Pure Joy

I first became aware of Pure Joy when they released their 1990 LP Carnivore on the Popllama label. Carnivore is a nice slab of power-pop with a healthy dose of Cheap Trick influence. Pure Joy leader Rusty Rusty Willoughby's subsequent band Flop also mined the power-pop vein and gained enough attention to land on a major label (who subsequently did nothing to support them). In my mind I very much slotted Pure Joy into the power-pop ghetto (and I mean that in both a good and bad way).

So when I borrowed their 1986 self-titled EP from my friend Adam, I was a little surprised at the sounds I heard as the diamond vibrated in sympathy with the record groove. I expected a rougher version of what the band delivered on Carnivore, and what I heard instead was a band that sounded much more like The Chameleons UK, Echo & The Bunnymen or The Mighty Lemon Drops than any of the usual power-pop touchstones. It was only after listening to this that it dawned on me that the band obviously took their name from a track on the second The Teardrop Explodes album, Wilder.

After this revelation, I went back and listened to their fantastic 1988 LP Unsung [buy it!] that was not widely distributed until it was reissued by Flydaddy in 1994.  The fixation with British neo-psychedelica is evident on this album, if not as obvious as it is on the EP, but since I approached the album from a power-pop frame when I listened to it previously, I hadn't noticed it before.

The other thing that surprised me about the EP was that despite the fact that it was self-released by the band, and predates their first widely distributed album by a good four years, the recording quality is very professional and the band's playing is polished. So not only does the EP not sound like a rougher version of Carnivore, it actually sounds slicker both in terms of production and performance than their later work. In fact, when I threw Carnivore on my turntable for the first time in many years, I was somewhat disappointed by the muffled sound of the recording which holds back the very energetic performances somewhat.

Pure Joy reunited for new albums in 1997 and 2003, and I plan on tracking those down soon. And if you ever come across a copy of this EP, pick it up!

Budokan!

I strongly suspect releases like this are nothing more than the death tremors of the once mighty music industry. Nevertheless, a 3 CD/1DVD set documenting Cheap Trick at Budokan looks pretty cool to me.

Sony/BMG have disabled embedding, but you can check out clips on Cheap Trick's YouTube channel. In terms of musical and visual impact, Cheap Trick was the greatest mainstream rock act of the late 70s. I generally despise arena rock from this era, but by incorporating some of punk's energy and goofing on arena rock's more bombastic tendencies, Cheap Trick made their music irresistible. Or to put it another way: Rick Nielsen rules!

Redd Kross - Trance

Here is another example of a band not getting adequate distribution for some of their most hit-worthy music.

In 1990 Redd Kross released their major-label debut, Third Eye, on Atlantic Records. The album--which sounded like a cross between Cheap Trick and The Partridge Family--probably came as something of shock to anyone who still thought of the band as the obnoxious teen punks who wrote "Annette's Got the Hits." Third Eye was gloriously glossy and commercial, dripping with hooks and a post-modern appreciation of junk culture. You used to have to send away box tops from sugary cereals in order to get songs this catchy, but Redd Kross delivered eleven gorgeous bubblegum nuggets on an easy to find Compact Disc. But despite being inarguably one of the two of three greatest albums ever recorded, Third Eye tanked commercially and Atlantic dropped the band.

The McDonald brothers re-grouped with new musicians including guitarist Eddie Kurdziel, keyboardist Gere Fennelly and drummer Brian Reitzell, and released a couple of independent singles before being signed to Mercury for 1993's Phaseshifter.

"Trance" and "Byrds And Fleas" find the band toughening up their sound, reintroducing some of the punk energy and aggression they had moved away from on Third Eye, while still retaining the chewy deliciousness that characterizes the best bubblegum pop. These would have been the perfect songs to introduce the band to post-Nevermind alt-rock radio, but unfortunately they only received limited distribution. Both songs were released as a 7" and CD single on the tiny Seminal Twang label, a limited edition Australian tour EP, and limited edition EP on Sympathy For the Record Industry. In short, they showed up everywhere except where they really belonged, on a well-distributed major label release.

Phaseshifter was a very good album, but these two songs easily top anything on it. Ironically, "Huge Wonder," the weakest song from the Seminal Twang CD single, appeared in a re-recorded version on the album. Why didn't either of these songs? I haven't a clue.

Chris Stamey - It's Alright

Chris Stamey was simultaneously both the more pop-oriented and the more experimental songwriter in the dBs. That much is made clear not only by listening to Stamey's contributions to the first two dBs' albums, but also by listening to how the band became a much simpler roots rock combo after he departed. (This is not a knock on Peter Holsapple, who I think is also a first-rate songwriter).

While Stamey's initial solo releases emphasized the knottier, more experimental side of his songwriting, It's Alright highlights Stamey the pop songwriter without totally abandoning his experimental tendencies. Artistically, it was a rousing success, commercially, not so much. After It's Alright's poor sales, A&M rejected a second album Stamey recorded for the label (later released by Rhino as Fireworks). Stamey mostly moved on to production work, and only recently resumed his solo career with a couple of albums for Yep Roc, including the outstanding Travels In The South.

Used copies of It's Alright are getting harder to find, but it is well worth tracking down. "Cara Lee" which leads off the album, is a simple, sweet pop song that should have gotten more radio airplay at the time. "From The Word Go" is a gorgeous ballad with a haunting minor-key melody, and can stand proudly alongside anything from Stamey's tenure with the dBs. The album is occasionally marred by typical late 80s over-production, but it never gets in the way of the songs, many of which ("When We're Alone," "It's Alright," "The Seduction," "Of Time And All She Brings To Mind," "Incredible Happiness," "27 Years In A Single Day") are terrific. For some reason It's Alright never grabbed the attention of the jangle pop/R.E.M. fans that were its natural audience, nor the larger market that it coulda/shoulda broken through to. It's an unjustly overlooked classic.

Dr. Janet

2007 marks the 17 year anniversary of the only release by indie-rock super-group Dr Janet. I don't think any major commemorative celebrations have been planned, but I could be wrong about that. This was a one off project that featured Gary Lee Connor of the Screaming Trees, Ira Kaplan of Yo La Tengo, Matt Sweeney of Skunk, and Lyle Hysen of Das Damen. (Bonus points to the first person who can tell me which one of these guys would go on to record with Johnny Cash). One could think of the group as a Blind Faith or Rhinoceros for the 90s. Actually, I suspect all these guys just happened to be in New York in August of 1990 and someone said "hey, let's make a single."

With it's epic sweep and psychedelic guitar jamming, the A-side "Ten Years Gone" would not have sounded out-of-place on the Screaming Trees' major-label debut Uncle Anesthesia. Connor is not Mark Lanegan's equal as a vocalist, but the track works well enough.

The real treat in my opinion is the B-side, a cover of The Records' power-pop hit "Starry Eyes." The band is smart enough not to muck around with the song's chiming guitars and pop hook too much, while adding just enough wah-wah guitar to distinguish it from the original. It's a nasty kiss-off to a former manager, and Connor's vocals bring the caustic nature of the song to the forefront a bit more than in The Records' version.

The Records' hit version of the song (truly one of the all-time great power-pop anthems) is available on the compilation Smashes, Crashes and Near Misses, while the original demo version can be found on Paying For The Summer of Love. While The Records' Virgin recordings are just fine, I prefer the demos on Summer of Love which capture the band at a time when they still had a strong 60s influence that they largely abandoned in favor of a more contemporary and less-compelling sound on their first album.

As for the Dr. Janet 7" if you want a copy, I suspect eBay is your best bet.

Tommy Keene

There are many enduring mysteries from the 1980s. Why did people like Ronald Reagan? What did he know about Iran Contra and when? Was The Safety Dance a real dance like The Twist or The Mashed Potato or a metaphor for nuclear war? Who let Bruce Willis record an album?

But perhaps the greatest mystery of all is why Tommy Keene--a man who wrote some of the catchiest pop songs imaginable--failed to break through to a mass audience while acts like Mr. Mister were able to rule the charts.

I was lucky to be exposed to Tommy Keene through a local "progressive rock" radio station, WHFS in Annapolis, MD. Tommy Keene was a D.C. area fixture, and WHFS played his music alongside Elvis Costello, Marshall Crenshaw, Nick Lowe, and others.

Back in 1993 Alias Records did the world the favor of compiling some of Keene's pre-Geffen material and some unreleased material on The Real Underground CD. "Nothing Happened Yesterday" was originally released on the excellent Places That Are Gone EP, while the wonderful cover of the Who's "Tattoo" first appeared on the CD. Keene's latest release is a collaboration with Guided By Voices' Bob Pollard.

The Plimsouls

I've already covered Peter Case's first band, The Nerves, and his solo career, so here's something by his second band, The Plimsouls. This song originally appeared on a cassette-only compilation, and much later on Rhino's out-of-print Plimsoul's...Plus CD. It's hard to imagine why the band would have chosen to relegate a song this good to obscurity. It may not be the equal of "Zero Hour" or "A Million Miles Away," but with some of Peter Case's most soulful vocals and some nice Byrdsian guitars, it's pretty darn good.

Anyone know if the band's 1998 reunion album, Kool Trash, is worth picking up?

My friend Adam just pointed out to me that A Cappella Books recently published Peter Case's memoir of his early years in music, As Far As You Can Get Without A Passport. It looks interesting.

Redd Kross - Teen Babes From Monsanto

Teen Babes From Monsanto was more than a mere covers EP; it was a statement of purpose by a band emerging from the ghetto of hardcore punk. The covers on the EP served as a template for the rest of Redd Kross's career. Every aspect of the band's emerging sound was represented by a cover on the EP; heavy metal (KISS "Deuce"), glam rock (Bowie "Savior Machine"), bubblegum pop (Boyce & Hart "Blow You a Kiss In The Wind"), 60s girl group pop (The Shangri-Las "Heaven Only Knows"), psychedelia (The Rolling Stones "Citadel"), as well as a nod to their hardcore roots and affection for junk culture ("Linda Blair 1984"). The EP is both a perfect summation of where Redd Kross was at the time, and an indication of where they were going.

Teen Babes has never been officially released on CD (although it came as a bonus on a limited edition Australian tour CD in 1993 that also featured "Trance" and "Byrds and Fleas"--that's how I got my copy). This EP is crying out to be reissued.

Their cover of "Deuce" makes KISS's version sound flacid in comparison. It must have badly bruised Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley's massive egos to get their butts kicked by a bunch of punk teens from L.A., and it took them 8 years to bounce back back with Revenge in 1992, their strongest album since 1981's Music From The Elder.

The Nerves

Power Pop pioneers The Nerves featured a trio of talented songwriters in Peter Case, Paul Collins and Jack Lee. After the Nerves' demise Peter Case went on to form The Plimsouls and later establish a solo career as a roots rocker (see my earlier post on Case). Collins enjoyed some success with his next band, The Beat (later the Paul Collins Beat), who put out a couple decent albums the first of which features the amazing "Rock and Roll Girl." But it was the band's least known member, Jack Lee, who wrote their best song, "Hanging On the Telephone" (later famously covered by Blondie as the lead off track on Parallel Lines). After that brush with fame, Lee put out a solo album, Jack Lee's Greatest Hits, Vol. I, in 1981, then hung up his rock and roll shoes (perhaps living happily off the royalties from "Telephone").

This song is pure power-pop nirvana. There is no telling what this band might have been able to accomplish if they had stuck together, but sadly they broke up in 1978 after having released only a single EP. I am convinced The Nerves would have been huge if they could have stuck it out another couple of years.

Marshall Crenshaw

When your first album is absolutely perfect, it isn't necessarily good for your career--there's nowhere to go but down. This phenomena is sometimes referred to as the Crenshaw Conundrum. It's a shame that everything that Crenshaw does has to be judged against the impossibly high standard standard set by his debut, because he has released plenty of worthwhile music since then. Here is his James Brown-ish entry into the Holiday music market. Believe it or not, this was originally recorded by Bob Seger and the Last Herd. (Speaking of James Brown, I can't find my James Brown Christmas CD, which is unfortunate because I can't get "Santa Claus, Go Straight to the Ghetto" out of my head).

BTW: I've been looking for some good Hanukkah songs, not having much luck.

Pure Pop Christmas

Each of these is a great pop song on its own merits, regardless of any seasonal connection. The Screaming Santas are really The Posies, Jon Auer and a couple guys from Super Deluxe. They should collaborate more often. The XTC song was originally issued as a single by The Three Wise Men, then showed up on the odds and sods collection Rag & Bone Buffet and probably a Rhino "new wave" Christmas compilation. NRBQ's "Christmas Wish" has a real Pet Sounds vibe to it, and is one of my favorite NRBQ songs, ranking right up there with "Riding In My Car" and "RC Cola and a Moon Pie." I doubt I'm the first or last to use the term "criminally overlooked" in connection with NRBQ.

And seriously, go get The American Song-Poem Christmas. This is great stuff, if you don't believe me, listen to the clips from "Santa Came on a Nuclear Missile," "The Peppermint Stick Man," and "Daddy Is Santa Really Six Foot Four" at Amazon.com. The album is also available for download from iTunes and eMusic (where you can get a free trial) if you are in need of instant gratification (and this is one case where the fidelity lost to compression is beyond irrelevant). And face it, you know your life is incomplete. You feel like there is some void you can never manage to fill. It is time to come to terms with the fact that the problem is that you do not own two distinct versions of "Santa Claus Goes Modern."

I discovered three songs from the album are also available for free from WFMU, who released the final two volumes of the MSR Madness series as online exclusives. Evelyn Christmas, Snowbows, and Season's Greetings [right click to download].

Redd Kross does PJ Harvey

PJ Harvey's first album, Dry opens with the stark, masochistic "Oh My Lover" in which the subject of the song abjectly begs her lover to stay with her even though he(?) loves another woman. ("Oh my lover, don't you know it's alright / You can love her, and you can love me at the same time.") It is one of the most unsettling opening tracks on a first album I can think of, and was an introduction to a major talent with a uniquely bleak approach to songwriting. Here Redd Kross transform the song into a sleazier version of David Crosby's "Triad."* Classy.

This is actually a fascinating study in how different a song can become merely by switching the gender of the singer. The sound changes little from the original and the tone of desperation remains, but that just makes it sound like Jeff McDonald, really, really wants to have that three-way. With what should be a meaningless change, the song’s connotations shift radically. This appeared on the b-side a 10" single of "The Lady In the Front Row."

*I think "Triad" is one of the worst songs ever written, ranking only slightly above "Brother Louie" by Stories. The Byrds were right to kick David Crosby's hippy ass out of the Byrds for writing such garbage.

The Last

The Last were both power-pop and garage rock pioneers. They released a few independent LPs, and a bunch of singles that vaguely recalled the sounds of 60s garage bands before this became a popular thing to do. The original incarnation of the band broke up in 1985. Keyboard player Vitus Matare went on to form Trotsky Icepick with former members of 100 Flowers.

The Last reformed in 1988 with different lineup including Robbie Rist on drums. They released a few decent albums on SST in the late 80s (I think Rist only played on the first SST album).

Bag O Shells

Before they settled on the name Velvet Crush, Paul Chastain and Ric Menck (both separately and together) issued music under a bewildering array of monikers; Choo Choo Train, The Springfields, The Paint Set, Paul/Paulie Chastain, The Nines, The Reverbs, The Big Maybe, Stupid Cupids, etc. I have never been entirely clear on what distinguished one project from the next, and I doubt even Paul and Ric could explain the difference between all of these bands. (To make matters more confusing some of these early recordings were later collected under Ric Menck's name on the wonderful Ballad of Ric Menck CD.)

This song comes from a 1990 Bus Stop 7" credited to "Bag O Shells." It's hard to imagine that they ever envisioned Bag O Shells as anything other than a temporary moniker, but for all I know they thought that was the name they were going to ride to the top of the charts. More pre-Velvet Crush material has recently been collected on the appropriately titled, Hey Wimpus: The Early Recordings Of Paul Chastain & Ric Menck, but for some reason none of the Bag O Shells material is on it. It's hard to understand why, because this is wimp rock in its purest form, I mean, this song is even called "Pocketbook" for crying out loud.

Like most of the pre-Velvet Crush material, this is more twee and cutesy than anything Paul and Ric did as Velvet Crush, which makes it pretty darn twee and cutesy. It's easy to hear their infatuation with the baroque pop of the The Left Banke on this cut. I like it.