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.

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, #19: Various Artists- WarfRat Tales: Unabridged (1983) MP3 & FLAC

"The seas and the trees calling me. She's a river between day and night. I'm looking for her light, creeping coastline of lights."

At the dawn of the eighties, the L.A. underground music scene was comprised of a heady mix of bands and styles that included punk, post-punk, cow-punk, neo-psych, power-pop, jangle-pop, rockabilly, and everything in between. In addition to its quite unprecedented musical diversity, what also set this underground scene apart from others before it and those since was the genre-defying camaraderie between the various bands involved. As such, it was not unusual to see someone like Chris D. of The Flesh Eaters- ferocious purveyors of an exceedingly dark blues-punk hybrid that made them legends among the hardcore crowd- befriend and support a band such as The Dream Syndicate, who were in the process of spearheading a psych-revival that would come to be known as the Paisley Underground. Many of these relationships were forged through shared ties with the indie record labels that mushroomed in and around the scene whose rosters often reflected the amazing variety of the L.A. underground itself, a phenomenon that helped give rise to the era of the indie compilation as the best way to promote the music. A storied example of this was Warfrat Records, a tiny artist-run label, whose recordings were made in a (literally) makeshift studio called Lyceum Sound, which was actually a sound-proofed two-car garage (we're talking egg-cartons on the walls here) that had been rented out by members of The Last as a rehearsal space. The "studio" was originally conceived as a much preferred return to sonic austerity for The Last after having had their sound subjected to the sterilizing effects of the professional recording process on their debut LP, L.A. Explosion!  Eventually, Lyceum Sound played host to bands such as The Gun Club, Rain Parade, The Long Ryders and Savage Republic to name but a few, all of whom engaged in something like recorded rehearsals. As The Last's manager Gary Stewart remembers, the WarfRat record label was born out of necessity: "I didn't so much dream up the WarfRat label as I was forced to start it, as a way of releasing a single [...] that was getting some airplay on Rodney Bingenheimer's Sunday night radio show." The compilation WarfRat Tales was intended as a way to promote many of the bands who regularly passed through Lyceum Sound as well as to pay off some bills (according to Stewart, the album accomplished only one of these objectives). The album itself is one of the better comps to emanate from the L.A. underground, and has the added advantage of being primarily comprised of unique "demo" performances that are often superior to the more polished versions available elsewhere. The opener, "Try to Rise," a creepy, campy psychedelic rocker by The Last that sounds a bit like Frankenfurter of The Rocky Horror Picture Show fronting The Doors, sets the tone for this consistently great and intensely moody set of songs. Another highlight is "Stop the Clock" by the Earwigs, a strange mash-up of punk, ska and early new-wave that functions as a tension-filled time-capsule of cold war paranoia. WarfRat Tales also features some wonderfully scruffy cuts from Paisley Underground mainstays Rain Parade, including a stunning rendition of "This Can't Be Today," later re-recorded for their debut LP, Emergency Third Rail Power Trip. Perhaps the most essential track is "Creeping Coastlines of Light" by The Leaving Trains, a twangy, moody, transcendent slow-burner that is the equal of anything recorded by the scene's more well-known "roots" bands such as The Long Ryders and True West. WarfRat Tales is worth revisting because it offers a significant glimpse into an amazingly vibrant music scene long since gone; however, what makes it truly distinctive is the way its austerely-recorded tracks capture the passion and camaraderie that made the L.A. underground what it was.