Versus - singles 1994-95

As much as I enjoyed and appreciated Versus' compilation of early singles & odds and ends, Dead Leaves, right from the get go it felt conspicuously incomplete.  Despite it's 1995 release date, it managed to omit two Versus singles that more or less coincided with the era it was covering.  And quality singles at that, aesthetically slotting in with the material not only on their early 45s, but their then-recent debut LP, The Stars Are Insane.  But as these things go, I really don't have a whit of control over such matters...though this is my meager attempt at an addendum.

Perhaps "Frog" isn't their most effective piece, yet it bears the dynamic, yet tentative lilt of the Baluyut brothers and Fontaine Toup's nascent work, which means it's loaded for bear in the charm department.  "Go Tell it on the Mountain" and "Big Head On" exude the consoling mid-fi affectations of virtually everything that made the cut on Dead Leaves, but these numbers (esp "Big Head...") are particularly amped-out, to borderline intense and intimidating proportions.  As for the only tune I have yet called out. "N.I.T.A." mines a slightly less strenuous vein, yet bristles with ample tension and texture.  Marvy stuff.

Versus' palette would expand and become more lucid and approachable on subsequent records, beginning with Secret Swingers in 1996.  And while they've never gone so far off the reservation as to piss me off, I can't help but wish they hadn't shed so much of their comparatively downer and insular vibe that's so meta to these songs.  

Frog 7" (K, 1994)

A. Frog 

B. Go Tell it on the Mountain

Big Head On 7" (Teen Beat, 1995)

A. Big Head On

B. N.I.T.A.

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The High Bees 12" (1985, Supreme International Editions)

Please tell me there's more where this came from!  A local record shop slapped a handwritten sticker on this one indicating The High Bees entailed ex-members of Orange Juice.  David McClymont, an ex-bassist for the aforementioned co-wrote the b-side here, "She's Killing Time," but isn't actually a performer.  Instead, this Scottish trio was commandeered by Syuzen Buckley whose credits beyond this record are spread a bit thin, while drummer David Ruffy also had stints with The Ruts and Aztec Camera.  Featuring merely two songs on what should have preferably been at least an ep, the Bees make them count, with "Self Indulgence" teaming with warm, almost highbrow pop smarts, that I suppose wouldn't be too sonically removed from O.J., but a more accurate comparison would be mid-80s Scritti.  Nothing really dancy here mind you.  The only relevant reference I've encountered regarding the High Bees is the inclusion of "Self..." on the 2019 Big Gold Dreams compilation book set, and by the looks of it the song is available to stream on multiple platforms if that's your bag. 

A. Self Indulgence

B. She's Killing Time

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I'm laughing but the jokes on me.

From 2020.  Silky-smooth synth pop that frequently bumps up against yacht rock and downtempo R&B.  I couldn't love this band more.

**Please do not reveal artist in comments!**

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Tiny - tape (1994)

This is quite the 180° from what I offered last night.  Details on Tiny couldn't be more sparse, but a correspondence address of Champaign, IL on the cassette shell is the most pertinent bit of info I have to go on.  The Poster Children and Hum this combo was clearly not, adopting a rather coarser and clamorous sonic m.o., suggesting they had more in common with contemporaries like Garden Variety and even Drive Like Jehu.  Unlike G/V however, you won't find much of an emo overbite here. Tiny boasted something of an acerbic bent - that and a mouthpiece whose delivery system was of spoke/sung aesthetics.  Feel free to chime in if you have any info on these boys and if anything followed this demo up.

01. Company Says

02. Mea Culpa

03. Room 4149

04. Driving Song  

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Symptoms - First Offense ep (1988)

Not a particularly notable hotbed for music, Fort Pierce, FL did manage to produce (the) Symptoms. I wasn't sure what to expect, delving into this one pretty much cold, but I was rewarded upon discovering this Sunshine State quartet exuded some distinct power pop leanings, albeit nothing revelatory.  The band's one and only slice of vinyl sounds like it could have been tracked a good ten years before it's 1988 copyright, with it's most effective numbers, ("Music Interruptus" and "Wonder What You're Doin'") loosely resembling the janglier, not to mention more charismatic, inclinations of the Knack and Tommy Tutone. The album jacket caused quite a local commotion upon it's release.  Here's an accounting of the incident courtesy of the band's Discogs page.  

The release of their first EP, "First Offense", caused a small controversy in the small town of Fort Pierce. The cover art contained a St. Lucie County Sheriff's deputy in his official uniform, his official patrol car, and a woman (Glenn's girlfriend) wearing an official St. Lucie County Sheriff's deputy shirt (she was not a Sheriff's deputy or employed with the Sheriff's Office). When the news reported on this "collaboration", a letter from the St. Lucie County Sherrif's Office was sent to the band requesting that the album no longer be sold in stores, as there was no authoritative permission given to use an official patrol car and uniform in the photo for the cover, otherwise, legal action would be taken. The Sheriff's deputy was also reprimanded for his participation without authorization from the sheriff. The stock of records that remained in stores was allowed to be sold, but no further stock could be provided for sale.

01. A Simple Song of You

02. Answerphone

03. Music Interruptus

04. A Girl With Little Feet

05. Wonder What You're Doin'

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...I'd rather be somebody else with you.

From 1993.  Relatively common in terms of Mystery Monday fare...but don't let that stop you.

**Please do not reveal artist in comments!**

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Flaming Mussolinis - Watching the Film (1985)

Not quite sure how to approach this one, but I'll start by mentioning I don't have a physical copy of this one, at least not yet.  In spite of their major label (Portrait) The Flaming Mussolinis barely charted in their native England and had no legs in the States, with presumably only a handful of import copies making into the hands of us yanks.  But to their credit, for a band with considerable commercial aspirations, they managed to retain much of their credibility in the process, eschewing much of the fluffy affectations of the Thatcher-era.  Their overall schtick married the slick post-punk attributes of Love-era Cult to the more radio friendly aspects of pre-stardom Inxs, and to a lesser degree Cactus World News.  In short, nothing particularly eccentric here, but for the most part these boys delivered a respectable batch of tunes rife with ringing guitars and melodic persuasion galore...and did I mention saxophones?  Thankfully, the woodwinds are never overly-dominant, and negotiate their way through the door quite appropriately.  Skin pounder Craig McClune would collaborate with David Gray in the '90s.  

01. My Cleopatra

02. Horror Show

03. Catholic Wedding

04. Ember Days

05. Dangerous Persuasion

06. Swallow Glass

07. Landslide

08. Holding Sand

09. A Long Way to Fall

10. Masuka Dan

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Here in the city electric means fun, kilowatts buzzing right through everyone...

From 1978. 

**Please do not reveal artist in comments!**

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The Group - I Hear I See I Learn (1984)

And here's yet another one I definitely did not come across in the pages of Maximum Rock n Roll.  Relax, it sounds considerably better than it looks, but as you might surmise from the album sleeve, this combo's innovation meter tended to register a tad low. Oddly enough, for a band who chose a moniker as mundane as The Group, these co-eds actually went by a different name a few years prior, X-Effects, to be exact, and released a 1980 single under that banner. The 45 in question has been classified as punk/new wave...and I'll be astonished if I ever get to hear the damn thing.  

Faring better than say, the Thompson Twins or Oingo Boingo typically did, these Brits nonetheless had all the attendant '80s sonic aptitudes and production values bleeding well into the red.  Vaguely resembling a conglomerate of the Fixx and Howard Jones (more of the former thankfully), The Group's commercial ambitions (and even more likely those of their label, Arista) are audibly and visibly pronounced, but crazy enough they managed to whip up at least half an album's worth of memorable, even commendable tunes ("Victims of Circumstance," "Turn of The Century," and "She's 19").  Despite the fact that I Hear... is surprisingly salvageable, from what I gather this LP suffered an utterly indifferent fate upon it's release.  Final factoid - there are no less than three album cover variants for this one floating around, largely dependent upon which country you reside. 

01. America

02. She's 19

03. Iron Chains

04. Private Future

05. Talk to Myself

06. Victims of Circumstance

07. Turn of the Century

08. Republic

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Then we went to my place, and she never did leave...

It really was a simpler era, wasn't it?  Ok, maybe it didn't feel that way at the time, but let's face it, forty years ago mainstream radio was infinitely better than what you'll find on the middle and right-of-the-dial these days, and instantly indelible tunes like "Talk To Ya Later" enabled things go down that much more smoothly.  I don't know how much demand there will be for this on these pages, or even beyond, but instead of just sitting on this rather exhaustive collection of alternate takes, demos and such for The Tubes The Completion Backwards Principle, I thought it couldn't hurt to pitch it out to you.  

The aforementioned fireball of a ditty and, "She's a Beauty" from their subsequent platter, 1983's Outside Inside is what the masses would forever associate them for, but naturally, longtime acolytes of Fee Waybill and Co. are wont to laud the collectives initial string of inspired, albeit not-so-chart-topping albums for A&M.  My Tubes album choice, would probably wind up being the Todd Rundgren-produced Remote Control, but by the time these gents pitched their tent under the Capital Records banner in 1981, my understanding is that the Tubes were strong-armed to modify their schtick in a more "marketable" direction.  Thankfully, this didn't mean they were neutered outright, but incrementally, these developments entailed beefing up and streamlining their overarching m.o. - with the results being frequently mixed.  For all it's attendant slickness much of the magic was still intact on CBP, an album imbued with no deficit of sardonic sass and frivolity.  Even if the Tubes didn't unleash a wellspring of nervy rockers in the vein of "Talk to Ya Later" there was ample spunk in the tank to burn on "Sushi Girl," "A Matter of Pride" and "Think About Me."  You'll find multiple iterations of the aforementioned and a copious amount of other swill in this low-birate, 24-cut reimaging (if you will) of ...Backwards. Ubiquitous as this sucker was back in it's day, CBP falters a few notches short of classic but it went a long way in defining the Tubes and what the early-80s writ large would have in store for the sensibilities of millions of music fans over the ensuing decade. 

Songs included: TTYL/Let's Make Some Noise/A Matter of Pride/Mr. Hate/Attack of the Fifty Foot Woman/Think About Me/Sushi Girl/Don't Want to Wait Anymore/Amnesia/Gonna Get it Next Time/What's Wrong With Me/Sports Fans. 

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Almost men, always boys.

From 2014.  Though I'm not much of an aficionado of the frontman's more renown endeavors, this was a really rewarding detour, frequently verging on power pop.  

**Please do not reveal artist in comments!**

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Rifle Sport - Complex 12" (1985, Ruthless)

In spite of the water damaged record sleeve to your left, I'm that much closer to completing my Rifle Sport catalog.  A few years ago I raved about their 1983 debut, Voice of Reason, one of the finest examples I've encountered of a band straddling the fairly nascent divide between hardcore and post-punk.  And though it would be a good four years until the world got a proper follow up to it Todd Trainer, Flour, Gerrard Boissy & Co. chummed out a few tidbits to tide the faithful over, with Complex being perhaps the most notable. I've delved in to the pedigree of R/S's roster (and even those of producers Ian Burgess and Steve Fjelsted) so I'll spare you a rerun and get right down to the record at hand.  The sparse but sonically enriching title cut bears the stripe of jittery but commanding affectations early Gang of Four made their calling card.  It's accompanying a-side, "Bedroom of Ice" is an outright triumph, 140 seconds of nervy, forward-thinking modern rock splitting the difference between Joy Division and American contemporaries Middle Class. Quite literally the kind of stuff I live for.  "Box of Dirt" is a live number, and a comparatively impov-y and amelodic one at that, possessing a vibrant as-all-get-out drumbeat with J. Christopher spouting away boisterously on the mic, sounding like he's having the time of his ever-lovin' life.  

A1. Complex

A2. Bedroom of Ice

B. Box of Dirt (live)

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