Saturday, October 2, 2021

The Sunset Strip (w/ John Dowler) - Holocaust ep (1989, Au-go-go)

If you liked the Sunset Strip's Move Right In disk I posted a few years back, you just might fall in love with this precursor ep. Why?  Well for one, these guys deliver their absolute finest tune, "I'd Die Instead," a rich, deftly crafted piece suggesting everyone from Robyn Hitchcock to Television, that also just so happens to fuse together the most attractive attributes of psych, garage and jangle pop.  "I'd Die..." is accompanied by no less than three outstanding covers, starting with the Stone's ace 1968 b-side "Child of the Moon."  It gets even better from there with an adaptation of the Alice Cooper Band's Easy Action-era nugget "Caught in a Dream." The record finishes off with Big Star's dour but crucial downer ballad "Holocaust," featuring Aussie music scenester John Dowler on guest vocals. All in all this ep is nothing short of wonderful.

01. I'd Die Instead
02. Child of the Moon
03. Caught in a Dream
04. Holocaust

Hear

6 comments:

Josef Kloiber said...

I have the first two lps.
Excellent Aussie band like so many others.

Gareth Bowles said...

Great stuff, thanks for posting. Looks like all their output is on Bandcamp: https://thesunsetstrip.bandcamp.com/

Josef Kloiber said...

@Gareth Bowles many greetings from Vienna to Santa Cruz Calif. I lived there for a few months in summer 1975.

Gareth Bowles said...

Hi Josef! I'm originally from England and got to travel around Europe a lot, but never made it to Vienna. I just got the first two Sunset Strip albums too - best discovery in quite a while.

MrDave said...

This sounds awesome -- can't wait to hear it! Thank you for all the great music!!

MrDave said...

Just coming back to say it was awesome! They touched all my favorite influences I had at that time. People should not sleep on the early Alice Cooper Group albums -- the first 4 are excellent and should be revered with the same respect as the other influences here (not that it matters since they are both great albums made in a short time span but "Caught in a Dream" is on Love it to Death). Pretties For You is an exceptional out-there psych album any fans of the genre should track down (unlike the following ones but they're all great in my opinion). Anyway, this was dope and right up my alley. Going to listen to that Sunset Strip album now!