Paisley Underground Series #26: The Long Ryders- Native Sons (1984) / 10-5-60 (1983) MP3 & FLAC

"Well my daddy rode the train to take him to the factory where he slaved eatin' shit
to save my mama and me."

While Uncle Tupelo is commonly credited with spearheading the rise of the Alt-Country movement (referred to in some quarters as "No Depression") that flourished throughout the nineties, its true origins can be traced back to a number of Los Angeles-based cow-punk bands that inhabited the margins of the Paisley Underground scene during the early eighties. Bands such as Tex and The Horseheads, Blood on the Saddle, The Beat Farmers, Rank and File and many others helped pioneer the unique fusion of Country music and Punk that would profoundly inform bands like Uncle Tupelo, Wilco, and Whiskeytown a decade later; however, no cow-punk band was more influential or as talented as The Long Ryders who integrated influences such as Gram Parsons, The Byrds, and Buffalo Springfield into a harder-edged Punk-tinged sound. The seeds for what eventually became The Long Ryders were sown in an uber-obscure and militantly retro Los Angeles garage-psych band called The Unclaimed, which Sid Griffin had joined in 1978 after tiring of the then-nascent Punk scene. However, Griffin soon felt trapped by the band's unwillingness to broaden their mid-sixties aesthetic and consequently left in late 1981 to form the nucleus of what would quickly evolve into The Long Ryders, which early on included Steve Wynn who soon left to form The Dream Syndicate. Fatefully, the band's formation coincided with the beginnings of the Los Angeles-based pysch-rock revival that eventually (and quite reductively) came to be known as the Paisley Underground, a scene that actually featured an eclectic mix of bands that were linked together more through strong friendships and an ethos of mutual support than any sense of a shared musical approach.

The Long Ryders in paisley period gear

Sid Griffin: "There was tremendous sharing in those days. At first everyone was on equal footing and then some bands became rather possessive and a bit more private but the Long Ryders were always looking at things from a socialist perspective. People shared amps, guitars, worked for other bands [...] Steve Wynn put out the early Green on Red album, I worked doing merch for several bands, Matt Piucci of Rain Parade became a kinda guitar roadie if you needed help like that and the Bangles sang back up on a lot of other people's records. Many of the bills of the day were three of these bands all at once. Perhaps Bangles, Dream Syndicate, Long Ryders, something like that." The early days of The Long Ryders featured several lineup changes, but their debut EP, 10-5-60, produced by former Sparks guitarist Earl Mankey, established the band as peerless exponents of the kind of country-infused Jangle-Pop The Byrds were doing in their post-Sweetheart of the Rodeo incarnation. Starting with the stellar Griffin-penned jangle rave-up "Join My Gang," a song that might actually be better than a good percentage of the material many claim it to be emulating, and also featuring the raucous title track, a Garage-Rock holdover from Griffin's days in The Unclaimed, 10-5-60 finds the band on the precipice of greatness.

Following the release of 10-5-60, the band's bass player, Des Brewer, jumped ship to resume his career as a longshoreman, which apparently appealed to him more than touring; as a result, Tom Stevens, who at the time was working at a record store, joined The Long Ryders, thus ushering in the band's classic line-up. Having recently signed to Frontier Records, the band entered the studio with producer Henry Lewy whose résumé included the first two Flying Burrito Brothers LPs, and the result, their first full LP, Native Sons, represents a step away from the occasionally literalistic approach of 10-5-60 and step towards something approximating what Gram Parsons once described as Cosmic American Music. Tom Stevens: "From the start, The Long Ryders were all about hybrids of pure American styles of music, as mostly defined by 60s bands, both rock and country. That all distilled through skilled songwriting into more of the classic style that you hear on Native Sons [....] I think at the time The Long Ryders were at the very height of their songwriting powers, and ability to naturally hybrid cool styles into a single form." From the opening track, "Final Wild Son," a snarling paisley update of Bob Dylan's "Highway 61 Revisited," to "Wreck of the 809," a psych-drenched version of R.E.M.-style Jangle-Pop, to the brilliant single, "I Had a Dream," a song that manages to stand shoulder to shoulder with the band's formidable influences (Griffin's vocals can't help but recall Gene Clark) and to lay out a sonic blueprint that would keep Jeff Tweedy busy for the better part of a decade, Native Sons stands as The Long Ryders' masterpiece, as their next album and major-label debut, State of Our Union, despite containing a number of stellar songs, would suffer a bit by comparison due to its overly-polished production. Drummer Greg Sowders: "we wanted to control our own art and it was just a very do-it-yourself attitude that we learned from the punks. But ultimately we thought punk rock in L.A.- I do kind of exclude X because they were very musical- but a lot of them really sucked [....] But that do-it-yourself attitude and the "we want to control everything ourselves and deal directly with the fans"- that's what we learned from the punks. Plus, we liked to play our songs kinda fast."

The Long Ryders- "I Had a Dream" Video (1984)

An absolutely scorching piece of Byrds-meet-Punk brilliance. Incidentally, this video (The Long Ryders' first by the way) was filmed in my hometown.

Paisley Underground Series, #22: The Dream Syndicate- Medicine Show (1984) / This Is Not the New Dream Syndicate Album...Live! (1984) MP3 & FLAC

"I got some John Coltrane on the stereo baby, make it feel all right. I got some fine wine in the freezer mama, I know what you like."

The Dream Syndicate's debut LP, The Days of Wine and Roses, is justly considered to be one of the best neo-psych albums released during the eighties, a dark, feedback-drenched love letter to The Velvet Underground and Television that quickly catapulted the band into the forefront of the emerging L.A. Paisley Underground scene only nine short months after they had come together in Davis, CA. As lead vocalist and guitarist Steve Wynn recalls, "It was an overnight thing. There was no dues paying. It was very weird and it screwed us up in some ways." One negative consequence of producing a masterpiece their first time out is that the band's later work has tended to languish in the long shadow of their formidable precursor. In the aftermath of their early brush with success, change settled in on The Dream Syndicate. First, their bassist and sometime vocalist Kendra Smith left to join boyfriend and ex-Rain Parade guitarist David Roback to work on his Rainy Day  project (she was replaced by former Al Green bassist David Provost). In addition, the band was signed by a major label, A&M Records, and thereafter quickly set to work, with former Blue Oyster Cult, Dictators, and Clash producer Sandy Pearlman, on what would become their most divisive and misunderstood record, Medicine Show. This album has tended to garner charges of being a major label sellout, and while it is certainly more polished than the band's debut (which is to be expected), it is anything but a play for mainstream success (unlike fellow Paisley Underground figureheads The Bangles). Rather, Medicine Show captures a young band finding their way as mature songwriters. Steve Wynn: "I'd written a lot of songs before Wine and Roses, but the storytelling, the larger scale, taking a frozen moment in time- it all started on this record." The band was also dealing with their meteoric rise from feeling fortunate if they got third billing at the L.A.-area clubs they were playing to suddenly being the headliner: "Defiance, fear, apprehension- they were all happening to us by then, and a lot of that came out on the record. It's in the songs, in the sound." By all reports, Pearlman drove the band hard, insisting on take after take until the performances reached a raw state of emotional honesty, an approach that served Wynn's dark, sometimes violent lyrical content well. The album's terrific opener, "Still Holding on to You," which has a faintly similar vibe to the debut album's "Tell Me When It's Over," sets the tone for the entire album with its tale of inconsolable loss and emotional desperation. While the band is still conjuring the ghosts of The Velvets here, there is a new-found confidence and a more open sound that lends the song a rootsy feel reminiscent of Neil Young. Medicine Show concludes with two epics: "John Coltrane Stereo Blues" and the stunning "Merrittville," which Wynn has described as "the Book of Job in eight minutes." The latter sounds something like The Church jamming with Crazy Horse, and is a heady reminder of just how misunderstood and criminally underrated this album is. Steve Wynn: "Karl [Precoda] wanted to make a big, panoramic rock record to justify our move to a major label and the plethora of attention we had received in the mere nine months that had passed since the release of The Days of Wine and Roses. I wanted to make a 'beautiful loser,' button-pushing, over-the-top emotional catharsis in the tradition of most of my all-time favorite records (i.e. Big Star 3rd, Tonight's the Night, Plastic Ono Band, etc.). We both got our way- and in ways that neither of us could have predicted. I think it was this improbable collision of desires and personality that gives Medicine Show its character."

Paisley Underground Series, #11: Green on Red- Gravity Talks (1983) MP3 & FLAC

"I've crawled around caves and books; I've seen the blue parade."

With roots in the Tucson neo-psych scene of the late seventies and early eighties (the same milieu that produced Howie Gelb's Giant Sand), Green on Red left for the more fertile underground musical pastures of L.A., relocating there in 1981, and, so the story goes, playing an instrumental role in solidifying The Paisley Underground scene by holding weekly barbecues at their Hollywood apartment, which were regularly attended by members of bands such as The Dream Syndicate and Rain Parade. As Steve Wynn (of The Dream Syndicate) recalls, "Every Sunday, we’d get together for a barbecue, bring tons of alcohol and whatever drugs—lots of burgers and chicken—and we’d just sit around, play guitar, and talk. That’s how the friendships happened, not in nightclubs or recording studios." Gravity Talks, the band's first long player after releasing two EPs, features the early line-up before the arrival of guitarist Chuck Prophet and with him, a much more overtly country/roots-based sound. This is not to say that Gravity Talks is a straight up neo-psyche record because signs of Green on Red's roots music origins are everywhere, but Chris Cacavas' Manzarek-style contributions on electric organ lend the album its distinctive (and quite memorable) psychedelic character. Admittedly, Dan Stuart's whiney country-tinged vocals can be an acquired taste, but juxtaposed to the album's psychedelic overtones, they give the songs some Garage-Rock authenticity. Many of the songs on Gravity Talks meditate on death and the irretrievable loss of childhood. For example, on "Blue Parade," which features some lovely, haunting organ-work from Cacavas, Stuart, in one of his best vocal performances, sings about loss, ranging from a dead dog's unplanned exhumation to finding a parent dead in a bedroom. The title track, a catchy garage-rocker with an irresistible Doors-style electric organ hook, features Stuart at his snotty, Jagger-esque best. Green on Red's later more roots-oriented albums, such as Gas Food Lodging, are usually cited as their best work, but Gravity Talks, coming as it does midway between the band's overtly psychedelic and roots-rock phases, catches the band at their creative peak, and is a true classic of The Paisley Underground.

Paisley Underground Series, #5: The Dream Syndicate- The Days of Wine and Roses (1982) MP3 & FLAC

"It's not fair to put you against all the years behind me."

One of the most enduring and darkly brilliant albums to emanate from the Paisley Underground scene, The Dream Syndicate's The Days of Wine and Roses takes up residence in the fertile and far too infrequently explored intersection between the darker side of late-sixties psych-rock and the brooding atmospherics of Post-Punk. Drawing on diverse influences such as The Byrds, Jimi Hendrix, Television, Velvet Underground, Joy Division and The Clash, the original incarnation of The Dream Syndicate were very much a band out of time and place in the early-eighties; as such, their debut, full of Karl Precoda's striking feedback-drenched guitar-work coupled with Steve Wynn's deadpan vocals, was quite a contrast to the synth-heavy approach many Post-Punk bands were adopting at the time. The Days of Wine and Roses begins with one of the most memorable songs of the Paisley Underground: "Tell Me When It's Over," an anthemic piece of dark Jangle-Pop featuring some great guitar interplay between Wynn and Precoda and Wynn's vocal approximation of a young Lou Reed. Another standout is the insistently sprawling title track, a White Light / White Heat-style epic, which gives Precoda plenty of room to stretch out and coax some amazing sounds from his notoriously cheap guitar. Neo-Psychedelia doesn't come much finer than this- one of the truly essential Paisley Underground albums.

Paisley Underground Series, #3: The Long Ryders- State of Our Union (1985) MP3 & FLAC

"I was thinking about the late Tim Hardin (looking for Lewis and Clark)."

Integrating country music and psychedelia was nothing new in the early eighties; after all, the late sixties bore witness to the Gram-era Byrds, The Flying Burrito Brothers, and Country Joe & The Fish to name but a few, and fifteen years later, the Paisley Underground scene followed suit in equally fine fashion. While there were a lot of bands attempting to resurrect the ghost of Gram Parsons, none came closer than The Long Ryders whose mix of cowpunk, country, Jangle-Pop, and Psychedelia set the stage in every conceivable way for the "No Depression" movement of the nineties. State of Our Union was the band's second full-length and first major label release. While there is a palpable production sheen cast over the proceedings, it ultimately lends this brilliant set of songs a certain punchiness that serves the music well. The album kicks off with a stone-cold classic in "Looking for Lewis and Clark," a powerful political anthem that sets out to punch a few holes in Reagan's "morning in America" myth. Another standout is "Here Comes That Train Again," a gorgeously spacious piece of Jangle-Pop that virtually embodies Gram Parson's vision of cosmic American cowboy music. State of Our Union is one of the most beautiful and enduring albums to emerge from the Paisley Underground scene as well as one of the most eloquently progressive albums of the eighties. Not to be missed.

The Long Ryders- "Looking for Lewis and Clark" Video (1985)

Here's a taste of things to come....