(La) luna: Paisley Underground Series, #18: The Chesterfield Kings- Night of the Living Eyes: 1979-1983 (1989) / Here Are the Chesterfield Kings (1982) MP3 & FLAC

Monday, July 11, 2011

Paisley Underground Series, #18: The Chesterfield Kings- Night of the Living Eyes: 1979-1983 (1989) / Here Are the Chesterfield Kings (1982) MP3 & FLAC

"Cry all night girl, I won't care, you can't hurt me, I won't be there."

Since its original release in 1972, Nuggets, the legendary compilation of mid-sixties Garage-Rock, has served as a fertile inspiration to any number of underground music scenes ranging from hardcore Punk to psychedelic revivalism. One reason for this is the raw energy and D.Y.I. ethos that characterized bands such as The Electric Prunes, The Standells, and The Seeds, which, to some extent, created the blueprint for both the Punk and Post-Punk movements a decade later (it's no coincidence that Nuggets was curated by future Patti Smith guitarist Lenny Kaye). During the late seventies and early eighties, Los Angeles functioned as something of an underground epicenter for not only Punk, but psyche-rock as well, while the east coast played host to a major Garage-Rock revival spear-headed by bands such as The Lyres, The Fuzztones, and a Rochester band called The Chesterfield Kings. The band was conceived by Greg Prevost, a music journalist and record collector who had previously fronted a garage-punk band called Distorted Levels. In their original incarnation, The Chesterfield Kings went to great lengths to recreate the sound, look, and feel of original Nuggets-era bands, even going so far as to press limited copies of their early singles to render them just as collectable as those of the bands they were emulating. Until releasing their second album, Stop!, The Chesterfield kings were primarily a covers band, but one specializing in only the most esoteric Garage-Rock obscurities. As such, on their early singles, which were eventually collected on Night of the Living Eyes: 1979-1983, and their debut LP, Here Are The Chesterfield Kings, the band is able to consistently avoid sounding derivative because the material is, by and large, unfamiliar and the performances are informed with Punk-inspired fury and a meticulous attention to mid-sixties-era authenticity. The tracks comprising the first half of Night of the Living Eyes 1979-1983 are the band's initial pre-debut LP releases, which tend to showcase a more basic, punk-influenced sound than their later work. For example, on "Exit 9," a cover of a long-forgotten Garage-Rock gem by The Heard, The Chesterfield Kings manage to capture the grimy psychedelic feel of the original while injecting a little Punk rage for good measure, and when all is said and done, it's their version that sounds definitive. While their debut LP, Here Are The Chesterfield Kings, turns down the Punk quotient a notch or two, the results are no less impressive, as on The Turtles' "Outside Chance," which features razor-sharp guitar notes and sneering vocals that lend the song a little more bite than The Turtles were able to give it. Over the years, many have written off The Chesterfield Kings as being too derivative and one-note, but where a lot of their contemporaries eventually abandoned Garage-Rock for a more conventional, and thoroughly forgettable, hard-rock sound, The Chesterfield Kings have, for the most part, stayed true to the rich tradition that provided them with their original inspiration.

Night of the Living Eyes: 1979-1983

Tracklist-

1. I Ain't No Miracle Worker (2:51)

2. Exit 9 (2:03)

3. You Can't Catch Me (2:23)

4. I Won't Be There (2:02)

5. Hey Little Bird (2:25)

6. I Can Only Give You Everything (3:30)

7. One More Day, One More Night (3:59)

Live at The Peppermint Lounge, New York City, February, 1983

8. Night of the Phantom (3:00)

9. Really Mystified (2:02)

10. 7 Days of Cryin' (2:02)