Wednesday, February 18, 2015

Radio Alarm Clocks - Wake Me When It's Over (1983, After Hours)

Another "whim" purchase of mine.  Guess you can't love everything, but this one has a few merits that some of you are likely to appreciate.  Genre-wise it's hard to slot Radio Alarm Clocks, a Cleveland five-piece who open Wake Me... with an appealing, Paisley-esque garage number "Slave Planet."  Appealing, that is, until the chorus kicks in and they employ some sort of weird robotic vocal effect to gum up an otherwise swell tune.  They redeem themselves on the decidedly more linear "Kill Talk," which employs organ, and ups the ante with a punky tempo.  I might also mention
RAC are unabashed goofballs, therefore rarely is anything straightforward in their skewed, DIY realm.  Amidst all the Tom foolery there are a couple of passable, tongue-in-cheek covers - the Stones "Time is on My Side," and a run through Wilson Pickett's "In the Midnight Hour."  If Wake Me... strikes you as something of a random mishmash of tunes, that's probably because it is.  The back sleeve (provided in the file) offers a brief track-by-track synopsis, in an attempt to satiate any burning questions you may have about the music contained within.  Enjoy (or not).

01. Slave Planet
02. Synthetic Weekend
03. Kill Talk
04. Confidentially Renee
05. Alone in Flat B
06. In the Midnight Hour
07. Tock Tock Man
08. You (Bust Out)
09. Sex Dimension
10. Skurds
11. Time is on My Side
12. Funky Titch and Bustuh
13. Psycho

Hear

5 comments:

JohnnyChump said...

Thanks Wil, I've not heard of these guys but am looking forward to giving it a listen. I am a big fan of all bands from Cleveland! Death of Samantha, Cobra Verde, 15-60-75, Pere Ubu, The Mice, Tin Huey, and the list goes on . . . .

Woody said...

Thank you very much!!!

For all!!!

cheese borger said...

Known as just The Clocks in Cleveland, they had to put Radio Alarm Clocks on LP as the name The Clocks was already in use. Band included Mike Metoff (Pagans) and Dave DeLuca (The Chronics - Test Tube Baby fame). Great live band. They did some gigs with Wild Giraffes. from 1980 or so. They also had a cut on the Cleveland Confidential EP. And a 45 as Clocks with their best song - Confidentially Renee.

spavid said...

Just saw your comments. Thanks for the info.

said...

Could you please re-up this gem?