Tom Verlaine – Words From The Front

 

Tom Verlaine – Words From The Front

By

Jesse E. Mullen

You were the leader of a seminal post-punk band. You played at CBGB’s in New York, sitting in with Patti Smith’s band. And then a familiar rock ‘n’ roll cliché takes over – the band breaks up and you are suddenly flying solo.

So was the story of Tom Verlaine in 1978. He had formed the band Television in 1973 along with second guitarist Richard Lloyd, quickly developing a telepathic guitar chemistry. Their dueling leads would inspire many guitarists in the future, including Dean Wareham and Sean Eden of Luna.

Television went onto record two records, 1977’s masterwork Marquee Moon, and the underrated Adventure in 1978. (A record deserving of its own article at a later date.) But by the end of the year, the band was no more. According to insiders, they had simply run out of steam and did not want to repeat themselves.

So, Verlaine and Lloyd launched solo careers. 1979 saw the solo debuts of both men, Lloyd with the album Alchemy and Verlaine with the eponymous Tom Verlaine. Lloyd’s album was more of a traditional rock affair with new wave touches, while Verlaine wrapped the spastic guitar textures of Television around poppier song structures.

The track “Kingdom Come” would attract attention the next year when David Bowie covered it on 1980’s Scary Monsters. Verlaine further embraced the art pop sound on 1981’s Dreamtime, particularly on “Penetration.” Skittering drums and a grooving bassline – played by Verlaine – fight against wiry guitars.

Verlaine seemed to be at an artistic peak. So, when he quickly followed up with another album – 1982’s Words From The Front – fans had to wonder whether he would continue to grow or if we had already seen the best of Tom Verlaine. So how does it stack up against his rich history?

Things get off to a shaky start with the robotic, monotonous new wave/glam hybrid “Present Arrived.” Verlaine repeats the title several times in his signature yelp-y voice. Only this time it comes across more tedious than energized. It’s saving grace is the way the musicians lock into the repetition.

Verlaine’s guitars are strong, and Joe Vasta’s bass forms a hypnotic groove with Thomas Price’s drums. Another positive factor is that it is the weakest track on the album. Verlaine continues to explore and experiment, but things only get better from here.

“Present Arrived” leads into the stark, gently reverberated wonder of “Postcard From Waterloo.” It is the first of two songs to use war and soldiers on the frontline as a metaphor for Verlaine’s experiences with romance. The lyrics describe a soldier departing for battle, leaving his girlfriend behind. She attempts to break the tension by saying he will “like the view.”

It is just as poignant musically as it is lyrically. From a production standpoint, the track uses a live-in-the-studio sound, with very minimal overdubs – a piano accenting the verses, backing vocals by Lene Lovich in the chorus. Verlaine favors a twin-guitar attack – one with an untreated, single-coil pickup sound and another with a thicker digital delayed sound.

Speaking of guitars, this was the first album where Verlaine collaborated with Jimmy Ripp. Ripp would go onto become in an important figure in Verlaine’s career – as well as the music scene in general – up to the present. He would play guitar on one of Mick Jagger’s solo albums (1993’s Wandering Spirit) and later join Television outright after the departure of Richard Lloyd in 2007.

The title track is the darker side of the “war songs” coin. “Words From The Front” is written in the style of a letter home from a shellshocked soldier. Verlaine’s lyrics read like the screenplay to a movie. A member of the narrator’s unit has recently died from his battle wounds – the surgeon operating on him was numbing his own psychic pain with alcohol.

Musically, the song is a slow dirge with Verlaine’s squealing solos filling in gaps left in the words. The entire production is so evocative of the horrors of war that it is hard to believe it wasn’t written to be on a film soundtrack.

But album closer “Days On The Mountain” is something else entirely. A nine-minute epic, it starts out with spooky Moog synthesizers and a steady rhythm track behind it before Verlaine’s voice enters. Verlaine’s single-coiled guitar starts playing elaborate figures before it swells into a chorus of harmonics. The expressive playing is accompanied by Verlaine repeating the phrase “dancing again.”

About halfway through, a bass figure enters and the track changes, becoming much more synthesizer based. Verlaine’s lyrics are ever cryptic, calling back to the “days on the mountain [he] remember(s) so well.” The sound is almost evocative of krautrock bands such as Can and Tangerine Dream. A strange classic.

When Words From The Front was first released, reviews were mixed. UK imprint Melody Maker painted Verlaine as an artist past his prime. But history has been much kinder to the album. It may take a track or two to get going, but once it does, the album equals anything Verlaine has done before or since.

Warner Bros/1982

 

 

 

 

 

 

American Music Club – California

 

American Music Club – California

By

Jesse E. Mullen

 

Innovating within the folk-rock genre can be tough. With stylistic cues and traditional instrumentation set in stone, it is nearly impossible to do something that hasn’t been done before. That is, unless you are Mark Eitzel and American Music Club.

The San Francisco group formed in 1982 and quickly established themselves as a creative force. Their sound combined the acoustic guitars and spectral warmth of folk rock with the coldness and glacial pace of UK post-punk and gothic rock. In 1985, they released a debut album widely considered to be the first slowcore release.

Entitled The Restless Stranger, it was unlike anything heard before. Songs like “Room Above The Club” dealt with desolation in a chugging Feelies style, while “Away Down My Street” fused lyrics about claustrophobia with dreamy guitars and cavernous drums. But a good deal of credit must also be given to singer/songwriter Mark Eitzel.

His crooning baritone had more in common with British post-punk vocalists than the raspier tone of typical folk singers. The name of the group also defied expectations. By calling themselves American Music Club, the band were no doubt poking fun at the classification of “Americana” which was becoming popular at the time.

In 1987, AMC followed it up with an even better album entitled Engine. Lead guitarist Mark Pankler – who goes by the mononym Vudi – was starting to establish himself as a versatile player, merging gothic gloom with Neil Young style rock. Eitzel was also beginning to sharpen his focus as a lyricist.

Engine is notable as having the first of Eizel’s many drinking songs. “Outside This Bar” is a jangling ode to being overserved. Eitzel vaguely compares the bartender to a drug dealer. It is somewhat ironically one of the most upbeat songs on the album. But it would prove pivotal in AMC’s development.

American Music Club quickly followed Engine with 1988’s California. The cover featured a grainy snapshot of a beach front in front of a dark green background. It’s an iconic looking cover, but does the music match the stark beauty?

Things get off to a promising start with the languid folk rock of “Firefly.” A three-chord acoustic melody and lively pedal steel introduce the track before Eitzel’s voice enters. The lyrics evoke the end of a summer day, spent “watching fireflies as the sun goes down.”

Once the chorus hits, we realize Eitzel is singing of love, and that the lyrics about the short lifespan of fireflies reflect his anxiety about his relationship potentially ending. It’s an apt metaphor, and it showed that Eitzel was further able to bring more straightforward meaning to his lyrics successfully.

The track was also the first appearance of Bruce Kaphan. Kaphan played the aforementioned pedal steel lick, including a gorgeous solo during the bridge. But it would not be his last appearance. Kaphan would continue to work with American Music Club and Mark Eitzel throughout the 90s.

Things go into full powerpop mode on “Somewhere.” Bright guitars chime and jangle. Drums crash and skitter along. It’s the most openly rocking thing American Music Club had done to that point. Eitzel sings about going out and getting “really drunk tonight.” Even if the words are a bit of a cliché, his passionate shout of the chorus sells them convincingly.

The sound of Neil Young and Crazy Horse is most explicitly referenced on “Pale Skinny Girl.” Vudi churns out swirling textures and “Cortez The Killer”-esque minor chords. Eitzel sounds thoroughly haunted as drums crash around him, his croon raised to a near-tenor range.

The lyrics – while sparse – paint a chilling picture. They cryptically describe a girl who lives in the mountains, is “frozen with terror like an animal,” and “never sees daylight.” It could be a metaphor for isolating oneself through substance abuse, or it could simply be a chilling tale of reclusiveness.

And what’s an American Music Club album without a full-on alcohol rant? We already had the fun side of drinking in “Somewhere,” but “Bad Liquor” is something else entirely. Eitzel shouts about his dependence on alcohol over a rockabilly-meets-The Doors groove. While Allmusic characterized it as a drunken rant, that is part of the charm of it.

Eitzel understood the damage alcohol was doing to him, as well as his relationships. Yet he couldn’t shake his need for it. This internal conflict informs both Eitzel’s delivery and his lyrics. And because of the conflict, the song succeeds.

Eitzel further establishes himself as a master of desolation on “Lonely.” A mid-tempo shuffle, it almost sounds as upbeat as opener “Firefly.” But lyrically, the song describes a night in with a man who doesn’t want him. He tells Eitzel to shut up when he tries to speak.

In the chorus, Eitzel concludes he would be better served to be alone than be lonely with someone else. The contrast of the brisk, almost breezy – by AMC standards – instrumentation with the dark lyrics show what Eitzel would do on later albums, including the bands major label debut Mercury in 1993.

The AIDS crisis hit San Francisco particularly hard in the 80s. After the White Night riots in 1979, the gay community had to contend with a new virus that was killing them, and a CDC that did very little to stop it. As Eitzel was a member of this community – he came out in 1985 – he experienced this loss firsthand.

The song “Blue and Grey Shirt” deals with his grief. The lyrics describe Eitzel waiting for his partner to come by, forgetting that he is now deceased. The allusion in the title is to a shirt Eitzel cryptically associates with his late love. It’s a devastating song lyrically, but an equally interesting one musically.

It starts out as slowcore meets Comes A Time-era Neil Young before shifting into finger-picked acoustic territory with spacey ambiance. Some of this is thanks to Eitzel’s fingerpicking, but credit must again be given to Bruce Kaphan’s pedal steel. Kaphan starts out playing traditionally, adding mournful color to the minor key chords of the verse.

But as the chords in the chorus become less traditional, so does Kaphan’s playing. He wraps lines around Eitzel’s picking, rather than just playing underneath it. Together they sound like two guitars playing off of each other, rather than one guitar and a pedal steel.

American Music Club were never folk rock in the purest sense. But on California they made the album where they were most closely aligned with the genre. They put their own spin on it, combining so-called Americana and British post-punk influences. In the end however, the only thing American Music Club sounded like was themselves.

Frontier/1988

 

 

 

 

 

 

Luna - Lunapark

 

Luna - Lunapark

By

Jesse E. Mullen

 

Starting a new band after an acrimonious breakup isn’t easy. But when your previous act are cult heroes Galaxie 500, it’s even harder. Dean Wareham led the Boston-based trio through three classic albums. They appeared on MTV, and toured Europe extensively in the late 80s and early 90s.

However, not all was well within the group. Wareham felt that drummer Damon Krukowski and bassist Naomi Yang – who were and still are a couple – had formed a voting block within the group. He felt that his ideas were being vetoed and that the friendship had run its course.

Wareham did what he felt was necessary. He backed out of a scheduled tour – knowing that they couldn’t go on without him – and got into contact with his friend Terry Tolkin. Tolkin had just been appointed head of A&R at Elektra Records and was looking for new acts to sign.

With Wareham fresh out of a (semi) successful band, Tolkin saw the opportunity to further develop a young talent. He instructed Wareham to record demos of the songs he’d been working on as a means of demonstrating his potential to the higher-ups.

So, Wareham went into Fun City Studios in spring of 1991 and recorded a demo tape under his own name. Produced by Wharton Tiers and accompanied by Mercury Rev’s Jimmy Chambers on drums, it has a warm tube amp sound.

However, it feels slightly underdeveloped as a recording. Wareham plays all of the instruments barring drums, and while his guitar playing is phenomenal as always, his bass playing is nothing to write home about. A solo career was not in the cards just yet. He needed a band and he needed one quick.

Enter Justin Harwood and Stanley Demeski. Harwood was bassist for legendary Flying Nun band The Chills in the early 90s and he brought a melodic quality to his instrument. His style was as integral to early Luna as Peter Hook was to Joy Division or Les Pattinson was to Echo & The Bunnymen.

Demeski was an equally important member. As drummer for post-punk legends The Feelies, he prided himself on perfect timekeeping. In his memoir Black Postcards, Wareham describes Demeski’s constant practicing in the tour van to keep his stamina. Officially naming themselves Luna, they were finally ready to record a debut album.

Lunapark was released in August 1992. Named after the amusement park chain, the album cover depicted a cosmic pencil sharpener which resembled a spaceship. But would the music be as cosmic as the artwork and the name? Or would Luna launch themselves too far into outer space?

Things get off to a cracking start with the neo-psychedelic “Slide.” Wareham sings of a clean break from the past, and the music matches. Harwood’s bass rumbles along melodically and Wareham plays some of his most expressive guitarwork to date. When the solo hits, he truly reaches for the stars.

But Wareham is not the only guitarist to feature on the track. Grasshopper of Mercury Rev stops by to add some tremolo guitar, contrasting nicely with Wareham’s digital delay. Credit must also be given to producer Fred Maher who mixed the track with just enough natural ambiance to sound live in the room. A thrilling start.

On “Anesthesia,” we find Wareham in more familiar territory. Using the same chords as “Tugboat” by Galaxie 500, we find a further reference to the past in the lyrics. Wareham sings that “the party’s over now,” inverting the refrain of “I don’t wanna stay at your party” from “Tugboat.”

The song describes a relationship on life support, but the origin of the title is somewhat literal. Wareham said in an interview with Jenell Kesler years later that his girlfriend at the time dumped him in the recovery room while she was waking up from surgery.

One song explicitly references the breakup of Galaxie 500. On “Slash Your Tires,” Wareham writes about a dream he had where he slashed Krukowski and Yang’s tires. The video is even more damning. It portrays an obnoxious couple driving a soft top Ford Galaxie 500, while alternating between bickering and on the verge of copulation. A bit of a low blow, but it is funny in a Lynchian way.

“Crazy People” and “Hey Sister” both devolve into surreal jamming towards the end, showing the muscle Luna could pack. They also point to the future, paving the way for the excellent chemistry that Dean Wareham would later establish with Sean Eden.

“Crazy People” ends with a guitar motif reminiscent of how The Velvet Underground slowed down “I’m Waiting For The Man” at their Matrix residency in 1969. “Hey Sister” is a start stop song with melodic bass and light guitars until Wareham slams on the tube screamer pedal. The dynamic is incredibly effective and elevates the song above mid-pack.

On “Goodbye,” Wareham seems to have circled back to the themes of “Slide.” He’s ready to leave town now that the fun has stopped. It’s a slow, dreamy number until the guitar solo hits, and Wareham has added his fretboard magic. A would-be average song is again elevated by his excellent musicianship.

Perhaps “I Want Everything” is the track that points to the future of Wareham’s songwriting. A gentle electric guitar and Wareham’s warm voice introduce the song. The lyrics describe the narrator’s wants and desires, while saying that the woman he loves has “got [him] in a bad situation.”

It’s the complexities of love that would define much of Wareham’s later songs, as well as his personal life. He would leave one marriage, only to start another with Harwood’s replacement bassist Britta Phillips - thus forming a voting block of his own. In many ways, “I Want Everything” feels almost prophetic.

In the end, Lunapark might not have had the acclaim or sales Elektra were hoping for, but it helped launch the career of one of America’s most underrated bands. Dean Wareham explored themes of escape and boredom using his quick wit and signature guitar. And on this front, the album was a smashing success.

Elektra/1992