The garage door is open and the organ’s plugged in
Forty years and twenty albums from their founding, New York’s Fleshtones are still cranking out garage-powered rock ‘n’ roll. Even more impressive than the length of their career is its consistently high quality amid a lack of commercial acclaim. Though the band parlayed its New York City club following into a deal with IRS, soundtrack placements, an American Bandstand appearance (alongside the band War!) and college radio play with 1983’s Hexbreaker!, it never added up to mainstream success. Which makes their perseverance and adherence to a core musical vision all the more admirable.
After a few false starts, the three album run of Canada’s Shadowy Men on a Shadowy Planet has been finally reissued in expanded form on LP, CD and digital download!
Savvy Show Stoppers
Formed in Toronto in 1984, this instrumental trio released a number of singles and EPs before dropping this compilation album in 1988. The original sixteen track lineup cherry-picked from 1985’sLove Without Words, 1986’s Wow Flutter Hiss ’86, 1987’s Schlagers!And Live Record With Extra Bread And Cheese and 1988’sExplosion Of Taste. Out of the gate, this was a trio to be reckoned with, as their compositional and instrumental talents collided with a wicked sense of humor. Though often pegged as a surf rock band (leading eventually to the composition “We’re Not a Fucking Surf Band”), they were more truly an instrumental combo in the vein of the Shadows, Link Wray (whose 1963 single “Run Chicken Run” is covered here), the Fireballs and peers like the Raybeats and Pell Mell.
The collection’s most familiar tune is likely to be “Having an Average Weekend,” which gained exposure as the theme for Kids in the Hall, but listeners will also recognize “Harlem by the Sea,” as it gives a rousing guitar-rock twist to the Viscounts’ moody “Harlem Nocturne.” Other highlights include the deep bass and tense guitar of “Zombie Compromise” and the Cramps-like “Vibrolux Deluxe.” Bonuses on the 2016 reissue include the primitive “Big Saxophone Lie,” which (appropriately) doesn’t feature a saxophone, covers of Erroll Garner’s “Misty” and Heinz Meier’s “Summer Wind,” the Charles Burns-narrated “Big Baby,” and a sax fueled version of “Customized.” Remastered from the original tapes, this is the album’s first CD reissue since 1993, and first-ever digital download. A must have for instrumental rock fans!
Dim the Lights, Chill the Ham
Three years after collecting together singles and EPs for their 1988 full-length debut, Savvy Show Stoppers, this Toronto instrumental trio released their first full album of new material. The band augments their twangy guitar instrumentals with organ, harmonica and whistling, and edits in odd bits of dialogue here and there. Their original material is complemented by covers of the Beach Boys’ “In My Room” and Sonny Bono’s “Bang Bang,”, and Louis Prima’s swing-era “Sing, Sing, Sing” is threaded into the original “I Know a Guy Named Larry.”
As on their debut, the band’s rhythm section drives Brian Connelly’s guitar, and the music stretches beyond instrumental rock to include blues, jazz and post-punk. Yep Roc’s 2016 reissue adds bonus tracks from 1989’s Tired of Waking Up Tired, 1991’s Music for Pets and 1994’s It’s a Wonderful Records! Missing from the digital download are bonuses that accompanied the original vinyl (“Vinyl”), cassette (“Tape, Tape, You Bought Our Tape”) and CD (“Thanks For Buying Our CD”), as well as a Johnny Kidd cover (“Shakin’ All Over”) that appeared on all three. But even without those original extras, this is a sweet second chapter!
Sport Fishin’ – The Lure of the Bait, The Luck of the Hook
The third and final album from this Canadian trio features plenty of the twangy, boss guitar for which they were known, including the rockabilly-styled “Fortune Tellin’ Chicken” and a revved-up cover of Gene Pitney’s tale of forbidden love, “Mecca.” The latter’s surf style is wiped-out a few tracks later by the post-punk declaration, “We’re Not a Fucking Surf Band.” The trio stretches out with Celtic and progressive flavors in “Spend a Night, Not a Fortune,” hypnotic mystery in “Relax, You Will Think You Are A Chicken,” surf vs. spy drama in “Plastics for 500, Bob,” and terrific, jazz-like interplay in “Cheese in the Fridge.” The album also includes the group’s first (and hopefully only) melodic vocal, on the saccharine “The Singing Cowboy.”
A songwriter’s tribute to Mike, Micky, Davy, Peter and more
The Monkees legacy is complicated. At the peak of their fame they were celebrated and reviled in nearly equal measure. Their transformation from actor-musicians playing the part of a pop group to musician-actors forming a real pop group is well documented, but lingers oddly in listeners’ consciousnesses. Scott McCaughey, whose early work with the Dynette Set and Young Fresh Fellows captured the sweetness and adventure of ‘50s and ‘60s pop, leads his latest edition of the Minus 5 in an unabashed tribute to the men who were the Monkees, though interestingly, other than “Boyce and Hart” and the rhythm opening “Micky’s a Cool Drummer,” not in their musical style.
Originally released as part of the five LP Record Store Day set, Scott the Hoople in the Dungeon of Horror, “Side 1” includes individual songs for each member of the Monkees, plus a bonus fifth track dedicated to the group’s songwriters, Boyce & Hart. Threaded throughout each are musical and lyrical references, starting with the country tinge to an epic “Michael Nesmith,” a song filled with clever references to Nesmith’s many career highlights. Davy Jones is remembered as the group’s heartthrob, but also as a thrice-married father of four daughters. “Song for Peter Tork” and “Boyce and Hart” include McCaughey’s personal remembrances, and “Micky’s a Cool Drummer” defends Micky Dolenz as a musician and the Monkees as a band.
Though Tony Joe White reached his commercial zenith as a performer with his 1968 debut, Black and White and its single “Polk Salad Annie,” he’s continued makin music ever since. In the nearly fifty years since that debut, he’s released two dozen albums across Monument, Warner Brothers, RCA, Casablanca, Columbia, Polydor and a host of independent labels. This latest finds his fuzz-toned guitar still slithering, and his vocal growl weary, wary and fully simmered in his native Louisiana. The Memphis funk of his earlier years has mostly given way to darker blues as he sings of magic signs, rural rituals, betrayal and, of course, swamps.
It’s been nine years since Chris Stamey’s last solo album, Travels in the South. In the interim he’s worked with Yo La Tengo on A Question of Temperature., re-teamed with fellow dB Peter Holsapple for Here and Now, regrouped with the dB’s for Falling Off the Sky, and continued a busy career as a recording engineer and record producer. The long years between solo outings are certainly understandable, if not necessarily a happy state of affairs for fans; but those same fans should feel rewarded by this collection of eleven magnificent new productions. Stamey’s melancholy tunefulness has never sounded more graceful, rendered in contemplative tones and finely crafted instrumental textures that shift seamlessly between rock, soul, jazz and classical.
Stamey’s formal education in music theory and composition has never been a secret, but his recent work on the Big Star Thirdconcerts seems to have deepened his thinking about how orchestral instruments could fit into and augment his music. He interleaves strings, woodwinds and brass with guitars, bass and drums, dotting his musical landscape with cello, bassoon, flute and trombone. The results are both ethereal and dynamic, offering everything from neo-psych dreaminess to symphonic vigor, sometimes within the same song, as on the sky-gazing “Astronomy.” This coalescing of musical influences is seemingly foreshadowed by the merging of souls in the opener, “Skin.”
After the Beatle-esque pop of 2007’s The Minus 5, this Scott McCaughey-led collective returns with a new lineup and a twangier country-rock sound. McCaughey and companion Peter Buck are back, alongside Colin Meloy, additional members of the Decemberists and other guests. As on all of the collective’s albums, McCaughey’s vocals and songs provide the binding component, the latter of which include a healthy dose of downbeat, troubled and troubling themes. Pedal steel, banjo and general melancholy make a straightforward match to the lyrical tenor, with McCaughey sounding remarkably like Ray Davies in his mid-period Kinks prime – in both nasal vocal tone and social content.
The album opens with the bitter remains of a failed courtship and closes with the despondent misery of a troubled and broke bar fly. In between McCaughey offers the sort of opaque lyrics he’s written regularly for both the Minus Five and the Young Fresh Fellows. His titles and lyrics intimate deeper personal meanings, but they’re not always easily revealed. He resurfaces for a portrait of the working musician’s nightmare, “The Lurking Barrister,” he eyes unsparing isolation and social decay in “Big Beat Up Moon” and excoriates fundamentalism with “I Would Rather Sacrifice You.” The Kinks vibe is strong on “Vintage Violet,” with the She Bee Gees singing along as a girl-group Greek chorus.
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Newly discovered Doc Watson live set from 1963
