Search and Destroy: Paisley Underground

Also damn fine is the follow-up mini-album "Explosions in The Glass Palace" (anyone know if that's Kew Gardens on the cover?) and "Beyond The Sunset" the live in Japan album. (There's a fantastic cover of Television's "Ain't that Nuthin'" on the latter, by the way).

Other good things include the Rainy Day album, a paisley supergroup affair with the Roback brothers, various Bangles, the guy from Three O' Clock and some of Dream Syndicate doing covers of Hendrix, Who, Young etc. Also the first couple of Green On Red albums were good IIRC, although I haven't heard them in 10 years - "Gas, Food, Lodging" and the one before it.

I'm not sure if Let's Active count, but "Cypress" is the one to get.

Destroy: The 3 O'Clock... gawd, this is the very definition of insufferably twee. I can't take that voice!!!

Destroy: Long Ryders

Search: Lolita Nation & Big Shot Chronicles They're two seminal albums IMHO.

Furthermore I advise lovers of Paisley Underground to search for True West: the first EP and the album Drifters.

Reinald op den Buijs, The Netherlands

Not sure if they were really paisley underground, but definitely search them anyway. A mighty fine band. Get anything, but maybe start with 'Moonhead' or the double live.

Dream Syndicate - search 'Medicine Show' and 'Live at Rajis'. 'Days of Wine & Roses' is alright too.

Green on Red - haven't heard the first couple, but 'Killer Inside Me' and 'Here Come the Snakes' are excellent.

I'd say the Bangles first album is pretty good, though maybe not essential.

As far as 3 O'Clock, how about that raging gee-tar on "Simon In The Park"? That tune and "Underwater" were in my head for weeks during my continent-wide road trip I just underwent, having broken out that album during it. Very hooky and sticky, those tunes from "Arrive Without Travelling". I do like that album although I wish he'd stop trying to sound British.

On the other side of the Atlantic I really liked, from that period, the Dukes of Stratosphear's "Chips From the Chocolate Fireball", a compilation of two releases from XTC's alter ego.

Senor Pea

Much better than the Pandoras (sorry Gwynne).

well no Tim, they weren't, but they were very good.

does anyone have an opinion on the Long Ryders? thinking about getting into this paisley thing

Long Ryders are very good, with some great moments. If you can find the 2CD "Anthology", that'll be everything you'll ever need.

My fave Paisley Underground band is Dream Syndicate, who also have a great best-of you can likely get for cheap.

Right on... any of these bands I should avoid? i'm just getting into this stuff and a lot of it is sounding similar to my ears...

avoid everything except:

Game Theory - Lolita Nation - one of the best 80's records, long out of print.
Dream Syndicate
Three o'clock
Rain Parade

Was interviewing Sid Griffin yesterday for a piece about the Paisely Underground. He maintains the PU is only these bands:
Long Ryders
(early) Bangles
Dream Syndicate
Green on Red
Three O'Clock
Rain Parade

And nothing else. Only those six bands. Others were doing similar things - True West especially - but were not PU because they were not based in LA or not part of the original scene.

those are pretty much the bands i think of. opal, maybe?

I thought the Paisley Underground were all supposed to have connections to Davis & whichever college is out there. So may be subjective to a couple of different schools of thought?

Sid's view is Quercio coined the phrase, and applied it to The Three O'Clock, plus the five other groups who all lived within a few blocks of each other in West Hollywood. Davis - despite Wynn having come down from there - being a different thing all together.

I said that in Europe it had a different meaning, largely because of Zippo records - which put out stuff by five of those original groups, plus True West, Giant Sand etc - and became by default "the Paisley Underground label", so anything on it got the PU tag.

What about The Leaving Trains? At least at the time of their first album they're spoken about as being part of that scene, and they shared lots of the same bills, etc.

I thought i read the Davis thing in an article I read online last year or the year before, either written by one of the people directly involved or in a quote from them. Not sure if the article dated from the same time could have been around for a while.

Am I remembering right that the Suspects were formed while members attended the college there and contained central members of bands later on that scene.

I love that Danny Benair maybe (?) posted to this thread.

I'd never heard this before: Paisley Underground supergroup doing covers. Actually not as good as any of their individual records, but a nice sign of the scene.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ui2VjVqgM_U

Big thing I did earlier this year about the PU scene

Nobody here has mentioned 28th Day and that's just wrong; I know some of you have heard of Barbara Manning.

Hello, Flower People!

As an unrepentant beaded one, I must share that Michael Quercio has a "Paisley Underground Consortium" radio show. I was very excited to discover this but be warned that it is "paisley" in the broadest sense of the term. Expect to hear more than chiming guitars and tambourines! He plays classical , folk, etc.

Oh sorry - p.s. it is on Luxuria Music, which you flower kids should embrace anyway:

http://www.luxuriamusic.com/djprofiles/michael-quercio

28th Day is fantastic, I can't believe the Complete Recordings is $50 used on Amazon! Cole Marquis's other work (solo, Downsiders, Snowmen, Sunbirds) all ranges from good to great.

that rainy day record covered a lot of ground for 15 year old me. had never heard rainy day, holocaust, or flying on the ground before that and they're all lovelylovely versions - a gateway to me for some bands

Love 28th Day, but never really thought of them as being PU.

http://www.slicingupeyeballs.com/2013/10/08/paisley-underground-reunion-concerts/

An interesting band I never see anything about was The Fool Killers, made up of remnants of True West, who I never thought were particularly paisley to begin with. The live show I saw in the early 90s was supremely psychedelic in a Thin White Rope way.

Regarding 'Rainy Day' being "not as good as any of their individual records," I have to disagree as it's probably my favorite in the genre.

Except for 'Happy Nightmare Baby'.

Interesting bill although I assume Dream Syndicate will consist of more current membership, and I haven't listened to the others in ages.

EYEBALLS: Obviously you kept in touch with Mark and Dennis, but was there ever any effort to put the original lineup back together? Or are Karl (Precoda) and Kendra (Smith) out of music entirely?

WYNN: Neither of them are playing very much. I really have no contact with Karl, and very little with Kendra, so that wasn’t ever a possibility. I have stayed in touch with Paul Cutler, the second guitarist, and we’ve remained really good friends, but he wasn’t interested in doing any kind of reunion or a tour

http://www.slicingupeyeballs.com/2013/05/22/steve-wynn-dream-syndicate-reunion-interview/

I don't know too much about True West but the first couple of Russ Tolman solo albums are great aren't they? I particularly like Galveston Mud off the debut (Totem Poles & Glory Holes) and Domino off Earthquake Town.

Just got back from the LA reunion concert. It was fun... for once I wasn't the oldest person in the crowd.

I never saw the Precoda-less Dream Syndicate. Weird seeing them now... wildly furious sound that would put the Replacements to shame, but I miss the unsettled noir sound that made the first album so great. I love that the Three O'Clock is like that part in the Monkees when the camera speeds up. "No Easy Way Down" is still the most mind bending song this whole scene came up with.

The Bangles played a stunningly gorgeous cover of "I'm Waiting For The Man" that merged seamlessly into "Manic Monday." After that Vicki announced "tonight we're playing as The Bangs - nothing later than 1984!" Time travel ensued. They were the best band back then. Certainly the best now.

Noted that during the big finale with everyone + Rodney on stage that no one sang with Wynn.

so jealous

^

I was all set to see the Dream Syndicate this year, but I didn't have a ticket and there were only a few left on the door, and my bus got stuck in traffic on the way there, so it was sold out by the time I got there :'(

^^^
Forgot all about this, but I suppose it sold out soon after going on sale in October.

Erm... it wasn't a sellout. I bought my ticket the day before.

Now I'm double-bummed.

Rain Parade:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2fzLapSlEyY

Dream Syndicate:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1WxG4-WpiFk

Three O'Clock

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Koxw3EIwXA

Bangles

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNiO-OoWYUo

Finale:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJvrmrAyyn0

Oh … I didn't know about this. Not that I could have gone. But when I interviewed the PU bands earlier this year, I said to them all: why don't you do a package show? And they all went … Yeah, we should! That would be great! Maybe this was the result …

2cd Suspects anthology set
http://www.dimeadozen.org/torrents-details.php?id=618084

Yow!

https://www.npr.org/sections/world-cafe/2018/10/09/655594303/hear-the-bangles-cover-the-three-oclock-for-paisley-underground-compilation?utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=music

Quercio is MAGA per his own FB

Bangles lineup for this is original four piece with Annette Zilinskas.

I came here to say I really like the 3x4 album but now because of this thread I've looked at Quercio's Facebook page and it made me a little sad. Not so much his politics, which are scattershot, but just he seems like a doofus.

Good album tho.

ET, are you catching these Rain Parade recordings that are going up on D1me at the moment? A couple I've never seen before.

Speaking of the Dream Syndicate, I posted this on an ILB thread re talk of a recent Matthew Specktor book about 80s etc., Always Crashing in the Same Car: On Art, Crisis, and Los Angeles:
Would I enjoy a whole book by Matthew Specktor, mooning around the smog of L.A.? Maybe---I do enjoy the detailed, flashlight clarity of his thoughts and feelings about the Dream Syndicate, especially live, leading to the download of his collection (the link still works, I just now used it again)
https://saveyourface.posthaven.com/the-dream-syndicate-live-1982-1983

But also I came here because nickn suggested it might be a good place for this:

Savage Republic
Meteora

Mobilization Recordings

20 May 2022

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6LOWuMFaXSE

Savage Republic will release their album Meteora out May 20 in North America via Mobilization Recordings.
Hailing from the Los Angeles underground of the 1980’s, Savage Republic forged an astonishing reputation for themselves as art-post punk-industrial pioneers. Throughout the 1980s, their five albums combined with their legendary live performances blurred and distorted the boundaries of post-punk, industrial, and soundtrack music – all wrapped up beautifully in Bruce Licher’s innovative graphic design.

After 1989, the Republic went quiet. 13 years passed before they would briefly resurface for a US reunion tour in support of the reissue of their five studio albums and related singles on CD. Thom Fuhrmann, Ethan Port, and Greg Grunke revived the band in 2005, and in 2006 they added drummer extraordinaire Alan Waddington to the fold. This lineup released the full length 1938 LP on Neurot Recordings (2007) and a pounding tribal cover of The Cure’s “Hanging Garden” on a compilation CD included in the French magazine Fear Drop #14 (2008).

In 2009, Savage Republic decided to raise their game. With the departure of Greg Grunke, multi-instrumentalist and recording engineer Kerry Dowling joined the band and they’ve never looked back since! The current four-piece line up (Thom Fuhrmann, Ethan Port, Kerry Dowling, and Alan Waddington) has taken the band’s discography to a whole new level with their bombastic live performances. Touring Europe regularly, they have created a live set that never lets the audience catch a breath – four musicians in their 40’s, 50’s, and 60’s playing with the passion and energy of bands 1/3 their ages.

This longest running lineup of the band have released the full length albums Varvakios (2012) and Aegean (2014), and singles “1938”/”Taranto” – on Italian label “A Silent Place” (2009), “God and Guns”/”Tranquilo” (2018), and “1938”/”Siam” (2019) – recorded by Steve Albini at Electrical Audio during their Midwest Trek tour and capturing more of the raw energy this lineup unleashes in the live setting.

Meteora features some of Savage Republic's best work yet. Self-recorded in a secret cavernous location, their mix of tribal textures, political anthems and Morricone-esque surf instrumentals once again transport the listener to faraway lands at turns both haunting and beautiful. One of many highlights of Meteora is the pandemic inspired piece “Unprecedented” (gifted to the band by Wire’s Graham Lewis) that is sure to become a staple in their set list. This longest-lasting lineup of Savage Republic have infused all the power of their legendary live performances into a cinematic sonic dreamscape.

Over the decades, Savage Republic has performed with or collaborated with similar like-minded artists including Blaine L. Reininger of Tuxedomoon, Einstürzende Neubauten, Flipper, David Yow, Camper Van Beethoven, The Dream Syndicate, Psi-Com, 100 Flowers, Kommunity FK, Christian Death, Sonic Youth, Live Skull, members of Big Black, The Minutemen, Fugazi, the Buzzcocks, and Graham Lewis of Wire.

If you have any questions, contact caroline at clarioncallmedia.com.

I guess Jellyfish was post-Paisley Underground?

FWIW, Dream Syndicate's doing LA and NYC shows this January with Vicki Peterson & John Cowsill as their opener.

LA's on sale now, NYC goes on sale on Friday.

Wow, thanks for the tip!

Did anybody mention the Dream Syndicate live archive being up on archive.org.
So loads of stuff similar to the Day Before Wine & Roses from the Kendra era.& I think up to date.

Used to be a site great for Grateful Dead live sets.
Also really good for out of print books on a load of subjects.

I love archive.org but I'm also bracing for it to mostly come down, namely the print material. They got sued by some of the major publishers and lost - case is currently being appealed, but if any of those books you read are downloadable, I'd download them as soon as you can.

(see here for reference: https://blog.archive.org/2023/09/11/internet-archive-files-appeal-in-publishers-lawsuit-against-libraries/ )

tha's a drag.