The DC scene of the '70s and '80s would have been quite different without them. Get either the compilation CD released in 2002 (?) if it can be found, or the German "Here To Stay" LP (also hard to find). The two Twintone LP's can be found, first one (Cybernetic Dreams of Pi) is strong, second is mostly re-recorded versions of the earlier DC released stuff, including a watered down version of "Gotta Tell Me Why." There is a new double CD easily available at Amazon, etc., which combines and re-releases their final two LP's (released in France on New Rose...like Jerry Lewis, the French loved'em!), the 1988 "Fashionably Late" and 1989 "Live at Last", both of which are decent but don't measure up to their best.
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