Rock 'n roll lose control, just forget you're on the dole.

I don't think I've featured anything by this long-running UK band to date.  Bit of a confusing release this, as it's not a best-of, rather a compilation of b-sides and unreleased material from the first half of the '80s.  Who knew at the time they'd still be going?

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Standing Waves - Vertigo ep (1981, Classified)

Not particularly Texan sounding, Standing Waves were nonetheless denizens of Austin, and for a few years (mostly early-eighties) were responsible for some alluring new wavish pop/rock.  They didn't stick around long enough for an LP, so the six-song Vertigo was as close as we got. Typically favoring organs over traditional synths, S/W were more in league with the Pointed Sticks than say, Naked Eyes.  I hear a little bit of The Units in their sonic pastiche, yet I wouldn't go into this expecting any full-blown revelations.  Vertigo's two bookends, the hooky title track, and the comparatively reflective "Never Say" make the deepest impressions.  This was produced by The Pool's Patrick Keel (of "Dance it Down" fame).  Standing Waves have a compilation collection available here and Bandcamp.  

01. Vertigo

02. Crash and Burn

03. Can't Let it Go

04. Behavior Mod

05. Sensory Overload

06. Never Say Die

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Positive Noise - Positive Negative 7" (1981, Statik)

Like a lot of bands that impressed me on college radio circa the early-'90s, I didn't immediately follow up on Positive Noise, simply due to a sheer lack of resources (say, like the internet).  By the time I actually thumbed across their records in the wild, I had completely forgotten the track in particular that exposed me to them.  Upon seeing this for $2 I decided to take a stab at the band's debut 45, "Positive Negative." Oddly enough, the song in question came out as the same year, 1981, as their debut LP, Heart of Darkness, but didn't appear on it.  That's actually logical, as "Positive Negative" presented itself as bubbly new romantic synth pop.  Nothing egregious mind you, just a bit generic for it's niche.  The flip, "Energy" fared better.  Albeit not too far removed from it's aforementioned A-side, "Energy," nonetheless boasts a chillier façade, situating itself in a more natural construct, dovetailing more appropriately with what I encountered on the comparatively brooding ...Darkness. 

A. Positive Negative

B. Energy

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I just wanna hold you, I bought and sold you...

A two CD collection of pretty much everything this New Zealand quartet committed to tape between 1979-80.  I wasn't able to scan the entire booklet, just the most important bits.  

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Chris Bailey - Prime Numbers (1983, Shower Fantasies)

No, not that Chris Bailey (the deceased frontman for Australia's legendary Saints) rather another guy with ditto moniker, possibly with ties to Vermont or somewhere else in New England.  No correspondence address provided, and with such a common name, there's little relevent info to be had on this privately pressed curio.  1983 may have been the era of new wave and AOR, but Bailey and his three compatriots simply weren't having it.  More like DIY pop abundantly punctuated with funky basslines, rarely sounding comparative to anyone else. The spry "Easier Done Than Said" boasts plenty of catchy sway and could have easily been massaged into something Top 40-worthy.  "Pablum" is a bit of an anomaly, a punky two-minute basher that would have slotted in nicely on one of Joe Jackson's first two albums.  Prime Numbers houses plenty of other satisfactory moments, but few outright revelations, and as I alluded earlier, a bit non-descript.  My copy of this was defaced with all manner of radio station call letters and assorted markings, so I took it upon myself to purloin a cleaner jpeg of the cover art from an Ebay listing.  Imagine that.

01. Easier Done Than Said

02. Oooof -- Why Girl?

03. Lover's Plight

04. Pablum

05. My Shadow

06. Such a Blur

07. Shrapnel

08. Do It! (Again)

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It's just form and function.

Primo post-punk stuff from 2007.

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Bouncing off Bob - Cha Cha Cha at the Coral Reef ep (1987, Stretch)

I've had this 12" kicking around my "to-be-listened-to" pile of records for a considerable amount of times, and wouldn't you know I finally gave it a spin.  BOB were from Jersey, and before ostensibly  functioning as a quartet, they were a five-piece, at least for this record.  Cha Cha... kicks things off with the band's finest number, "Bedside Manners," a rootsy albeit manicured slice of left-of-the-dial pop benefiting from a subtle splash of organ.  "Whoops! (Baby's in Love)" boasts a rollicking, rockabilly bent and admittedly pretty fun if you have appetite for the stuff.  The seven-minute ballad "Through With You" could have respectfully used some editing, but BOB compensate with the lively concluding salvo, "Dear Editor." 

01. Bedside Manners

02. Whoops! (Baby's in Love)

03. Bust Some Heads

04. Through With You

05. Dear Editor

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Couldn't find you any place upon my screen...

Disk two of a retrospective covering the second half of this band's career. Some of this material was made available on subsequent reissues and "vault" type releases, but it's nice to have these b-sides and outtakes all in one concise spot.

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Yo - Good Tidings (1984, Deadbeat)

Today I deliver an album entitled, Good Tidings, and it isn't even Christmas. Yo's second and third albums (Charm World, Once in a Blue Moon) seemed to over fairly well with you a few years back, so how about one final go-around, this time highlighting their debut?  Decidedly on the collegiate tip, this Cali-based contingent struck me as the types who were born for left-of-the-dial notoriety, and for better of worse that might have been the extent of their appeal.  I've highlighted Bruce Rayburn's distinctive timbre in the past, and it's no less notable here, with the man on the mic sporting a panache combining Guadalcanal Diary's Murray Attaway, Gordon Gano (Violent Femmes) and just as  coincidentally, a twinge of Morrissey.  Ten songs in almost twice as many minutes, but there's only a couple of items here that would qualify as punk adjacent, the terrifically driving and muscular "Pot O' Gold" and "Living Lie."   

01. Train of No Return

02. Pot O' Gold

03. White Eyes

04. Buildings

05. The Plough

06. Something

07. Black Forest

08. Living Lie

09. Good Tidings

10. Knives

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