the feelies - classic or dud?

I mean Something Wild, Blue Velvet, Street Smart, 52 Pickup and that halfway good movie with Adam Ant in it, Slam Dance (Virginia Madsen never looked lovelier)--all real Lou Reed territory but Lou Reed was no Roy Scheider. Anyway, those movies are all about white males getting themselves into a little trouble--more than they bargained for--and I'm just saying all the bands who modeled themselves after Lou Reed and the Velvets (Violent Femmes, Feelies, about a zillion others), Yo La Tengo, it's all really the Velvets just like so many fucking things are just all about the Beatles (XTC, Squeeze, Marshall Crenshaw at least had more real Brill Building verve in his shit), back in the era that the Feelies came from. White dudes getting themselves into more situation than initially suspected...

Whatever happened to the Crazy Rhythms reissue that was supposed to come out on (IIRC) Water?

I should love Bauhaus, but I can't stand them cos to me it sounded dated and thin when I first heard them in the 90's. To those who heard it at the time, it still sounds great.

this fascinates me because i only really heard bauhaus (the 4ad stuff anyway) this year and i thought it sounded surprisingly UN-dated.

In the mail today:

Bar/None Records is proud to re-release two classic albums by the Feelies, that critically acclaimed crew of hyperactive alt rockers from Haledon, New Jersey that had such a powerful influence on the sound of indie music 1980s and beyond.
Their debut release Crazy Rhythms is a masterwork of perfectly honed minimalist rock that leaps and darts into the corners of the listener's consciousness, a true sonic tour de force that Rolling Stone deemed one of the "100 Best Albums of the 1980s." Fans of the Velvet Underground, Wire and Brian Eno's early solo work will surely appreciate the "forces at work" (to quote a song title!) on this masterpiece.
Their follow-up recording, The Good Earth, came some six years later co-produced by Feelies' co-regents Glenn Mercer and Bill Million with REM's Peter Buck (a Feelies admirer since his days as a record store clerk). The Good Earth was an early release on Coyote Records, the label founded and run Steve Fallon, also the original owner of famed Hoboken indie roc mecca, Maxwell's. This album introduced the line-up that continues to this day.
Both albums feature deluxe packaging (CD and vinyl LP) with liner notes by Jim Deragotis and Jim Sullivan respectively. As the band consider each album to be a discrete aesthetic artifact, the copious bonus material including demos, b-sides, EP tracks and some new live recordings from the re-united group will be included on digital download cards.
Crazy Rhythms and The Good Earth will be released to coincide with the Feelies' September performance at the All Tomorrow's Parties festival where they will perform the classic Crazy Rhythms in its entirety.
Summer activities for the group include an acoustic performance at the Whitney Museum in New York City on June 26 as part of the Dan Graham Retrospective, as well as a free show at the Pritzke Pavillion in Chicago's Millennium Park on June 29, and a series of shows at Maxwells in Hoboken over the 4th of July weekend.

Awesome!

the band consider each album to be a discrete aesthetic artifact

Feelies OTM.

as well as a free show at the Pritzke Pavillion in Chicago's Millennium Park on June 29

definitely planning on going to this, especially after last night's awesome Dirty Projectors show in the same series

Great news!

This year's reissues have been better than this year's new music.

huzzah! glad they are putting together some bonus material for these, even if it's not on disc.

and if you need to get psyched up, here's an early live show http://doomandgloomfromthetomb.tumblr.com/post/124220071/boys-with-perpetual-nervousness-the-reunited

"Lou Reed performing Einstein on the Beach"

Dan Selzer absolutely OTM up there.
Crazy Rhythms is still one of my favourite albums ever; there's really nothing quite like it.

Crazy Rhythms and The Good Earth will be released to coincide with the Feelies' September performance at the All Tomorrow's Parties festival where they will perform the classic Crazy Rhythms in its entirety.

I will be there in full force.

he copious bonus material including demos, b-sides, EP tracks and some new live recordings from the re-united group will be included on digital download cards.

YES YES YES

haha, totally glazed over the "new live recordings from the re-united group" bit ... so there won't be live material from the 70s and 80s? Or am I reading that wrong.

no, sounds right. that is kind of sad.

yeah, a little bit weak -- they really don't have any useable live recordings from that period? most of the stuff i have is audience recordings, but I guess I thought there'd be some sort of pro stuff in the archives. not that they don't sound good these days, but the Crazy Rhythms-era band deserves documentation ...

They have some pretty good live and studio recordings. Question is how they feel about it, I think.

the copious bonus material including demos, b-sides, EP tracks and some new live recordings from the re-united group will be included on digital download cards.

NO NO NO

Seeing them in the park next Monday in Chicago -- free outdoor show.

Reissues OSSOM. I can quit lurking eBay for a CD of the Good Earth.

Still waiting on live awesomeness from the original group (1978-1991). There was at least one LP bootleg pressed - was the sound any shakes? I've got the shows from Tyler's blog (thanks again, fantasticman!) which are great but tinny.

i should quickly liquidate my good earth cd it seems

playing an acoustic set friday night at the Whitney!

Acoustic? Strange! Their sound is so much about surging waves of electricity.

So exciting to hear it's finally happening after so many false starts! I heard rumors and badgered Bar/None to confirm a year ago (see up thread), but they wouldn't say. They really should include a second disc rather than download. They'd better be available in lossless!

yeah the acoustic thing is interesting -- i assume it'll be focused on the Good Earth, since that's their most acoustic album, but who knows?

I can imagine them doing acoustic versions of Crazy Rhythms and later stuff as well. Or if Dave Weckerman's there maybe it'll be all Neil Young covers. No matter I'm sure it'll be lovely and I won't be able to make it.

I think it's high time that Demme makes that Feelies-zombie movie he originally wanted to do.

"He had called us in the early '80s and proposed a concept of a concert film that would take place in our home town. He described it as cross between The Last Waltz and The Night of the Living Dead. He had this vision. He's obsessed with small town life and suburbia. His idea was to have everybody in the town be like zombies, shuffling towards something. It turns out they're going to a Feelies concert. The zombies go inside and then by the end of the show, they're all rejuvenated and come to life. Interesting concept but he couldn't sell the idea to anyone. But we kept in touch."
http://www.furious.com/perfect/ooloo.html

I'd buy that.

me too! a smash hit! maybe Demme could work Robyn Hitchcock in there somehow as a mad scientist or something. He seems to be making a habit of cameo-ing Hitchcock these days.

If the idea is to cop a Last Waltz vibe, musical guest stars would be perfect. Imagine Hitchcock singing their "Deep Fascination" and then the Feelies backing him up on "Insanely Jealous".

What artists would you want as "special guests"? You know Peter Buck would be there.

yo la tengo, for sure, probably lou reed .... maybe they could pull some Jersey cred and get the Boss himself to sing "Boy With Perpetual Nervousness"

Bon Jovi

oh hell yes

sambora tradin' licks with mercer! oh yeah!

Who's going this Friday? I can't skip off work to make the 1 pm ticket line:(

"Last Waltz" lineup has to include Prince.

Somehow when I try to picture Springsteen singing "BWTPN" it just morphs into the E Street band slogging that song out to the tune [sic] of "Hungry Heart."

"He's not like the boys... that we used to have /
Not like them at all.
The old ones made their ... parents proud /
This one beats 'em all.
Everybody's got a hungry heart
Everybody's got a hungry heart."

hee hee, can someone do a mashup?

anybody catch the show at the Whitney? hoping a recording of it surfaces ....

The audio for the Whitney is up on Dime as we speak...

I think you said you can't do Dime, tho. If it doesn't appear elsewhere, email me.

check yr email Thus Sang Freud! I tracked down the setlist, looks cool
01 When Company Comes
02 Bluer Skies
03 Nobody Knows
04 Egyptian Reggae
05 Higher Ground
06 crowd
07 Sunday Morning
08 Undertow
09 Brenda comments
10 Invitation
11 Let's Go
12 Crazy Rhythms
13 encore break
14 Dancing Barefoot
15 What Goes On

oh how I want to hear Sunday Morning!

for realz. they've never done that one before, have they?

Egyptian Reggae!?!?! wow....

There are a few Feelies takes on Egyptian Reggae up on youtube.

Awesome, thanks!

Great show, outdoors in Chicago. Different set list than the one above, a bit.

Egyptian Reggae is one of their classic covers. That, Dancing Barefoot, What Goes On...You could make a great mix of the songs the Feelies regularly covered, it would be killer.

Chicago got an awesome cover of 'Carnival (Box Car of Sorts)' last night - Holy Cow - the 'Only Life' tracks they played were so damn special powerful too... Hoping someone taped and puts on DIME.

oh cool, would like to hear their REM cover ... and yeah a Feelies cover comp would be good. Maybe it's up to me. Has anyone else done it? Some good Neil Young tracks, and the "Outdoor Miner" they were doing last year sounded amazing.