The best 'albums that never were'. Author: floflo79.
What are some of the greatest albums that had the possibility of existing, but for one reason or another, never did? What are ones you wish, you'd give your right arm to have had happen?Myself -The Axl Rose/Dave Navarro/Brian May/Dave Grohl/Trent Reznor band that Axl Rose wanted to form in the mid 1990s. Probably would've been the best album of the decade.The 1990s Grateful Dead album - it was pretty much already written, all it needed was to be recorded.The Michael Stipe/Kurt Cobain acoustic project.More Plant/Page albums, a second Coverdale/Page record.A third Blind Melon record with Shannon Hoon. Click to expand.Most have appeared on various compilations and releases like Hendrix In The West and Jimi Hendrix Concerts.
They were sourced from the Royal Albert Hall, San Diego and LA Forum shows if I remember correctly. The album was cancelled and they released the U.S. Version of Smash Hits instead.Here are some of the proposed tracks:I Don't Live Today - Los AngelesRed House - San DiegoThe Star Spangled Banner - San DiegoPurple Haze - San DiegoLittle Wing - Royal Albert HallHear My Train A Comin' - Royal Albert Hall. Most have appeared on various compilations and releases like Hendrix In The West and Jimi Hendrix Concerts. They were sourced from the Royal Albert Hall, San Diego and LA Forum shows if I remember correctly. The album was cancelled and they released the U.S. Version of Smash Hits instead.Here are some of the proposed tracks:I Don't Live Today - Los AngelesRed House - San DiegoThe Star Spangled Banner - San DiegoPurple Haze - San DiegoLittle Wing - Royal Albert HallHear My Train A Comin' - Royal Albert Hall.
What are some of the greatest albums that had the possibility of existing, but for one reason or another, never did? What are ones you wish, you'd give your right arm to have had happen?Myself -The Axl Rose/Dave Navarro/Brian May/Dave Grohl/Trent Reznor band that Axl Rose wanted to form in the mid 1990s.
Probably would've been the best album of the decade.The Michael Stipe/Kurt Cobain acoustic project.More Plant/Page albums, a second Coverdale/Page record.A third Blind Melon record with Shannon Hoon. Click to expand. 'The 1990s Grateful Dead album - it was pretty much already written, all it needed was to be recorded.' This video should give you an idea as to what it might have sounded like. Several of the songs remain officially unreleased and the Phil Lesh compositions are first-rate (to me, anyway).In all, there were a dozen originals they could have used and, in my opinion, most were superior to what made it onto their two final studio albums. I dedicated a chapter in my book, 'Grateful Dead FAQ' to this would-be album and this overlooked part of the Dead's songwriting oeuvre.
Well, the internet didn't have much to tell me about Giddy'Up Einstein, and I have a hunch I won't be able to do much better, but here goes. The band consisted of just two full-time members, Mark Cult and Anthony Scott, and after gleaning all the credits on the back cover, it's safe to assume they called San Francisco home. Speaking of the album jacket (not to mention their cheeky moniker) this wasn't a duo that always took themselves too seriously - though they do seem to address concerns over firearms and violence on 'This One's a Gun.' E=MC2 + Guitar's finest moment is a no-brainer, the second cut in, 'Wasteland,' a savvy, extra melodious stab at power-pop that sounds like something Translator or the Red Rockers might have envisioned had they loosened their collars a tad.
The record's less engaging moments are worth sticking around too, though 'Eurotrash's' abundant 80s-isms grate on me. The final piece, 'This Gun's For You' is a remix of 'This One's a Gun.' This Gun's For You02. This Gun's For You (Swamp mix). Here's another act that amazingly I haven't brought up before until now.
I knew who were as far back as the mid-80s, but never made a concerted effort to investigate them until I started finding their records in used bins. For Brit new wavers, they were the yin to the yang of most of what was happening during their 1982-89 peak.
Bearing a markedly disciplined and mid-tempo tact, Crisis' smoother sonic palette was no doubt interpreted as high-brow by some, but it worked to their advantage, because their early run of albums ( Difficult Shapes., Flaunt the Imperfection, etc) stand up remarkably well three decades after the fact. In fact, C/C went so against the dayglo-techno pop grain they even hired Steely Dan's Walter Becker to produce their second LP, Flaunt the Imperfection. New romantic yacht rock? Well, not exactly, but pretty damn refreshing after hearing Depeche Mode and Duran Duran ad nauseam.Fine and Also Rare China is a cobbled together collection of demos the band sold on their tour in 2008.
Thought this might be fun to share since their official catalog is still available, and I'm not at liberty to host much or any of it. Spanning 1979-97, leaves out early prototypes of many of their more renown songs - 'King in a Catholic Style,' 'Black Man Ray' and 'Working With Fire and Steel,' among others. What's here however is still pretty respectable, including nascent takes of early gems 'African and White' and 'Seven Sports for All,' plus the Diary of a Hollow Horse-era 'Northern Skies.' Surprisingly much of this collection is contemporary to the band's hibernation period (relatively speaking), when they were keeping a low profile in the '90s. Established customers will find a lot to love here, and even if.Rare China isn't a perfect introduction to the band it's an enjoyable listen.01.
African and white (demo 79-80)02. Its Not Over Here (live demo 96-97)03. Northern Skies (album demo 88)04. Real Tears (home demo 93)05.
Seven Sports for All ((home demo 79-80)06. Christian (home demo 79-80)07. Song 4 Andre 3000 (home demo 92)08. Thank You (home demo 93)09. Wishful Thinking (live in Liverpool 85)10. Slow Houses (home demo). Had a request for this one years ago, but only spotted a copy of it recently.
Not a bad $3 find in the wild, but hardly a revelation. The Expression were native to Sydney, Australia and sorta resembled another down under band, the considerably more popular Icehouse. This is rather polished synth pop with the most exotic attribute evidencing itself via some occasional fretless bass. We're treated to a few relatively memorable cuts - 'With Closed Eyes,' 'Dawn, Day and Sleep,' and 'Right to a Slice.' Nothing particularly offensive or embarrassing mind you, and to the Expression's credit I'll take this combo over ABC or Go West in a heartbeat. Enjoy (or not).01.
Present Communication02. With Closed Eyes03.
Total Eclipse04. Keep Appointments05. Right to a Slice06. Dawn, Day and Sleep07. You and Me09. Nothing Changes10. Satisfied Strangers.
Sorry once again for waiting until the weekend to hook you up with something new. This whole past week felt a little abnormal, and it didn't help that it began with the rather jarring and unexpected news that, frontman for, record producer, and solo act in his own right died of heart failure Sunday, September 15th at the age of 75. I don't think I've brought him up before on this site, and save for the band itself only when using The Cars comparatively speaking. That being said 1983's Heartbeat City and it's associated singles were a big component of the entry drug that got me hooked on rock music, thus placing me on the most significant trajectory of my life. At one point or another I owned all of the band's albums, and had recently invested in a series of. Still, they were never a top-tier favorite of mine despite the fact I rarely objected to much of anything they did. I saw them on their 2011 reunion tour that summer in Toronto, and was mightily impressed.
I knew it was probably a once in a lifetime opportunity. In recent years I wasn't waiting around for another reunion album. Besides getting the occasional Cars or (less occasionally) Ocasek solo track stuck in my head, I never kept tabs on him or any of the other surviving members (co-frontman and bassist Benjamin Orr passed away from natural causes in 2000). Still, the news on Sunday made a dent with me. In addition to the Cars catalog, I got to know him through interviews and his production work with unrelated artists like Weezer, Motion City Soundtrack, and Guided by Voices. A life fantastically well lived, even if he had been a bit dormant for the last few years of it.
I'd say a well earned retirement.The general consensus is that the Cars self-titled debut was their high-watermark, and it's not hard to understand why given its sheer consistency and it's reputation as a crossover new wave/AOR record that appealed to the mainstream and those with an edgier appetite. Candy-O followed a year later, and despite not generating as many singles as it's predecessor it doubled-down on the band's mildly offbeat penchant and was responsible for such fan favorites as the punchy 'Got a Lot On My Head' and the noir power pop of 'Double Life.' Prior to heading out to L.A. To recording the album, Ocasek and Co. Tracked some demos at Northern Studios, in Maynard, MA near their native Boston. Four of these demos wound up on the expanded version of Candy-O that dropped in 2017.but these weren't part of the so-called Monitor Mixes.Cars/Ben Orr-centric blog goes into a rather thorough extrapolation on what the mixes are all about and how the tapes went missing for decades, so I'll try to sum it up in a nutshell. The album proper was record at Cherokee Studios in L.A.
As the aforementioned site explains, a 'monitor mix' is a set of quickly recorded pre-production demos usually cut live in studio as a dry-run of sorts before the formal recording of an album commences, so the engineer/producer has a reference for setting levels in the recording studio and such. It's a common practice, especially for big budget studio sessions, which naturally, this was. In short, the monitor mix of Candy-O is a de-factor alternate version of the album in question.
There are differences between these takes and the finished products, albeit not always dramatic. In fact that's largely the case with the brunt of what's here, with some of the most discernible deviations being rooted in Greg Hawkes keyboard parts. One particular anomaly among this set of recordings is a the one and a half minute take of 'Sho Bee Doo,' just a fraction in length of the final album version, highlighting the song's eerie 'coldwave' synthesizers.
We get variations of all eleven LP cuts, the b-side of 'Let's Go' ('That's It') and 'Slip Away,' a track that literally slipped away for almost two decades before it found a home on the band's 1995 double disk anthology Just What I Needed. Again, if you decide to download this, you'll be shortchanging yourself if you don't take a peak at the informative backstory laid out over at, which goes into way more detail than I did here. While you're at it, please consider buying the remaster of Candy-O.
Rest in peace Ric!01. Since Held You03. It's All I Can Do04. Double Life05. Shoo Bee Doo06. Night Spots08. You Can't Hold On Too Long09.
Lust For Kix10. Got a Lot On My Head11. Dangerous Type12. If you remember the 1990s you weren't really there - oops.wrong decade. If however, you remember, a veteran, four decade-long indie rock endeavor from Los Angeles it's very likely you familiarized yourself with the band via some of their best known releases, including 1994's and a little further into the decade '99s. In total, the John Andrew Fredrick-helmed contingent, with it's varying lineups, has produce no less than 17 albums, ten or so EPs and singles, seemingly released among a dozen different record labels.
In fact, the Watch's discography has become so unwieldy and elephantine it was all recently corralled in MP3 form on a handy. So what the hell am I actually getting at here? Mr Frederick has been making music longer than some of you have been alive. Though the compact disc made it's way into the market place in 1982 (or thereabouts) the ubiquity of the format didn't quite extend to the majority of independent and lower-rung artists until as late as a decade afterward. The Black Watch were no exception, as their debut album, 1988's St. Valentine, and their S hort Stories ep following a year later were vinyl and cassette only affairs.
Save for blogs like mine, these titles have languished out of print an un-digitized for thirty years (wow!) The newly minted CD/digital collection, remedies this travesty in one fell swoop.Though the Black Watch's origins date back to the Reagan-epoch, Fredrick and Co. Never sounded like they were a product of the era - not an obvious one anyway. No wonky keyboards or cheesy affectations for these guys. From the get go, the BW formula wasn't an equation that could be easily quantified.
Without (re)inventing the wheel the band's forward-leaning indie rock had a faint Anglophile bent, but not overbearing. A pensive, thoughtful undercurrent was a vital calling card as well, yet not one to be couched in an elitist or erudite subtext. And reverberating through every nook and cranny was rich, full bodied musicianship - resplendent ringing guitars anchored to a crack rhythm section, with Fredrick's passionate (albeit not excessive) vocals gliding over the top of all of it. The Vinyl Years is twenty songs in length, with exactly the first half dedicated to the band's 1988 debut full length. It's almost unfathomable that songs as engaging and proficiently executed as 'These Dreams,' 'Ghosts From the Past,' and the commanding title piece were the product of a baby band. Certainly there was probably some serious woodshedding that preceded this album, and subsequent to this BW made some considerably more sophisticated records, but St.
Valentine sounds uncannily like the work of a seasoned band with a good five years or so of preparation to show for it.Next up is the Short Stories ep from '89, a record cut from the same accomplished fabric as it's predecessor. But check this out. The Black Watch adds violin to mix, and incorporate it so seamlessly that even when rubbing against serrated axe chords on 'Dream in Blue' it doesn't sound a stitch out of place. Elsewhere, the chiming leads on 'The Ginger Man' predict the charm of soon-to-be-contemporaries the Ocean Blue, and 'All Over Again' is a gutsy, indie-rock keeper for the ages. The Vinyl Years is rounded out by a handful of track from subsequent singles that arrived shortly thereafter, including a driving, violin-laden stomp through 'Eleanor Rigby,' and 'Just Last Night' is another ace original in the then nascent BW cannon. I'm not saying the Watch's early material marked their apex, but this band sounds more inspired in the few first years of their inception than U2 did by the time they got to War.
Pretty damn remarkable, and as thoroughly essential as anything they would go on to do later. The Vinyl Years is available from or.On the opposite side of the coin we have brand new Black Watch in the form of a three-song 7' on Hypnotic Bridge. 'Crying All the Time! (Psyche mix) - which by the way doesn't necessarily scream 'psychedelic' nonetheless it has it's own share of headiness going for it, not unlike recent Swervedriver and Less of Memory. We're treated to two new b-sides as well, both indicative of how far this band has come since those astonishing-in-of-themselves early albums. The single is available direct from, and copies appear to be limited.
For a change I decided not to make you wait until Friday for some new tunes. It didn't hurt that I had this one digitized and ready to go.
My initial draw to these Buffalo suburbanites was the involvement of one (R.I.P.), a unique and talented savant-garde multimedia artist who made several records under his own name in the '80s-'90s. It wasn't until I looked at Crumbs of Insanity's roster on the cassette inlay that I learned Freeland merely played percussion in this particular combo. Nonetheless, not a regrettable purchase, albeit not the essence of what the man was responsible for.The Crumbs were actually spearheaded by Dave Rapp, whose parlance vaguely hovered in the vicinity of Boy George at times.
No shortage of hedonism is implied on these five cuts, with the Crumbs stopping short of any frivolous maneuvers. Decked out in a white-boy, Caribbean melange of reggae-lite and new wave inklings (maybe a hint of Haircut 100 on 'Keys'), I'm not sure what the band's ultimate objective was, or even if there were other releases surrounding this one.
World domination wasn't in the cards I'm afraid. Some of the material here strikes me as a tad underwritten, but I'm generally not apt to complain about what I'm hearing, particularly on side one (selections 1-3). At some point I'll indulge you with some of Mark Freeland's proper studio delectation's.01. Great Fire02. Sentimental Drifter03.
Waves of Love05. The album jacket depicted to your left may strike you as either innocuous, or perhaps even slightly off-putting. Nothing about it screams 'indie' or 'post-punk, or in fact anything particularly visionary. In some respects these assumptions are right on the money as were not indie kids, punk, or on the cutting edge of much of anything. In fact, the foursome in question were marketed as hard rock and AOR. Probably not the most enticing of musical propositions, and hardly the stuff of this blog's aesthetics, as it were. 'Hard rock,' especially the pedestrian variety thereof, reeks of stock riffs, unimaginative FM playlists, antiseptic arenas, and all-too familiar themes of love, partying, and blue collar concerns.
Yet once in awhile I'll stumble across a forgotten hopeful of this ilk that stands out from the pack just enough to perk my ears up, and in this case even get me a little stoked.Stealer were major label casualties (we can thank MCA for the hiring/firing) who issued this lone self-titled platter. While firmly in the AOR mold, the band (whose whereabouts remain unknown) had a stronger melodic prowess than the brunt of their competition. Bearing a loose resemblance to early Loverboy/Foreigner with occasional tinges of Cheap Trick, their flirtations with power-pop aren't as frequent as I'd prefer them to be, but I'll gladly take what I'm hearing on 'Never Again,' 'If You Want Me' and 'Your Heart Will Burn.' If it's more meat and potatoes hard rock you're craving the opening 'On My Own Again' is a screamingly obvious (should've-been) airwaves anthem,' and the even hotter second song in, 'E.S.P.' Is a punchy, melodic gut check that genuinely outdid anything along the aforementioned Loverboy/Foreigner continuum, tame as that may sound to many of you. The only bum item on Stealer is the concluding 'Johnny,' which regrettably could pass for a limp Bad Company ballad.Compared to say, any of my Big Star, Husker Du, or Posies entries, Stealer may rank as a comparatively low priority, but I wouldn't be making it available for consumption if I couldn't vouch for it.
Go into this one with an open mind and you'll be pleasantly surprised. Btw, pickings are woefully slim online for shedding any relevant light on this one. Best I could find were an and a thread on a hard rock.01. On My Own Again02.
If You Want Me04. Ready or Not05.
Never Again06. I've Got to Fight07. Hold Tight08. Your Heart Will Burn09.
Tell Me It's Love10. Was the stage name of Alain Ward, and somewhat confusingly it was also the name of his band in total. The UK-based Ward kicked off his career in a glam/punk combo, Bastard, before taking up the Motello mantle in 1978, a year which saw the release of their debut long player, Victim of Time. That album's follow-up Pop Art, came down the pike two years later and also spawned a single of the same name.
The 45 in question served as my intro to E/M, and after surveying the deft chops and somewhat sardonic modus operandi of the A-side, I'd put Ward in the same league as B.A. Roberston, Donnie Iris and for that matter, Bram Tchaikovsky. In short, a frontman brimming with character and sass, the likes of which we're in dreadfully short supply of these. The flip, '20th Century Fox' isn't the Doors song, rather another cheeky original with a mildly grandiose sweep, a la something Motello's contemporaries The Motors might have turned in had they not been so straight-faced. There's a lot of music floating around the halls of Wilfully Obscure, and amidst my numerous stacks and racks I may have the Pop Art LP I spoke of a moment ago, so who knows, maybe that one will materialize on here later. Feel free to imbibe this two-songer for now.A. 20th Century Fox.
With their origins dating back to the mid-80s, even then in the pre-search engine era, I'd think it a fools errand for any band to dub themselves with such an indistinguishable moniker as. Really, do you mean to tell me all the good band names were claimed by 1983 when these Wisconsinites released their first 45? Needless to say, uncovering any pertinent knowledge regarding this band was close to an impossibility, save for their Discogs page linked above. Day's copyright date is 1997, and none other than Butch Vig is listed as producer for half of these songs. Several of the titles on Day overlap with their Reagan-era singles. The problem is I can't decipher if we're getting the 80s versions of 'How Busy is He?,' 'Role Models' and 'Marshmallow Through a Keyhole,' or re-recordings of them. The latter (and more satisfactory) portion of the album skews towards the aforementioned songs with 'How Busy.'
Sounding like something Off Broadway USA might have conjured up. Just the kind of skinny-tie power pop MTV might have aired at 3 AM, and ditto for 'Who Do You Kiss.' Is a synthy confection that's also worth the price of admission.
Elsewhere, The And hop around from resembling a competent bar band to Big Country, with each of their tunes boasting something of a unique persona. As you might surmise, 'I Fall to Pieces' is the Patsy Cline number, with the band doing a fairly robust read of it at that - a lot more fun than Screeching Weasel's rendering of it I might add. Finally, I track ten on this CD is mysteriously omitted from the track list on the tray card. I Fall to Pieces02. The World Ain't Round03.
Your Wish (Is My Desire)04. Heart Fall Away05. She's Not Alone06.
Marshmallow Through a Keyhole07. Role Models08. Hide Your Eyes09. Who Do You Kiss10. (title not provided)11.
How Busy is He? Yet another cold case, a Canadian one to be exact. Despite the noir album jacket, Rarefaction were relatively conventional practitioners of snyth-n-guitars modern rock. More new wave than indie, but despite a lack of mystique still pretty appealing. At their most stimulating this five-piece resemble what the Comsat Angels were attempting around the same time (think, 7 Day Weekend-era).
'Open Up Your Heart,' 'All the Broken Seams,' and the title cut are all fairly exemplary, and even when they stumble occasionally on Modern Man, I can't think of anything egregious enough going on here to dissuade you from giving this a whirl or two.01. Open Up Your Heart03. Ordinary Man04. Abstract Minds05. All the Broken Seams06.
Night Crawler07. When I plucked this one off the bargain rack, I was reasonably given the impression the band in question was Whirlpool.but upon further examination I was several syllables off. By all accounts (namely the one I was able to peruse courtesy of the ), Britain's long since departed were something of a force of nature to witness live. For most of us however, two scarcely distributed indie albums will have to suffice, being the first of them. It would seem much has been made of their psych leanings, albeit Dr. Phibes sidestepped the whole Madchester miasma completely, and didn't bear much in common with the Spacemen 3, or even glorious drone merchants Loop.
No, the Phibes vibe was more in tune with the architecture of say, the Family Cat or Compulsion, with less pop appeal mind you. Epic length ventures abound on Whirlpool, but the overarching effect isn't the stuff of drug-induced profundity so much as clangy, amped-out indie rock. Guitarist/frontman Howard King Jr. Makes for a throaty mouthpiece, yet 'Mr Phantasy' and 'When Push Comes to Shove' offer ample evidence that when emphasis is expended on melody his trio transcends the power quotient for something genuinely poignant. As much as I wish there more tunes like the aforementioned populating Whirlpool, it's hard to knock Dr. Phibes enveloping sonic prowess. A second album, dropped in 1993.01.
Eye Am the Sky02. Marshmallow Madness03.
Mr Phantasy04. When Push Comes to Shove06. Dreaming (Insomnia)08.
Eye Am the Sky. The title of second LP, is a nod to something known as the (which in 2002 Wilco finagled the same cultural reference to their Yankee Hotel Foxtrot album, but I digress). The music enshrined within the record is decidedly less esoteric however. The Memphis by way of L.A. Duo TPW was initiated in 2012 when ex- drummer/Ardent Studios figurehead and ex- Freewheelers frontman worked on the Big Star documentary, Nothing Can Hurt Me.
The collaboration on the movie inadvertently parlayed into a music outlet of their own, Those Pretty Wrongs, and an album of the same name followed in 2016. Despite their setup as a duo, TPW subscribe to an insular aesthetic, one which often angles in the vicinity of forlorn, loner folk more than angsty rock.Abundant throughout this album, Stephens and Russell can't help but echo Big Star's quieter traipses (think #1 Record's 'Watch the Sunrise,'on Zed's 'Tonight, Tonight, Tonight). In fact, 'Tonight.' Even evokes shades of Chris Bell's 'You And Your Sister,' but generally speaking, the Wrongs opt for a discernibly genteel and straightforward tact, more in tandem with say, early CSN&Y and even Nick Drake than Chilton and Bell's idiosyncratic calling cards.
In fact, the going on Zed has a tendency to veer a little too plaintive, flirting with songwriting so linear that it's hard not to predict the latter half of certain couplets. If anything else, Stephens and Russell compensate with alternating tempos and moods imbuing somber tones to the doleful 'Hurricane of Love,' and 'Life Below Zero,' while applying comparatively lighthearted strokes to buoyant 'Undetow,' and even manage to flex some power pop musculature on 'You and Me.' Zed for Zulu's benign tenor lends itself to a breezy, afternoon sway in the hammock, providing the pillow to comfort our collective aching heads in the Trump-era. You can pre-order it straight from. People are fickle about singer-songwriters, especially ones they're wholly unfamiliar with. This is precisely why so many of them get lost in the shuffle.
Hopefully that isn't the case with, who actually isn't a newcomer, rather he's taken an extended coffee break (since 2010's Excruciating Bliss to be exact). His belated latest, is his fifth album, and whether virgin ears mistake it as a debut or otherwise, it makes for an often stunning introduction.Bearing a vocal aplomb that's passable at times to Fountains of Wayne's Chris Collingwood, Laufer's music isn't the stuff of topical, white-collar power pop. More to the point, he's a sophisticated songsmith with musical chops and an arranging acumen that's anything but everyday. You won't find much in the way of extremes wafting through this Floating World, though there are nuances aplenty. 'Bolt of Blue' and 'Space and Time' are a pair of deftly crafted, up-tempo numbers, bustling with brisk rhythms and substantive prose that split the difference between groove and infectiously melodic prowess. The denser 'As Long As You Belong' richly channels George Harrison by way of Laufer's equally proficient contemporaries Rhett Miller and Jason Falkner, while the pedal steel accented 'Highway Machine' is contemplatively bittersweet. And if it's a consoling comedown you're craving the piano-ballad title track is the type of catharsis this beleaguered world should all get on board for.
The Floating World drops on August 23rd, and will be available from,. Damn where had this band been my whole life? Um, try Perth, Australia circa the late '70s/early '80s before I was really paying attention to music. All legit rationale for ignorance aside, the co-ed were a better-late-than-never discovery, who I just happened to stumble upon while browsing someone's file list on my fave peer-to-peer, Soulseek. Lynda Nutters straddled the mic for this ace new-wavey quintet over the course of three records, this being the first.
She conveys an ever so faint hint of '60s girl-group kitsch to the Dugites formula, but writ large they struck a delectable merger of synth and power pop. Blondie are an obvious (and frankly lazy) comparison, but Nutters and her compatriots (including keyboardist Peter Crosbie, whom she was married to for a period) were not tarted up, nor was the band particularly in-your-face, so to speak. At least for this particular record, the emphasis was on tunes, and immaculately catchy ones at that, chockablock with indelible hooks, buoyancy and charm for kilometers. 'In Your Car,' 'Goodbye,' and 'Mama Didn't Warn Me,' are all par excellence examples of The Dugites chosen pop niche for their now bygone era, and the land down under was all the richer for it. Am really grateful to have encountered this one.
Blog provides a more exhaustive diatribe on this record than I have, and are even offering a lossless FLAC rip of it.01. In Your Car02. South Pacific03.
Mama Didn't Warn Me04. No God, No Master08. No One Would Listen09. Despite it's strikingly miscellaneous cover art, this record boasted significantly more definition than I was expecting.
The name David Marko & The Trade has the ring of a power pop band, and indeed this trio is guilty as charged, albeit I don't think these guys slotted in too comfortably with the skinny tie brigade. If anything they hail the old school here, as so much of.Piranha is steeped in the first couple of Raspberries albums, early Rubinoos, and perhaps even the Scruffs. Marko and Co. Emanate a rather wholesome vibe, screeching just shy of a precious halt on the winsome 'Hold Me' and 'The Last to Know.'
The beefier 'Eden Again' is more in line with this disk's '82 copyright, but when all is said and done these guys were classicists who never really intended to rock the boat. David Marko & The Trade are virtual no-shows on the search engines, and their whereabouts are an unknown quantity. Perhaps my copy of this album was missing an insert? Maybe Baby02. I Think I Love You05. Leave Me Alone06. The Last to Know07.
Eden Again08. Love Me Tonight.