Back
in the 90’s a pal, Don Rettman actually, was visiting me out in California and
he had gone to a record store and found this album, handed it to me and said “I
got this for you…you like melodic stuff, I think you’ll really like it.” He was
right. The Cleveland, OH-based trio of Bob Pfeifer on guitar vocals, Myrna
Marcarian on piano/organ/vocals and drummer Ron Metz certainly created a unique
sound, one that’s hard to pin down, even today. There’s an obvious love of the
Velvet Underground but I also hear garage rock of the 60’s and some snarls of the
punk scene that was just getting started. The way these three (with a rotating
cast of bass players) blended all of these elements into this spell binding
stew is, well, unique and spell binding.
They set the tone from the get go with the incredible opener “(say no to)
Saturday’s Girl’ and then rip right into the classic title track. Later on “No
Heart’ goes off the rails in a frenzied freakout (in the best way possible) while
the Marcarian-sung “I Can Walk Alone” is a pulsing, driving monster. That’s just a handful
of the tunes here but there’s 10 songs in all and not a dog in the pack. This
was the band’s only full-length but they definitely
made it count. It’s great to see the folks at Fat Possum doing this beautiful
reissue that was long overdue (it got reissued on cd on the Bar None label in
2011). Keep this one in print now and forever. www.fatpossum.com
Disappointed that the 7” and other bonus tracks from the Bar/None reish weren’t available, but “Saturday’s Girl” and “Refrigerator Door” are worth having in print at twice the price.
Was listening to one of those algorithmic “time capsule” playlists this morning and got pulled back to the nightmare/thrill of finishing my senior thesis 25 years ago with this song in steady rotation… holds up far better than I’d expected.
I can’t wait for the artists to reclaim their canvas… and $6.7MM will pay for a whole lot of “public nuisance” or “defacement of property” or “trespassing” tickets.
I hope this link works — it’s a bizarro Russian remake of The Clean’s “Beatnik.” Along with the ridiculously inept Casiotone solo and a “follow the bouncing ball” sing-a-long caption, they “updated” the lyrics just a touch in a way that even I can understand. Totally worth two+ minutes of your time in this gray January.
