Monthly Archives: March 2015

Of New York punk’s first wave, only Richard Hell and the Voidoids truly embraced the nihilism that punk has come to represent in the popular imagination. The Ramones, great as they were, were one step away from being a joke band; Television was far too ascetic and monk-like; and the Talking Heads were too intellectually frigid. As for Patti Smith, she flirted with the idea of anarchy, but was far too positive a soul to be a nihilist. It’s not her fault; nihilists never hail from New Jersey.

I could go on but I won’t, because the only point I want to make is that Hell was the only musician at that time and place asking the only question the existentialists found pertinent, to wit, “Why should I bother living?” And his grappling with this question—along with the excellence of his band, which included the late, great guitarist Robert Quine—are what makes 1977’s Blank Generation such a seminal punk recording.

Hell, aka Richard Mayers, was born in Kentucky and took the scenic route to the Voidoids. Having moved to New York City, he commenced his rock career as a member of the Neon Boys, which became Television. Friction with Television’s Tom Verlaine led Hell to leave and co-found the Heartbreakers with Johnny Thunders, but Hell found it no easier to work with Thunders than he did with Verlaine, so he finally set about establishing a band in which he was boss. The Voidoids—they got their name from a novel Hell was writing—included Hell on vocals and bass, Quine and Ivan Julian on guitars, and Marc Bell on drums.

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The late-1960s was loaded with musical groundbreakers, and one of the most enduring is Sly & the Family Stone. Formed by brothers Sly and Freddie Stone, the group grew by leaps and bounds through the combination of rock, R&B/soul, psychedelia, and pop, and by ’69 they had effectively conquered the scene. Theirs is a reign dotted with masterworks, and Sony has collected the bulk of the discography into the vinyl box set Original Album Classics. It includes five 180gm LPs remastered from the source tapes by Vic Anesini and pressed at URP; for a limited time it’s available exclusively at Popmarket.

He was born Sylvester Stewart in Denton, TX in 1943. Two decades later the man was wielding the handle Sly Stone, and when his Sly & the Stoners joined forces with his brother’s Freddie & the Stone Souls in ’67 San Francisco, he was already well-ensconced in the music biz both as a performer and producer at Autumn Records. In due time Sly excelled at his leadership role, though the Family Stone, credited as the first major American rock act to incorporate integrated multi-gender personnel, was always something more.

They initially consisted of Sly (vocals, organ, and assorted other instruments), Freddie (guitar, vocals), Larry Graham (bass, vocals), Cynthia Robinson (trumpet, vocal interjections), Jerry Martini (saxophone), and Greg Errico (drums), with assistance from Vet Stone, Mary McCreary, and Elva Mouton, collectively known as Little Sister (backing vocals). Signed to CBS Records’ subsidiary Epic, they worked fast, maybe too fast; the first long-player was in the can before June was done.

Indeed, if they’d broken up after A Whole New Thing’s cashbox failure, Sly & the Family Stone would likely be forgotten. Over the years the debut has taken its share of heat, some of it undeserved. Things begin fairly well; “Underdog” is bookended by horns riffing on the melody to “Frère Jacques,” but the meat of the matter is upbeat soul. The opener establishes one of the album’s distinctive attributes, specifically a heavier drum sound than was then the norm for the R&B genre.

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LA rockers The Young Romans find future-pop niche on new album.

We have the pleasure of premiering “Five Exit Town” off the duo’s newest EP offering, “Bells and Sirens Part 1”. The Young Romans sleek blend of high-end Coldplay piano pop and Springsteen-esque heartland rock find a touching balance on the evocative single. There is a nice flow and powerful stride to the track which climaxes in a high arching chorus. It is equal parts indie and top 40—and will probably appeal to fans on both sides of the charts.

The band’s press materials cite Brad Hooks as the pop constructer while Sari Mellafe is presumed to be responsible for the ethereal ambience—their songwriting styles meet in the middle to create a unique and beautiful balance. They have seen some well-deserved success with recent song placements in both film and major network TV, and with this recent release in hand, The Young Romans are likely to see similar results in the press and on radio.

“Bells and Sirens Part 1” arrives in stores on April 14 via Red Parade Music.

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The Wedding Present is a simple enough proposition—if amphetamines could make a noise, they’re making it. If you could snort a sound, it would be theirs. Their songs mark the triumph of the rhythm guitar played fast, very fast indeed. Musical crank cranked up, super propulsive and less jangly than jaunty, their songs are all sound and fury, and the proof that the siren call of the Velvet Underground’s “What Goes On” did not go unheard. It just got faster.

The Wedding Present was founded in Leeds, England in 1985 by guitarist and vocalist David Gedge, following the dissolution of his former band, The Lost Pandas. Gedge, the Wedding Present’s only permanent member, has operated in adherence to a credo that involves three-chord structures and rhythmic grooves played as fast and as loud as possible. The band’s name is an homage to The Birthday Party, and its influences have been cited as The Buzzcocks, the Velvet Underground, and The Fall (although I’ll be damned if I hear The Fall in their music). Lumped in (although Gedge wasn’t happy about it) with the shambolic C86 subgenre—which joined jangling guitars to power pop—The Wedding Present’s first LP (1987’s George Best) won critical acclaim.

In February 1989 The Wedding Present came upon an ingenious way of ruining their own career. Українські Виступи в Івана Піла is one of the most offbeat compilation LPs ever released by a major band. Composed of two John Peel sessions, and sung in Ukrainian, it failed miserably, which is to say that instead of sidetracking the band forever it inexplicably rose to #22 on the UK album charts. Fortunately, unless you’re a Ukrainian folk song fanatic, The Wedding Present returned to form with their sophomore LP, October 1989’s Bizarro. Featuring Gedge, Peter Solowka on guitar, Keith Gregory on bass, and Simon Smith on drums, the original LP featured 10 songs, all but 3 or so of them hard-edged rhythm guitar workouts. (The subsequent US CD release included 4 additional tracks, including a not-so-different version of “Brassneck” produced by Steve Albini and a cover of Pavement’s “Box Elder.”)

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“The college radio station in the college town I went to college in wasn’t really a college radio station at all—it was a commercial classic rock station run by students who were getting “real world experience.” Instead of college radio, we had The Quaker.”

“The Quaker sat behind the register of a windowless record shop on the second floor of a building in Campustown. He looked suspiciously like a hippie but had impeccable taste in music and brought the best of the American and British underground to the cornfields.

It was all vinyl then, maybe a few cassettes, and The Quaker would handwrite reviews on tiny circular stickers pasted onto the shrink-wrap. Key phrases to look for were “Dark, driving, post-punk,” “Reminiscent of Mission of Burma,” and “Highly Recommended.” If you saw a record with 6 stickers down the front, you knew you had to buy it. And the variety! Sonic Youth’s Bad Moon Rising in “Best New Music” next to Cocteau Twins’ Treasure.

This is where I went from being a just another kid who bought records to an obsessive who needed to hear and own every great album. Every Tuesday was spent trying to find the perfect album for that week—negotiating with friends, “I’ll buy this and if you buy that, we can tape and trade.”

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