The Connells - '74-7'5 vs Soul Asylum - Runaway Train

74-75 is still the jammerstein jamcicle

74-75, no contest.

"'74-'75" is legit one of my 50 favourite songs ever.

"'74-'75" came free on a Coca-Cola mini-CD that came in specially marked 12 packs back in the early 90s. Along with Firehouse's "Don't Treat Me Bad."

"Runaway Train" is worse than getting eaten by wolves, so "74-75" wins

how is the rest of the Connell's output?

The earlier albums are better than the later ones. (same with Soul Asylum)

And yet one more for 74-75

Both did better in Norway than anywhere else in the world. :)

The Connells one is way better btw.

I'm not rocking the boat. 74-75 is actually one of my favorite Connells songs, although I don't think I've played either of the two CDs I own in ten years.

I used to hate this song when I'd record it off 120 minutes. It was the epitome of horrible, to me, but I think I secretly liked it. And now I can admit to liking it. Sort of.

Never heard that Connells song. It's not bad. Had always thought the Connells were better in theory than in practice. Seemed like they wanted to do an REM-in-the-80s-UK thing. Might have worked if they were from the UK rather than from Raleigh, NC.

Still, Wall Street bankers getting mega $$ bonuses from TARP money are more palatable than Runaway Train.

"'74-'75" is legit one of my 50 favourite songs ever.

― Mare Street tour guide (Dom Passantino), Friday, 30 January 2009 02:32 (5 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Was really into Soul Asylum up through '... And The Horse They Rode In On'. Then I went to see them live at the Marquee and they started up all that Runaway Train bullshit and to be honest, I don't think I've ever really listened to one of their records since. I guess my interest in that flannel shirt sort of thing was definitely on the wane at the time though, so I can't totally blame that song.

BTW I like the way that Dom wrote seven foot five in the thread title, for me that Connells song will always be about giants now.

Was the Connells song like a regional thing in the US? I swear I'd never heard it before until a year or so ago, and my wife (who's an east coaster) couldn't believe it. She said it was all over the radio where she grew up ...

I dig the Connells song but I don't think it was much of a hit in the US. I saw them on the Ring tour at Liberty Lunch in Austin and it was crowded I guess but less than fucking Oasis was at the same venue around the same time (1994ish). On the other hand, the Connells headlined arena festivals in Atlanta in the early 1990s. At my Atlanta-area high school they were the hugest band, more popular even than REM, who really appealed mainly to the arty kids (prior to Automatic). Whereas you'd see the guys with white hats that said "Cocks" wearing Connells t-shirts, and playing their songs on those days in English class when the teacher asked us to play songs that "captured who we were". They were absolutely huge down there, along with like Widespread Panic and shit like that.

I came this close to reviving the "Auxillary Character in Nineties Videos" thread awhile back after seeing "Runaway Train" on VH1-CR.

Fuck, that's a nasty video. The whole sequence with the child prostitute, the Larry King-lookin' guy driving off with her, followed by her getting loaded up into the ambulance.. and then Dave Pirner's face.

So all in all, I voted for "Runaway Bicycle".

o_O at this entire thread.

.. and then Dave Pirner's face.

very disturbing

man i had totally forgotten about 74-75! great song.

runaway train bites and it's sad that's what soul asylum is remembered for. i will rep for made 2 b broken, clam dip, hang time any day of the fucking week. by all accounts back "when they mattered" were a whup ass live band.

horse they rode in on.

Yeah, Soul Asylum don't deserve to be remembered as that band whose song wasn't as good as the Connells.

yeah horse is great too

i hated both of these so mucc, songs and bands. i've long heard that SA were unfairly pigeonholed after breaking mainstream, and that the "early stuff was pretty fuckin alright, man." i haven't had the inclination to check it out, but if someone wants to do a quick & dirty rough guide, i'm all ears.

Was the Connells song like a regional thing in the US? I swear I'd never heard it before until a year or so ago, and my wife (who's an east coaster) couldn't believe it. She said it was all over the radio where she grew up ...

this is surprising. i always thought it was really obscure. i only heard it because of the Coke mini-CD.

...or i just seek out hosre they rode in on in the used bin?

i did like that song from clerks I
x-post

and i still have and occasionally listen to both golden smog full lengths

Hang Time is probably Soul Asylum's finest moment. From there, I'd go backward before going forward.

Most bizarre show I saw in the 90s - Screaming Trees opening up for Soul Asylum opening up for Spin Doctors.

Yeah, Spin Doctors were unspeakably huge for about 9 months. Go figure.

yeah, I saw that Spin Doctors tour. I think it was three co-headliners, like they all played for an hour w/o encores? I remember it was cheap, like $10, at a huge amphitheater in ATL (Lakewood). It didn't seem like a bizarre grouping to me at the time---the local alt rock station had all three in heavy rotation.

The Connells. Much better song. The video's better too. But I guess "Runaway Train" is more of a public service announcement than a video. A public service announcement that made Dave Pirner briefly famous enough to date Winona Ryder.

lol they should put spin doctors into "runaway train" video now.

XD

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Was the Connells song like a regional thing in the US? I swear I'd never heard it before until a year or so ago, and my wife (who's an east coaster) couldn't believe it. She said it was all over the radio where she grew up ...

― tylerw, Friday, January 30, 2009 10:21 AM (3 weeks ago) Bookmark

I think it must have been, I used to listen to alternativelol radio (from Philly) non stop during this time, and I had never heard it before now.

It was big on Cleveland alternative radio when it came out.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

the connells ran away with this one...

Should I ever bother hearing another Connells song than "'74-'75" or will everything else let me down?

I love all the albums prior to Ring a lot more than I do Ring, though for me they have lots of sentimental value (as I explained in a post earlier in this thread). The first album, Darker Days, is nervous new wave with a gothy edge, a little like early REM or Feelies. The second album, Boylan Heights (which I never had on cd, just cassette---should track it down again) is more folk rock-y, and the next two albums, Fun & Games and One Simple Word, more so. My personal favorite is Fun & Games---it's no masterpiece and it's not dark like "74-75", but the opening song, "Something To Say", is a minor lost classic.

I just checked another couple of songs out on Youtube. Think I'll definitely dig deeper, I'm really into this kind of sound at the moment. a bit Paisley Underground or reminiscent of Byrds fans like The Stars of Heaven. Rainy Sunday music yay.

Boylan Heights is my favorite. Think it was a steady decline afterwords, and by the time of Ring they'd lost whatever it was I liked about them. Though I'd still go see them live - they gave it their all and the energy flowing between the band and their fans was palpable.

this band army navy sounds like the connells' kids or something

On a Connells kick this morning. Boylan Heights is still the business.

I see what mookieproof meant about Army Navy.

Got nervous at the thread title trying to equate those two songs, but looks like the voters did the right thing.

Should I ever bother hearing another Connells song than "'74-'75" or will everything else let me down?

― Twisted Hipster (Noodle Vague)

Actually, this is OTM. I bought Boylan Heights with this same question in the back of my head, and it's got a few decent songs, but nothing approaching 74-75.

wut

Come on, "74-75" has a good sound but doesn't touch the best tracks on either Boylan Heights or Fun and Games.

Boylan Heights is great. I still play Scotty’s Lament and Over There pretty often, but the whole album is worth listening to.

OK, i guess i need to give Boylan Heights another chance today.

I guess from years of only knowing that one song (74-75), I was expecting the Connells to sound like Elliott Smith or the Pernice Brothers, but on Boylan Heights they sounded more like some college's favorite local band.

nc state

One Simple Word is better than I remember. The singles have lost a bit over the years, but "Waiting My Turn", "All Sink In", "Set the Stage" are all great.

This band was a sort of proto-Hootie, wasn't it? Frat pop-rock.

what do you find fratty about it in particular ?

Probably the audience more than anything else. They strike me as the literal definition of late-80s college rock (which seemed to mean "played on college radio" back then). I saw them a couple times at Marquette in ~89-91 and the crowds at their shows were different from any other band's that I saw at the time. People who wouldn't show up for, I dunno, like, even Poi Dog Pondering, would be stoked for The Connells. Coulda been the Counting Crows! See also Euler's comment upthread

But I mean... they SHOULD have been the Counting Crows! They appealed to the same people and were way better!

I would describe them, at least in 1989 (and this is in fact how I learned about them in college) as "the band that the one guy in the fraternity who liked REM in high school is into now that REM is really popular and everybody in the fraternity likes them."

In a similar vein, the Judybats also should have been the Counting Crows, but the Judybats were a little too weird even to be the Connells. Similar vibe in some ways though!

yeah totally I still stand by what I wrote before, but I wanted to press more on what attracted that audience. The crowds were pretty male and coded to me as straight but the band seemed more fluid than that, at least live the lead singer was pretty...flamboyant? But fratty is pretty homoerotic. nb I was in a frat

Apparently, 74-75 was huge in Europe, which probably explains why it has 100x more plays on Spotify then their next most popular song:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%2774%E2%80%93%2775#Charts_and_certifications

i agree with enoch, i like Boylan Heights but this song was their absolute moment, but then also it occurs more and more that goodness is more a question of what you hear when than anything else

74-75 was a bad jam. never heard another note of this band's music. probably never will

btw, enoch, you're exactly right when you say they sound like some college's favorite local band. They weren't local to me, but I felt way that at the time. I felt like listening to Let's Active and The Connells were the same. Southern college rock or whatever you want to call it.

yeah I mean they were such a part of my « southern » experience in hs that I was shocked when I heard 74-75 in a hostel in the south of France, like, how did *this* escape of all things? If it was universal enough to break in Europe, then what about the rest of their oeuvre? It wasn’t a departure. And if it *was* that universal, then what was southern about it? Just how they were distributed down south?

like, I’ve never heard the Smithereens except that one song « A Girl Like You » I think but I figured why, that’s for kids in upper ny or whatever, and I’m from the south and we’ve got the Connells, and at some level it’s all the same thing but we can keep our regional variants

I didn't ever knowingly hear the Connells until early in the 2000s, outside of their appearance on the PCU soundtrack - which I surely heard many times. I don't recall even "74-75" getting play on the central Illinois alternative station in the '90s, which seems weird in retrospect. This would have been right up their alley at the time, but maybe Cracker ate up their playlist slots for "southern" leaning college rock.

That Connells song is pretty good, I've literally never heard it before. Sounds a bit like Metallica's "The Unforgiven."

> yeah totally I still stand by what I wrote before, but I wanted to press more on what attracted that audience.

I dunno...clean-cut, college-aged guys who dressed preppy and played wholly unoffensive guitar-based music? There's nothing weird, aggro or angular about the Connells. My high school had at least two versions of this band that broke up when everyone went to college.

>what was southern about it? Just how they were distributed down south?

They toured like crazy there, no? Am I wrong to think I didn't really hear much "Southern" in them as I listened to them today? Could be from Ann Arbor or Burlington or Lincoln or Boulder, etc.

Also, didn't know that Lou Giordano produced Ring!

There are some surprises he's done. Like, he's worked with the Bats on at least a couple of records,

I should really go back and dig into this band, they were a little before my time but my 11th grade English teacher was the guitarist’s sister.

Giordano's done a variety of great albums and had a super interesting career arc. Back in the Ring era he had a hot hand. I think he'd just come off of Sugar's debut?

I'm glad someone mentioned the Judybats. A couple years ago I had the idea for a totally fictional camp melodrama screenplay about The Judybats and The Connells in an all out war to be kings of the southeast club circuit ca. 1989-92. The audience would sooooooo niche, but I think it could wind up being hilarious.

giordano also produced largely disrespected nc triangle act dillon fence's second album around that time

not sure why the connells didn't quite break through with boylan heights or fun & games, but by the time of one simple word (which i think is better), chapel hill -- and the more, um, ~angular~ polvo/archers/superchunk -- was the 'next seattle' and the connells were passé

Their first lp Darker Days got flak for being too much like the Smiths and it does sound more like mid-80s college rock. But at their core they always had more widespread appeal and more pop instincts than anyone in the Triangle in that era...they weren't really much part of that Chapel Hill scene, ever. Raleigh boys to the end I guess.

Good nod to Dillon Fence!

also, check out this artifact:

https://www.discogs.com/Pink-Floyd-The-Connells-Wish-You-Were-Here-Live-74-75/release/5183771

wau

A couple years ago I had the idea for a totally fictional camp melodrama screenplay about The Judybats and The Connells in an all out war to be kings of the southeast club circuit ca. 1989-92.

what, are you me

It would be a gentler, less druggy "Dig!"

YES!

lol never encountered, before dandydon, someone who'd heard of dillon fence that didn't immediately shit on them -- and they actually did, apparently, have a hootie connection

I absolutely love the Connells' video. It may be one of my favorite videos ever.
For those who do not know, it was directed by the fairly legendary Mark Pellington.
It shows graduates of a Raleigh High School in their yearbook photos and twenty years later.
It's just super poignant and the expressions on everyone's faces tell so much about the subjects - where they were and where they thought maybe they would have been.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U9iVZwGLUn0

While looking for it just now, I came across a 2015 video that brought everyone together another two decades later.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6l3Lh2cb_g

Although it lacks the punch the initial video had on me back in the day, it was still awesome to watch.

I would spend some time in Raleigh in the mid '90s and I worked at TVT Records a few years before that so I have a serious soft spot for the band in general, but this is a masterpiece.

that sounds awesome and also depressing as fuck and i'm scared to watch it

It's both of those things but I think the scale tips to awesome.

lol never encountered, before dandydon, someone who'd heard of dillon fence that didn't immediately shit on them -- and they actually did, apparently, have a hootie connection

Yes they did have a connection. I spent a lot of time in the SE seeing bands in small clubs, particularly from 90-99. I was a huge fan of the Connells from the beginning and remain so--like someone else upthread, I was in Europe on my honeymoon when 74-75 broke over there and it was stunning because they really weren't getting any more airplay than normal here in the states.

I grew up in VA and probably saw the band live over 10 times in high school. They were super popular. I also remember that they played '74-'75 as the deboarding music on Virgin or British Air once and me being really mystified. Fun and Games is tops. People used to go crazy when Inside My Head was played live.

I think I got a Dillon Fence record once because Black Eyed Susan kind of reminded me of the Posies was I was pretty meh on them.

also people who thought The Connells were too popular would listen to Guadalcanal Diary.

and Don Dixon produced both Guadalcanal Diary and One Simple Word.

The only other Connells song I now is this one, which I like.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZjU0lxZUPA

When I lived in N. Va. my boss was a graduate of William & Mary and she was a big fan, apparently they had a huge base there.

yeah, that's the general area I grew up. They played every 3 months there either for free or $5. That area was great for shows. So many all ages venues of all sizes, lots of schools and huge military population.

My wife is from NoVA, she's a big fan of the Judybats but I don't think has ever mentions the Connells ...

The Connells I always assumed were like another regional analog to the BoDeans or something, but it sounds like the band had a lot more going on.

Fuck, that 2015 video hit me pretty hard.

xpost it's more around the Tidewater region, not NoVa.

I feel like NoVa was more towards, DC, Dischord, TeenBeat etc.

I just checked and the Connells, decades later, are STILL hitting the southeast club circuit pretty hard!

05/16/19 - Wilson, NC - Vollis Simpson Whirlygig Park

05/31/19 - Durham, NC - Motorco

06/21/19 - Norfolk, VA - The NorVa

06/22/19 - Charlottesville, VA - The Jefferson Theater

07/12/19 - Charlotte, NC - The Fillmore

07/13/19 - Atlanta, GA - Variety Playhouse

08/29/19 - Raleigh, NC - Red Hat Amphitheater

09/20/19 - Greensboro, NC - The Blind Tiger

09/21/19 - Asheville, NC - Tour De Fat

12/06/19 - Charleston, SC - Music Farm

12/07/19 - Cayce, SC - Steel Hands Brewing

12/13/19 - Chapel Hill, NC - Cats Cradle

I saw them this past summer and they were pretty much the same as they've always been

Fuck, that 2015 video hit me pretty hard.

Same.

Discovered them on the More Mondo comp of North Carolina bands. "Darker Days" really struck me and I tracked down the album, which never really clicked. Need to figure out if the MM recording is different than the album.

I'm fairly certain that the MM version is the same. BUT.

There is a UK and a USA version of Darker Days. I have them both but I don't think they were remixed (different track sequence, and if memory serves, maybe an added song on one or the other).

I was in Louisiana at the time and we had Cowboy Mouth and Better Than Ezra doing the college circuit. I was so envious of the south east to have better bands than we had. I'd take the worst Connells song over the best songs from either of those two bands.

There is a UK and a USA version of Darker Days. I have them both but I don't think they were remixed (different track sequence, and if memory serves, maybe an added song on one or the other).

TVT reissued it in the US when Boylan Heights came out.

Can confirm this song was a massive hit here in Germany. I and everyone I know has never heard anything else by the Connells tho.

Sorry I was living in the UK when this was released, so it was certainly a huge hit there.