Fine Art - Scan ep (1981, Good)

Minneapolis, circa the early '80s wasn't all hardcore, and Fine Art were one of several anomalies.  The coed band in question were to great extent artful indeed, but I think oblique would have been a more apropos descriptor.  Chilly and vaguely impersonal (thanks in part to the sometimes deadpan parlance of Terri Paul), I wouldn't term Fine Art as coldwave by any stretch, yet still cast firmly in the post-punk mold. The  saxophone-enhanced "You Tell," really abets the tune with some much needed bounce and sway, but is subtle enough not to define it, or for that matter the quartet writ large. "Nerves Ending" is a propulsive two-minute nugget, while "A Scheduled Interruption" plays us off with an air of noir mystique.  

01. You Tell Me

02. Motives

03. Nerves Ending

04. A Scheduled Interruption

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A little bit of fun's never been an insurrection.

Sorry I wasn't able to bring you any new music last week.  I'll try to rectify that within the next 24 hours.  In the meantime, this one qualifies as more of a sampler for a box set, than a bona fide hits collection...which is fitting since they never had any hits. 

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Leave it up to me to mix business with pleasure...

Four eps, including a devastatingly hot demo from 2005 I recently discovered, and a 1996 power pop jewel.

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Club Wig - s/t (1987, Mustang)

This one's quite a mixed bag, so it's apropos that Club Wig sounded like differing music artists from song to song. Ostensibly calling Tuscaloosa, AL home they didn't quite fall under the purview of the Mitch Eastern/Don Dixon sound, so I'll gladly give them credit for not hitching their way onto that bandwagon. The leadoff "Monkey Beach" strikes me as the work of a lesser Feelies or Bongos. Not a corker by any means, but often superior to the remainder of this LP. "The Ballad of Abraham Lincoln" folky lilt is loosely in the vicinity of The Donner Party. "How Can You Be So Beautiful" is a chilled out, hammock-swayer of a ditty sung by Mary Nelson, who splits vocal traipses with the band's more prominent Robert Huffman. "Not Hers Now" is plaintive yet convincing and could have been Club Wig's token single. "Gypsy Business'" meter and parlance is strangely similar to that of the band Felt, so much so that a sheer coincidence is unlikely.  A faithful rendition of Patsy Cline's "I Fall to Pieces" does little to persuade, or conversely dissuade from the overall effect of the album. 

01. Monkey beach

02. The Ballad of Abraham Lincoln

03. Fat

04. How Can You Be So Beautiful

05. Naugahyde

06. Not Hers Now

07. I Fall to Pieces

08. The Pine Villa Romeo

09. No Accident/Johnny

10. Gypsy Business 

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Our ideas are adjoining canals.

From 1997.

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V/A - The Sound of Deep Ellum (1987)

Once upon a time record labels (including major ones at that) would take a chance on unproven talent, both on an individual basis, and occasionally multiple artists for compilation albums.  In 1987 Island Records invested a few shekels to showcase ten artists that were part and parcel of Dallas, TX's burgeoning Deep Ellum scene. D/E was a neighborhood in East Dallas wherein there were numerous thriving nightclubs and concert venues.  Said to have peaked somewhere in the vicinity of the early-90s, this hipster locale engendered  a handful of acts garnering national exposure (and even one that was responsible a viral one-hit wonder).  The fact that nearly four decades after it's under-the-radar release, not one but two ...Deep Ellum artists are still performing in one guise or another - Reverend Horton Heat and The New Bohemians (yes, Edie Brickell's gang), is thoroughly astonishing.  

Punky provocateurs The Buck Pets were the main (and perhaps only) initial draw for these ears, and their contribution, the pulsating "Snatch Rap" is as potent as anything on their legendary 1989 debut LP.  End Over End and Three on a Hill sport gritty left-of-the-dial vibes, and The Trees offer a slightly twangier variation on roughly the same sonic motif.  As for the aforementioned New Bohemian's their "Jamaican Lady" is one of the more alluring numbers here, peppered with sweet, chiming guitar fills.  The remainder of the ...Deep Ellum roster delves into genres I'm typically not prone to featuring on these pages, but by no means should you let that dissuade you from investigating them and drawing your own conclusions.  Enjoy. 

01-Three On A Hill – No More Love

02-Decadent Dub Team – Six Gun

03-Buck Pets - Snatch Rap

04-Shallow Reign - Paint The Flowers All Black

05-Reverend Horton Heat – The Devil's Chasin' Me

06-The New Bohemians – Jamaican Lady

07-The Trees - Cattlecar

08-End Over End -  My Dark Earth Edge

09-The Daylights - Man o' War

10-The Legendary Revelations – Sales Tax

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I fly off the handle whenever you're near

From 2008.  Wish I had been tipped off to them sooner.

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The Eighties 7" (1980, Meanwhile)

Here I go yet again posting a single I don't actually own.  It was produced by the one an only Geza X at Can-Am Studios, giving me a pretty solid hunch The Eighties were L.A. denizens.  Thing was, this combo wasn't quite punk, but the stripe of rock and roll they toiled in was certainly adjacent with considerable nodes of power pop infiltrating their pastiche.  Both sides exude mild proto-wave feels to boot, albeit nothing gaudy.  I could have really gone for a full length from these chaps, but apparently this is all the world at large was entitled to.  Frontman Ted Quinn pursued solo ventures and is still active.

A. No Cruising in an Era of Limits
B. Letter to Loretta

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Nasty Habits - s/t ep (1987, Big Chief)

There were a couple of Nasty Habits running amok in the '80s, and though I'm fairly confident this one hailed from America, just not sure where as no correspondence address was provided.  This one falls more on the trad-rock/AOR end of the spectrum, but the gritty, leadoff  "Can't Help Wondering" isn't far removed from the likes of The Neighborhoods and Too Much Joy. "Lonely Tonight," the records token ballad doesn't resort to anything cringy, it just doesn't particularly move me. "You Keep Me Loaded" indulges in some blustery guitar lines, but at the end of the day Nasty Habits aren't reinventing much of anything here. 

This wax was subsequently packaged in a completely different black and white sleeve, playing up what little glam-rock bona fides this quartet may have possessed. It appears that guitarist Jonathan Hale Lacey eventually migrated to the full fledged alt-metal outfit The Beautiful, who I also had some appreciation for back in the day.

01. Can't Help Wondering

02. Lonely Tonight

03. You Keep Me Loaded

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I can collect myself deep down and then come out punching...

From 1998. Little else could match my feeling of elation when I first put this on.

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