In case you haven't noticed I'm way overdue for some reviews of current releases and reissues, and I'm going to try to address that over the course of the next few paragraphs. I appreciate everyone that has been gracious enough to set up vinyl and CDs. Being provided with physical media is more of a luxury than ever, and if I haven't been thoughtful enough to those who go to the trouble your generosity is appreciated. More critiques to come in the near-future, I might add.
Spandex. Breakdancing. Mullets. And just about dayglo-
everything. For better or worse this is the world in which Long Island's
Mosquitos were forced to toil and contend with
. But guess what? They weren't having a lick of it. In fact, it would seem like this quintet hadn't gotten the bat signal that the world had evolved past say, 1966. Stuck in their own time-warp, not unlike similarly bespoke San Diego brethren The Nashville Ramblers, this quintet carved out a small niche within the environs of New York's power pop circuit alongside contemporaries The Bongos and Fleshtones, yet their antecedents were
entirely steeped in British Invasion and Merseybeat pop, with nary an inclination to the present day - and you can take that literally. Their discography consisted of a well received 1985 ep, (
That Was Then, This is Now), and if you want to get technical a few demo tapes, but that lone record was essentially all that was made available for public consumption - until 2023, which saw the release of the double CD
This Then Are the Mosquitos, and the more concisely consolidated vinyl incarnation,
In the Shadows.
The Mosquitos replication of the Cool Britannia epoch was awe-strikingly spot-on, wherein the band's five protagonists uncannily could have slotted in precisely with
Help!, Face to Face-era Kinks, or the Dave Clark Five, etc. They completely had the instrumentation, tonality and poise of the mid-60s down to a science, so much so that "I Know a Secret," "You Don't Give a Hang (About Me)," and "Put Your Foot Down" could have passed for veritable oldies - that is if it wasn't for copyright dates revealing these tunes were actually minted two decades later. The 'squitos were genuinely expert and adept at the card they were playing, but for every fan they successfully roped in, there was likely to be a dozen or so would-be-listeners that were put off by their schtick, or more realistically, completely checked out in a haze of MTV and video games. That being said, the bustling forty song-plus
This Then... is really aimed at two parties - Brit Invasion aficionados and the Mosquitos small but gonzo fanbase. Though their studio work was limited (hovering around fifteen numbers) the band was remarkably well documented, with about ten quality soundboard recordings of live gigs surviving over the ensuing decades, yielding much of
This Then's... retro-laden manna. I'd be remiss if I failed to mention The Mosquitos were responsible for writing the original version of the Monkees '80s comeback hit, "That Was Then, This is Now," which might ring a bell to a lot of Gen-X'ers in the audience. A bit cloying? Sure, but if you're down for what these not-so pesky insects were dishing out there's a bountiful hive of music to adore here.
This Then... is available directly from
Kool Kat Musik or
Bandcamp.
Not unlike the Mosquitos compilation I went on about at the beginning of this piece, my assessment of
sparkle*jets u.k.'s 2023 platter,
Best of Friends is loooooooong overdue. So much so in fact the band is actually on the verge of releasing a new album this summer,
Box of Letters, which I'll try to share my thoughts in a more timely manner. So, why am I not dedicating space to the new one, when
Best of Friends is several months (if not close to an entire year in the rear view)? Because for me
....Friends is the most consequential item in the sparkle*jet's long and storied catalog. In a nutshell, back in the mid/late-90s I couldn't get enough of the groovy power pop (and adjacent) music scene emanating from the City of Angels. It seemed as is every other month during the Clinton-era another crucial, revelatory album from a Los Angeles-based cabal was dropping, be it in the guise of new CDs from the likes of
The Wondermints, Baby Lemonade,
The Sugarplastic, and more that I'll be disclosing momentarily.
Best of Friends is a covers album that's a self described "love letter" to the 'jets' local peers - bands and songwriters they shared bills with, came up with, and generally speaking, mutually supported. It functions both as a flattering tribute
and as an ingenious time capsule of sorts, revisiting the music of essential L.A. aggregations
Cockeyed Ghost, Double Naught Spies, The Negro Problem, Sugarplastic, Shazam, and
Big Hello just to rattle off a portion of those paid homage to here. You'd think half the rosters of Not Lame and Big Deal Records are represented on
...Friends, because veritably speaking that's practically the case. And represented reverentially at that, with the coed 'jets in almost all cases impeccably retaining the original arrangements. True, the original incarnations of TNP's "Mahnsanto" and The Wondermints' "In and Around Greg Lake" are stunningly priceless, yet the new coatings of paint they're treated to here illicit a similar visceral rush - a feat than any given tribute album should strive for, yet so rarely achieves. Heck, along the way I even discovered a handful of songs from phenomenal acts like the
See Saw and
Kompost that were brand new to this set of this ears, offering plenty of motivation for me to investigate their respective bygone catalogs. And with 21 selections, there's no shortage of hooks to engulf yourself in.
Best of Friends can be had directly from
Big Stir Records and
Bandcamp, digitally or on double-LP and CD.
I originally learned of Bleached Black via the excellent and sadly departed Feeling Kinda Froggy blog. If memory serves me correctly, the little write-up that went along with it dropped a comparison to Husker Du. That wasn't completely off the mark, but this Connecticut trio didn't quite perform at the whiplash tempos Bob Mould and Co. were wont to indulge in. Bleached Black was released in 1987 on a high profile indie label of the era, Relativity Records, ostensibly sans any significant promotion (after all, I just learned of them 22 years after the fact). Nevertheless, B/B had a simple, but satisfying penchant for slightly left-of-center, indie guitar rock, wielding a pitch-perfect balance of jangle and durable power chords. Trouser Press had these kind words to say:
