The Church Series, #5: The Church- Gold Afternoon Fix (1990) Deluxe Edition (Bonus Disc) MP3 & FLAC

EMI ~ 2005/1990

Tracklist/Info

Gold Afternoon Fix (Remastered with Bonus Disc)

Download in FLAC:    Disc I     Disc II

Download in MP3 (320kbps):    Disc I     Disc II

Additional Church Series Posts & Related

The Church Series, #4: Marty Willson-Piper- Hanging Out in Heaven (2000) MP3 & FLAC

Heyday ~ 2000

Tracklist/Info

Hanging Out in Heaven  in FLAC:  Grab, Try, Then Buy!

MP3 (320kbps)

Additional Church Series Posts & Related

The Church Series, #3: The Church- Seance (1983) Deluxe Remastered Edition (Bonus Disc) MP3 & FLAC

EMI ~ 2002/1983

Tracklist/Info

Seance  (Remastered Bonus Disc Edition) in FLAC:  Grab, Try, Then Buy!

MP3 (320kbps)

Additional Church Series & Related Posts

The Church- "Electric Lash" Video (1983)

Paisley Underground Series, #28: 28th Day- The Complete Recordings (2003) MP3 & FLAC

"You sing a song of love and crucify all the words. You pray to god for hope
when all the while, you're going backwards."

Hailing from Chico, a small Northern California college-town that was one of the lesser-known corners of the eighties-era paisley scene, 28th Day was several cuts above the plethora of neo-psych and Jangle-Pop bands that then littered the landscape, as they featured Cole Marquis' darkly evocative guitar-work (reminiscent of Karl Precoda of The Dream Syndicate) and a young Barbara Manning who would later go on to become a well-loved and semi-legendary fixture on the S.F. music scene. While 28th Day was fated to only remain together long enough to release a self-titled mini-album on Enigma Records (produced by Russ Tolman of True West), in doing so, they managed to leave behind what is simultaneously one of the best neo-psych albums of the eighties, and one of the most under-appreciated albums associated (albeit marginally) with the paisley movement. 28th Day was Manning's first tour of duty in a band and Marquis was not much more than a neophyte himself as they set about searching for their distinctively folky, post-punky, psych-drenched sound. Marquis: "We were so green in the beginning, we could hardly play, but we all believed in what we were doing. We were having fun, and we didn't hold anything back. We made up for the lack of skill with energy, fear, alcohol and faith." What skill deficiencies the band may have had at the time seem completely irrelevant on songs such as "25 Pills," the lead track on 28th Day, a somber Jangle-Pop gem about drug addiction that pushes close to the brand of melancholia that Joy Division specialized in. And then there's the beautiful "Burnsite," featuring Marquis and Manning's hauntingly intertwined vocals and a paranoia-inducing arrangement (including screams from Manning) that it occasionally reminiscent of David Roback's Opal. Nevertheless, what sets 28th Day apart is their ability to mix in a song such as "Lost," a folky garage-rocker that should have become a paisley anthem, but instead was fated, like the band itself, to footnote status. Manning: "How Do I explain it? We were very young. It was our first band. We thought we were the best band in the world. We started to hate each other. Isn't it only natural?"

The Church Series, #2: The Church- Sing Songs EP (1982) / Remote Luxury EP (1984) / Persia EP (1984) MP3 & FLAC

"You stop to wonder as she passes by. Something inside you is never the same,
Something outside you is always to blame."

As a follow up to their promising 1981 debut, Of Skins and Heart, The Church released The Blurred Crusade in early 1982, and while it was a clear step forward sonically as well as conceptually, Capitol Records refused to release the album in the U.S., claiming it was not commercial enough. In part to placate their U.S. distributor, The Church quickly returned to the studio to hastily record a number of additional songs, including a cover of Simon & Garfunkel's "I Am a Rock," all of which were quickly rejected by Capitol, who then decided to drop the band, leaving them without a distributor in the U.S. for nearly two years. Despite this, the songs were given a European release by EMI in early 1982 as the Sing-Songs EP, and while, ironically, the songs themselves are less immediately accessible than those found on The Blurred Crusade, there are, nevertheless, a few standouts, including "A Different Man," one of the better examples of the band's early Jangle-Pop sound. The Church experienced more record label-related difficulties while recording their next album Seance, as one of the favorite songs from their live set, "10,000 Miles" was rejected by their handlers at EMI. As a result, the band decided to take a step away from major-label interference and a step toward creative autonomy by recording and self-producing two EPs in 1984, Remote Luxury & Persia, both of which recall the poppier moments found on The Church's debut while suggesting a more tightly focused approach to songwriting, as Steven Kilbey stated at the time, "Those earlier songs were great for people who had the time to sit down and listen, but this is such an immediate world we're living in. I want to make short, powerful statements rather than long, meandering, dreamy ones. It's time for The Church to stop messing about and hit home."

Steve Kilbey & Peter Koppes (back)

Although nearly thirty years after its release Steve Kilbey is prone to dismissing the Remote Luxury EP as a "lost opportunity," its five songs clearly constituted an attempt to diversify their sonic approach by integrating more keyboard-driven melodies and proggy flourishes into the mix with the Byrds-influenced Jangle-Pop they had, up to this point, been identified with. This is most evident on songs such as "Maybe These Boys," with its insistently trashy synth-line and the title track, which introduces some of the proggy guitar-work that would come to define the band's sound fifteen years later. However, the real gem happens to be the one most refective of their earlier work: "Into My Hands," a gorgeous acoustic 12-string-driven ballad that features one of Kilbey's most affecting vocals. While the follow-up EP, Persia, isn't as consistently excellent as its precursor, it does continue the sonic diversity found on Remote Luxury; in particular, "Constant in Opal" and "Violet Town" are among the more sonically adventurous "pop" songs The Church committed to tape in their early years, as it meshes the jangly Post-Punk of their intial recordings with the dark psychedelia they would mine throughout the mid-to-late eighties. While not as consistently memorable as full-length albums such as The Blurred Crusade, Seance, and Heyday, these EPs offer a glimpse of The Church in a transitional phase, pushing their sound into new regions with admittedly mixed results, but on the songs they get it right, to quote Kilbey once again, "The Church stop messing about and hit home."

The Church- "Constant in Opal" Video (1984)

Here's a classic from The Church's stellar Persia EP:

The Church Series, #1: The Church- Starfish (1988) Deluxe Edition (Bonus Disc) MP3 & FLAC

"The pursuit of adulation is your butter and your bread; it's an exquisite corpse and its lips are red, and its teeth are glistening."

The Church's fourth album, Heyday, released in 1986, was a pivotal experience for the band, as it marked the first time they had attempted to write an album collectively (previous to this, Steve Kilbey had served as the primary song-writer), and they did so despite the fact that going in to the recording sessions, the band was on the verge of disintegration. Steve Kilbey: "I think we released a few dud records that weren't as good as they should have been, after The Blurred Crusade, the band was just drifting along in a sea of apathy. I was writing not-so-good songs and the band wasn't playing them very well, so everyone's enthusiasm just waned." While the process of creating Heyday gave The Church a creative second-wind, the album failed to break through commercially; as a result, the band was unceremoniously jettisoned by their record label, EMI. As Kilbey recalls, "One day [...] I went into EMI and met the big chief who was this big fat fellow with a gold chain around his neck [....] I don't think he had ever thought about the Church before and suddenly he became aware of this irritating little mosquito that was on his label. About a week later the call came through: 'your album has been postponed indefinitely.'" At this point, the various members of The Church decided to go their own separate ways, several intending to focus on solo projects; however, when they quite unexpectedly garnered major-label interest in the U.S. from Arista in early 1987, they quickly decided to reform the band. As The Church had consistently enjoyed more commercial success abroad than at home in Australia, Arista pushed for the band to record their next album, Starfish, in Los Angeles with a couple of well-known session guitarists/engineers/producers, Waddy Wachtel and Greg Ladanyi, who, with résumés filled with names such as Linda Ronstadt, Jackson Browne, Warren Zevon, and Fleetwood Mac, seemed, at the time, a strange fit for a group of Aussie psych-rockers with a taste for the esoteric.

Steve Kilbey

Kilbey: "I really do like the random element of doing things and when these guys were suggested, I liked the idea that anything could happen. The Church recording in Los Angeles with these guys was a ridiculous concept. I mean Waddy Wachtel is this long-haired, sort of Furry Freak Brother, and Greg Ladanyi was a complete unknown. But somehow it worked." However, the Starfish sessions were contentious from the start; as Kilbey describes it, "It was Australian hippies versus West Coast guys who know the way they like to do things. We were a bit more undisciplined than they would have liked." Reportedly there were bitter clashes over guitar sounds and Wachtel's insistence that the band master techniques they had previously avoided; at one point, Wachtel even had Kilbey take some vocal lessons. The band's distaste for living in L.A. also affected the sessions. Kilbey: "The Church came to L.A. and really reacted against the place because none of us liked it [....] All the billboards, conversations I'd overhear, TV shows, everything that was happening to us was going into the music." Despite the difficult circumstances surrounding its birth, Starfish represented a huge step forward for the band, not only in terms of refining their sound by introducing some minimalism into the mix, but also in terms of honing their musicianship. Kilbey: "Seven years ago, if someone had asked me if I would ever get better at singing, playing bass, and writing songs, I would have gone, 'No I know everything about it. I've reached excellence and now I'll continue to maintain it.' What I realize now is that I don't know much at all, and I hope I'll continue to improve."

What had made The Church's previous album, Heyday, so distinctive was its orchestrated sound, as producer Peter Walsh had made liberal use of multi-tracking instruments and vocals to lend the album its oceanic depth and ethereal textures. In contrast, on Starfish, Wachtel & Ladanyi spent the better part of a month rehearsing the band before entering the studio in an effort pare their sound down to its essential guitar-based core, an approach The Church would embrace to varying degrees until guitarist Peter Koppes exited the band in 1993. Though the band voiced its concerns about the album sounding too spare, it did manage to capture their live sound to a far greater degree than previous albums. Marty Willson-Piper: "It's really strange that this album is more obscure yet more commercial; it's gentler but harder sounding. Basically it's a guitar album. See, the band live has this soaring energy, a much harder edge than we have been recorded, and I told them [Wachtel & Ladanyi] that that's what we wanted in the studio this time." While The Church's only hit single, "Under the Milky Way" recalls the esoteric lushness of previous albums, songs such as "Blood Money," "North, South, East and West," and "Reptile" reveal a much more muscular though still highly melodic guitar-dominated approach. While these songs are all quite strong and memorable, the most distinct tracks are the album's slower numbers such as "Destination," Lost," and the gorgeous guitar waltz "Antenna," a song featuring Kilbey's new-found vocal prowess. Kilbey: "I wanted The Church to build a snakey, slimey feel because one thing I want to kill forever with this album is 'paisley mop-tops play jingle-jangle music.' It was great in 1981 but it just isn't where I'm at anymore. I really want to get into this evil, nastier sort of theme."

The Church- "Under the Milky Way" Video (1988)

Well, after much delay, I am finally ready to start the Church series. The first post is up next...

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, #24: The Three O'Clock- Sixteen Tambourines (1983) / Baroque Hoedown EP (1982) MP3 & FLAC

"Jet fighter man that's what I am 'cause tanks go too slow. Airplanes fly
and yet I feel so low."

As was the case with more than a few fledgling L.A.-area Garage-Rock bands during the late-seventies and early eighties, Salvation Army got their first real exposure by having a demo played on Rodney Bingenheimer's legendary L.A. radio show, Rodney on the Roq, which eventually led to a recording contract with Frontier Records and the release of their eponymous debut album in mid-1982. However, when the actual Salvation Army threatened legal action over the band's appropriation of its name, Michael Quercio & co. decided to rechristen themselves The Three O'Clock (the time of day they would meet to rehearse), while Frontier decided to promptly shelve the album the band had released a few months earlier as Salvation Army (it would re-appear under the moniker Befour Three O'clock a few years later). During the same period, the band experienced some personnel changes that resulted in the addition of Danny Benair, who had previously played drums for bands such as The Quick and The Weirdos, and ex-Great Buildings keyboardist Mike Mariano, both of whom helped shape the Garage-inflected Power-Pop that soon became The Three O'Clock's trademark.

On the back of these changes, the band, along with former Sparks guitarist Earle Mankey in the production booth, began recording the tracks that would comprise their first release as The Three O'clock: The Baroque Hoedown EP, which proved to be a significant step forward for the band artistically as well as sonically, as it captured them taking their first steps toward melding strands of Psychedelia, Power-Pop and New Wave into a sound that would, as much as any other, come to define the Paisley Underground scene. Leading off with the nonsensically titled classic "With a Cantaloupe Girlfriend," an extremely accomplished slice of Jangle-Pop bliss that is propelled by Quercio's fey vocals and Benair's energetic drumming, Baroque Hoedown boasts a handful of The Three O'Clock's finest moments on tape. While "I Go Wild" captures the sheer euphoria at the heart of the psychedelic experience better than just about any other song that comes to mind, it is the band's brilliant mod-beat-style cover of The Easybeats' classic song "Sorry" that stands above the rest. With Louis Gutierrez's stuttering guitar sound and Quercio's childlike yet swaggering vocals, the band accomplishes the rarest of feats: actually bettering a mid-sixties Garage-Rock gem.

After releasing Baroque Hoedown, The Three O'Clock immediately re-entered the studio, once again with Mankey at the helm, to record Sixteen Tambourines, an album that continued the band's evolution toward a brighter, jangly, more technically accomplished sound, but did so at the expense of the Punk aggression that had always been implicit in their sound. Nevertheless, the album features a number of paisley-tinged Power-Pop gems, including "Jet Fighter," which garnered the band a significant amount of exposure outside of the confines of its Southern California home base. Perhaps the highlight of Sixteen Tambourines is "Fall to the Ground," a wistful, Beatlesque song that finds the band dialing down their wide-eyed exuberance a bit in favor of a more baroque sound that clearly indicates the rapid growth they had undergone as songwriters. A year after releasing Sixteen Tambourines, The Three O'Clock left Frontier to sign with the higher-profile indie I.R.S. Records, a move that, at the time, seemed like a logical step for the band, but one that never lived up to its promise, as I.R.S. was more interested in having them record more songs like "Jet Fighter" than providing the kind of support and financial backing that would have made it possible for them to evolve their sound in new directions rather than to slowly, album-to-album, devolve into the faceless twee-pop band they had become by the time they disbanded in 1988. Despite this, it would be hard to name another band who captured the spirit of the early Paisley scene quite as joyously as The Three O'Clock.

W1dowspe@k- S/T (2011) / Harsh Realm EP (2011) / Gunshy EP (2011) MP3 & FLAC

"An empty home, a vacant hell. I knew you in the harsh realm."

It is sobering to realize that it has now been a decade and a half since Mazzy Star's last release, Among My Swan, and though the ensuing years have brought many attempts to replicate their narcotic brand of bluesy psych-folk, none have been able to convincingly capture the alluring darkness that characterized the collaboration between David Roback and Hope Sandoval. The closest, in my estimation, was Miranda Lee Richards' brief stint in The Brian Jonestown Massacre, which yielded some brilliant, sleepy psych-folk such as "Reign On" from the Bringing It All Back Home Again EP; however, that was before I had heard Widowspeak, who appeared on the scene in early 2011 with their single "Harsh Realm," a deliciously sullen bit of Mazzy-worthy navel-gazing dressed in heavily-reverbed fifties-style paranoia, which was reportedly recorded after having only played six shows together as a unit. A Brooklyn trio with roots in the Pacific Northwest, Widowspeak belie these origins by conjuring a Southern California Paisley vibe, while giving it their own twist by cutting it with the kind of fifties and early-sixties musical references that would make David Lynch proud, as well as introducing a subtle but gritty Garage-Rock element, both of which lend Widowspeak a bit more sonic variation than what can be found in the iconic sound of their obvious main influence.

Lead-singer and rhythm guitarist Molly Hamilton:

"I think during the first practice, in my apartment, we talked about the 50′s- Buddy Holly, Roy Orbison, early Elvis, and we initially wanted the band to have that sound. I don’t think that happened, but that first practice was cool because all of our weird obsessions came out. Michael and I share an encyclopedic knowledge of the grunge era because of our Northwest upbringings, as well as a love for the Sonics and 60′s garage. Rob’s more into the 70′s, Television and the Stones. Rob and I love Pavement, but Michael is crazy and prefers Stephen Malkmus & the Jicks.  We all dig the Velvet Underground.  I also listen to a lot of really old country and blues and 90′s pop music. We cover “Wicked Game,” but we’ve also talked about covering the Cranberries and the Carter Family, if that says anything about how weird our influences are."

While it is the band's memorable cover of Chris Isaak's classic David Lynch-inspired slow-burner "Wicked Game" that has created much of the buzz surrounding Widowspeak in the early-going, it is actually their beautifully crestfallen self-titled debut album that is most deserving of attention. Admittedly, throughout the course of the album, the ghost of Mazzy Star is almost always within earshot (especially in relation to the lead vocals); however, Molly Hamilton, Michael Stasiak and Robert Earl Thomas never succumb to pure tributary. Instead, by deftly integrating a range of distinguishing influences and emotions, Widowspeak  is able to stake out its own sonic territory, thus earning the right to be heard on its own terms. The lead track, "Puritan," is a case in point; while for much of the song, Hamilton seems to be channeling Hope Sandoval to an uncanny degree, she also occasionally adds unpredictable phrasings to her vocals that lend the song a distinctly non-Mazzy glimmer of emotional lightness. This, coupled with Thomas' Morricone meets surf-rock guitar-style, allows Widowspeak to offer up a glimpse of what might make them truly unique down the road. Likewise, on their second single, "Gun Shy," the band adopts a more upbeat, hook-filled approach, thus finally providing Hamilton with a vehicle for transcending the chorus of Sandoval comparisons, something she takes advantage of to great affect. At first blush, it is tempting to embrace Widowspeak simply for softening the sting associated with Mazzy Star's sixteen years of silence, but on closer inspection, the quality of the songs and the album's range of material both suggest that Widowspeak have more on their minds than playing the role of pysch-folk surrogates.

Widowspeak- "Ghost Boy" (2011) Live @ 285 Kent Ave.

Yeah, I know it sounds a lot like Mazzy Star, but since they have gone into permanent hibernation despite periodic rumors to the contrary, Widowspeak is a capable substitute with a few sonic wrinkles of their own...

The Undertones- S/T (1979) / Hypnotized (1980) MP3 & FLAC

"I'm a little intellectual, someone who knows it all. I could be your summer special, you could be my New York Doll."

The back-story of The Undertones is the kind of thing that makes rock music so endlessly intriguing and endearing: five teenage friends (including two brothers) from Derry, Northern Ireland form a band in the mid-seventies to play Beatles and Lindisfarne covers,  but in the wake of the Ramones' legendary July, '76 British tour and its aftermath, everything changes- the Punk revolution arrives, and a few short years later, after sending a demo to John Peel requesting he play their music on his BBC radio show, the band, now called The Undertones, has a hit single called "Teenage Kicks." However, being a Punk band in Northern Ireland in 1978 was a difficult proposition, as lead guitarist Damian O'Neill recalls: "We were out on a limb [....] We felt stranded in Derry. There was a bit of a scene in Belfast, but there was nothing going on where we lived. And we were getting a lot of crap and abuse on the street for doing the music that we did [....] We wouldn't dress the way that punks did in London, but just wearing straight jeans could get your head kicked in. And having short hair [....] We were singled out a lot just for being punk rockers. On the back of the Teenage Kicks EP, there's a photo: 'The Undertones Are Shit.' That's genuine. That's the kind of feeling we got from people.'" Much like fellow early punkers the Buzzcocks, The Undertones were as deeply influenced by mid-sixties pop and Garage-Rock as they were by the vanguard of the burgeoning Punk scene, such as The Damned and The Sex Pistols. Their sound, which has been described as "punk-pop," followed, at least on their first two albums, a very similar approach to the Ramones, in the sense of marrying sixties-style pop hooks to a more aggressive style and a faster beat. However, hailing from Northern Ireland, which at the time was rife with political violence, this got them into trouble because their music refused to make overt references to the political situation. Damian O'Neill: "We loved fifties and sixties rock and roll, and girl groups like The Shirelles, and then of course The New York Dolls and MC5. We wanted to write about love and girls nor bombs and bullets." What also set The Undertones apart was their lead singer Feargal Sharkey, whose quavering vocals were equally adept at snotty sarcasm and wide-eyed vulnerability, a voice whose unconventionality in the context of the Punk scene helped give the band its unique sound.

Thanks to John Peel's tireless efforts to gain the band some radio exposure, they were signed by Sire (which made them label-mates of their idols the Ramones), and soon thereafter made their first trip to London to commence working on their debut LP, The Undertones. O'Neill: "The first time you're ever in London, your eyes are wide open. It was a great atmosphere, and the camaraderie was great. It was probably the best time, you know? The best time in the band." The album itself is a peerless piece of simple yet enduring stripped down pop that, coupled with the band's punk sensibilities, presents them as something like Northern Ireland's version of the early Kinks. A perfect example is the brilliant opening track, "Family Entertainment," which, while brimming with Punk energy, also demonstrates wry lyrics and a keen melodic sense- neither of which were exactly hallmarks of the early U.K. Punk scene. While for the most part, The Undertones, on their debut, are content to crank out unforgettable teenage anthems such as "Here Comes the Summer" and the iconic single "Teenage Kicks," they do occasionally tread upon darker territory, such as the suicide lament "Jimmy Jimmy," which has the influence of the Ramones written all over it. Despite their popularity, The Undertones were not a well-loved band in many quarters due to a perceived lack of Punk credibility, part of which was due to Sharkey's vocal style, but also the band's resistance to politicizing their work (something which led to a minor feud with fellow Irish punkers, Stiff Little Fingers from Belfast). The band would famously reference this lack of respect as well as the pressures of trying to come up with a second act after their debut in the mockingly brilliant title of the lead track from their equally accomplished second album, Hypnotised. "More Songs About Chocolate and Girls" instantly demonstrates The Undertones' growing ability as song-writers, which, throughout the album, pushes them beyond the limitations of the Punk aesthetic that defined the first album. Songs such as "My Perfect Cousin," and the Jangle-Pop masterpiece "Wednesday Week," are indicative of the artistic growth the band would continue to undergo over the course of their next two albums, though sadly, it would also spell their end, as an eroding fan-base (hugely undeserved) and internal strife led to Sharkey's exit in 1983. Sharkey: "One of the reasons I left when I did was that I wanted to preserve The Undertones for people as something special. Listening to people saying, 'I was in a bad part of my life and listening to your album helped me through it' is a great feeling. That's the biggest achievement I've ever had, to affect people's lives [....] No matter what you do, your life will eventually fall into a certain routine and its good to get released from that for three and a half minutes."

Paisley Underground Series, #23: Wednesday Week- What We Had (1987) / Betsy's House EP (1983) MP3 & FLAC

"There's no going back, too much has changed. It's mostly me though that's not the same."

While often unfairly overshadowed by Paisley Underground cohorts The Bangles, Wednesday week boasted an impressive pedigree that at various points in the band's evolution included stints by Steve Wynn & Dave Provost of The Dream Syndicate and Kjehl Johansen of The Urinals. Driven creatively by sisters Kristi and Kelly Callan, the band went through several name changes before issuing their first recordings on a pair of legendary L.A. underground music comps: Warf Rat Tales  and Radio Tokyo Tapes. In fact, it was Vitus Mataré, the curator and producer of the former, as well as the keyboard player for The Last, who forced the Callans to come up with the name that would endure for the remainder the band's existence. When they first drew interest from Warf Rat Records, the Callans' called their band Narrow Adventure, a name Mataré wisely objected to; as a result, he issued the band a terse ultimatum: change your name or you'll be dropped from the comp. Inspired by The Undertones' classic song of the same name, the band rechristened itself Wednesday Week and set to work on the Betsy's House EP, a group of songs that demonstrate Wednesday Week's Garage-Rock origins to a far greater extent than the significantly more polished work they later issued on Enigma Records. For example, on "I Don't Know," the band's trademark jangle is certainly there, but it's dressed in harsh, cutting tones, lending the song, with some help from Kristi Callan's wonderfully wounded lead vocals, a significant emotional bite.

By the time Wednesday Week had issued their presciently-titled debut album, What We Had, a staggering four years later, the Paisley movement was showing signs of decline, and though Jangle-Pop was still popular with the college-rock crowd, any hope Wednesday Week might have had for a commercial breakthrough along the lines of The Go-Gos or The Bangles was in vain. Nevertheless, their Enigma debut, though a bit over-polished in places, stands as a fine example of late-eighties Jangle-Pop and also has the distinction of being produced by one of the architects of the eighties jangle-revival, Don Dixon. Interestingly, Dixon manages to give the album both a glossy sheen and a dark murkiness that results in a sound that is certainly reminiscent of The Bangles' earlier work, but the band consistently demonstrates a melodic sensibility that sets them apart to some extent from their contemporaries. On "Missionary" for instance, the Callan sisters reach for a heavier sound that they beautifully punctuate with yearning lead vocals and a memorable harmony-driven chorus, resulting in one of the better singles released during the waning days of the Paisley scene. Another distinctive characteristic of the band's sound that tended to go unmentioned in the context of all the Bangles comparisons is their emphasis on Power-Pop over psych-rock. While there are certainly subtle psychedelic flourishes sprinkled throughout What We Had, songs such as "Why" and the brilliant "Forever" suggest the Callan sisters spent as much time listening to Big Star as they did The Byrds. What We Had is the kind of album that can slip by unnoticed but if given half a chance, has a wealth of hidden gems to offer. Unfortunately for Wednesday Week, few took the time to listen in 1987, and the band called it quits three years later.

The Undertones- "It's Going to Happen!" Video (1980)

In my humble estimation, an insanely underrated Punk-Pop band who could also pen a great piece of Jangle-Pop on occasion and do it with a sense of humor! I've been on an Undertones jag all weekend. Now it's your turn...

Wednesday Week- "Why" Video (1987)

Here's a clip from one of the lesser-know Paisley bands, similar to The Bangles, but without the same level of mainstream ambition (which is a compliment)...on a side note, ever heard Mojo Nixon?

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, #21: Rain Parade- Crashing Dream (1986) / Demolition (1991) MP3 & FLAC

"Imagine all of your sorrows have left you behind."

The aptly named Crashing Dream was fated to be Rain Parade's one and only full-length studio album after David Roback's exit from the band, in early 1984, to work on the Rainy Day  project with his then-new flame, former Dream Syndicate bassist Kendra Smith. According to many accounts, Roback's departure was an acrimonious one; as fellow Paisley scene icon Steve Wynn recalls, "It would be like me being thrown out of Dream Syndicate [....] I never knew why it happened."  Roback's version: "It became a drag. I just had to get away and do something else [....] Musically it wasn't working out." Whatever the reason, Roback's exit left his former band-mates, including his brother Steven, at a crossroads in terms of what direction the band's sound would take without its lead guitarist. In addition, the band faced towering expectations from fans and record execs alike to replicate the brilliance of their classic debut, Emergency Third Rail Power Trip. For the time being, Rain Parade decided to proceed as a four-piece and recorded the Explosions in the Glass Palace EP, which, while missing David Roback's deftly subtle touch in places and showing an occasional proclivity for adopting a more traditional approach to song structure than before, suggested that Rain Parade was not eager to relinquish its place as one of the leading bands of the Paisley scene. Fatefully, it was during this time that Rain Parade made its jump to the majors by signing with Island Records, a move that would lead to the band's demise only two years later. Rain Parade released two albums during it's tenure at Island: a live LP recorded in Japan, Beyond the Sunset, and their final studio album, the aforementioned Crashing Dream, which functions as a strange epitaph for this seminal Paisley band, as some see it as Rain Parade's escape from the commercial ghetto of psych-revivalism, while others view it as another example of a great band sent down the road to creative ruin by a major label taking control of the creative process. Taken on its own terms, Crashing Dream is a consistently good, and occasionally brilliant, slice of late-eighties psych-pop that from the opening track, "Depending on You," suggests the band is looking to cut ties with the hazy psychedelia of its debut. The song's slick production and reliance on studio synthetics is a bit shocking initially given Rain Parade's psych-rock pedigree, but as soon as the vocals and lead guitar appear in the mix, the song begins to take form as a nice piece of shiny Power-Pop. The next track, "My Secret Country," moves in more of a country-rock direction, sounding not unlike a slower number by The Long Ryders, and by all rights, it should have become one of the most memorable anthems of the Paisley scene, but its emotional impact is marred by a meandering bridge and the production, which robs the song of much of its grit. Crashing Dream was unjustly ignored upon its release, and Rain Parade decided to call it quits soon after; however, they did briefly reform in 1988 to record a double album, which never materialized until the release of Demolition in 1991. The first half of Demolition is comprised of an alternate ("as originally intended") version of Crashing Dream, which, if nothing else, suggests that Rain Parade were not as eager to leave their psyche-rock roots behind as the over-produced Island version seemed to indicate. As the true epitaph to this legendary L.A. band, Demolition is both a revelation and a further reason to grieve over the untimely demise of a band that deserved a much better fate.