Various Artists - No Alternative

 

Holy smokes - this seminal compilation is THIRTY YEARS OLD this week!

To understand why this disc is so essential, and so celebrated, I direct you to Stereogum's writeup on it from ten years ago, on No Alternative's twentieth anniversary - can't add a word to this superb summation.

I'll just save my breath, and instead provide you all with possibly the best and timeliest collection of then-rarities and unreleased songs by some of the giants of alternative music of that period.  Here's No Alternative, released on Arista Records on October 26th, 1993.  Enjoy this great throwback to an interesting and exciting era in modern music, and, as always, let me know what you think.

Please use the email link below to contact me, and I will reply with the download link(s) ASAP:

Send Email

Various Artists - The Fall: A French Tribute

 

Once again, here's my annual post commemorating the death of Fall major-domo and 'Godlike Genius' Mark E. Smith, who slipped this mortal coil four years ago today.

There's even less to talk about in regards to The Gruppe this year. As I've noted in prior commemorative yearly posts, the silence in FallWorld continues to settle. The last post on the Official Fall Website was in February 2018, the month after Mark died, and its discussion board has been dormant, with the last new post in May 2020, nearly two years ago. The "unofficial" (and in my opinion, better) website The Fall Online website hosted its last posting in June 2020. At least The Fall Online Forum there is still fairly active, with new posts and discussions almost daily. But I've definitely noticed a decrease in the scope and level of activity there. At least there are some Facebook group sites, such as "Mark E Smith & The Fall: It's Not Repetition, It's Discipline" and "The Mighty Fall", trying to hold up their end.  But it's distressing to see widespread memories of my all-time favorite band gradually fading away.

Imperial Wax was on hiatus for most of 2020, as the COVID moratorium on live music entered its second year. However, in October of last year, the band played its first gigs in almost two years, and continued with another one earlier this month. They appear to be expanding their concert slate in England and on the Continent further into the year, and have mentioned that they are in the process of writing their second album, which currently has an unknown release date scheduled.

Brix and The Extricated, Brix Smith-Start's much-maligned band made up of former Fall stalwarts, a group I have heaped tons of scorn and derision on over the years, appears to be no more - thank God.  Brix announced that she would be releasing a solo album, Valley Of The Dolls, later this year, and also putting together an all-female band made up of "post-punk feminists", including former members of My Bloody Valentine, to take out on the road sometime this spring. With typical modesty and humility, she added that the group would be "going under the name Brix Smith or possibly Brix Smith Group, I haven’t decided yet. It’s time for me to put my money where my mouth is and take it out there!"

(Man, the narcissism and relentless self-promotion NEVER ends with her, does it?)

Not much more left to say, so I'll just get to the music.  For your review this year, I'm offering a compilation of reinterpretations/re-imaginings of some classic Fall tunes, all done by French artists.  I love sets like this - not only do you sometimes get interesting, off-the-wall takes on songs you know well and love, this album also shows the worldwide reach and influence of The Fall's music.  I highly recommend it. 

Here for your perusal is The Fall: A French Tribute, released on Teenage Hate Records on November 15th, 2019. Enjoy, and use this disc to keep Mark E. Smith and his band in your thoughts for just a little while longer. And, as always, let me know what you think.

Please use the email link below to contact me, and I will reply with the download link(s) ASAP:

Send Email

The Fall - Sussex Morning

A continuation of my annual commemoration of the death of band leader, group stalwart and all-around indie music genius Mark E. Smith, who died three years ago today, on January 24th, 2018.  I know I have said this every year since that fatal day, but Smith and his band are still sorely missed, by myself and thousands of other rabid Fall fans.

By now, I've pretty much given up on seeing any 'new' Fall product hit the shelves... As I've mentioned before, in the wake of the demise of a band with such a broad and discerning fan base, usually labels will make every effort to scour their vaults for unreleased or alternative versions of songs to gather into "expanded editions" of existing albums or collections of heretofore unheard music. I mean, heck, look at what's happened with David Bowie's catalog over the past five years - they're still finding and putting out quality sets, like the fine Conversation Piece early-career compilation in 2019. Somehow, that hasn't been the case with The Fall.  Perhaps it may be due to their convoluted recording history across a multitude of labels (although that didn't seem to deter other career-spanning Fall compilations released before Smith's death)... but I'm beginning to suspect more and more that there just isn't that much studio-recorded stuff out there to cull from.

The COVID-19 pandemic has, needless to say, limited the activities of the post-Fall bands. Imperial Wax spent most of the spring and summer of 2020 hunkered down, but during the fall began work on their second album, a follow-up to 2018's Gastwerk Saboteurs. And it appears this band is gearing up in anticipation for the 2021 concert/festival season, assuming that it comes to pass. So good luck to them with those endeavors.

Brix & The Extricated have been silent all year (mercifully so, in my opinion), with no shows or releases in 2020. However, just today Brix announced a couple of new projects for 2021, including a solo album (her first standalone release since fronting The Adult Net more than thirty years ago) and a book about The Fall. We'll see how all of that turns out.

Probably the most significant Fall-related news over the past year was the June 6th death (at the age of seventy-two) of former band manager and Smith girlfriend Kay Carroll. The hard-nosed Carroll ran the business end of The Fall from 1977 until falling out/breaking up with Smith in the midst of a U.S. tour in the spring of 1983 (Mark rebounded swiftly, hooking up with Brix in Chicago little more than a month later). Kay remained in the States and ended up settling in Portland, Oregon, where she worked in nursing for several years and went through a couple of husbands. It's generally understood that the Fall song "An Older Lover" was written by Mark about her (she was eleven years Smith's senior). The Guardian carried an obituary a couple of weeks after her passing; here it is.

Anyway, like I said earlier, I don't think we're going to see any new Fall studio remainders put out anytime soon, if ever. And I believe on more than one occasion I've clearly expressed my low opinion for the various Fall live sets and soundboard recordings that have been released over the years. Receiver Records, Cog Sinister and Castle Music have clogged/saturated the market with sketchy, poorly-captured band gigs from locales worldwide, so much so that I have made little to no effort to collect many of them, finding them not worth my while. However, I will occasionally stumble across a live set that breaks that half-assed mold, and actually brings something to the table. My offering today is one of these.

This disc was the initial offering from a blogsite/poster named Hanleyfender, a site that was active off and on between 2009 and 2013, and specialized in making available live versions of Fall shows.  This recording covers some of the poster's favorite live Fall songs from various locations during the 2006-2007 timeframe; here's some additional information regarding tracks and participants:

1. Intro (Over Over loop. L.A.) 23.05.2006
2. Senior Twilight Stock Replacer. Brighton. 31.03.2007
3. MES Birthday 50 Year Old Man. Bilston. 05.03.2007
4. Over Over. Aberdeen. 15.03.2007
5. Fall Sound. Brick Lane London. 12.03.2006
6. Theme From Sparta F.C. Malaga. Spain. 21.01.2007
7. Hungry Freaks, Daddy. Edinburgh. 13.03.2007
8. My Door Is Never. Reading. 28.03.2007
9. Coach and Horses. Brick Lane. London. 11.09.2006
10. Mountain Energie. Los Angeles. CA. 23.05.2006
11. Reformation. Brighton. 31.03.2007
12. Palais Interlude. Hammersmith Palais. London. 01.04.2007
13. Scenario. Brick Lane. London. 12.03.2006
14. Systematic Abuse. Brick Lane. London. 12.03.2006
15. White Lightning. Brighton. 31.03.2007
16. Blindness. Bournemouth. 10.09.2006
17. Outro (Loop 41. L.A). 23.05.2006

The Fall:
Tim Presley (Guitar). Bab Borbato (Musicmaster Bass). Orpheo McCord (Drums).
Dave Spurr (Bass. He’s not a Yank). Mark E. Smith (Vocals). Elani Smith (Keyboards)

Additional Hanleyfender notes:

"Generally considered by me to be the greatest Fall live compilation ever. 'Mountain Energie' also considered by me to be the greatest ever audience recording ever captured by The Fall."

This recording was originally made into a limited edition (50 copies) of CDs sent out to friends of The Consortium, the music blogging group Hanleyfender was affiliated with. But since then it's become a little more widespread - but not by much. It's still an awful hard Fall comp to track down.

So here it is for you all to peruse: The Fall's Sussex Morning, a fan-assembled compilation of live tracks prepared and released in 2009. This assemblage is offered up both in tribute to and in memory of the great Mark E. Smith, and to keep alive the music he and his band made for over forty years for at least a little while longer. Enjoy, remember, and as always, let me know what you think.

Please use the email link below to contact me, and I will reply with the download link(s) ASAP:

Send Email

Thigh Master - "Exodus"/"Pity Run" (single)

I first heard Brisbane, Australia-based Thigh Master's single "Exodus" a little over two years ago, while driving into work in suburban Boston one morning. The local independent/ alternative station in the area, WMBR 88.1 FM out of the basement of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's (MIT's) student union, is fantastic, a harbinger back to the old days of college radio, when stations of that ilk were wild enough and brave enough to play anything that struck the DJ of the day's fancy, no matter how non-commercial or anti-mainstream it was. I generally switch between WMBR and the local National Public Radio station on my morning commutes... but with the news here in the States increasingly chaotic and depressing, I found myself grooving to alt/indie music more and more often. In doing so, I've come across some musical gems being put out at that station, including this one on that fateful day:

Although the band is from Australia, I instantly caught that New Zealand/Flying Nun vibe/sound shooting out of this tune, reminding me of the stuff I liked and listened to often when I lived over in that part of the world many moons ago. Needless to say, this band flipped my wig, and I couldn't wait to get home to order their single.

Thigh Master formed in 2012 around a nucleus of brothers Matthew (guitar and lead vocals) and Daniel Ford (bassist) with drummer Patrick Byron, but went through a few lineup changes in their first few years before settling on a stable, solid foundation of Matthew, Patrick, Innez Tulloch on second guitar and new bass guitarist Dusty Anastassiou. The band has toured extensively in the Australasia and Southeast Asia region, and to date has released two albums, Early Times in 2016 and Now For Example just last year, the latter of which contains the album version of the song presented here, released a year earlier. Both of these albums come highly recommended. The group was supposed to begin their first-ever US tour in March of this year... but that didn't happen, for obvious reasons.

In the meantime, here's the single to whet your appetite: Thigh Master's Exodus/Pity Run single, recorded in September 2017 and released on Bruit Direct Disques on January 4th, 2018. Enjoy, and as always... well, you know.

Please use the email link below to contact me, and I will reply with the download link(s) ASAP:

Send Email

The North Atlantic - Wires In The Walls

The indie band The North Atlantic, comprised of brothers Jason Hendrix on lead vocals and guitar) and drummer Cullen Hendrix, along with their friend Jason Richards on bass, came together while the three were attending Kalamazoo College in Michigan in the late 1990s.  After Cullen's graduation, all three members relocated to San Diego, California to make a go at the music

industry.  Their debut album, the mostly-unheard Buried Under Tundra, was released there on Applep Records in mid-2001.  But the disc did get them a little bit of notice in certain quarters.

The band kept playing and touring in the Southern California area for the next couple of years, recording their sophomore album, Wires In The Walls, during this period and pressing a few hundred copies to sell at their shows.  The group went on hiatus shortly thereafter to allow Jason to go back to school to complete his degree, before reconvening in late 2005.

The North Atlantic's sound has been described as "math rock", an indie variation of '70s progressive rock championed by bands such as King Crimson and minimalist composers from that period like Steve Reich.  One definition I found of it described math rock as being "characterized by complex, atypical rhythmic structures (including irregular stopping and starting), counterpoint, odd time signatures (such as 7/8, 11/8 or 13/8), angular melodies, and extended, often  dissonant chords."  To me, this just sounds like the approach practically every other indie/punk band at the time, like Fugazi, Slint, Black Flag and Broken Social Scene, was taking.  Thus, I never have really "gotten" math rock...  It always seemed to me like the term was unnecessary, and slicing up the alternative/indie music genres/subgenres just a little too thin.

In any event, The North Atlantic had its (very) brief moment in the sun in the mid-2000s.  Shortly after Jason's college graduation and return to the band, The Syndicate, a West Coast radio promotion company, decided to expand into artist management and marketing, and picked up the then-three-year-old album for rerelease on their new label.  Wires In The Walls started getting moderate airplay on independent/alternative stations across the country.

I was living in Massachusetts at the time, and my local go-to station began playing the lead single, "Scientist Girl", fairly often.  Other than the sound and instrumentation featured in the song, what really grabbed me was that the band had the nerve/balls to not only name-check The Clash, but also lift one of their lyrics from the Clash song "Straight To Hell":

I was hooked, and based on this one song, I started looking everywhere in the Boston area for this album, without any luck.

This was also during the time when I would regularly travel three hours down the road with my toddler children to New York City some weekends.  I never spent much time in the Big Apple until I was in my mid-twenties, but from then on I always considered it a fun, "happening" place to be, and I vowed that my kids wouldn't have to wait as long as I did to see the city for themselves.  I would place the three of them in the big stroller, and we would roam all over town - visiting the museums, going to the Central Park Zoo and letting them play in the playgrounds there, browsing through the huge old F.A.O. Schwarz and Toys R Us locations, checking out new places to eat... all sorts of stuff.  I'm happy and proud to say that, now that my kids are teenagers, they KNOW New York.  They no longer have any interest in going to the touristy areas - they have their favorite shops and haunts in Soho and the Flatiron District; they know what subway trains to take to get to Harlem or Union Square; they know how to look at the light posts in Central Park and

know exactly what street they're parallel to; and before both locations closed, they regarded the Benash Delicatessen with disdain, considering The Carnegie (where we went so often, many of the staff knew their names) directly across the street the best deli in Midtown.  So I guess I did that part with them all right.

It was during one of our NYC trips late that summer that I was bound and determined to find that North Atlantic album.  So while we were there, I made a hateful side trip through Times Square (a locale I try very hard to avoid), pushing a loaded stroller through dense

crowds of tourists, in order to visit the old Virgin Megastore right there in the center of the square.  Once inside, I couldn't move around there much with three small children in tow, so I flagged down an employee and told him what I was looking for.  The guy disappeared for a few minutes, then came back with the CD I wanted.  I was in and out of there in less than five minutes!

I was happy to finally own the album... but again, I only bought it for one song.  So I can't say that this disc has been in heavy rotation in my house for the past decade and a half.  But listening to "Scientist Girl" again just recently, I still get the same sort of buzz I got when I first heard it, all those years ago.

And here it is for you all to get buzzed on as well:  Wires In The Walls, the second (and apparently last) release by The North Atlantic, originally released by the band on May 23rd, 2003, and rereleased by We Put Out Records on July 11th, 2006.  Have a listen, and as always, let me know what you think.

Please use the email link below to contact me, and I will reply with the download link(s) ASAP:

Send Email

Barbara Manning - Super Scissors (3-disc set)

As longtime readers of this blog can readily attest by way of my many posts over the years, I'm a huge Barbara Manning fan.  As such, I've been meaning to post her magnum opus, the three-disc Super Scissors comp, for forever... but I could never come up with the words to properly introduce this music here.

Fortunately, someone already did so - the paragraphs below are taken from the liner notes to this set, written by the lead compiler:

I can still recall, quite clearly, falling in love with these Scissors recordings during the first week of November 1987. I'd just moved to San Francisco days before and I'd made it my mission to track down Barbara Manning - whose songs and voice had captivated me on the album she'd recorded previously, 28th Day.

Barbara and I had a couple of mutual friends and one of them gave me her number. I called, and was invited over to hear some "demos". Already being a fan, as well as a taping fanatic, I showed up with my own "dubbing deck" and proceeded to copy about two-thirds of what later became the Lately I Keep Scissors album. During the course of the evening, Barbara got me very stoned and a little bit drunk. I eventually stumbled home with my gear, and woke up the next morning already under the spell of these recordings. I immediately plugged in my headphones and began playing these songs over and over.

It didn't take me long to feel that these songs and the performances - the plaintive vocals, the haunting feel of the music - were on the level of my heroes Sandy Denny and Nick Drake. Initially, Barbara hated me comparing her to these "folkies". She saw herself much more on the indie-rock side of the fence and after she turned me onto some Flying Nun recordings, I could certainly hear the influence of The Chills, The Verlaines, etc. on her work. However, I felt vindicated about a year later when Martin Phillips of The Chills did an interview upon which he spelled out his love for a lot of the folk music that I'd been trying to turn Barbara onto. That said, she was into Krautrock long before I even knew the meaning of the word.

After a bit of arm-twisting, I convinced Barbara to let me release these recordings on my new Heyday Records label. She said, "okay,", as long as she could record a new song called "Never Park." Since most of the recording for the album had already been done, we went into Greg Freeman's studio just a few times for a couple of overdubs and mixing sessions. Greg always treated vocals like an instrument, meaning he kept them buried among the other instruments, and Barbara was self-conscious about her voice (wanting it lower). So, if I contributed anything to the production of Scissors, you can credit me with making sure that her vocals stayed up in the mix.

It's important to remember that Scissors was originally

recorded without any plans for release - it was really just a case of Barbara having some cheap studio time and a handful of friends willing to help out with a batch of songs that she'd stockpiled. In my mind, Lately I Keep Scissors is one of those great debut solo albums of an artist stepping out on their own, away from their previous band, like Van's Astral Weeks, Lennon's Plastic Ono Band, et al. It also shares an edgy dose of reality with those albums; Barbara makes personal statements about her life, its ups and downs, all captured on tape for the rest of us to mull over, be moved by and enjoy. Like many of my favorite albums, it's an uncomfortable but elating listening experience that leaves me numb, no matter how many times I hear it.

Of course, Barbara's earlier band, 28th Day, was not anywhere close to groups like Them or The Beatles in fame, but you get my point. What really blew me away when I first heard these recordings, was that Barbara didn't realize how good they were - nor did the general public have any idea what would eventually be unleashed on them - that cassette tape that I had dubbed felt like a million in prizes. The fact that she wasn't famous didn't make the recordings any less important in my obsessive mind. After Scissors was released, artists such as Robyn Hitchcock, Sonic Youth and Yo La Tengo acknowledged it. Soon, Barbara's moody songs and ethereal voice began weaving their own special path that would lead to recordings for bigger and hipper labels: Forced Exposure, Sub Pop, and Matador - as well as high profile gigs and international tours.

By the time of One

Perfect Green Blanket, I was being told to keep away from the studio and keep my mouth shut, although I was still allowed to hear demos as they were happening. I suggested that both the home demo of "Sympathy Wreath" and the studio recording be used for the final album. Barbara got a 4-Track machine after Scissors was released, and several demos (and songs recorded just for fun) that she taped at her San Francisco apartment on Lyon Street during this time are included as bonus tracks on the One Perfect Green Blanket CD. One of the highlights for me is hearing her sing "Cheap Holiday Song" by the obscure but legendary San Francisco band X-Tal.

The Barbara Manning that created the music on these CDs was a beautiful young tigress - the energy and magic she evoked on stage was incredible and for several years I never missed a gig and recorded many of them. Barbara in general is not a fan of her own live recordings, and the handful of live material included here reveal some of the songs that she was playing during the time of One Perfect Green Blanket (occasionally during tours with her sister Terri) that were never recorded in the studio. There are also a couple of "Flying Nun" cover versions represented here, and Barbara makes these songs her own.

For the audiophiles out there, you'll be pleased to know that all songs from Lately I Keep Scissors and One Perfect Green Blanket have been remastered from the original reel to real master tapes and transferred carefully to digital format. Frankly, these recordings have never sounded as good as they do now - as we used the best of both analog and digital technology. Scissors sounds better than ever before, while I hear a slight muddiness on One Perfect Green Blanket.

For the hardcore Manning fans (which you must be or you wouldn't have bought this box set) is Disc Three - filled

with previously unreleased songs and recordings from the Scissors sessions. To be honest, I dragged my heels a few times since first announcing this project, but the advantage of having taken so much time is that we kept finding more tapes. When Barbara showed up one day with a previously unknown reel-to-reel tape of Scissors outtakes, I thought I'd pass out from excitement. Until then, I'd been working from cassettes made after each recording session. After a lot of listening, the songs that made the final grade were either ones that didn't get included on Scissors the first time around or were radically different than the released version.

Just shy of two decades since first hearing these Scissors songs, my love affair with Barbara's music continues - ad she's still making records that will spellbind and entrance you. Actually, now that I think about it - Barbara's career (and life) has lasted longer that the icons that I first compared her with.

Barbara gave me free reign as I worked on this collection - so if there's anything you don't like about it, please send the complaints to me. And if there's anything that blows you away, all the acclaim belongs to her. It's her art, her music, her voice, the magic is all hers - she's got everything she needs, she's an artist, she don't look back - she can take the darkness from the night time and paint the daytime black.

Pat Thomas *
Oakland, CA
May 2006

Here's the lineup and track selection for each disc:

Disc 1 - Lately I Keep Scissors:

1. Scissors
2. Breathe Lies
3. Somewhere Soon
4. Talk All Night
5. Make It Go Away
6. Never Park
7. Every Pretty Girl
8. Mark E. Smith & Brix
9. Something You've Got (Isn't Good)
10. Prophecy Written

Disc 2 - One Perfect Green Blanket (with previously unreleased bonus tracks):

1. Straw Man
2. Smoking Her Wings
3. Don't Rewind
4. Sympathy Wreath
5. Green
6. Lock Your Room (Uptight)
7. Someone Wants You Dead
8. Sympathy Wreath (Demise) Or ODE2WOP
9. Walking After Midnight
10. Green Home (Demo Version)
11. I Wish I Could Tour
12. Cheap Holiday Song
13. Lock Your Room (Uptight) (Home Demo Version)
14. For Pity's Sake (Live)
15. On on and One (Live)
16. Winter Song (Live)
17. Optimism Is It's Own Reward (Radio Session)

Disc 3 - Previously Unreleased Outtakes & Demos:

1. Scissors (Acoustic)
2. Make It Go Away
3. Every Pretty Girl
4. Mark E. Smith & Brix (Alternate Version)
5. Something You've Got Isn't Good (Acoustic)
6. Prophecy Written (Electric Version)
7. Wires Cages Fences and Gates (Without Drums)
8. My Name Is Not
9. Song for Trish
10. Someone Wants You Dead (Acoustic)
11. Make It Go Away (Alternate Version)
12. Wires Cages Fences and Gates (With Drums)
13. On on and One (Home Demo)
14. Reverse Disguise (Home Demo)
15. Scissors (I've Been Working on the Railroad) (Home Demo)

So here, for your listening pleasure, is the legendary and hard-to-find Super Scissors set, featuring some of the early work of Bay Area indie icon Barbara Manning.  I've been enjoying this set for years, and I think the entire comp is a winner! Have a listen, enjoy, and as always, let me know what you think.

Please use the email link below to contact me, and I will reply with the download link(s) ASAP:

Send Email


* - Interestingly, and if I'm not mistaken, this is the same 'Pat Thomas' who currently serves as Kendra Smith's manager, and who wrote the David Roback tribute in Variety last month that I referenced in the previous posting...

Various Artists - Not All That Terrifies Harms 7"

Another Barbara Manning-related post...

Late in 2016, I provided a requester, Jon Der, with a link to my World Of Pooh Land Of Thirst posting from a few years back, and in the process had a great back-and-forth dialogue with him about bands we were mutual fans of, including this one and The Fall (my all-time favorite band, as I've mentioned ad nauseum (and recently shown) here on this site). Jon clued me in to the news that an in-depth oral history of World Of Pooh had just been published in the then-latest issue of Jay Hinman's Dynamite Hemorrhage fanzine, a podcast/magazine devoted to underground alternative music; it was that article that sent him on a search that led him to my site.

Information on the great but obscure World Of Pooh is extremely hard to come by in this day and age, so of course I was champing at the bit to read the story. As the article was (then) not an online posting, but a print story only, Jon kindly scanned it for me from the magazine copy he had in his possession.

All in all, "World Of Pooh: The Oral History" is a superb and informative article. Band members (guitarist Brandan Kearney, bassist Barbara Manning and drummer Jay Paget) and other friends/scenesters from that time offer up their recollections and reminiscences of those heady, frenetic bygone days, the creation, rise and dissolution of an underground and generally unheralded-in-their-time rock band. The piece filled in a lot of gaps in my knowledge about the group.

I was especially interested in the section regarding the writing and recording of The Land Of Thirst, the band's sole LP release and one of my all-time favorites. When I did my write-up on this album all those years ago, I did so under the assumption (based on clues provided in the Trouser Press Record Guide review and other sources I'd found like this blog posting from almost a decade ago) this this disc was the brilliant but intense product of a vicious, painful breakup saga then unfolding between Kearney and Manning. To quote that post:

Apparently, [they] had been dating for a while, and by the time the record was being recorded, their relationship was on the rocks. They took out their relationship strains not directly on one another, but like most other couples with problems they addressed their angers and frustrations with one another indirectly, in their case through the songs (I understand they broke up soon after this record came out - which makes sense, since the band also ceased to exist around that time).

However, in the course of reading "The Oral History", I became aware that what I considered to be gospel and the "true Hollywood story" regarding WoP and their music wasn't quite accurate.

The first (and most important) point of correction is the most pertinent and far-reaching, in terms of my understanding this band - Manning and Kearney were never a couple, per se. Sure, they spent a lot of time together in their musical and social pursuits... but this didn't develop into any sort of romantic attachment. There was already more than enough madness swirling around in their lives while they were in the band. But that craziness had nothing to do with any sort of long-term "lover's spat", and more to do with the weird, tense and uncertain atmosphere inherent in being in an obscure band playing in San Francisco's indie/underground scene in the late '80s/early '90s.

That isn't to say, however, that the members of World Of Pooh didn't play up on this boy-boy-girl dynamic. The back cover of The Land Of Thirst infamously displayed an S&M/bondage-themed photo of three people that the band found in a porn shop on Polk Street in the city, with the implication being that the picture portrayed the actual band members and their relationship (it wasn't, and it didn't). Barbara Manning said:

"We chose the picture on the back on purpose - I think it might have been my idea, even... The idea [was] that we were selling ourselves as this threesome."

Brandan Kearney continued:

"We did have some misgivings about using the photo... but it looked enough like us that it was hard to say no... Besides, we were always using sexual imagery... I sometimes worried that we were confining Barbara, or that she'd feel like we were. The picture is ambivalent, which struck me as poignant at the time. It's not very well thought out, but you could say that about any decision we made back then."

In short, the group played at being weirdos and freaks, with Kearney and Manning upping the ante by semi-pretending to be more than just band mates... and people believed it. And oddly, after a while, the members of World Of Pooh began buying into that narrative as well. As Manning observed in the article:

"I feel like we were people with a weird relationship portraying people with a really weird relationship. Over time, the distinction vanished."

In the wake of the album release, and in the process of living up to this created narrative in the city's music atmosphere of the time, tensions began rising within the group. This led to bickering and conflicts between the members that eventually began being displayed in their live performances - many times exacerbated by prodigious booze consumption before and during their act. A friend of the group provided the following memory/assessment in the article:

"[Those] onstage disagreements of whatever were literally showstoppers. The big question was always: would they stop sniping at each other long enough to play another song let alone finish the set? Intraband relations seemed to be getting worse the more shows they played, but musically they kept getting better and better... For a while they were one of the best bands in the city. Talking to other fans at their shows, we had the feeling that they weren't going to be around much longer... The last time I saw them, it was their biggest show to date and by then they were outright arguing on stage in between songs... Despite how great the music was, the set felt like a fiasco and, by the time they left the stage, I had the distinct impression that it was going to be their last show."

This friend was almost correct regarding the timing of the band's demise - it was pretty much over for World Of Pooh by the end of 1989. However, circumstances intervened somewhat in early 1990.

Brandan Kearney: "People assume we broke up after our East Coast tour, but we'd essentially broken up before the tour... the strain Barbara and I were under was not sustainable... In the midst of this uncertainty, we accepted an offer to tour the East Coast for about a week... This gave us a reason to hold things together, but I think it also gave us the sense of an attainable endpoint..."

After (and despite) well-received shows in Boston and New York in March of 1990, World Of Pooh broke up immediately after the end of this tour.  There were a couple of posthumous EP releases (G.H.M. later in 1990; A Trip To Your Tonsils in 1991), but even those led to more trouble and conflict within the group.  The tracks on the latter EP were part of a set of eight or so that World of

Pooh had been developing for a planned full-scale album follow-up to The Land of Thirst (the EP included the only four tunes closest to completion, remixed and remastered by Kearney). During the final mixing of these EP tracks, Kearney added some sound effects that Manning, when she heard it/them, interpreted as negative coded messages directed at her personally... with the result being that the relationship between the two fully ruptured, and they didn't speak for many years. Fortunately, they eventually reconciled, even reuniting for a one-off show in late 2015.

Kearney pithily summed up the rise and fall of his band, and their overall dynamic:

". . . when you scrape away the dazzling veneer of also-ran indie-rocker glitz, you're really just talking about emotionally unstable people with very little impulse control and a dangerously high alcohol tolerance."

He also had this to say regarding their only album:

"The only thing that bothers me about the album's latter-day reputation is the myth and lore of Our Unhappy Relationship, which I sometimes worry is the only reason people are still listening to it. The fact is, Barbara and I were getting along just fine when we recorded The Land Of Thirst. People sometimes present it as some indie-pop version of Rumours or Shoot Out The Lights. I know we brought this on ourselves through public displays of madness and worse, but most of that stuff happened after the LP had been written and recorded. Love it or hate it, The Land Of Thirst was the product of a somewhat crazed but extremely close and supportive working relationship, and I dislike seeing it portrayed as an album by and about people who were at each other's throats. Terrible things happened, to our eternal discredit, but most of them happened later on."

So, from the horse's mouth itself, I hereby stand corrected.

The very end of the article listed World Of Pooh's entire discography, all of the music they released on Nuf Sed and all of their compilation appearances. I knew that some of the stuff listed there (like the band's rare early-career cassette-only releases No Little Taxis Shining Their Light and Dust) I'd never have any hope in hell of ever tracking down. But as for one-off compilation tunes, my WOP collection was fairly complete, except for one selection: a cover of Blue Öyster Cult’s “Dominance and Submission”, included on an obscure 7" EP in 1992. Being the obsessive completest that I am, I made it my mission to track down a copy of this record and song, and after an exhaustive search, found the vinyl for sale from an overseas source - couldn't buy it fast enough.

Enjoy the Not All That Terrifies Harms 7", a ridiculously hard-to-find joint release by Ajax and Nuf Said Records in 1992, scorched off of my vinyl copy, featuring some rare releases by San Francisco bands both legendary and obscure - including Thinking Fellers Union Local 282's "Trevor" (a track otherwise only available on a 1995 Japanese import compilation) and the only source for World Of Pooh's Blue Öyster Cult cover (which, of course, is excellent).

And as an added bonus, here's a link to the entire issue of Dynamite Hemorrhage #3, now online, containing "World Of Pooh: The Oral History" - a much cleaner version of my scanned copy from earlier last year.

Enjoy, and as always, let me know what you think.

Please use the email link below to contact me, and I will reply with the download link(s) ASAP:

Not All That Terrifies Harms EP: Send Email

Mark E. Smith And Ed Blaney ‎– Smith And Blaney

A late-2000s one-off "collaboration" between Mark E. Smith and on-again/off-again band member, manager and Fall second-in-command Ed Blaney. I use the term "collaboration" loosely, because it appears to be mostly a Blaney effort, with Smith (as vocalist) present on maybe 1/3 to 1/2 of the dozen tracks. And speaking of that effort, it doesn't seem that Blaney put very much into it here - three of the seemingly half-thought out songs on this disc ("Transfusion" (a cover of a Nervous Norvus tune), "The Train" and "Ludite" (misspelled in the track list)) appear twice in various forms, or barely modified at all. Included on this track list is a version of The Velvet Underground's "We're Gonna Have A Real Good Time Together"; needless to say, Patti Smith's definitive cover version of this song has nothing to fear from the Smith/Blaney go at it. Frankly, in my opinion, a lot of these tunes sound like leftovers from the Are You Are Missing Winner debacle from years earlier, that Blaney was also involved in (see previous post for details on that disaster).

With that being said, there are some songs and portions that are somewhat interesting, and differ in some ways from the music The Fall generally puts out. But there's nothing truly essential on this disc; it's mainly for Fall completists only, and not worth breaking the bank over...

Instead of doing that, you can get it here for free! Here's Smith And Blaney, released on Voiceprint Records on October 13th, 2008. Enjoy, and as always, let me know what you think.

Please use the email link below to contact me, and I will reply with the download link(s) ASAP:

Send Email

S.F. Seals - Baseball Trilogy EP

Years ago in this blog, I wrote effusively of my affection for the work of Barbara Manning. A longtime indie music stalwart out of San Francisco, Manning has sadly had little mainstream success in her career. But in indie circles around the world, her name is considered sacred. For more than thirty years, pretty much everything she has been involved in as a solo artist or band member has been nothing more than gold.   And this little EP is no exception; it's a weird and wonderful gem of a release.

Apparently, Barbara Manning has always had a thing for baseball. Note the cover of her first major solo compilation, 1991's One Perfect Green Blanket (a poetic euphemism for a ballfield).  This album includes a sample from the broadcast of the National League San Francisco Giants' 1989 Western Division victory (the same year they were swept by their cross-bay rivals the Oakland As in the infamous "Earthquake Series").   And after working as a solo artist in the early 1990s, her first post-World of Pooh band was named The S.F. Seals, after the famous minor-league team that represented San Francisco in the Pacific Coast League for more than fifty years. So it was only a matter of time, apparently, before Ms. Manning addressed her love for baseball in song.

Barbara's selections for inclusion on this disc are varied and eclectic. The lead song, "Joltin' Joe DiMaggio", was originally released in 1941 by Les Brown & His Band of Renown (fronted by singer Betty Bonney), just after DiMaggio's famous 56-game hitting streak with the New York Yankees ended (prior to joining the Yankees, DiMaggio played for the Seals). Manning and her band faithfully recreate the jazzy, big-band sound of the original recording. It's a fun, funny record for indie alt-rockers to perform, yet they pull it off brilliantly.

For the stomp-rocker "The Ballad of Denny McLain", Barbara cedes vocal duties to bandmate Lincoln Allen. This song is another cover, originally recorded by the legendary and eccentric Bay Area band Mad V. Dog & the Merchants of the New Bizarre. It documents the story of the infamous Detroit

pitcher, the last Major League pitcher to win 30 games in a season (in 1968), but who got involved with organized crime figures and ended up serving several long stints in prison in the '80s and '90s for various serious charges (his first conviction was for cocaine trafficking, embezzlement and racketeering; his co-defendants were Anthony Spilotro (Joe Pesci's character in Casino was based on him) and later John Gotti, Jr.).

The final (and in my opinion, the best) song on the EP, the fuzzed-out psychedelic guitar workout "Dock Ellis", celebrates the Pittsburgh Pirates pitcher who allegedly threw a complete no-hit game on June 12th, 1970 while tripping on a massive dose of LSD.

Soon after finally acquiring World of Pooh's The Land of Thirst in 2000, I went on a big Barbara Manning buying spree, tracking down everything of hers that I could find: much of her solo work, the rest of her World of Pooh stuff, and her collaborations with 28th Day, The Original Artists, The Go-Luckys! and The S.F. Seals - including this disc. I'm glad I did; this is a superb addition to her canon. Check it out and see for yourself.

Here's The S.F. Seals' Baseball Trilogy EP, released by Matador Records on November 1st, 1993. Enjoy, and as always, let me know what you think.

Please use the email link below to contact me, and I will reply with the download link(s) ASAP:

Send Email

Ratcat - "Tingles" EP

Another great memory from my days in the Washington DC area in the early '90s . . .

I first heard Ratcat's "That Ain't Bad" on the local alternative station there, WHFS, soon after I moved back to the area in the spring of 1991.  They really championed this unknown Australian band, and they HAMMERED this song on their station, day and night.  And it was easy to hear why - the song was catchy, hooky, punky, guitary - all the things I liked in music back at that time, all rolled up into one 3-minute blast.  After a couple of exposures to it, I ran like a bastard for the record store and snapped up an import cassette copy, which I began hammering myself on my car's tape player.  I didn't know much about the band at the time (it being the pre-Internet days), but their music was all right with me.  It wasn't until much later that I learned more about the group.

Ratcat was formed in Australia in 1985 by three Sydney-area teenagers, Andrew Polin (drums), Victor Levi (bass) and Simon Day (guitar/vocals), evolving from Levi and Day's garage band Danger Mouse.  The band paid its dues in the local small-club and party circuit, and gained a following among Sydney's skateboarding and punk communities with a sound that was more guitar-driven power pop than straight-ahead punk, although there were a lot of punk inflections in their music.  In late 1987, Ratcat came to the attention of local indie label Waterfront Records, who signed the band and quickly released their debut eponymous EP before the end of that year.  The record was well received in certain quarters of Australia, but did not chart.

Over the next two years, the band released several singles and one full-length album, This Nightmare, on Waterfront, which again made no great waves on the national charts.  This was mainly due to Waterfront Records' limited distribution and reach, which kept Ratcat's music off of Australian radio and held back the band's success.  Levi got fed up with it all pretty early, and quit the band in late 1988; he was replaced by new bassist John McAteer.  With the relative failure of This Nightmare, the rest of the band also saw the handwriting on the wall; after one final single release ("Saying Goodbye" / "Tura Satana" / "Overdrive") in late 1989, the band said goodbye to Waterfront as well, and signed with indie upstart RooArt in 1990.  McAteer decided to call it quits just before the label switch; he was replaced by Amr Zaid.

While RooArt, like Waterfront, was also a small independent, they had one major factor in their favor - the label had wisely entered into a distribution deal with recording giant Polygram, vastly increasing the exposure of groups on their roster.  RooArt engineered an all-out marketing strategy for Ratcat's first release that November, the 6-song "Tingles" EP.  The label saturated the country with a superb advertising campaign showcasing the band, and shrewdly directed purchasers to buy the disc at their local independent record shops (as album sales in department stores did not count towards the overall Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) charts).  The strategy was a bigger success than anyone could have imagined; the "Tingles" EP quickly shot to the top of ARIA's Alternative charts by Christmas, and soon after crossed over to reach #2 on the overall national charts.  The lead song off the EP, "That Ain't Bad", received massive mainstream radio airplay, and also reached #1 on the Australian singles chart.  Here's the video:

A band that could barely fill a mid-sized Sydney club less than six months earlier was suddenly the hottest, most popular group in Australia.

Ratcat followed up on their late-1990 success with their first LP release on RooArt, Blind Love, in April 1991.  Both the album and the lead single, "Don't Go Now", topped the charts by that June.  That spring, the band went on the road, supporting INXS on their huge "X" tour, then going out on their own as the headliner and playing to massive crowds of rabid fans.  In Australia in 1991, Ratcat could do no wrong.

Then the wheels started coming off . . .

Like many other Australian bands before and after them, Ratcat saw its future in the U.S. market.  In the summer of 1991, the band headed over to the States, playing support gigs with the likes of Iggy Pop and a recently reformed MC5.  The shows were well-received, but did little to enhance the group's profile stateside.  By the time they returned to Australia in early 1992, Ratcat-mania had subsided.  The band released two singles and a new album, Inside Out, with new bassist Marc Scully [man, this group went through a lot of bassists . . .], all of which reached the lower rungs of the Australian Top 50.  But Ratcat's bubblegummy, power-pop sound was starting to sound dated, especially in the wake of the rise of grunge music during this period of that decade.  The band released a couple of EPs in 1993 (neither of which charted) and laid down tracks for a third album (which wasn't completed/released until 1997).  But by the end of that year, the band was essentially kaput.

I had no idea about what had transpired with Ratcat; when I moved to New Zealand in early 1993, I fully expected the place to be filled with rabid Ratcat fans like myself.  So I was surprised (and somewhat put out) when some of my new Kiwi friends gave me the big laugh when I told them how much I liked this band.  By that time, Ratcat was being dismissed in one of two phrases: "Those guys are a kiddie band!" (akin to the present-day Jonas Brothers or One Direction), or "Ratcat?  Those guys were washed up a year ago!"

[That reminds me of when I was in high school in Monterey, California in the early '80s, when AC/DC was just getting big here in the States.  We had an Australian exchange student in our class, who used to laugh whenever someone came in wearing an AC/DC tee-shirt - "That band was washed up in Australia two years ago!"  I don't know how true that was, but at the time I believed it!]

In this case, my friends there were right.  With the lack of new releases by the band in the years I lived in Christchurch, I quickly determined that yes, Ratcat was no more, and moved on to new sounds.  But I never forgot that great EP and that incredible song . . .

And it appears that I'm not alone in remembering.  Ratcat has recently been experiencing a wave of nostalgia for their music; the band recently reformed for a one-off show in Sydney, playing Blind Love in its entirely and other hits before an appreciative crowd.  And a (godawful) cover of "That Ain't Bad" was recently showcased in an Australian bra commercial (Simon Day has a short cameo in the ad): 

Ratcat is now seen as a pioneer in Australian indie rock, finally providing the band with some long-overdue acknowledgement and appreciation.

And finally, here it is for you to appreciate as well: Ratcat's "Tingles" EP, released in November 1990 on RooArt Records and distributed by Polygram.  Enjoy, and as always, let me know what you think.

Please use the email link below to contact me, and I will reply with the download links ASAP:

Send Email

Trona - Trona

Trona was one of the three bands I saw at that epic (for me) show at TT The Bear's Place in Cambridge, MA during the summer of 1996 (the other two being The Laurels and The Kelley Deal 6000, both of which have had their albums previously posted on this blog - so now you have music by all three bands from that evening). Trona was the opener, a local band fron Boston. A four-piece, with two guys and two girls, they belted out their songs with energy and abandon, with a sound that immediately caught my attention.

For all I knew at the time, Trona was made up of neophytes to Boston's rock landscape. But as I discovered, most of the band members had been kicking around the Hub scene for years. Christian Dyas, the guitarist and one of the lead singers, had been a member of the popular local band Orangutang (they released only one long-player, 1995's Dead Sailor Acid Blues).  Pete Sutton, the bassist, was formerly a member of the indie group The Barnies. Drummer Nick White had also made the rounds with a number of small Boston-area bands. The only music newcomer to the band was Mary Ellen Leahy, who shared guitar and vocal duties with Dyas; she was a former publicist for Taang! Records when it operated out of Boston.

Trona's sound was . . . well, I won't say "generic Boston indie rock" (first, because that's sort of an oxymoron; and second, because such a description sounds like a disparagement of a style of music that I enjoy immensely) . . . but there was definitely more than a small tinge of early Pixies/Throwing Muses/Mass. Ave.-type inflection in their music. Atop this 'indie' foundation, the band had erected a strong Western (in some cases, almost country-Western) sound into many of their songs, usually by juxtaposing Dyas' and Leahy's twangy voices. And this construct seemed to work - In describing this band to a friend later, the best way I could think of to describe them was that "they were what The Pixies would sound like if they were fronted by John Doe and Exene Cervenka [the lead singers of X]". And that was A-OK by me - I thought every song they did that evening was superb. I went to the show that night to see Kelley Deal's band, but of the two openers, Trona was the one that made to biggest impression on me at the time (not to say that The Laurels weren't bad either).

I didn't pick up their self-titled album (Trona, released by Cosmic Records) at the show that night; I waited a day or two, and found it at the Newbury Comics in the basement of the student union at M.I.T., close to where I was living that summer. I was really looking forward to getting into their CD, and once again hearing those great songs they played at T.T.'s earlier that week. But when I played it, I remember feeling VERY disappointed. The songs on the disc didn't seem to approach the quality of the sounds I heard and recalled from their live gig. At the time, it all just seemed sort of . . . blah. Outside of an unexpected and pretty good cover of Stereolab's "Wow And Flutter", there was nothing on the album that really held my attention. I regretfully chalked that purchase up as one of my occasional mistakes, and stuck Trona on the shelf, where it sat unplayed for several years.

As for the band: Trona's second album, Red River (released in 1998 on Cherrydisc/Roadrunner), shifted them more firmly into the countrified roots rock X vein. By then, even the critics were openly comparing them to X and the X countrified side project, The Knitters. Not a good thing, when you're trying to blaze your own musical trail. And it did nothing for band cohesiveness - Trona broke up in August 1998, when Leahy quit the band over the usual reason, "musical differences". Chris Dyas and Pete Sutton moved on to join the Ray Corvair Trio, a 60's lounge/surf revival band, for a time. Dyas now fronts a band called The Lingering Doubts out of New York, recording on L.E.S. Records. Oddly enough, a couple of members of Trona later found themselves involved with, of all things, Blue Man Group. Drummer White played in the Las Vegas version of Blue Man Group for a while during the mid-2000s; Dyas became musical director for the New York BMG immediately after Trona broke up, performing live with them and cowriting thair Grammy-nominated album Audio in 1999.

It's only been within the past year or so that I've revisited Trona's first album. And I have to say that, upon hearing it with ears fifteen years older, I can't understand why I dismissed this disc the first time I heard it. I made a mistake. The entire album - not just "Wow And Flutter", but all of it - is actually pretty doggone good. Sure, Trona probably isn't ever going to be considered for the Pantheon of Great Boston Indie Bands - they really weren't at the level of the aforementioned bands. But Trona had enough chops and execution to at least allow them to look groups like The Pixies square in the eye. Although their time on the scene was short, they have nothing to hang their heads about.

Don't take my word for it - have a listen yourself, and (as always) let me know what you think:

Please use the email link below to contact me, and I will reply with the download link(s) ASAP:

Send Email

Imperial Teen - What Is Not To Love

For my birthday in 2002, my girlfriend gave me two tickets to see The Breeders play at the Bowery Ballroom in New York City later that month. Rob, one of my New Zealand buddies, was over in the States that summer, working as a swim instructor at a summer camp for underprivileged urban children in Vermont (his normal gig is as an actor and print and TV model in NZ - here's his website if you're interested: http://www.robertfaith.com). So I invited him to come along (my girl wasn't a big Breeders fan). Rob was pretty psyched to learn about our upcoming trip; he'd been stuck up at that ramshackle camp for weeks, and was itching to get away and get back to New York, a place he had visited only one time previously but instantly fell in love with.

The only issue was that I had to schlepp my way up to Vermont to get him, as he had no transportation. I didn't see that as a major issue. On the week of the show, I was to be away in Atlanta until early Friday afternoon. The plan was that I would fly back to Providence, drive home to pack my stuff, then shoot up to Vermont to pick Rob up en route to NYC. The camp managers had only given him two days off, so it was going to be a quick trip. Up to that point in my life, I had never been to Vermont - really didn't have any reason to. But it looked small on the map, so how long could it take to get there?

[Well, I found out EXACTLY how long it took to drive through that stultifyingly boring state. I'll spare you the details of that journey - a tragicomedy of plane delays, traffic jams and assorted errors that began in Atlanta and didn't end for another 18 hours or so. Let me just say that, no offense to the good citizens of Vermont, but I'll live just as long and die just as happy never having to visit that boring-ass state ever again . . .]

By the time we finally got to New York in the very wee hours of that Saturday morning, we were dead beat. But we were also starving, so we threw our stuff down at the Helmsley and went to the Carnegie Deli (which is open until 4 am) for a feed (even at that late hour, there were famous faces there - Tommy Lasorda sat gorging himself at the table next to us) before stumbling back to the hotel and collapsing exhaustedly into our beds.

We were up fairly early the next morning - I was worn out from all of the traveling and delays, but Rob only had 48 hours of leave from the camp, and didn't want to waste it sleeping. The show didn't start until 8-ish, so we killed the day running around town, from Central Park to Canal Street and points in between. Rob hit the city wearing his "party/concert" attire, which consisted of bright orange jeans with cargo pockets and a black mesh shirt . . . I nearly collapsed with laughter. His outfit looked like something the Festrunk Brothers from SNL would wear in New York to look 'hip'.

[Of course, I ended up eating my words and guffaws - as we walked around Soho that afternoon, a guy with a camera came up to us, told Rob he was a professional photographer for a nationally-known men's fashion magazine, and asked to take his picture for an upcoming issue (the bastard completely ignored me - guess I wasn't dressed 'hip' enough). And sure enough, a couple of months later, a small shot of Rob sporting his 'look' appeared in the magazine. So that shows how much I know . . .]

After a few drinks (at the Cub Room on Sullivan St. - great place) and some chow (at Blue Ribbon Sushi just down the street - highly recommended), we hopped a taxi for the show, soon arriving in front of the venue. I was really looking forward to seeing the reformed Breeders, with both Kim and Kelley Deal back in the band (they were touring on Title TK, their first new album in nine years). In the years since the last show I saw with them together (in Christchurch, New Zealand in 1995 (detailed in my previous Kelley Deal 6000 post)), I'd seen Kelley's band play several times all over the country. And in 1997, I was part of a very disappointed packed house at DC's 9:30 Club listening to a set performed by what was touted as a "Breeders" band fronted by Kim, but stocked with lame, no-name musicians playing lame, no-name songs (I discovered later that most of those ersatz Breeders were actually members of Kim's more recent band The Amps). In both cases, some of the spark and chemistry was missing; it just wasn't the same as seeing the sisters perform together. So I was pretty jazzed (I was also secretly hoping that Kelley would remember me, her old friend from years past, and take the time to say hello - but I wasn't going to press the issue). Rob and I went up the stairs to the main stage area of the Bowery Ballroom, got a couple of drinks, and milled around waiting for the show to start.

I didn't know anything at all about the supporting band, Imperial Teen, so I was sort of surprised when, in speaking with some of the other concert attendees before the show, a fairly good number of them were there to support this band. Although they were the opener, they were touring on their own new album, 2002's On. Others there were enthusiastic, but I honestly didn't know what to expect as Imperial Teen took the stage.

Imperial Teen was formed in late 1994/early 1995 by Roddy Bottum, keyboardist for Faith No More. Soon after the 1992 release of Faith No More's Angel Dust, the band's most commercially successful album, Bottum began going through a series of personal crises (including the death of his father and coming out of the closet) that significantly limited his input and activity with that band. After getting through his rough period, he started a band, Star 69, as a side project with another San Francisco-area musician, former Sister Double Happiness member Lynn Perko (they later changed their name to Imperial Teen). They were joined by Perko's friend and former bandmate Jone Stebbins and local rocker Will Schwartz.

Imperial Teen released their debut album, Seasick, in 1996, followed by What Is Not To Love in 1998. From what I understand, these albums, featuring alternative/college radio hits like "You're One", "Yoo Hoo" and "Lipstick", were very well received in certain quarters. And due to relentless touring (including opening for Courtney Love's band Hole in 1998), they had established a pretty strong following. I don't know why I was so clueless, and hadn't heard of them . . . (oh yeah, now I remember - I lived in Texas).

Well, that night in the Bowery, I discovered what I had been missing all of those years. Imperial Teen was absolutely FANTASTIC. The songs were all outstanding, but what really struck me was the dispositions of the four band members; it's nice to go to a show and see a band actually having fun up on stage, and enjoying one another. And they were all completely unpretentious and 'precious' regarding their musical input - I was stunned when, after a couple of songs, the band members switched off on instruments - Perko left the drum kit and grabbed Bottum's guitar, Schwartz moved from guitar to bass, Stubbins took over guitar and lead vocals, and Bottum settled behind the drums. During the course of the show, every band member played every instrument. But it didn't come off as a sort of musical circuit training - it seemed totally natural, and of course for every variation the band sounded great.

Combined with a great set by The Breeders (who were in perfect form that night - it was as if that nine-year hiatus never happened), the entire show was superb. I arrived there a big fan of one band, but left there that evening a big fan of two.

We had to leave NYC on Sunday mid-afternoon, in order to get Rob back up to his camp on time. But I used some of our remaining time in the city to track down all of the Imperial Teen music I could, and we left the city with all three albums in our possession. Listening to those tunes in the car eased the hateful trip back up to Vermont (somewhat). Rob was bumming about having to go back to that mosquito-infested hellhole and resume his camp duties with those sullen city kids. But I was glad that I had the opportunity to show him a bit of fun that summer. And of course, getting new tunes out of it made it all worthwhile for me as well.

So, here's Imperial Teen's second album, What Is Not To Love, released by Slash Records in 1998. Enjoy, and as always, let me know what you think:

Please use the email link below to contact me, and I will reply with the download link(s) ASAP:

Send Email