The Silos Cuba is indeed great. But their best song came later, on the Susan Across The Ocean album. It's a cover of a song called Let's Take Some Drugs and Drive Around. If you haven't heard it, you're in for a treat.
http://www.amazon.com/Susan-Across-Ocean-Silos/dp/B000000FDI
― kornrulez6969, Wednesday, 6 October 2010 14:21 (thirteen years ago) link
cover of a song called Let's Take Some Drugs and Drive Around
by michael hall of the wild seeds, who almost certainly fit on this thread themselves.
― fact checking cuz, Wednesday, 6 October 2010 14:33 (thirteen years ago) link
His version is more ironic. The Silos turn it into an anthem
― kornrulez6969, Wednesday, 6 October 2010 14:50 (thirteen years ago) link
I was among the ~75 people who saw The Silos, Vulgar Boatmen and Michael Hall do that song at Metro in...'96? One of the better moments of my concert going. Great show!
The Vulgar Boatmen still put on a great show. There's a documentary on them about to come out, I believe.
― john. a resident of chicago., Wednesday, 6 October 2010 19:29 (thirteen years ago) link
Yes, it's called Drive Somewhere. It can be downloaded here.
I can't say enough good things about The Vulgar Boatmen. I never had the pleasure of seeing them live, but they are one of the few bands that does not have a bad song.
― kornrulez6969, Wednesday, 6 October 2010 20:03 (thirteen years ago) link
This is easily Jason & The Scorchers for me. Their new album has at least 4 cuts that'd go on their career anthology.
― Gerald McBoing-Boing, Wednesday, 6 October 2010 23:32 (thirteen years ago) link
xpost
Living in Chicago, I've been fortunate enough to have seen the Vulgar Boatmen, geez, at least 15 times. Another standout was at Beat Kitchen in ~1992 when I first saw them do "Roadrunner". The place was going nuts! One of my favorite shows.
First time I saw them was at Marquette University, around the time of "You and Your Sister". The bill was, Vulgar Boatmen, Blake Babies and Die Kreuzen (?!). I've still got the flyer for that show somewhere...
― john. a resident of chicago., Wednesday, 6 October 2010 23:40 (thirteen years ago) link
Nice! Was Robert Ray playing with them too?
― kornrulez6969, Thursday, 7 October 2010 00:29 (thirteen years ago) link
And...yes, the new Jason & The Scorchers record is excellent. I love Better Than This.
― kornrulez6969, Thursday, 7 October 2010 00:32 (thirteen years ago) link
man Drivin & Cryin used to Rock the Dock in Jackson, MS on the reg. Blind Melon was really big, too IIRC (but maybe a year or two later? I think this might have even been before Bee girl fame). I think those might have been my first rock shows that weren't like 3-Dog Night and Steppenwolf doing the oldies circuit at the Mid-South fair with my parents a mere 200 yards away.
― hypnosis is the reason some Jewish people backed him → (will), Thursday, 7 October 2010 00:36 (thirteen years ago) link
The Silos record with the bird on the cover is the first thing I can remember buying purely b/c I read a couple of great reviews of it (I believe in Spin and Rolling Stone), and I do remember liking that song "Picture of Helen" a lot. They had a brief moment where they had a ton of buzz if I remember right.
― Mark, Thursday, 7 October 2010 01:26 (thirteen years ago) link
> Was Robert Ray playing with them too?
He may have been with them for the Silos/Michael Hall show, but that could be revisionist history. Does the Gainesville version of the band still play?
Thanks for that movie link, I'm looking forward to watching it. Always thought the Boatmen would make a good documentary subject.
― john. a resident of chicago., Saturday, 9 October 2010 16:04 (thirteen years ago) link
All about Green on Red. Like Kevn Kinney solo more than Drivin' and Cryin'. Maria McKee both ways.
― ok we are pals (Eazy), Saturday, 9 October 2010 16:16 (thirteen years ago) link
don't think i really need beat rodeo in my life.
really enjoyed that rank & file album a couple of weeks ago though. long gone dead still rules.
― scott seward, Friday, 29 April 2011 19:23 (thirteen years ago) link
listening now to the eieio album from 1986. *land of opportunity*. so far i dig it more than beat rodeo. some decent guitar action on the first track.
― scott seward, Friday, 29 April 2011 19:26 (thirteen years ago) link
plus, they've got guitars all over the place. over here. over there. everywhere. good solos. good country/southern twang. good riffs. sounds like they liked the byrds AND badfinger AND southern/country rock.
― scott seward, Friday, 29 April 2011 19:29 (thirteen years ago) link
sounds good to me!
― Trip Maker, Friday, 29 April 2011 19:30 (thirteen years ago) link
singing kinda sucks though. a commmon problem with a lot of the new wave cow bands.
― scott seward, Friday, 29 April 2011 19:46 (thirteen years ago) link
and the production isn't total don dixon blah (he didn't produce it), but its still got that 80's living in a box feel. but not TOO bad or anything. (not the band living in a box. just that canned 80's thing.)
― scott seward, Friday, 29 April 2011 19:48 (thirteen years ago) link
Yes. Those singers all tried way too hard. It's as if every line of every song ends with three exclamation points.
― kornrulez6969, Friday, 29 April 2011 19:56 (thirteen years ago) link
fly me!!!courageous!!!
drivin and cryin (the band name) used to crack me up in high schoolwho would admit to being in a band called DRIVIN AND CRYIN
― deez m'uts (La Lechera), Friday, 29 April 2011 20:02 (thirteen years ago) link
I like how the Flesheaters guy simultaneously screamed and crooned every line. But they were at the punky end, much more like Gun Club. Someone gave me a Tail Gators cassette of Tore Up that I quite liked, but never felt the need to replace it when it got smooshed. They seemed to be at the bar-band end of the scene.
This summarizes everything that was problematic about the bands in the thread title.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=88cewhasU74
― bendy, Friday, 29 April 2011 20:03 (thirteen years ago) link
maybe i should blame mitch easter as well as don dixon for that uptight box sound but i love mitch and i would feel horrible saying anything bad about him. all these bands should have recorded their albums wherever the hell hardcore punk bands recorded their albums. they needed more ragged liveliness. a more live feel. but they all loved the byrds and stacked harmonies and shit which was usually their week spot to begin with. they shoulda just spent all their time on the guitars.
― scott seward, Friday, 29 April 2011 20:14 (thirteen years ago) link
listened to some of an EP by a band called Lifeboat from 1985. not great. definite R.E.M./DBs thing going on with a dash of u.k. new wave a la echo and the bunnymen? or someone like that. boston band i think?
(so anyway they don't really belong here except for the jangle angle.)
― scott seward, Friday, 29 April 2011 20:17 (thirteen years ago) link
jeezus i totally forgot about the bongos song numbers with wings! its like a fuckin' proust cookie! swear i haven't heard it since 1983 or 1984 and i know every second of it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SbzYn48qJxU
― scott seward, Friday, 29 April 2011 20:25 (thirteen years ago) link
Boston had a mess of bands doing this, like the Del Fuegos, a little more east coast, less cowboy. Neighborhoods, Rubber Rodeo, Dogmatics, Scruffy the Cat, Blackjacks. They'd get a bit local commercial radio airplay and they had videos on the short lived Boston UHF music video channel, in a way that the hardcore bands, or even Mission of Burma never did. There was a bit of spillover. I think I saw Dogmatics and the Queers play an all-ages show together.
― bendy, Friday, 29 April 2011 20:29 (thirteen years ago) link
wow barbarella! by the bongos. total memory lane. i really need a copy of the remix now. always loved that.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JhstSCfMyoE
― scott seward, Friday, 29 April 2011 20:33 (thirteen years ago) link
sorry i'm straying...
i get so much of that 80's boston indie stuff cuzza where i am.
― scott seward, Friday, 29 April 2011 20:34 (thirteen years ago) link
everyone should have just had richard gottehrer do their records. he gave everything a little i want candy punch.
― scott seward, Friday, 29 April 2011 20:37 (thirteen years ago) link
Scruffy The Cat got some MTV airplay for "My Baby" something something. I remember their distinguishing characteristic being a banjo player.
Were the Neats part of that same Boston scene?
― Funky Mustard (People It's Bad) (Tarfumes The Escape Goat), Friday, 29 April 2011 20:52 (thirteen years ago) link
yah, they were.
― scott seward, Friday, 29 April 2011 20:56 (thirteen years ago) link
OK, I thought so. I saw them open for R.E.M. in 1985, and wasn't into it, but I heard a record or two which was a lot better.
― Funky Mustard (People It's Bad) (Tarfumes The Escape Goat), Friday, 29 April 2011 20:57 (thirteen years ago) link
neats were on ace of hearts. boston label.
― scott seward, Friday, 29 April 2011 20:58 (thirteen years ago) link
the neats always make me think of the neighborhoods. same label. same kinda thing.
― scott seward, Friday, 29 April 2011 20:59 (thirteen years ago) link
I used to like the Neats' first EP, Monkey's Head In The Corner Of The Room (that had "Do The Things" on it, right?); just noticed yesterday that I mentioned them in the first review I ever got paid to write, of Bad Religion's Into the Unknown.
Rob Sheffield write a pretty hilarious thing in Radio On once about all the "next Cars" bands out of Boston in the early '80s; not sure if the Neats made that list or not.
I kind of hated this album when I bought it a couple years ago! Wrote why here:
Rolling Country 2009 Thread
Have had way more luck with the first two Jason & the Scorchers albums (well, the 12-inch EP Fervor and Lost And Found). Still on the fence about the Beat Farmers' Tales Of The New West, which I probably wouldn't have hung on to if it didn't at least have the courtesy to be really short. Totally swear by Danny & Dusty's Lost Weekend and the Long Ryders' State of Our Union, though.
― xhuxk, Friday, 29 April 2011 21:08 (thirteen years ago) link
"...Sheffield wrote..."
Think I got the Neats' first album, too, at the time (did that have "Six"? I'm not even sure how I remember these titles, haven't heard the records since the mid '80s), but I didn't like it as much. Maybe it was just too much of a neat thing.
― xhuxk, Friday, 29 April 2011 21:13 (thirteen years ago) link
I liked the Neats and saw them at the old 930 Club. I don't think of them alongside the 80s alt-country bands though. More pop but in a Hoboken way not a Cars new wave way.
― curmudgeon, Friday, 29 April 2011 21:38 (thirteen years ago) link
Just realized that in a more questionable music period in my life, I saw at least three of the thread title bands open for U2 ...
― BlackIronPrison, Friday, 29 April 2011 21:40 (thirteen years ago) link
Got the forthcoming Silos, but haven't made it that far in the promoyard. Apparently there's a film about the Vulgar Boatmen, according to Ann Powers' twitterfeed (she's in Tuscaloosa, but unscathed). A number of Mitch Easter's 80s productions (incl Murmur,I think) were done in his parents' attached garage, next to the Purina Dog Chow. But what was everybody else's excuse? Not that familiar with Green On Red, although some fun live stuff, and Chuck Prophet has that arguments over fun vs. "meaning" split the band. I'd say fun vs. "meaning" vs. actual meaning is a signif undertow in his solo albums, which can be slack and pretentious simultaneously (like he's trying to be Tom Petty trying to be Dylan)--but when he's on he's on. "She was unwanted in 17 states"! Go tell it, Mr Prophet. And if you can find Dreaming Waylon's Dream ,that's some kind of inspired country power pop. Good live set posted on NPR, too.
― dow, Friday, 29 April 2011 21:41 (thirteen years ago) link
Oh, and I drove by the Easters' house, back in the day--the garage was more like a barely walled-in carport!
― dow, Friday, 29 April 2011 21:42 (thirteen years ago) link
(In Winston-Salem, NC)
― dow, Friday, 29 April 2011 21:43 (thirteen years ago) link
Chuck Prophet has *said* arguments etc
― dow, Friday, 29 April 2011 21:51 (thirteen years ago) link
So, turns out the Neats were #19 on Sheffield's Next Cars list. (Defined as "the best New Wave haircut bands who emerged from Boston between 1978 and 1984": "All these bands had great fey local radio hits; none ever broke out except Til Tuesday....Some of them didn't even have keyboard players! But they all made their mark as the Next Cars.") As a public service (even though most were obviously not the sort of farmer bands this thread was originally created for) here is the list:
1. November Group2. Sex Execs3. Berlin Airlift4. Private Lightning5. 'Til Tuesday6. Adventure Set7. The Buddy System8. Boys Life9. The Atlantics10. (Dissplin) Ad-X11. Someone and the Somebodies12. Native Tongue13. The Models14. Mission of Burma15. Poland's Angry Workers16. Nervous Eaters17. The Outlets18. The Fools19. The Neats20. The Rings21. Chain Link Fence22. Men & Volts23. Human Sexual Response24. The Stompers25. Robert Ellis Orral26. Jon Buther Axis27. The New Models ("unless they're the same band as #13")28. The Proletariat29. The Rhythm Method30. Wild Kingdom31. Push Push32. The Schemers33. The Neighborhoods34. The Blackjacks35. The Lines36. Lou Miami and the Cosmetix37. Face to Face
----
I personally currently own albums by Native Tongue, Mission Of Burma (their debut EP and 45, on CD), the Fools (four by them I think!), and Human Sexual Response. In my distant past I wrote good things about Men & Volts and the Proletariat, so I must have liked them once too.
― xhuxk, Friday, 29 April 2011 22:06 (thirteen years ago) link
i LOVE this lou miami video. his records were cool.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nw_u6InmNmU
― scott seward, Friday, 29 April 2011 22:10 (thirteen years ago) link
love this song too:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pd6uUq4Tj0c
― scott seward, Friday, 29 April 2011 22:12 (thirteen years ago) link
Wasn't "cowpunk" coined by a Boston reviewer? Local examples including, maybe, The Last Roundup, or something like that ( with Amy McMahon, later Amy Rigby)? And the Lazy Cowgirls--? Isn't Robert Ellis Orral now a Nashville songwriter, and hasn't he been covered by Lady Antebellum or somebody similar, and don't two of his sons now record as JEFF (caps in orig) The (Something or other)? I could look it up.
― dow, Friday, 29 April 2011 22:15 (thirteen years ago) link
. November Group - i'm a fan2. Sex Execs - can't remember3. Berlin Airlift - album i have is pretty good4. Private Lightning - dunno5. 'Til Tuesday - fan6. Adventure Set - um...7. The Buddy System - um...8. Boys Life - not a fan9. The Atlantics - dig them. really like their album10. (Dissplin) Ad-X - um...11. Someone and the Somebodies - uh...12. Native Tongue - pretty good13. The Models - i'm a fan14. Mission of Burma - like the hits15. Poland's Angry Workers - uh...16. Nervous Eaters - fan, but not of their one big studio album17. The Outlets - uh...18. The Fools - awesome19. The Neats - okay20. The Rings - dunno21. Chain Link Fence - not my kinda thing22. Men & Volts - no thanks23. Human Sexual Response - love them24. The Stompers - okay, not great25. Robert Ellis Orral - some good tracks on his albums26. Jon Buther Axis - cool27. The New Models ("unless they're the same band as #13") - dug them a little28. The Proletariat - punk rock29. The Rhythm Method - not bad30. Wild Kingdom - dunno...31. Push Push - dunno...32. The Schemers - um...33. The Neighborhoods - okay34. The Blackjacks - probably better live35. The Lines - funny36. Lou Miami and the Cosmetix - cool37. Face to Face - couple songs i dig
-
― scott seward, Friday, 29 April 2011 22:16 (thirteen years ago) link
xp Lazy Cowgirls weren't cowpunk from Boston, though! They were (girl-less) garage/hard rock/metal punk from L.A., kind of Stoogey or at least quasi-Stoogey.
And yeah, I think Robert Ellis Orral has written hit country stuff, though I'm not seeing his byline on either Antebellum CD. (Surprised to see they write almost all of their own stuff.). Apparently Orral also had a Top 40 duet with Carlene Carter in 1983, called "I Couldn't Say No."
There's lots of bands on that Next Cars list that I've never even heard of, or ever seen a record by.
― xhuxk, Friday, 29 April 2011 22:23 (thirteen years ago) link
I get the Sex-Execs mixed up with Exude, who did the Lauper parody "Boys Just Want To Have Sex." (No idea where they were from.)
― xhuxk, Friday, 29 April 2011 22:25 (thirteen years ago) link