Dream Syndicate

Days of Wine and Roses is a really nice CD. It won't blow you away, but it's extremely nice.

It was like a replay of the ending scene in SLC Punk right then and there. My head completely rearranged itself trying to get a handle on it. Genius, godawful screeching racket, or both? The answer of course is yes.

;)

no. no. no. if ever an album was mind-blowing, it's this one.

there's some sentence construction for you. But really one of my favorite records. Halloween is a wonderful song, but When You Smile and That's What You Always Say had the most immediate impact on me. Gotta pull it out again (the record that is).

(and i dont really think rain parade has held up that well over the years, which could also be said about Green On Red too).

Never heard of Rain Parade though. I'll try finding that.

i'd probably place dream syndicate's Days of Wine and Roses as number one on my list, with True West's Hollywood Holiday second.

Nope just the one song. It was the only song she sang live too.

I saw Steve Wynn play earlier in the year, and he said during the show that he hoped Medicine Show would be re-released on CD next year.

There's a comment here

http://www.stevewynn.net/qanda.php

saying they are working on getting it out on Sid Griffin's label

The most similar sound I can thnk of is Robert Quine (RIP), especially when he was playing with Lou Reed. Others?

Thin White Rope were different, but shared with Dream Syndicate the same love for screeching guitar interplay. And the dry, ascetic sound of _Days of Wine and Roses_ has something to do with Feelies' _Crazy Rhythms_.
For what's worth, I worship the memory of all these groups as some of the best American bands ever (Gun Club are just a little behind).

Been slowly going through my archive of stuff and #1 on the list is this... Dream Syndicate, July 1982 at the Tower Records in El Toro, CA (where I spent a LOT of money over the years). All five songs are on my YouTube stream but if you're going to watch one make it this one:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LG03K1Iuazw

Also, The Medicine Show is finally getting reissued

ha, finally! i interviewed Steve in 2001 or 2002 and asked him when that record would be reissued. he said "i'm working on it!"

You can still get a lot of the live stuff at archive.org though can't you?
I don't know why I never got around to getting the Rhino remaster. I had both the lp and the e.p. as separate cds might be why.
I also have Day Before which I love. But haven't listened to in way too long.
Actually surprised nothing from it has popped up on the old walkman i went back to since the more recent one died, I think I have the whole cd on there.

yeah more than 200 shows up on archive.org. hadn't seen that there were some of the reunion shows up.

This thread sent me down the Dream Syndicate wormhole this evening - thank you. Is it really such heresy that I dig 'Out of the Grey' a lot?

Weathered and Torn (3½, The Lost Tapes 85-88)

The Dream Syndicate's lost album, recorded in Los Angeles between their third and fourth official albums and featuring Chris Cacavas of Green on Red

150-gram vinyl in gatefold sleeve; limited to 500 copies.

sounds kinda cool, had no idea that existed

and i really don't know
cause i don't wanna know

Just goes to show how wrong you can be

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1154854281224499

some news about the forthcoming album -- amazingly, with a guest appearance from Kendra Smith!

At one point during the making of our new record I said to my bandmates, "hey, you only get one chance to make a first Dream Syndicate album in 30 years once in your life." It's a strange statement but one that's hard to refute (unless we end up making one at some point in our late 80's--which, well, you never know).

But that was the attitude we brought to the project. Either the record was going to be great, everything we hoped it would be, or we would just shelve and write it off, both financially and publicly, as a bold experiment that didn't work out.

We felt the odds were in our favor. The 50+ shows we'd played since we reunited back in 2012 had been among the best the band ever played, the perfect mix of agile improvisation, wild abandon and rock solid grooves that had always been the band's hallmark. The only 21st century addition to the band, guitarist Jason Victor who had played with me for years as a member of my solo backing band the Miracle 3, silenced any doubters within minutes of every show. He was the perfect and undisputed heir to the Syndicate axe-slingers who had come before--raw, mercurial, knowing and skilled.

And I wrote a bunch of songs to take down to Montrose Studios in Richmond, Virginia, a place I had worked often in recent years and felt was the perfect immersive retreat where we could conduct our laboratory of past, present and future. It's the kind of studio where you can grab a guitar, sandwich, cup of coffee or beer from your temporary home and stroll just a handful of steps to the studio, ready to work at almost any hour of the day. The Dream Syndicate, after all, was never really about a ticking clock, never a slave to time or space.

The magic? It was there. It was there with almost as much ease and grace as the first rehearsal we had three years before in Madrid despite Mark Walton, Dennis Duck and I having not played together for several decades. In a little less than a week we recorded much more than we needed, guided as co-producer and joined on keyboards by our old pal Chris Cacavas (who was on hand as full-time chef as well--love that guy!)

It was obvious that this would become a record, would not be tucked away as a curio to ooze out over the decades as a bootleg or maybe even forgotten. This was for real. This was going to be the fifth album by the Dream Syndicate, albeit with a long gap since the fourth.

What was started in Richmond, ably recorded by Adrian Olsen (with assistance from his dad, Montrose Studio founder Bruce Olsen) was moved back north to be mixed at Water Music in Hoboken, New Jersey by the legendary John Agnello, who has produced, engineered and/or mixed six of my previous albums. He was the perfect choice, a kindred soul in history, savvy, humor and boundless enthusiasm. The cherry on top was the peerless mastering skills of Greg Calbi, another legend and another regular collaborator of mine.

Oh, and there was one last surprise, one more perfect link to our past and completing of the circle. One of the more intriguing of the songs we recorded was a hypnotic trance and mantra called "Recurring." I had a pretty decent lyric and sang a good vocal but somehow it just didn't work. The song and the riff were cool, the band's recording was evocative and beautiful. But I began to realize I wasn't the right singer for the song. And I knew immediately that the perfect singer would be the only other person to sing lead on a Dream Syndicate song, our original bass player Kendra Smith. I was amazed and delighted that my old friend and bandmate agreed to do it and then wrote some astounding lyrics and sang a vocal that at once as true to the spirit of the song and also turned the whole thing upside down. The song, now called "Kendra's Dream" is the perfect coda to the record, tying up loose ends from the past and then opening them up again to the future.

The past. The present. The future. I always felt that the Dream Syndicate was largely about receiving, carrying and then passing along a torch of the bands that we loved passionately but whom didn't necessarily get the love and attention they deserved, living in the shadows as cult favorites, secret passwords into a society of musical fanaticism and time-delayed impact on generations to come. When we made The Days of Wine and Roses, we were obsessed with bands like the Velvet Underground, the Fall, the Gun Club, Neu, the Stooges, Big Star, the Modern Lovers--bands who are much more well known now but were almost invisible at the time. Over the course of our lifetime we felt a kinship with other bands in our various scenes around the US (you can take your own guess, you'll probably be right) and in the years since we disbanded in 1988, I've heard bits of our sound in many bands that followed. It's how these things work and it's beautiful.

And that's one of the many things I love about this new record. It feels like the perfect mix of everything we loved and everything that followed in the wake of what we did and what we loved. It sounds like everything that I loved about the Dream Syndicate and yet sounds unlike any other record we made. It's what we did but it's also what we do. Dennis, Mark, Jason, Chris and I set the bar high. It's the way it had to be. And you know what? We cleared that bar with room to spare. And that's why it's done and it will be available to listen by more people than just ourselves. We couldn't be happier.

Where is this from? Facebook?

i grabbed it from the World Cafe site (but seems to be the official word from Wynn) : http://www.worldcafelive.com/event/1431543

It's all very well but still no Karl.

yeah, does seem like a stretch! but pretty much all reports I've heard about their recent live shows have been positive.

BTW if anyone here is looking for copies of Karl's first Last Days Of May album, msg me here.n (CD only - prob. not going to be on Bandcamp anytime soon)

New album to be released in September, the 11-minute title track can be previewed here.

http://www.slicingupeyeballs.com/2017/06/20/dream-syndicate-how-did-i-find-myself-here/

sounds better than i expected to be honest!
abbreviated recent live set here (with another solid new tune): http://bigozine2.com/roio/?p=3530

It's all very well but still no Karl.

― Ned Raggett, Wednesday, February 15, 2017

Wynn says in this 2013 interview that he reached out to Karl Precoda, but Precoda apparently just wants to focus on his current gig as a VA Tech Literature and Theatre professor

http://www.phawker.com/2013/06/21/those-were-the-days-of-wine-and-roses-qa-with-the-dream-syndicates-steve-wynn/

I like this! First bit reminds me a little of the first time I ever heard "Metronomic Underground," i.e. not exactly the sound I would have expected from this band, but an interesting departure.

New video:
https://youtu.be/AgavsxHsKNk

Side note: Was it so hard to find a title that fit the meter of the song, or vice versa? If you're going to put the emphasis on the wrong syllable in your lyrics, don't repeat that phrase like 100 times.

Kendra will be joining the band for a couple of LA shows next week.

http://www.slicingupeyeballs.com/2017/12/06/dream-syndicate-kendra-smith-reunion/

KEXP performance.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=jNp29YcLP0E

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

New album in May. Info and one song here.

http://www.slicingupeyeballs.com/2019/02/20/dream-syndicate-these-times-tour-dates/?fbclid=IwAR39HgoHdVy1KIdx4UQVcigvcCFe3aHJJRVK3wKMjzFY82ILcVNQ_CAbmcw

Anyone else spent some time with the new album These Times?

I'm listening to Bullet Holes rn and the guitar is just gorgeous... Black Light's pretty amazing too. Like the newer Church albums, they seem to have locked down mixing albums to make the guitars sound angelic.

that shoulda been "locked down the art of mixing albums"

Another new one coming, with a 20-min song link in the article.

http://www.slicingupeyeballs.com/2020/02/26/dream-syndicate-universe-inside/

I really liked These Times. Otm about the guitars sounding gorgeous

Out today--details, link to video etc here:
https://press-anti-.cmail20.com/t/ViewEmail/d/CD47FA39B42E8BBF2540EF23F30FEDED/37DF686EB1636A57DBC23BD704D2542D

dudes are prolific these years, I'm on board

I love these guys but this is kinda slight and disappointing :(

Did yall see this?
This mind-melting curation of early live recordings by The Dream Syndicate is testimony from a witness: Los Angeles writer Matthew Specktor. He has created three live albums that carry you from the band’s first show, through “The Days of Wine and Roses,” and into a full live preview of “The Medicine Show.”

Download it from this page, which also incl. Specktor's notes (would like to read his forthcoming memoir, Always Crashing In The Same Car);
https://saveyourface.posthaven.com/the-dream-syndicate-live-1982-1983

from their FB:

December 27, 1981……a memory from a Sunday evening, 40 years ago

Karl Precoda and I had been meeting regularly and jamming in my father’s basement in West LA over the course of the previous months, having met when he showed up to try out on bass for a band I was goofing around with at the time. “I don’t like this band very much but you’re really good—we should get together and play again sometime.”

There was an immediate chemistry between the two of us and, most of all, we were just having fun jamming on one chord for hours or playing loose versions of CCR covers or fooling around with some new songs I had been writing. I called up Kendra Smith, my best friend at the time and band mate from when we had both attending UC Davis in the years before. Like me, she had moved back to LA and had just recently started playing bass. I knew she’d dig what we were laying down and she enthusiastically joined our aimless duo and before long we found a drummer named Randy who I believe I met at the Rhino Records store where I was working at the time. Randy was game and enthusiastic but as much as an inspired but limited amateur as me and Kendra and Karl which was just fine since we had no ambition beyond making noise in the basement.

One day Kendra said, “I was talking to Dennis Duck at a party in Pasadena and he said he might like to play with us sometime.” Now, you have to understand that Dennis was a rock star as far as we were concerned. He was 6 years older than the rest of us and had already made a mark on the LA post punk scene, drumming with his band Human Hands. They’d put out records! They’d been played on the radio! I had seen them play live several times including a great show at the Whiskey a Go Go where they opened for the Feelies and the nervous energy of both bands coupled with a 103 degree fever I was battling from the flu to make for one of the most memorable shows I’ve seen to this day (and interestingly enough, the topic of conversation with me and Dennis and the Feelies’ Glenn Mercer at a show we played together just a few weeks ago in NYC at City Winery).

Anyway, I was a little incredulous that Dennis would want to play with us. But I was also pretty cocky and full of beans about our cool little raggedy combo and on Sunday, December 27, I called him up on a torrentially rainy afternoon (it DOES rain in Southern California sometimes) and said, “Hey, we’re getting together to jam in my dad’s basement tonight. Wanna come over?” Dennis lived an hour away in Pasadena, it was pouring and he would have to load up his own drums to make the trek but somehow I was doggedly persistent enough to convince him to come out. I guess I made a good case or maybe just wouldn’t shut up until he said yes. To this day, he’s surprised he agreed.

Anyway, Dennis arrived, drums dripping from the rain outside, set up and started playing with us in the basement . He had brought along a boom box to record the rehearsal. We didn’t try to impress him or even say much about what we were doing. We just did our thing and he played along. At the end, he packed up and I helped him to his car. “Thanks for coming out and playing with us,” I said—I am nothing if not polite—and he didn’t say all that much in return. I figured he was probably wondering why he bothered to come out and play with kids like us and pretty much assumed we wouldn’t be hearing from him again.

A few days later I called Dennis to thank him for coming out and asked him if he had listened to the cassette he had recorded of the rehearsal. He answered, “I’ve listened to nothing ELSE since then. It’s one of the best things I’ve heard in a long time. I want to play with you guys.” And that was that. Three weeks later we made a quick four-song demo that became our first EP and only a few days after that we played our first show, opening for PIL spin-off band Brian Brain at Club Lingerie in Hollywood and we were off and running, only a handful of days after the first time we played together.

Here’s a link to that first rehearsal, copied directly from Dennis’ cassette that he still has all these years later.

http://traders.stevewynn.net/tape/5725

40 years ago. Hard to believe. Since then, Dennis and I have held the fort, first with Karl and Kendra and then, over the following years in the 80’s, with Dave Provost and Paul B. Cutler and Mark Walton and now for the last 10 years with the consistent lineup of me, Dennis, Mark, Jason Victor and Chris Cacavas. Our new album comes out next June with the first single being released in March. With any luck we’ll be out there on road for much of the latter part of the year.

But for now, happy 40th Birthday to the Dream Syndicate. Like many good and incendiary things, it all started in the basement.
—Steve Wynn

This is wonderful, thanks for the link.

Steve Wynn lives in my neighborhood nowadays, I think, but I don't believe I have ever seen him.

As annotator and singer (incl. with his other music), he's always come across as a nice guy, a little too nice (only) to be an exciting front man, but can listen around him (one o those guys)
The download link to this still works, and I still want to read Spektor's book, which has since been published:
Did yall see this?
This mind-melting curation of early live recordings by The Dream Syndicate is testimony from a witness: Los Angeles writer Matthew Specktor. He has created three live albums that carry you from the band’s first show, through “The Days of Wine and Roses,” and into a full live preview of “The Medicine Show.”

Download it from this page, which also incl. Specktor's notes (would like to read his forthcoming memoir, Always Crashing In The Same Car);
https://saveyourface.posthaven.com/the-dream-syndicate-live-1982-1983

― dow, Sunday, June 6, 2021

new out of the grey era collection coming out — https://usa.firerecords.com/products/the-dream-syndicate-what-can-i-say-no-regrets-out-of-the-grey-live-demos-outtakes-3xcd

a flawed album, but listening recently it sounded much better than I remember. the live show included here is pretty killer too.

I appreciate how the first thing you hear on the 1981 rehearsal tape is a sloppy take on the "Back in Black" riff.

"Paranoid" too, good to know that even the coolest bands noodle away at bad renditions of songs in rehearsal too.

When I was in high school in the '80s there was a stretch of time when I would put the cassette of The Days of Wine and Roses in my boom box every night when I was getting in bed so I could fall asleep to it.

I just now bought the CD of that album for nostalgia reasons and listened to it again. Funnily enough, Track 1 "Tell Me When It's Over" sounds super-familiar, like I remember every note of it. But the rest of it, I feel as if I'm hearing it for the first time. I must have consistently fallen asleep during Track 1 back in high school. In fact I'm surprised how aggro the rest of the album is, starting even with Track 2. I misremembered the whole thing as sounding kind of dreamy and drowsy, but that's only one facet of it.

Hahaha no, dreamy and drowsy it ain’t!

Oh, how sad:

https://thedreamsyndicate.bandcamp.com/album/the-days-of-wine-and-roses-expanded-edition

The Dream Syndicate reveal a newly expanded 40th Anniversary Edition release History Kinda Pales When It and You Are Aligned: The Days Of Wine and Roses (4xCD Expanded Edition). Collecting 54 songs from the original line-up, including 10 hard-to-find rarities and 31 never released recordings.

An exceptional early ‘80s guitar-powered gem, remastered in full and includes a wealth of unreleased material. This newly expanded 4 CD collection includes tracks from main protagonist Steve Wynn’s earlier combo 15 Minutes, the debut EP, astounding cover renditions (Johnny Cash, Janis Joplin, The Who), recordings of the band’s first ever rehearsal, along with several visceral live concerts live concerts pre-dating the recording of their album.

Tracklist:

Disc One: Original Days of Wine and Rose album + Down There EP
Tell Me When It's Over
Definitely Clean
That's What You Always Say
Then She Remembers
Halloween
When You Smile
Until Lately
Too Little, Too Late
The Days of Wine and Roses
Sure Thing (Down There EP Version)
That's What You Always Say (Down There EP Version)
When You Smile (Down There EP Version)
Some Kinda Itch (Down There EP Version)

Disc Two: Even More Hot Rocks (no hits & out of phase cookies)
That's What You Always Say (15 Minutes / 7 inch Single Version)
Last Chance For You (15 Minutes / 7 inch Single Version)
Too Little, Too Late (Rehearsal Version, 1981)
Definitely Clean (Rehearsal Version, 1981)
Is It Rolling, Bob? (Rehearsal Version, 1982)
A Reason (Rehearsal Version, 1982)
Like Mary (Rehearsal Version, 1982)
Outside the Dream Syndicate (Rehearsal Version, 1982)
Last Chance For You (Rehearsal Version, 1982)
Unknown song with lyrics (Rehearsal Version, 1982)
Some Kinda Itch (Live at KPFK, 1982)

Disc Three: Crackling Noises Ok - Do Not Correct
Until Lately (Live at 1313 Mockingbird Lane, CA, 1982)
Sure Thing (Live at 1313 Mockingbird Lane, CA, 1982)
Then She Remembers (Live at 1313 Mockingbird Lane, CA, 1982)
It’s Gonna Be Alright (Live at 1313 Mockingbird Lane, CA, 1982)
Halloween (Live)
That’s What You Always Say (Live)
Sure Thing (Live)
Definitely Clean (Live)
Too Little, Too Late (Kendra vocal) (Live)
When You Smile (Live)
Some Kinda Itch (Live)
That’s What You Always Say (Rehearsal Version)
Road Runner (Rehearsal Version)
Instrumental (Rehearsal Version)

Disc Four: Live'r Than You'll Ever Be
Tell Me When It’s Over (Live at the Country Club, Reseda CA, 1982)
That’s What You Always Say (Live at the Country Club, Reseda CA, 1982)
Sure Thing (Live at the Country Club, Reseda CA, 1982)
Then She Remembers (Live at the Country Club, Reseda CA, 1982)
Halloween (Live at the Country Club, Reseda CA, 1982)
Definitely Clean (Live at the Country Club, Reseda CA, 1982)
When You Smile (Live at the Country Club, Reseda CA, 1982)

haha, how many times have they reissued this record? that said ... this looks awesome.

Every 10 years or so? The Rhino was a 20th Anniversary version, and iirc the other expanded one was for the 30th (and the OG CD was in the early '90s).

I was at the 1313 Mockingbird Lane show, it was a goth-ish jewelry and clothing store in Pasadena.

With a name like that I'd hope so!

I only ever had the Rhino reissue with the EP and single track on it, so I'll be fine with this being my second copy of the album (and last, I hope).

LOL, but yeah this looks amazing. I already have the original Slash CD and the Omnivore CD reissue. (Amusingly I was debating whether to get rid of one of them just a few days ago when I was reorganizing the shelves.)

Actually I just learned in this thread that Wynn had an offshoot band called 15 Minutes. When I got the Rhino CD many years ago I saw "(15 Minutes)" after two of the song titles and I thought I'd be in for a couple of long rave ups. Imagine my disappointment.

Steve Wynn and Dennis Duck from original band and Mark Walton from a later line-up, plus Vicki Peterson from The Bangles, are/were touring UK. And Matt Piucci from The Rain Parade supported

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IZOmwpmq7mY