Author Archives: Joseph Neff

A four-piece hailing from Malmö, Sweden, The OhNos specialize in raw, anthemic garage punk. That may not read like a bombshell exploding onto the contemporary radar screen, but the scoop is The OhNos do it right. Their debut came out back in 2017 and it’s follow-up Waving From Hades was released last October via Beluga Records, but don’tcha just know it, the Memphis-based Black & Wyatt Records is distributing copies of the LP stateside. The album’s loaded with 11 raucous catchy bangers that cohere into a righteous power kick.

The OhNos are Anna Wagner on guitar and vocals (lead and backing), Åsa Meierkord on guitar, vocals (lead and backing), harmonica and whistles, Sanna Rönngård on bass, backing vocals, and flute, and Malin Olsen on drums, backing vocals, acoustic guitar, percussion, and xylophone. The band’s first album Sounds From the Basement was issued by Rundgång Rekords; vinyl copies are still available on Bandcamp. The debut is a solid affair, but the new LP is a tangible improvement, with the sharpening of quality perhaps due to an unchanged lineup.

The comfort of familiarity, strength built upon longevity, and yes, constant practice, as The OhNos thrive in a style where practice is a must. It’s clear right away in Waving From Hades’ opening title track, which is raw and hard driving but fully-formed melodically, with touches of echoey-dreamy ’60s flair amid an extended lyrical cop from the Violent Femmes’ first album.

Bold swipes of influence without a hint of anxiety underscore that it’s preferable to be memorable than original. Off to a strong start, “Final Call” is a fast-paced and hard-pounding belter, while “Trouble on Legs” luxuriates in the spot between raving-up and getting tuneful. Next, “The Light at the End of the Tunnel is Only Eternal Hellfire” dishes a few deftly handled tempo changes and reinforces the necessity of practice.

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Whether you appreciate Peter Case as a founding member of The Nerves and The Plimsouls, or you dig the man for his numerous solo recordings, there’s really no argument the guy’s career has been lengthy and fruitful. Doctor Moan is Case’s most recent album, his 16th solo release overall, and it captures him mostly at the piano with minimal accompaniment. It is a powerful set that finds his skills as a songwriter and his strength as a singer undiminished. It’s out on CD March 31 (with vinyl to come, date TBA) via Sunset Blvd Records.

Formed in 1974 and featuring Peter Case on bass, Jack Lee on guitar, and Paul Collins on drums, The Nerves didn’t last long but they left behind a fine batch of recordings, including the original version of “Hanging on the Telephone” (covered more famously by Blondie). Those songs have endured as a wellspring of inspiration for scores of younger listeners and groups smitten by the power-pop impulse.

Upon breakup, Case formed The Plimsouls, a slightly more refined affair, but still quite hooky, as the band dented the lower end of the album charts with their self-titled 1981 debut and ’83 follow-up Everywhere at Once. Lasting until 1985 (though there have been Plimsouls and Nerves reunions), Case began a solo career that found him aging into the singer-songwriter zone and with an attention to roots that presaged what’s now known as the Americana shebang.

His new record is his first in seven years and finds him at the piano almost entirely (he also plays harmonica, mellotron, and guitar), as Jonny Flaugher helps out on electric and acoustic bass and Chris Joyner adds Hammond B-3 organ. The additional instrumentation brightens and broadens the record, but the focus, with one exception, is on Case, who recorded the album with Ryan McCaffrey at The Sun Machine in Novato, California and played a restored 1905 Steinway piano.

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La Monte Young and Marian Zazeela are absolute titans of the 20th century avant-garde, having broken considerable ground at the intersection of Minimalism and Drone Music during their 1960s heyday. However, the duo’s early work has been persistently difficult to hear. For example, Superior Viaduct’s release of 31 VII 69 10:26 – 10:49 PM / 23 VIII 64 2:50:45 – 3:11 AM The Volga Delta a.k.a. The Black Record is the first (legit) reissue of this legendary album since it first came out in 1969. Featuring two wildly differing side-long pieces, it is a masterwork of highly disciplined drone logic and experimental abstraction, available March 31 on clear vinyl (with a poster), black vinyl (sans poster) and compact disc.

Partners in art and life, La Monte Young and Marian Zazeela came to prominence (of a decidedly subterranean fashion) in New York City during the waning days of the classic Bohemian era, and that they both still walk among us is a reality to cherish. Young is the more well-known of the two, as Zazeela, a multimedia artist on her own, notably, has contributed to a small number of his recordings as a musician. But as photographer, album designer, performance lighter and producer in general, her impact is felt throughout his discography, as difficult as that body of work has been to hear.

The LP under review here, which for space considerations will be called The Black Record, was already half an archival release upon issue in 1969. Side two, “23 VIII 64 2:50:45 – 3:11 AM The Volga Delta,” was captured in the New York City studio of Young and Zazeela in 1964 (per the title), the recording a part of a longer composition, Studies in the Bowed Disc; for the piece, a gong is bowed (the instrument a gift to Young and Zazeela from sculptor Robert Morris), with the sound nearer to noise music than to the sustained resonances one might expect to result from a bowed gong.

More typically dronelike prolonged tones are heard via side one’s “31 VII 69 10:26 – 10:49 PM,” which was recorded in Munich in 1969 at the gallery belonging to arts impresario Heiner Friedrich. Released on vinyl by Friedrich on his Edition X imprint that very year, “31 VII 69 10:26 – 10:49 PM” is also part of a another longer composition, Map of 49’s Dream the Two Systems of Eleven Sets of Galactic Intervals Ornamental Lightyears Tracery; this segment features the voices of Young and Zazeela against a sine wave drone, with the stated influence of Hindustani singer Pandit Pran Nath easy to absorb.

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Music fans who recognize the name Dorothy Moskowitz are almost certainly hip to the Los Angeles-based experimental-psychedelic outfit The United States of America and their one exceptional LP for Columbia from 1968. Well, in one of 2023’s most delightfully unexpected developments, Moskowitz and a group of collaborators monikered as the United States of Alchemy have just released a new CD Under an Endless Sky through the auspices of the Tompkins Square label. Rather than an extension of The United States of America, it’s a remarkable dose of gliding and glistening ambient-drone plus a half dozen shorter pieces, all with penetrating vocals by Moskowitz.

It’s inaccurate to describe The United States of America as the band of Dorothy Moskowitz. Indeed, it’s composer, multi-instrumentalist and singer Joseph Byrd who is sometimes cited as the group’s leader, though I tend to think of Byrd and Moskowitz as the ensemble’s dominant creative voices (she was notably the lead vocalist).

The United States of America was so ambitious that an early demise was basically preordained. They utilized a ring modulator (through which Moskowitz’s singing was processed) and other electronics (later an oscillator), contact microphones, an electric violin, a calliope, organ, bass and drums, but importantly, no guitar.

For all this, their record wasn’t a difficult listen, but it was so ahead of the game that it influenced few at the time. Amongst the US of A’s handful of contemporaries on the scene were The Red Crayola, The Silver Apples, Van Dyke Parks, Anthem of the Sun-era Grateful Dead, Forever Changes-era Love, and avant-classical composers Steve Reich, Terry Riley, and Moondog (the latter two also releasing records on Columbia).

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Remembering Jon Hassell, born on this day in 1937. —Ed.

Originally released in 1981 on Editions EG, Jon Hassell’s Dream Theory in Malaya: Fourth World Volume Two was a groundbreaker in its merger of ambient, experimental, and global sounds, but as the decades unfurled it came to be inexplicably overlooked, in part due to a lack of reissues since getting placed on compact disc in the late-’80s. Well, that scenario has changed, as it’s been given a LP and CD release courtesy of Glitterbeat Records’ new sub-label Tak:Til; that its often surreal yet meticulously crafted rewards are back in the bins is a fine circumstance indeed.

Regarding Jon Hassell’s early catalog, 1980’s Fourth World Vol. 1: Possible Musics is much better known, even before it was reissued by Glitterbeat in 2014, largely because it has Brain Eno’s name on the cover. Eno plays on and mixed Vol. Two as well, but co-billing eludes him, specifically due to Hassell’s distress over his partner running with the Fourth World musical ball and spiking it directly into David Byrne’s backyard.

Hassell apparently viewed Talking Heads’ Remain in Light (’80) and the Eno/ Byrne collab My Life in the Bush of Ghosts (’81) as part of “a full-scale appropriation.” This may sound like an atmosphere of hostility, but Hassell actually contributed to Remain in Light, and as said, ol’ Bri wasn’t locked out the studio for Vol. 2; in retrospect, Hassell has said he “probably under-credited him.”

If a bit harsh at the time, Hassell’s caution over the usurping-weakening of the Fourth World, a concept expanded upon by Hassell as “a viewpoint out of which evolves guidelines for finding balances between accumulated knowledge and the conditions created by new technologies,” wasn’t exactly unjustified, as a stated goal was to imagine a musical landscape where assorted global musics, with Hassell citing Javanese, Pygmy, and Aboriginal forms as examples, had been as influential as the Euro-classical tradition.

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Formed in Austin, TX in 2019 and consisting of vets from the punk rock scene, The Oxys dish out a beefed-up strain of pre-hardcore street punk that does more than merely cover the requisite stylistic territory. Punk rock is frequently raw and cacophonous, but it isn’t always heavy. A Date With The Oxys offers a pulverizing din launching from a foundation or real songs. The album, honed during the pandemic, is out now on vinyl, compact disc (with two bonus tracks), and digital (no bonus tracks) through Dead Beat Records.

The Oxys came together through Austin’s Punk Rock Lottery, an annual event where bands are formed by complete strangers through a simple drawing of names from a hat, with these freshly assembled outfits then given 30 days to come up with a some high-quality songs. Based on A Date With The Oxys, I will speculate that a baseline level of skill and experience is part of the contest so that across the 30 days the focus can be on songwriting rather than individual instrumental competency, to say nothing of group chemistry.

Having won the 2019 competition, Jason “Ginchy” Kottwitz and “Punk Rock Phil” Davis decided to form a “real band,” and The Oxys were born. The record features Kottwitz on all the guitars, plus some bass, organ, piano, and background vocals, Davis on lead vocals, James Sheeran on drums, and Gabriel Van Asher on bass.

As said, The Oxys specialize in street punk, an unsurprising circumstance given Kottwitz having played with the Dead Boys and Sylvain Sylvain. But their stated inspirations also include “snot punk” and power pop, complementary styles that help to broaden their sound a bit. The snot comes through most strongly in Davis’ vocals (he’s also played guitar with the Austin band Nowherebound).

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The pairing of singer Nancy Sinatra and singer-songwriter-producer Lee Hazlewood made for one of the 1960s most delightfully unusual pairings, though the collaboration was a relatively short one, consisting of a slew of singles and a sole LP…until they reunited for a follow-up in 1972. Nancy & Lee Again is that album, and it gets its first-time vinyl reissue with two bonus tracks on March 24 through the untiring reissue label Light in the Attic. It’s also available digitally, on compact disc, and most unexpectedly, on 8-track cartridge.

It might seem like the delayed nature of Nancy & Lee Again’s reissue is to some extent down to neglect on the part of the rights-holders, but please understand that the duo’s 1968 debut Nancy & Lee wasn’t given a standalone new edition until last year, also by Light in the Attic, the label that has, along with the Nancy Sinatra Archival Series, returned a fair portion of Hazlewood’s solo catalog to print since early last decade.

The main reason for Nancy & Lee’s belated appearance is due to the easy availability of the contents on compact disc, the entire record included on Rhino’s 1989 compilation Fairy Tales & Fantasies: The Best of Nancy & Lee. Plus, secondhand copies of the LP were easily findable (in varying degrees of condition, of course) in thrift shops, if not necessarily music stores. Unlike Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass’ Whipped Cream & Other Delights, Nancy & Lee wasn’t ubiquitous, but like Herb Alpert Presents Sergio Mendes & Brasil ’66 and The Association’s Greatest Hits!, it was quite a common find.

As these comparisons should help make clear, the descriptor of unusual isn’t interchangeable with strange. Now, anybody familiar with “Some Velvet Morning” and to a lesser extent, “Sand,” knows that pop psychedelic strangeness was part of Sinatra and Hazlewood’s stylistic bag. But weird took a back seat to playful C&W duets and proto-Vegas Middle-Of-The-Road-isms, with the palatability of both modes, and especially the latter, intensified by the combination of Sinatra’s youthful verve and Hazlewood’s buzzsaw tones and general eccentricity, a quality that was only laid on thick when it benefitted the song.

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Remembering Lee Scratch Perry, born on this day in 1936. —Ed.

Of records, legendary Jamaican producer Lee “Scratch” Perry has released a ton; setting aside the singles and EPs, his non-compilation album total is hovering near 100, and for an artist outside the jazz realm, that’s a considerable achievement. Of course, the number of individuals who own a copy of every one of those full-lengths might fit comfortably into a four-door sedan, a possibility illuminating that Perry’s prolificacy doesn’t equate to his prime. 

When you make as many records as Lee Perry has, they can’t all be brilliant. Hell, the majority of them are unlikely to resonate with more than moderate levels of personal investment. I say unlikely because I’ll confess that haven’t listened to more than half of his output; Discogs lists 87 full-length albums and 97 comps, and I’ve a sneaking suspicion there are scads of releases that haven’t been logged, plus beaucoup stray singles and EPs (to say nothing of the dodgy gray-market stuff).

Succinctly, after hearing a fair portion of Perry’s later material I realized I should cease investigating those more recent progressions and just hang with the canonical stuff. If all this seems poised to besmirch the guy’s rep as a dub innovator-auteur, I will counter that fluctuating personal investment isn’t the same as lacking a recognizable stamp; if the majority of his post-’70s work is far from essential, I’ve never heard anything that faltered into anonymous hackery.

Lee Perry very much fits in with certain cineastes from the early days of auteurism. Specifically, like numerous directors who worked under studio contracts and would begin another film almost immediately after their last one was finished, Perry has created, if not incessantly, then at a clip that has insured a diminishment in his masterpiece percentage, a downward plummet to what some folks might consider journeyman levels had the man’s achievements not been integral to the growth and longevity of Jamaican music.

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Remembering Nat King Cole in advance of his birthdate tomorrow. —Ed.

Nat King Cole’s enduring renown derives from his skill as a vocalist, but he’s also arguably the most underrated of jazz’s great pianists. The seven CDs or ten LPs comprising Hittin’ The Ramp: The Early Years (1936-1943) do a stellar job of highlighting Cole’s keyboard prowess while documenting the growth of his superb trio with guitarist Oscar Moore and bassist Wesley Prince first, and later Johnny Miller. There are also brief visits from the great saxophonists Lester Young and Dexter Gordon and a ton of singing, though the approach lands solidly in a hot and often vocal group zone. 

Back in 1991, Mosaic Records issued The Complete Capitol Recordings of the Nat King Cole Trio, an exhaustive limited-edition set spread across 18 compact discs or 27 vinyl records. It was obviously produced for hardcore jazz nut collectors, the kind of listener who would know that Cole had worked extensively as a musician prior to his career-defining move to Capitol (an association he would maintain throughout his superstardom until the end of his life) but with very few commercial records detailing said period.

Hittin’ The Ramp features jukebox-only discs, private recordings, and a slew of radio transcriptions along with the handful of sessions that resulted in discs that were available for retail purchase, with the vast majority of the selections here officially released for the first time. There is a smidge of overlap with the Mosaic collection, but it doesn’t arrive until LP eight (or CD six) with “Vom, Vim, Veedle” commencing a smattering of cuts for the small Excelsior and Premier labels which were later purchased by Capitol and serve as the kickoff to the Mosaic set.

This repetition isn’t likely to bother owners of The Complete Capitol Recordings one bit, as it’s a miniscule percentage, specifically ten tracks out of Hittin’ The Ramp’s 183. Yes, that’s a lot of music, but slim compared to the behemoth decades-of-discovery scenario presented by Mosaic’s presentation of Capitol’s holdings, though in its vinyl incarnation Resonance’s achievement is also a limited edition.

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Boise, Idaho-based but a native of Kansas, Jesse Blake Rundle is an indie-folk stylist having just released his second full-length Next Town’s Trees on vinyl, compact disc, and digital. All eight of the album’s songs were written by Rundle, who also played nearly everything in an instrumental expansion from his debut, as he integrates drum programming and electronic elements. Conceived and recorded during a period of spiritual and sexual growth, it’s a satisfying set with an especially powerful closing track, “Stones.”

A fair percentage of contemporary indie folk can be airy and gentle (genteel, if you will) to a fault. To be sure, the music of Jesse Blake Rundle exudes a calmness that situates his work inside the genre, but there’s also an undercurrent of intensity to the songwriting and breadth to the instrumentation that helps his work to stand apart.

A solid sign that Rundle’s onto something bigger than the standard-issue indie-folk placidity is that his 2020 debut Radishes and Flowers (still available on LP/CD) features 13 songs adapted from poems by Wallace Stevens, all of them from Harmonium, Stevens’ first book of poetry, published in 1923 (the book including “The Emperor of Ice Cream,” one of the poems Rundle chose to adapt).

Next Town’s Trees’ opener “Fire” benefits from urgency and sharpness of instrumentation (the welcome addition of horns, trombones specifically, lending a hint of another Stevens, namely Sufjan) to deepen the indie-folk sweep. There are contemplative passages, but the song rises in forcefulness prior to a quick finale.

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Based in Berlin, the Habibi Funk’s label’s is dedicated to delivering global listeners “eclectic sounds from the Arab world.” The imprint’s latest compiles mid-’70s tracks from The Free Music, a Libyan outfit with a flair for combining disco grooves and wailing guitars, along with dipping into soul, funk and reggae. Led by composer and producer Najib Alhoush, The Free Music released ten albums between 1972 and 1989, with Habibi Funk’s The Free Music (Part 1) available March 17 on vinyl, compact disc, and digital, culling tracks from two LPs originally issued in 1976. Simultaneously embracing genre rudiments while defying convention, the album’s nine selections don’t disappoint, priming expectations for Part 2.

When listening to archival releases of material recorded outside the USA and Europe that feature dives into highly commercial genres with unreserved gusto, it’s sometimes necessary to take a step back and ask an important question: “would this stuff be at all distinguished if it had been recorded in Des Moines, Iowa?”

Occasionally no, and at other times yes, and in the case of The Free Music (Part 1), the answer is an emphatic affirmative, in large part due to a sound that’ll never be mistaken for its influences. However, the root inspirations are clearly recognizable, whether it’s a specific song (on this album, the Doobie Brothers’ “Long Train Running,” heard in two strikingly different versions) or a particular style, in this instance, disco.

I have no issue with the disco genre, though I do prefer it when a little funky sweat and soul grit is part of the equation, which is fortunately the case with The Free Music (Part 1), even as the band is clearly swept up in disco’s more sweeping gestures of commercialism, and right away in the record’s opener “Mathasebnish.”

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Originally released in 1962 by the Fantasy label, Jazz Impressions of Black Orpheus was the third LP by the Vince Guaraldi Trio and the first by the lineup responsible for the pianist’s highest profile work, which was just around the corner. But the album, recently reissued as a 3LP/2CD set as part of Craft Recordings’ Small Batch series (and disappearing fast), is a considerable achievement that’s distinguished by a true rarity: a bona fide instrumental jazz hit single in “Cast Your Fate to the Wind.” There’s more on this commercial triumph and other aspects of this multifaceted record directly below.

Vince Guaraldi was a solid West Coast guy, having played in bands of Woody Herman (the Third Herd) and Cal Tjader. As vibraphonist Tjader (early on, primarily a drummer-percussionist) was a good fit with pianist Dave Brubeck, the same was true for Guaraldi as a participant in Tjader’s bands, though don’t go thinking that Guaraldi was a specialist in odd time signatures (in fact, neither was Brubeck pre-Time Out). Instead, Guaraldi’s forte (and an eventual nickname) is reflected in the title of an early composition: “Calling Dr. Funk.”

In short, Vince Guaraldi’s playing was as dynamic as it was attractive, possessing a certain energy that could move a crowd (at a party on a record or in performance on the bandstand) but was laced with enough beauty movement to connect with those in a stay-at-home frame of mind. Again, this is all very (but not exclusively) West Coast, as Guaraldi’s musical temperament is well-suited to the “jazz interpretation” subcategory that flourished in the 1950s-’60s and to which Jazz Impressions of Black Orpheus belongs.

Jazzing up My Fair Lady (West Coast drummer Shelley Manne), Exodus (saxophonist Eddie Harris), Golden Boy (Art Blakey & the Jazz Messengers), Porgy and Bess (Miles Davis), and The Sound of Music (John Coltrane); an impressive and incomplete list, but there can still be a cloud of crass commercialism hovering above these sorts of endeavors, or perhaps better said, there’s a sense of record labels striving to tap into a lucrative crossover market.

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Remembering Ornette Coleman, born on this date in 1930. —Ed.

Ornette Coleman is most often associated with his numerous quartets, but his Blue Note debut found him exploring the possibilities of the trio configuration. At the Golden Circle Stockholm Volume One is the first half of that journey into addition by subtraction; it not only inaugurates the highpoint of Coleman’s Blue Note run, it also stands amongst the very greatest work the trailblazing saxophonist has recorded.

The end of the 1980s was swiftly approaching, and the jury was still out on the music of Ornette Coleman. The temporary reign of compact discs was well underway, and it gradually became easier to actually hear (instead of just read about) the sounds that so divided jazz at the dawn of its most tumultuous decade. However, for my first two Coleman purchases I had to settle for cassettes. Until the CD reissues of Ornette’s Atlantic efforts began showing up in the racks (or more appropriately put, started getting listed in catalogs as being available for purchase), hearing the man’s groundbreaking early material was a struggle. Even the ‘70s fusion work with Prime Time and his ‘80s albums were difficult to locate.

What’s more, none of the meager number of older jazz heads I’d become acquainted with at that point appreciated him; when the subject arose a few were downright dismissive. And dialing the handful of jazz radio programs that my stereo tuner managed to pick up in the wee hours of the AM proved just as futile.

I’ll never forget the short but pleasant conversation I had with one of those DJs, the voice of the gent on the other end of the line informing me that he loved Coleman but had sworn off playing him due to the swarm of angry calls he’d receive in response. So deep was the animosity over a divergence from and perceived threat to the post-bop standard that nearly 30 years later merely offering it on the radio brought an influx of opprobrium via the telephone.

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Formed in Mogadishu, the Dur-Dur Band stood as one of the beacons in the thriving 1980s Somali disco scene, but by the early ’90s, as war spread into the capital, the band was forced into exile, with its members dispersed across four continents. Not an uplifting story, though The Berlin Session delivers a positive twist, documenting a 2019 reunion in the German capital by the Dur-Dur Band Int., with the reconvened unit dishing out lithe groove heat for vocalists Xabiib Sharaabi, Faduumina Hilowle, and Cabdinur Allaale. As the album unwinds, it’s clear the band hasn’t lost a step. The Berlin Session is out now on vinyl and compact disc through the Out There label.

Outside of Somalia, the Dur-Dur Band is best known for a pair of archival releases. There’s the 2013 2LP/ cassette/ CD Volume 5 put out by Awesome Tapes From Africa, its contents originally a tape issued in 1989, and then the 2018 3LP/ 2CD Volume 1 ★ Volume 2 via Analog Africa, that set collecting a pair of cassettes from ’86 and ’87, respectively (with simultaneous separate reissues of the tapes offered by Analog Africa).

These two sets were part of an hearty (and still ongoing) stream of African archival output, sometimes focusing on single artists or bands such as Mulatu Astatke, William Onyeabor, The Funkees, and the Ngozi Family, at other times assembling the work of assorted performers as the iris tightened onto countries, regions and/or specific styles, e.g. Zamrock, desert blues from the Sahel, the extensive Ethiopiques series, Ghanaian Highlife, and Afrobeat from Ghana and Nigeria.

Ostinato Records has played an integral role in disseminating the sounds of Somalia, beginning with the Grammy-nominated Sweet as Broken Dates compilation in 2017, notably featuring The Berlin Session singer Faduumina Hilowle as part of the Gacaltooyo Band. Additional Somalian music collections from Ostinato include Super Somali Sounds from the Gulf of Tadjoura (Djibouti Archives Vol. 1) by the group 4 Mars, Mogadishu’s Finest: The Al​-​Uruba Sessions by the Iftin Band, and The Dancing Devils of Djibouti, which offers music recorded in 2019 by Groupe RTD.

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Celebrating Micky Dolenz on his 78th birthday. —Ed.

The once-heated discourse over the musical talents of The Monkees has thankfully been largely relegated to history, and in these enlightened times far more productive debates can take place. For instance; which Monkees’ album is the best? Tough question, but one certain contender is 1967’s Headquarters.

For a brief period in my teenage years of musical discovery I passed through a phase of brutally intense ‘60s worship. It was all Beatles and Stones and Hendrix and Dylan and San Francisco and Woodstock, a circumstance unsurprising for a lad of the ‘80s, as that decade saw a significant amount of nostalgia for the times of twenty years before.

But when reruns of The Monkees’ TV program first hit MTV in 1986, I really didn’t know anything about them. While certainly not erased from the history books, they were however reduced to a derisive footnote or a mild curiosity, one that inquisitive young minds might need to stumble over to gain discovery. Once hiding in plain sight, they suddenly acquired a cultural cache that while not über-cool was definitely amiable to the climate of the era.

I scored a badly beaten copy of More of the Monkees for next-to-nothing from the Salvation Army and aside from copious crackles was quite impressed. Asking the bearded owner of my local record shop about them shortly afterward, I was told in no uncertain terms they were a “fake band,” a statement that had a far different effect then was clearly intended. My ‘60s adulation took on a whole new wrinkle; how great was a decade where even the fake bands made awesome records?

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