One of last year's nicest surprises was a deluxe double-CD reissue of Absolute Grey's 1985 debut album, Greenhouse. Absolute Grey was a four-piece from Rochester, a small city in upstate New York known mostly for its colleges and Eastman Kodak's world headquarters. The Greenhouse reissue collects the original LP's eight tracks and adds a bonus disc of live material. What's fascinating is how dated it sounds now. I don't mean this in a negative way. Some LPs are timeless; they could have been recorded any time in the past forty years and sounded fresh and new. Other albums end up date-stamped--you can tell exactly when they were recorded and what their probable influences were. Listening to Greenhouse, it's easy to guess Absolute Grey's influences: R.E.M., Dream Syndicate, Sandy Denny-era Fairport Convention, perhaps a little Bay Area '60s psychedelia. In other words, the typical things smart kids from small college towns were listening to in the mid-1980s. The guitar tones are jangly, and lead singer Beth Brown has clearly been influenced by Michael Stipe's early moaning vocals. Many bands of the time had the same influences, but precious few took them out of the realm of imitation. Absolute Grey were one of those few. Rather than sounding embarrassingly derivative, Greenhouse sounds like a welcome dispatch from an earlier era.

The live tracks add a new dimension as well. Songs that were moody and pensive on record take on a much more raucous, discordant tone. They don't sound like psych-pop avatars at all in person, but rather excited kids playing rock music for local friends and fans. It's also nice to hear so many songs that previously existed on demos if at all.

Greenhouse remains Absolute Grey's most celebrated release. The band continued on for a few more years, releasing the What Remains LP and Painted Post EP on Midnight and Sand Down The Moon LP for the Greek label Di-Di. The former members are now scattered between the East and West coasts. However, it looks like their story's not done yet. Three of the former band members (minus guitarist Matt Kitchen) are planning to record new material under the Absolute Grey moniker. There are also plans afoot to issue Sand Down The Moon domestically.

Vocalist Beth Brown, drummer Pat Thomas, and bassist Mitch Rasor were kind enough to answer some questions about their early days. I have been wanting to do this interview for almost twenty years, when I first fell in love with Greenhouse via college radio…

Scram: Let's get the basics out of the way first. How did the four of you get together?

Beth Brown: We were from Pittsford, one of the nicer, more sheltered suburbs of Rochester. I had been in a new wave band right out of high school in 1979 called Hit & Run. We did originals and some covers: Blondie, Patti Smith, the Cars, Tom Petty and Talking Heads. We did some recording, and one of our songs was chosen to be on a Homegrown record. Homegrown was a radio show on rock station WCMF in Rochester, which interviewed and promoted local bands. We played a record release party and were introduced to all the "cool" musicians from the city. Nobody knew who we were, but when we played all eyes were on us and we got a really good reception. Hit & Run only lasted a year. Some of the guys went off to college.

A few years later, I was living at my parents' house when I met Matt and Mitch. I came home one night from working at the record store, and my younger brother was playing Dungeons and Dragons with a bunch of guys. Matt and Mitch were among them and I thought they were really cool right off the bat. They were in a band called the Cads (what a great name) with Matt's older brother, Will. They were doing their own material and although they weren't that great, there was something so artistic and intriguing about them. They knew I had been a singer in a band, and we decided to start playing together. They were seven years younger than me, but I didn't care in the least. We tried out a few drummers and that's when we found Pat.

Pat Thomas: Matt, Mitch and Beth had already been doing a bit of rehearsing when I met them. They had one original song. I saw an ad that Beth had put up in the record store where she worked. At the very least I thought I'd check out what Beth was all about, as I'd noticed her strutting through the record store.

Mitch Rasor: We made these stupid arty posters and put them around the city. They showed a frog playing lily pads and we said we were looking for a lily pad player. Some of the lily pad players we auditioned before Pat were truly bad. Pat came in with these tight mod striped London pants and a very 1970s porn star mustache. It was love at first sight.

Pat: My memory of that first rehearsal was that Beth was high-strung and intense, Matt was kinda shy yet friendly at the same time and Mitch had a certain charming confidence. For whatever reason I was into making music with these three people, even though they had no real songs yet.

Scram: I didn't know until reading the Greenhouse liner notes that Matt and Mitch were so young. What was it like being in a professional band at that age? What did your parents/classmates think of the project?

Mitch: My parents were completely supportive. We practiced in their basement; they came to many shows. My mother and I had a ritual of going out to lunch downtown and buying a new set of Rotosound bass strings the day before every gig. The band was the antithesis of the conformity, geographic isolation and intellectual frostbite of high school. Because of the band, most my friends were older, more educated and better medicated. People in school were not aware of the band; it was a different world based in the city compared to the suburbs. Ironically, after the freedom of the band, the travel, attention and camaraderie, I found my first year at Oberlin to be restrictive and confining, even though it was a place of incredible musical experimentation, politics and intense friendships.

Scram: Pat,where are you from originally, and when did you hit town? What was your musical background prior to the move? Did you have designs on forming a band in Rochester?

Pat: Like Beth, I was a few years older than Matt and Mitch. I grew up in Corning, NY, and moved to Rochester in June 1982 to work at Kodak. Before Absolute Grey, I was in many garage and cover bands. I'd also written and recorded some of my own songs, which had a strong Lou Reed/Bob Dylan vibe. When I first moved to Rochester, I was actually searching for a prog-rock band to join. I wanted something more along the lines of early King Crimson and Brian Eno. My taste has always been all over the map, but just before I hooked up with Absolute Grey, I'd gotten a bit tired of prog and really started getting into the Dream Syndicate as they reminded me of my big faves, the Velvet Underground.

Scram: Please describe the Rochester music scene of the time. It sounds like a friendly, close-knit scene. Did touring bands make it through town often? Did you have a supportive radio station or club scene? A good record store?

Mitch: I look back on the scene with some nostalgia because in hindsight, Absolute Grey was very hip in one area code. The scene was a close group of bands, friends and weirdoes brought together by the music. Rochester did not have real artistic depth, but it was an important stop on the national tour circuit between Cleveland/Chicago and New York.

Pat: There was a great record store, the Record Archive, where Beth worked. They stocked a lot of indie-rock, etc. (Now the store is kinda lame.) There were two great college radio stations, WITR and WRUR. A club called Scorgies, where we often played, had tons of great touring bands--Dream Syndicate, Long Ryders, Rain Parade, dBs, the Neats, Love Tractor, Let's Active, Lyres, the Three O'clock, Game Theory, Alex Chilton, True West. We often opened up for these bands and/or hung out with them. Most of the local bands were cool to hang with; we had a special relationship with Invisible Party. They made one hard-to-find seven-inch single, but later split into two separate bands called Lotus STP and the Ferrets.

Beth: The Replacements graced the Rochester stage with their presence several times.

Mitch: Rochester was not Los Angeles, but in our isolation we created something cool, which in some ways makes it actually more meaningful and culturally critical. Our critical mass was always about to unravel. It was more like fending off extinction than trying on a lifestyle for size. I prefer the edge of things.

Scram: Did you feel naive or isolated in Rochester?

Pat: I felt very isolated. I knew in my heart that if the band was based in New York or Boston, we'd have gotten much more press, a better record deal, etc. This is why I begged the others to do more touring. We did a few mini-tours, but everyone (well, at least Matt and Mitch) had other things they wanted to do with their time.

Mitch: I did not feel as naive then as I do now. I thought we could do anything. That is the attitude you have to have. Listening back through our veil of influences I can hear the naivete, but we were 15, 16, 17 years old, and most kids at this age can't even masturbate properly. As I like to say, we somehow rose above all the opportunities handed to us in life to make meaningful music.

Scram: How soon after forming did you start recording? At what point did you feel ready to make an album?

Mitch: This question is really for Pat. He brought both musicianship and professionalism to the band.

Pat: The basic time line goes amazingly quickly. Band forms in October 1983 with no songs. In January 1984, we play our first shows with all original material; in April 1984 we record our first demo tape in a home studio; in July 1984 we record Greenhouse. In December 1984, Greenhouse is released. Pretty amazing when I look back on it. I guess it was all that youthful energy.

Mitch: I cannot see how we could have recorded and proceeded more quickly than we did. We really saw ourselves as musicians at varying degrees of the tortured artist scale. Pat was probably the most tortured, but also the most professionally ambitious. It was almost as if Matt and I couldn't be bothered with commerce. That was naive, but then again I was living at home, my father was an executive, I belonged to not one but three tennis clubs. I mean, why would I have to think about commerce in practical terms? I could master my serve and volley game and compose music.

Pat: It was the members of [local band] Personal Effects who suggested we make a record. I think they were talking about a single, and I quickly decided that wasn't good enough--I wanted a whole LP! I tracked down a decent studio run by Dave Anderson, raised some money and we went for it. We didn't have any idea exactly what were doing in that studio and Dave knew just a bit more than us. Somehow it worked.

Scram: How did the songwriting process work? Did everyone bring in songs, or were you more into jamming?

Beth: Mitch did the majority of writing and introduced a lot of ideas and we would build upon them. I wrote the melodies and lyrics. Mitch wrote a lot of lyrics, too.

Pat: Beth and Mitch were a good songwriting team. We were all a good support to that.

Mitch: Each song was a bit different, but to my recollection I wrote most songs on the guitar and bass and Beth and I split the lyrics. Of course, the same songs or ideas could have been a total disaster if Pat and Matt did not flesh them out through hours of rehearsals. The songs are not that unique, but Beth brought real feeling to them. She made the band in many ways.

Pat: Early on, both Matt and Mitch seemed to come forward with song ideas, but after awhile, Matt brought less ideas to the table and Mitch brought more. The key thing, as I remember, was the whole band worked on the arrangements of the songs and whipped them into shape. It was rare that someone would walk in with the whole song totally mapped out from start to finish. We didn't jam much, but we certainly jammed on actual song ideas and structures to finalize the song arrangement.

Scram: Were you trying to emulate a specific sound or approach? Who did you feel your peers were?

Beth: As a singer I was not trying to sound like anybody else, but I'm sure we alI had our influences. Our peers were local bands like Invisible Party and Personal Effects.

Pat: When the band started, none of us had really heard the Paisley Underground bands. We didn't map out a sound in advance; we just plugged in and started playing. As time went on, we seemed to discover bands that we felt sounded similar to us. People would point out bands that they thought we sounded like, from the Jefferson Airplane to Echo and the Bunnymen to various Paisley Undergrounders. I think R.E.M. was a strong influence on us all. I certainly felt we had something in common with other East Coast bands such as Dumptruck or Salem 66, but mostly I looked towards the West: Dream Syndicate, Rain Parade, True West, Clay Allison and others. I was pleased when I found out that 28th Day were listening a lot to Greenhouse as they started developing their own sound and songs.

Mitch: I don't think we were trying to emulate any bands in specific, besides maybe churning through secondary source influences like Chronic Town, Heaven Up Here, Entertainment! and Seventeen Seconds. We knew we had something that was ours. The bass had a melody role along the lines of Joy Division/New Order, rather than holding the bottom with the kick drum. The guitar often sounded like Echo and the Bunnymen. Thank god Pat and Beth had better taste in music and introduced us to Fairport Convention, Big Star and Suicide. I remember Pat doing this solo Suicide type thing at a 24-dance marathon, of all things, and people were dropping like flies.

Scram: Please describe the sessions at Saxon Recording.

Pat: Saxon was a friendly goofy guy named Dave Anderson several years older than us, with an 8-track reel to reel, half way decent equipment, located on the third story (the attic) of a large old house. He and we learned as we went along. He was easy to work with and cheap, so other bands like Invisible Party started going there. Without Saxon, I'd say probably less records would have happened--I certainly don't remember any other local studio trying to get our business. In many ways, our April 1984 demo tape and our final album, Sand Down The Moon, sound the most like Absolute Grey did live, as they were recorded by my pal Bill Groome in his kitchen and living room in Corning, NY with fairly crude equipment (in comparison to the slightly better pro equipment at Saxon). Bill had more of an ear for what we were trying to do, I think, than Dave did.

Mitch: We had no idea what we were doing in the studio, and our "greatness" got lost somewhere between the mics, the mixing board and the compressor of the month. Sometimes I wish a young Jim Dickinson or Joe Boyd was running a studio in Rochester when we were around. Not only would the albums sound better today, but I can imagine our songwriting, as influenced by the recording process, would have been more fine-tuned. Not to be rude, but I think the recording process was an unrecording of our sound. I don't mean stripped down and direct in the style of Steve Albini, but that when we walked into the studio the band was left at the door.

Scram: What made you decide to re-release Greenhouse? What was it like going through the old live and studio tapes?

Beth: This is a pet project that Pat did on his own. He's the Keeper of the Absolute Grey Flame.

Pat: Now that we live in all digital world, I felt that if Greenhouse wasn't put out on CD, there would become a time when it wouldn't really exist at all, as if it never happened. I remember something John Lennon said about when he heard a Beatles song on the radio: he said it brought him back that session, who was doing what and who said what, just like a time machine back to the actual recording session. It was little bit like that going back to the original reel to reel multi-track tapes of Greenhouse. I'd never done that before, and here I was hearing us talk between songs from 20 years ago. I was hoping to find some outtakes. I knew that there weren't any unreleased songs, but I was surprised to find no other versions of the same songs. For example, we did record a version of "Memory Of You" in the studio during the Greenhouse recording, but it wasn't on the master reel. I also found out that we slowed down the tape down when Beth overdubbed her vocals and for the mixing. In other words, we recorded some of the songs very fast in tempo in the studio (probably because we were nervous) and we must have realized later that the tempo was too fast for Beth to sing on top of it. The live stuff was interesting, as again I hadn't listened to it in years, but I for one was very happy with the overall sound quality and performance.

Beth: I think when you're in the studio you have a tendency to try to play everything perfectly, so that's your focus. When we played live it was all about excitement and energy and putting on a good show. You can hear the difference.

Mitch: Thankfully there are live recordings of the band, but to this day I believe live shows and studio recording are very different playing and listening experiences and should be kept that way. The studio is a totally controlled environment, and it is a pretense to think otherwise. In the end, I wish there were better studio recordings of us with less of the direct acoustic guitar sound and more full bass tones… but as I listen to the remastered Greenhouse right now, the recordings were not complete failures.

Pat: Frankly, when we went in to record Greenhouse we had no idea what we were doing from a studio or production point of view, nor did some of the people recording us. I think performance-wise we were successful, soundwise we were not. I remember spending hours trying to capture our live electric guitar sound in the studio; we tried about a dozen different amps and guitars and none of us were ever satisfied. We felt that Greenhouse didn't really sound like "us"--and "us," at that point, was our live show. I remember many Rochester fans being disappointed by the sound of Greenhouse because they knew what we really sounded like live. But outside of Rochester it didn't matter.

Scram: How come there are so many early live tracks that were left unrecorded? How come gems like "Watching Waiting" and "Candy Canes" never made it to official release?

Mitch: I can specifically remember my Spanish teacher (who also played some keyboards on Greenhouse) asking me why "Candy Canes" was not on Greenhouse. I said it was too stupid and obvious. We thought the songs had to be long and minimal, like "Notes." To a certain extent, we were right. "Watching Waiting" was our first real song, and I think we were sick of it by the time we got around to recording the first record. Also, if I remember, we recorded "Watching Waiting" and "Candy Canes" on our first cassette/demo tape release and we simply wanted to record the latest songs for the first album.

Scram: Give me your memories of the live version of "Getting Me Down." Beth sounds drunk; true?

Beth: I was often drunk at shows, but so was the audience. It will be a new experience to play out with my new band without imbibing first. I don't know what I'll do with my nerves.

Mitch: We were not notorious drunks by any means, but I do remember a show when we were so drunk we kept making mistakes. Finally I dropped my bass and started spray-painting it. I then announced that people could get their money back at the door. Quite a few did.

Scram: Who was Pet Casket, referenced at the end of "Getting Me Down?"

Pat: Alex Chilton hadn't toured for many years, or least hadn't come through our neck of the woods… it was a couple of months before Feudalist Tarts. In the meantime, the legend of Big Star had grown, so we (a couple of the bands in Rochester, mainly Absolute Grey and Invisible Party) were all super eager to open for Chilton at Scorgies. We decided the only fair thing to do was to form a one-time-only supergroup with members of both bands, plus Bob Martin from Personal Effects. That way we could all be Chilton's opening act! Instead of playing our own songs we mainly played covers: Velvet Underground, Beatles, etc.

Scram: Absolute Grey seems to have had a relationship with Dream Syndicate; you covered "Tell Me When It's Over" live, and Steve Wynn has fond memories of you. When did that begin, and how long-lasting was it?

Mitch: Pat was the Steve Wynn connection, although we all loved Dream Syndicate. One of my favorite concerts of all time was a Dream Syndicate show at Scorgies. At the end of the set, the owner jumped up on stage and yelled "open bar," and there was this tidal wave of people to the back of the room. Then the band started playing encores. Last week I was eating dinner with the band New Year, and bragging to Chris Brokaw that I saw and knew Steve before he played with him as part of Come. Chris quickly put me in my place and said that he met Steve in 1983. But I have fond memories of being backstage with Steve, smoking pot and studying for a test the next day. I don't think he remembers anyone in the band but Pat.

Pat: Early on, like a lot of people, I really got hooked on Days of Wine and Roses and sought Steve out. He saw a like-minded soul and welcomed me into his life, giving me his home phone number and really supporting my own projects, such as the solo recordings that I did outside of Absolute Grey. When Steve broke up the Syndicate, that relationship continued with Steve playing on some of my own songs and recordings. We did some shows together in the US and Europe. Most recently, I produced two Dream Syndicate reissues for Rykodisc--digging thru old tapes (I hold a good chunk of the Dream Syndicate tape archives), writing liner notes and picking unreleased songs. Currently I'm co-producing a Best of Steve Wynn solo CD.

Scram: How much touring did you do outside of Rochester?

Pat: In April 1985, we played CBGBs. In July 1985, we went to Albany, New Haven and Boston. In August 1985, we went to Toronto. We did a few other adventures such as Hamilton College and Buffalo. In August 1987, we did Albany, New York and New Haven.

Mitch: I wish we had done a full European and US tour at the time. Maybe a road show with the Dream Syndicate and Rain Parade.

Scram: What were local shows like? What kind of crowds came to see you?

Beth: We had a lot of fans. It was a huge party scene. There were a lot of local bands and we would go to each other's shows and meet a lot of people. A lot of kids from Matt and Mitch's high school would come and see us.

Pat: We'd draw a couple of hundred people easily, mostly between the ages of 16 and 22. We got a lot of local airplay. Then when the drinking age went from 18 to 21, it made it hard for those 21 and under kids to sneak into shows. Scorgies went of business because of that change.

Mitch: The live shows were special events: entertaining, visual, loud and memorable. Two filmmakers/photographers were quasi-band members, which was Pat's nod to Andy Warhol's Factory. We created events. We played in all-white modernist galleries with films projected on every surface. We played in crowded, wonderfully disgusting college living rooms with beer everywhere. We even did a guerilla-style acoustic tour of Rochester laundromats.

Beth: When we had our first record release party there was a blizzard. It was snowing hard with no sign of stopping. I was so worried that no one would venture out to see us, but when we walked into the club it was totally packed!

Scram: After Greenhouse came out, you signed with Midnight Records, at the time more of a garage label. How did that come about? How do you feel about the way they promoted/distributed you?

Beth: I had only met J.D. Martignon one time when Pat and I visited Midnight Records in NYC. He looked like a real creep and didn't say two words to me. Sure enough, as soon as he had my number, a drunk J.D. called me one day and made several inane and inept passes at me over the phone. I think he thought I was gonna jump up and hop a flight to NY to go sleep with him so he'd actually do some work promoting our record on his small-time, crummy label. What a sleazebag. Being on Midnight was a huge mistake. We could have put the record out ourselves and Pat would have promoted it in spades compared to what J.D. did. Midnight ruined our momentum.

Pat: I think Beth's story says it all. Again, it was me networking, this time with the wrong guy, but sadly J.D. was the only one who showed any real interest in signing us.

Mitch: As a business venture it was a fiasco, but at that age and even today there is a certain caché in being signed to a label, no matter how small. Truth is we did a better job promoting ourselves, holding marketing package parties and letting Pat use his phone at Kodak to call anyone who would listen.

Scram: After Midnight, you signed with Di-Di, a Greek label. How did that come about? (I don't remember ever seeing those records in a US store!)

Pat: Somehow the Greeks liked us freaks. Absolute Grey was popular in the Greek underground from the beginning, due to some crazed fanzine editor. So, this fanzine guy hooked me up with his Greek pals, for better or worse. Mostly worse, as the label in Greece was... I don't what it was, but it was something, I can tell you.

Scram: In fact, it sometimes seems like Absolute Grey was better-known in parts of Europe than in your own country. Did that bother you, or perhaps amuse you?

Pat: We had support in England via Acid Tapes releases and Bucketful Of Brains magazine reviews, then there was the Greek thing. We seemed to get airplay in France, got reviewed in Italy.

Mitch: We were thrilled, but always wanted or thought we deserved more. The fact that we were better known and respected in Europe is good dinner conversation more than anything. I was in London a couple of months ago for meetings and it did not hurt that the day before there was a review of the Greenhouse reissue in the London Sunday Times!

Scram: You released an album and an EP under the Absolute Grey name. Painted Post, however, is as a two-piece. What happened with the band between What Remains and Painted Post? Was it a "breakup" per se? How did you reconcile for the last album, Sand Down The Moon?

Pat: When the band started, Matt and Mitch were both in high school. As What Remains was being made, they graduated and began making plans to go off to college. Beth and I begged, pleaded for them to delay college for just one year to see if we could make a go of it as a band, do some touring, trying to keep the whole thing rolling. They refused--no surprise, really, from Matt, as his heart was never 100 percent into the band, but without Mitch we didn't have a band. Mitch was young and headstrong, and felt that going to college was where he wanted to be. So, in my mind, the band was pretty much over. I had left Kodak and had no reason to stay in Rochester without doing the band. When Mitch got to Oberlin, he sort of freaked out and realized how much the band meant to him. He asked me if I'd stay and wait in Rochester for him, doing the band during the summer and school breaks. I had no desire to wait for Mitch to come home for the holidays--plus, as I explained to him, touring schedules and chances to grow don't fit around school breaks. What if we got offered a tour for the following week after school started again? So I split for Copenhagen for a year of reading Kerouac and William Burroughs, hanging out in Danish cafes, and developing my own songwriting.

What Remains came out in spring 1986 while I was in Denmark. I received an official letter from "the band" (now down to Beth and Mitch) telling me that Matt had quit and I was being kicked out, and that the $1,000 that was sitting in the band's joint bank account was being kept by Mitch and Beth to fund the band's future. That was the part that pissed me off the most, as I should have received a check for $250 with my kiss-off letter. Ironically, Mitch now said that he was ready to tour. But he and Beth never found anyone they were satisfied with--and the band played no shows without Matt or me.

Beth: Painted Post was a Mitch/Beth project. Mitch and I kept in touch when he was going to Oberlin. We made the record one summer when he was home from school in Rochester. I'm not sure where Matt was but I think he was out of town, too, and not available. We happened to all be in town when we made Sand Down the Moon, but it was after we had officially broken up. It was like a short-term reunion album.

Mitch: Basically, Beth and I were the two songwriters from the band and we stuck it out for a while through the mail and then made a record. An overlooked record, fortunately.

Pat: When I got to back to Rochester in early 1987, heads had cooled out a bit and Beth asked me if I could handle playing some percussion; she and Mitch wanted to play acoustic shows to support Painted Post. When Matt heard I was back, he seemed eager to rejoin. The next thing we knew, we were back together for one long summer of 1987, a short tour, writing more songs (or I should say, learning songs that Mitch had already written and a few bits from Beth as well), and to record what I think is our best album (besides Greenhouse), which is called Sand Down The Moon.

Mitch: I wrote the Sand Down the Moon songs during my sophomore year and the following summer we somehow got back together to play. Again, Pat has the complete annotated transcripts. It was a great time. We played some drunk shows that summer after a tour promoter screwed us and then at some point I mixed the album in the town of Painted Post, NY, of all places. I think this record gets closer to what we were like as a band. Not because I mixed it, but because Bill Groome recorded it.

Pat: By this time, we knew what we wanted from a recording. Beth was kinda pissy the whole summer as she knew it was the last go-around, but other than Matt and Mitch getting on my nerves from time to time (and me on theirs), I enjoyed myself for the final fling.

Scram: When did the band break up for good? What circumstances precipitated it? What regrets, if any, remained? Are there any unrecorded/unreleased songs from that time?

Beth: The band's demise came when it was time for Matt and Mitch to go to college. The band was just something for them to do in high school, but it meant a lot more to me and Pat and we wanted it to continue. We should have agreed to take a long hiatus to do some living and then gotten back together so we had new, fresh ideas to put on the table. I think we had a good chemistry as a band and wrote naturally and easily together. I would have been very interested to regroup, but the others showed no interest. Everyone lives in a different state, two in the east and two in the west, so we can't easily get together.

Pat: In my mind, the band broke up for good at the tail end of August 1987. We drove in two cars coming back from a short tour--Mitch and me in one car, Matt and Beth in the other. When we arrived back in Rochester, Matt and Beth had already gone their separate ways. I never saw Matt and Beth for many years after that. I dropped Mitch off at his house, and didn't see him in the flesh for awhile either. Mitch and I kept in contact, however, and either argued about old bullshit and tried to torture each other or discussed our own separate music careers. I always respected Mitch as a musician, and I helped get a few of his solo CDs released in Europe. The one thing that the Greenhouse reissue has done has allowed Mitch and me to really drop the old shit and get together again as both friends and artists.

Mitch: It is sort of a blur, but I think Pat started making his own music and found a life in that and I also think he moved out west and got things rolling with his Heyday Records label. I then proceeded to start recording my own records. They did well, and now Pat and I have active lives as musicians (mine has been inactive while raising twin girls the last three years, but I will record with a new band this winter). I also went on to graduate school and got into the arts, and there is only so much time. Pat and I still play music everyday and Beth is working on new material. I could see us making a CD EP, but only if it was about now.

Pat: I think Mitch realized how much the band meant to me when I surprised him with the new Greenhouse by sending him a few. I didn't tell him in advance what I was doing. The CD also showed us how little Matt really cares about his past. He's not bitter, it's just not important to him, nor does he play guitar anymore.

Scram: Pat, you moved to San Francisco and formed Heyday. (A belated thanks for releasing Barbara Manning's Lately I Keep Scissors, by the way.) Where did life take the rest of you after the band--not just musically, but otherwise?

Pat: Just wanted to say I'm working on a Barbara Manning Scissors box set. There's a ton of out-takes, demos and live material from the Scissors time period.

Beth: I went to art school in Boston. I had a child in 1995 and opened an artists' cooperative gallery in the Berkshires, Mass. I had a renewed interest in music in 2000 and started playing guitar and writing songs. I'm now pursuing doing a studio project and forming a band.

Mitch: I have a studio and house in Maine and a studio and apartment in Basel, Switzerland. Not Williamsburg and London. There is something liberating being outside of what everyone thinks is important. I mean, people in my town wear trucker caps with absolutely no sense of irony and I am grateful.

Scram: Perhaps the biggest news is that Absolute Grey has reformed to record new material! How is that coming along?

Pat: Well, it's a two-step process. The first step is that Mitch and I are going to remix Sand Down The Moon and release it on CD, probably under the title of For Some Reason. In my mind, this is like a new album, as pretty much no one outside of Greece has ever heard it. Secondly, Beth has written a batch of songs that I think would be really good with Mitch coming in and helping her finish them off. Beth and Mitch haven't really spoken much in the past couple of years, so there's a getting to know each other again process going on, which as I write is moving along nicely. Not because we don't want him, but Matt won't be involved in any new recordings (his choice, not ours). It's a safe bet that Chris Brokaw would be playing guitar, which is totally fine by me.

Scram: Beth, I read that you're planning to release some solo songs. Please elaborate, and let us know where we can find them.

Beth: I'm living in Ithaca, NY right now, but I plan to move to Rochester in the spring of 2005. I'm working with some musicians there who are old friends and I will be recording my album with Dave at Saxon. It will probably sound quite different from Absolute Grey. My voice still sounds good after all these years, possibly even better because of my life's experience. The album will be most, if not all, my own material.

Scram: In the 15-odd years since Absolute Grey broke up, there's always been a small groundswell of interest in what you did. Have you had experiences with people tracking you down or approaching you about the band?

Pat: I often don't think we made much of an impact, and then I'll get surprised. A Google search will show a few bands being compared to us, which is cool. One funny experience was in the early 1990s was watching this English indie-folk duo Evergreen Dazed play in San Francisco. I heard a song that seemed oddly familiar; it took me a few minutes to realize they were covering a song from Painted Post. As Byron says in his liner notes, because we never over-hyped, we never wore out our welcome in people's minds. I certainly was honored that well-known music critics like Byron Coley and Jim DeRogatis still felt Absolute Grey worthy of their time and attention in 2003 to write liner notes.

Beth: There are still people in Rochester who are fans, so I'm looking forward to playing there. I'm sure I'll have a lot of support.

Mitch: Pat has more connections with people interested in Absolute Grey. He was the most notable member.

Beth: As I said, Pat is the official keeper of the flame. He keeps our memory going.

Mitch: Pat is much more involved with music. My life is consumed with running my urban design/landscape architecture studios (www.mrld.net), teaching, showing my work, writing, raising my daughters and working on a new record every couple years. It is interesting to note the current wave of indie-folk artists would not have been heard through the din of post-rock a couple years ago. I hope now that people are more aware of other music, Absolute Grey might get some more attention. And for me, the music I keep making is just an expansion of the music I wrote with Absolute Grey. I have not really changed styles or instrumentation. I hope the songs are better. My daily life with music and musicians is still very satisfying and recent tours have been fun. I enjoy the process more now than in Absolute Grey because most of the pretense is gone and it is just about making music.

(This interview originally appeared in Scram #20)

Scram #20 reviews (all by the editrix unless otherwise noted)

Atomic 7 …en Hillbilly Caliente CD (Mint)… The whammy bar gets a workout on this all-instro set of fun, upbeat originals sporting wacky titles like “Funeral Hotpants.”

Automat just imagine drive CD (Ravenna, indiepages.com)… Recorded over six years in basements and bedrooms, this is Scram contributor Mike Appelstein’s very lo-fi, indiepop one-man-band. Sort of a sonic snapshot of young adulthood, it includes songs written in law school classes, half-remembered Miracle Legion covers and a musical wedding present for Mike’s wife-to-be. Charming, conversational and understated.

Devendra Banhart Rejoicing in the Hands CD (Young God)… Mythic obscurism, intimate and tender, with a languid, drunken cadence that welcomes the ear and soothes the spirit.

The Beat Farmers Tales of the New West CD (Rhino Handmade)… This reissue shares it’s title with the rollicking San Diego band’s Steve Berlin-produced debut, but adds live and later studio cuts to provide a career overview. An ultra-tight roots combo with great taste in cover tunes, a goofball sense of humor and a secret weapon in the form of drummer-vocalist Country Dick Montana, for a couple years in the mid-eighties the Farmers could probably make ordinary people feel better than any band in the country.

Bobby BeauSoleil Lucifer Rising OST double CD (Arcanum)... Purely on a technical level, the existence of this music is astonishing: disc #1 was recorded on homemade equipment on the grounds of Tracy Prison (1977-79) by erstwile Manson associate BeauSoleil and his all-inmate Freedom Orchestra. Kenneth Anger made several attempts to find an alternate composer for the soundtrack before reconnecting with the now-incarcerated guitarist, reviving a collaboration that had ended in enmity a decade earlier. Taken out of cinematic context, the music is ethereal yet intense, suggesting solar winds and timeless, slow processions. Disc #2 has several recently unearthed tracks from BeauSoleil’s pre-Manson, SF ensembles the Orkustra and the Magick Powerhouse of Oz, and 28 minutes of outtakes from the prison recordings. The excerpts from the Orkustra’s songs reveal a slinky, chaotic jazz-rock groove that must have made the stoners nervous. MPofO is represented by the original Lucifer Rising recordings, which are more varied than the second version, with heavy guitars, flute solos and jazzy meandering. This piece may jibe better with the film, but as a music it’s fairly discordant. With handsome packaging and informative notes, this is a most welcome discovery.

Black Eyes Cough CD (Dischord)… Free jazz and dub rammed through the ole punk rock/noise cheesecloth, but squeezing out fairly well put together. (This kind of thing can so easily go the wrong way.) Such combinations can’t help but be reminiscent of Pere Ubu, PiL, Sonic Youth and even Crass or the Crucifucks, but still with a bit of that DC Fugazi flavoring. Lots of saxophones, bass and percussion. It’s an album of contradictions. The production makes it sound sparse, yet it’s crammed to the gills with erratic noise. Emotionally, it seems passionate yet cold. Two vocalists share singing duties and you guessed it, one is staid and one’s a screamer. Pretty interesting stuff. (Margaret Griffis)

Brian Jonestown Massacre …And This is Our Music CD (Tee Pee)… If you thought you could forget the disconnect between Anton Newcombe’s obnoxious personality and the layered, lovely sound of his band, you thought wrong: their latest commences with an answering machine message from a sputtering, pissed-off girl. The trick is in understanding that Anton is as proud of hurting her as he is of these songs. You want one, you get the other. And all your heroes were assholes, too.

Vashti Bunyan Just Another Diamond Day CD (Spinney)… Reish of the orchestral folk debut of Ms. Bunyan, an early Andrew Loog Oldham discovery who passed up the chance to be another Marianne Faithfull to travel the British Isles in a horse-drawn buggy. Briefly returning to London mid-journey, she recorded this mysterious, very pretty disc with Joe Boyd producing and musical accompaniment from Robin Williamson of the Incredible String Band and Fairport’s Dave Swarbrick and Simon Nicol. While the songs aren’t especially catchy, Bunyan’s husky, ethereal voice is sure beautiful. Fans of Nick Drake and Bridget St. John will want to seek this out. This expanded edition includes several unreleased songs.

Matthew Burtner Metasaxophone Colossus CD (Innova)… If Burtner’s saxes were flesh, they’d be bionic: wired for feedback loops and computerized programs aping Tibetan prayer bowls and imaginary strings. “St. Thomas Phase” samples Sonny Rollins at maximum velocity. Burtner explores the outer edges of live performance potential, and makes some terrifically weird sounds along the way.

Canned Hamm’s Karazma Reimagined – As Performed by Today’s Top Artists CD (Pro-Am)... Inside their fertile little brains (and in those of the lucky hundreds who’ve witnessed their hyperactive Vaudeville), Little Hamm and Big Hamm are mega-stars. And mega-stars get tribute albums, of which this sassy, genre-bustin’ set is probably just volume one. Hamm fans here include Neil Hamburger, the New Pornographers, Monotrona, Bobby Conn, Carolyn Mark, the Goblins (and their pet monkey), Nardwuar and even Canned Hamm themselves, interminably singing the credits ala Skidoo!

Chagall SoundLight CD (Seven Thunders Music)... The misguided cover art screams new age dope, but Columbian-born Keith Chagall is actually quite a good McCartneyesque singer-songwriter. Cool backwards guitar on “Watching the Seasons.”

The Cinch shake if you got it CD (Dirtnap)... A chaotic, melodic feminine swirl of rough guitar and tomb-deep, witchy vocals, run through with a beguiling sweetness.

The Claudia Malibu “Star” CD (Claudiamalibumusic)… Warm and bubbly indiepop with sing-song, Kinksy vocals.

Clouseaux Lagoon! CD (Dionysus)... Space age exotica music as a genre is now doubly outdated, but it’s always a treat to find a new stereo testing disc. This Houston ensemble conjures up a spiffy soundtrack to an imaginary island-set spy flick, packed with energy, wit, danger and an occasional splash of honcho horns.

Bobby Darin Aces Back to Back! CD/DVD (Hyena)... From the official Darin archives, in advance of Kevin Spacey’s bio-pic, comes this offbeat career sampler mixing high-schlock ’72 TV variety show live cuts with scarce jazz spots for the American Dairy Association and rootsy Big Sur sessions from Darin’s Dimension label. The DVD reprises the TV material, and adds bits from a lost, self-produced documentary including footage of the ultra cool Darin taking a drag on a cigarillo before laying down a vocal track. Much as I love his folk material, the brassy Vegas stuff leaves me mildly impressed, but unmoved. More intriguing are the simple Milk recordings, which include a lovely “Moon River.” Too stylistically varied to hold together as an album, Aces works as a broad introduction to a multi-faceted artiste.



The Dirtbombs Dangerous Magical Noise CD (In the Red)... Mick Collins & co. strap on their treble-powered rocket packs and spew out a soul-punk miasma that’s just the latest piece in the puzzle that spells out “Without Detroit, Rock And Roll Don’t Mean Nuthin’.”

The Dwarves The Dwarves Must Die CD (Sympathy)… The beauty of all those “Question Authority” bumperstickers is that they tell you do so so authoritatively. Similarly, I hear a lot of punks lately, those most freethinkinest of folk, grumbling about the Dwarves and their recent delve into the realm of orchestral hip-hop pop, or whatever it is they’re doing. Well, the Dwarves, nor anyone else, could do no finer work. Certainly, there are the many traditional Dwarves tracks on Must Die: “Dominator,” which you’ll remember from How to Win Friends…; “Blast,” whose screamin’ reminds of “River City Rapist”; and a few others, but with some nice twists—“Relentless” could have come off of Blood, Guts… save for the chorus of children, and “Bleed On” and “Fefu” are top-notch archetypal Dwarves, but with surf and ‘60s garage crunch. What stand out, though, are “Salt Lake City,” best pop song of the year; and “Runaway #2,” acoustic new wave a la the Violent Femmes, although Gano never wrote about daddy’s white candy water. The church organ in “Christ on a Mic” is truly strange, but the most ado has been made about Blag “Def like Beethoven” Dahlia’s rhymin’ and designin’ on “Demented” and “Massacre,” which, in the latter, he drops the hip-hop dis-bomb on those pussy-ass bands what sweat him. (The album also includes a dizzying collection of guests, from Gary Owens introducing the opening track [a faux-“live” recording reminiscent of the Ventures in Japan album] to National Kato at its closing, with rappers and punkers in between.) Despite all the musical departures, and some thematic dabblings into Queens of the Trust Fund, and the nature of the afterlife, Blag & Co. don’t stray far from the lyrical conventions of fuckcore: fucking, violence, drugs, teenage girls, and more fucking. Nevertheless, Blag is still rock’s premier wordsmith, a lust-mad Hogarth living, exposing, hell, destroying the underbelly of America. To our eternal gratitude. Blag sums it all up in the opening track—it’s “the childish defiling the mild/ and we know that it’s making you smile.” (Nathan Marsak)

The Electric Degenerate Doses CD (Pro-Vel)… The vocals are the first thing to hit ya, Wayne County’s loopy drawl fused with David Thomas-style shriek apocalyptica. Fast, frenetic and a little silly, this St. Louis quartet turns the usual retro elements into something fresh and their own.

John Felice & the Lowdowns Nothing Pretty CD (Norton)… This 1987 “solo” album from the Real Kids mainguy is one harrowing listen. Imagine the early Kids’ innocence and spirited love of all kindsa buoyant three-chord rock’n’roll filtered through the ravages of a decade-plus heroin addiction and a career self-destroyed. “Perfect Love” and “Dreams” are prime Kids-style pop made all the more poignant by Felice’s audible wastedness, but the strung out title track (“there’s nothing pretty in my life anymore”) and “I’ll Never Sing That Song Again” (which ends with a coda of Felice’s big “hit” “All Kindsa Girls”) are the real highlights—the honesty on show here cuts to the bone. “Real Kids don’t get old/their hearts grow empty, their blood runs cold” Felice sang at the beginning of the ‘80s, and it’s a credit to the guy’s strength of will that he’s still touring a decade and a half later (and probably a testament to his ability to fuck-up that he hasn’t made a full-length record since this). A lost classic, in more ways than one. (David Laing)

The Feminine Complex livin’ love CD (Rev-Ola)... Reissued reish (of Teenbeat’s 1996 release) of the sole 1968 sophisto-pop recording by a Nashville girl group that recorded for indie label Athena. The album, backed by session players under Lee Hazen’s supervision, is soulful sunshine pop with strong songs by singer/ guitarist Mindy Dalton, but stay tuned for the bonus tracks, including several harder edged demos with all five girls playing and singing as they did before college and marriage broke up the band.

Henry Flynt & The Insurrections I Don’t Wanna CD (Locust)… Avant-noise fiddler Henry Flynt is known to NYC Hi-Awt cultists for his collaborations with LaMonte Young, Yoko Ono and the Velvet Under-ground, but his scattered recordings have lately won slobbery love from aesthetic punx and garage geex across our baking mudball. A classical musician from rural North Carolina turned ultra-modernist turned psychedelic rootsman, Flynt came from people who proudly call each other “hillbillies” and cheerfully cripple outsiders who let the word find their mouths (don’t ask why, it’s just something we do). “My music is a sophisticated, personal extension of the ethnic music of my native region of the United States,” wrote Flynt in 1980, shortly before he traded playing music for writing philosophy. This punk godfather’s resurrection-in-his-own-lifetime should give little joy to the cash-money shade of Frank Zappa. I Don’t Wanna is Flynt’s sole rock album, an unreleased proto-punk masterpiece recorded in 1966 that is far more advanced than Freak Out! and cruder than the early Fugs. Flynt plays guitar and fronts a brute mix of proletarian rage, wall-to-wall mod raga and “Wooly Bully” spread over nine songs. Like any of our tribe, Flynt has a near-genetic understanding of imperialism and exploitation. Like none of the avant-gardists around him, he knew and channeled the power of swampwater rock & roll. When listening to these tracks, keep in mind they predate White Light, White Heat and Creedence Clearwater Revival by two years. This vastly important discovery, along with recent reissues of Linda Perhacs’ Parallelograms, Cosmic Mind at Play by the Paisleys and the Stark Reality’s glorious mauling of Hoagy Carmichael, suggest everything we know about sixties rock is probably wrong. (Ron Garmon)

Evan Foster Instrumentals CD (Musick)... The Boss Martians’ boss briefly returns to his sometimes goofball surf roots before launching into eclectic genre explorations ranging from synth-drenched cinematic sounds to bluesy raunch, lowbrow spy jazz to garage rock, all featuring Foster’s crystalline guitar leads and memorable melodies.

The Frantics The Complete Frantics on Dolton CD (Collector’s Choice)… You know the Frantics’ “Werewolf,” since it’s on every Northwest/ horror/ Cramps comp you’ve got. Therefore, you know it’s one of the top coolest, creepiest instros of all time. So what else were these labelmates of the Ventures up to? Well, unlike the Ventures, the Frantics never really found their “sound.” Nevertheless, with 26 tracks, twelve previously unreleased, there’s plenty you’ll find to quicken the pulse. The raw, R&B-tinged sax-and-sleaze that defined the NW—whence came the Kingsmen and Sonics—is never more direct and driving than in “The Whip,” and the loungey stuff, like the exotified “Delilah,” makes your head swim and eyes see double. In fact, there’s flamenco here, and tiki, and Latin jazz, and even a Ventures take off called “Ventura Blvd.” Like I said, never found their sound, but I think it’s because of that that this one is worth a listen. (Nathan Marsak)

The Girls S/T CD (Dirtnap)... Utterly spastic punk-pop with mock operatic vocal whoops, faux significant lyrics and scrappy guitars fighting for prominence with relentless synthesizer swirls.

Al Green The Immortal Soul of box set (Hi/ The Right Stuff)... The four discs are split between the themes that dog Green’s life and art: love, sex and the Lord, with one disc simply labeled “soul” to catch the post-1975 overflow. There might not be a slinkier, sweeter sound than the one Green, Willie Mitchell and the Hi rhythm section created together on the floor of Memphis’ old Royal Theater during Nixon’s reign. Discs one and two are the strongest and most interesting, commencing with two pleasant 1967 ballads by Al Greene & the Soul Mates, then moving chronologically through the development of Green’s signature softly funky sound. Once the pot of grits was thrown and Jesus came between Al and Willie, things were never the same, but ooo, when they were hot…

The Gris Gris S/T CD (Birdman)... This is nuts—in a good way. Some Seeds, some Doors, a ghostly Velvets pastiche, Latin romanticism and hypnagogic sound-forms swarming together into an absurd yet compelling spaced-out

skronk.

The Gurus S/T CD (Rainbow Quartz)... Lush retro pop from Barcelona, where young boys dream of growing up to be Jim McGuinn and do.

David Hemmings Happens CD (Rev-Ola)... One of my favorite-ever dollar bin scores, this daft ’67 collision between the Don’t Make Waves-contracted Byrds and the star of Blow Up splices free-form psych-jazz (the improvised insanity credited to Hemmings-McGuinn-Hillman) with a Gene Clark demo re-cut with Hemmings’ quite passable tones in place of the ex-Byrd. Opener “Back Street Mirror” is primo solo Clark, while “Talkin’ L.A.” is the cream of the trippier crop, the sound of studio cats being devoured by Byrds. Joe Foster’s liner notes handily solve some of the project’s abiding mysteries, and leave you wishing they’d had a few more days to refine their aims. But still, a most entertaining oddity.

Doug Hilsinger with Caroleen Beatty Taking Tiger Mountain By Strategy CD (DBK Works)... What a cool project. The Waycross bandmates explored their mutual fondness for Brian Eno’s 1974 LP by remaking it sans electronic instruments, passed the recordings to Eno himself after a lecture appearance, and totally blew the artist’s mind. I haven’t heard the original in years, but even without it fresh in my mind, this is some powerful, weird and deeply felt art rock.

The Hi-Risers Lost Weekend CD (Spinout)... Lively, silly retro act more interested in having fun than sticking to any strict rules of genre. Instro, country, garage, frat, surf ‘n’ twang.

Holy Curse bluer than red CD (Nova Express)... Some quirk of earthly geography made France the nation most appreciative of the Sydney school of rock’n’roll—I once spent a fruitless few minutes failing to communicate with an excitable francophone gent who couldn’t get over the Radio Birdman patch on my jacket. Holy Curse have that cool, dry Oz/Detroit thing down, the brusque Younger-style vocals, swirling, aggressive guitars, lyrics focusing on life’s reductive essentials, and the raw energy to bring it all together. Real cool.

Penelope Houston Pale Green Girl CD (DBK Works)... The teenage Avenger has grown into a mature singer-songwriter more concerned with personal politics than global ones, though she’s still clearly a hardcore idealist. Jangly, muted tales of screw ups, let downs and hope.

Penelope Houston Snapshot CD-EP (Flare)... Yet another pretty side of a Penny. Accompanied here by the Maydays (featuring chief Zombologist Alec Palao), she covers interesting, well-arranged selections by the likes of Pentangle, Shocking Blue and Colin Blunstone. Strangely, her voice is more distinctive on these songs than on her own.

Jim & Jean Changes / People World CD (Collector’s Choice)... Married folkies Jim Glover and Jean Ray’s career was shaped by their friendship with onetime roommate Phil Ochs, who wrote notes for 1966’s Changes, which sported three of his songs. With twining harmonies that straddle the line between east coast coffee house and Mamas & Papas pop sophistication, Jim & Jean’s electrified discs have some gorgeous moments. But despite the songwriting star power in evidence (Ochs, Dylan, Eric Andersen, fine, otherwise unissued David Blue), it’s Jean’s original “Topanga Road” from People World—revealed by Richie Unterberger’s liner notes to be inspired by a Buffalo Springfield drug bust—that’s the heart stopper, haunting and ethereal, but really tough. A lost classic. The rest of People World is interesting if not always successful, with soul and pop strains infecting trad folk forms and mutating fast. The record didn’t sell and Jim & Jean split up, leaving their fans in Fairport Convention to feed the culture they’d begun.

Sharon Kraus Songs of Love and Loss CD (Camera Obscura)... Ancient-sounding (though mostly modern, original) cyclical folk balladry that’s equal parts lovely and scary.

Roy Loney & the Longshots Drunkard in the Think Tank CD (Career)... Still plenty Groovie, Loney and his NW band mix trad ravers with a new wavey pop sensibility charged with snotty energy that belies the clock. Also in the set, a most-Kinky tribute to Ray Davies, “He Talks to Himself.”

Michael Lynch That’s Not the Way It Should Be CD-EP (Michael Lynch Appreciation Society, email nankerphlg@aol.com)... All by his ownsome, Mr. Lynch makes rather wonderfully arch and jangly sixties-inflected pop. Let’s hope he finds a bunch of twenty year olds to help him bring these nifty morselsto a live setting.

The Magnetic Fields i CD (Nonesuch)... The precious, precocious Mr. Merritt finds fourteen musical ways to paint himself the perfect loser, accent on perfect, and along the way gets in dozens of prickly digs at the expense of anyone who ever believed in their own failed experiments with love. Super-tasty androgyne pinky-lifting pop.

The Mello Cads Gentle Explosion CD (Manzoku Music)... Uneasy listening for mod modernists. Drenched in sap-wet strings, bedecked with horny horns, Mr. David Ponak explores the lonesome fingerlings of bachelorhood, begging and promising things he won’t want come morning. The very sexy space poppers Seksu Roba join the Cads on a nighttime tour of Roppongi.

Miracle Chosuke The 7/8 Wonders of the World CD (Dim Mak)… Oh my goodness. When I heard the opening track I thought I’d accidentally put on some Yes record—which isn’t a terrible thing, but it sure is an eye opener. The rest is punky new wave with a touch of the progrock interspersed here and there. There’s spazzy synth a la Screamers, but overall the driving tunes are more Buzzcocks than anything else. This is turning out to be one of my favorites CDs in months. (Margaret Griffis)

Mushroom glazed popems double CD (Black Beauty)… Two sides of the Mushroom (“London” and “Oakland”): pastoral space rock fever-dreams flavored with Mellotron giving way to cool, urban instro scenes dotted with brass, conga and electronics. Hypnotic, cinematic and kinda nutty, featuring Absolute Grey’s Pat Thomas on drums.

Mystery Girls Something in the Water CD (In the Red)... Young, stuck in Wisconsin and blasting out a fierce ‘n’ chaotic blues-garage spew, these “girls” sound like they’d just as soon pick your pockets as getcha to you dance.

Nervous Eaters Eat This CD (No Tomorrow)… Boston punk-era legends on schedule with album number three in as many decades. “Punk-era” is maybe a bum-steer—despite their oft-covered/ bootlegged couple of singles for the Rat label, “Loretta” and “Just Head,” their roots go back further and here it’s like punk never happened. This is hard rock how it should be played—lean and bullshit-free. Mainman Steve Cataldo sings, plays and writes as tough as nails and cracks wise to boot—checkout mean streets killer “Call Kevin,” with it’s picture of a local crime boss with “a slice of lime in his gin, an old cigar stuck in his grin;” and has a knack for high rev chord sequences—he calls it his “gear-box” songwriting technique. “5-6-8” is a great tribute to the Boston scene of the ‘70s and name checks the Real Kids (Allen Paulino, who was an Eater before he was a Kid in ‘76, plays bass here), and hey, if other reformed bands of the era, from Radio Birdman to Rocket from the Tombs to the Real Kids themselves are/were able to come up with albums this great we’d all be happy. (David Laing)

Ness Up Late with People CD (High Pilot)... Brash, bubbly pop that could eat AM radios for breakfast.

The New Planet Trampoline The Curse of… CD (Elephant Stone)... Led by the Volta Sound’s Matt Cassidy, NPT ply a path of wonky Anglophile psychedelia, their deep immersion in the canon crossed with a trashier, garage-bred side. Like a dreamy acid idyll dragged earthbound by a snort of speed.

Nichelle Nichols Down To Earth CD (Collector’s Choice)... Not a demented cash-in in the Shatner vein, Lt. Uhura’s 1968 Epic debut is a tasteful jazz-pop outing highlighting Nichols’ breathy supper club phrasing on standards like “That’s Life” and “Tenderly.” And if there’s something a little otherworldly about those strings, well, who could blame ‘em? A more soulful side turns up on the bonus tracks.

Norfolk & Western Dusk in Cold Parlours CD (Hush)... A spaghetti Western ghost story viewed through the wrong end of the telescope.

Greg Parker On the Break CD-EP (Whitewall)... Pin-up pretty Nashville kid who croons and yodels like an old timey countrypolitan by way of Chris Isaak.

Patience and Prudence The Best of CD (Collector’s Choice)... The adolescent daughters of songwriter Mark McIntyre had a cutie-pie career on Liberty in the late fifties, chirping old timey tunes that, despite vocal doubling and some elaborate arrangements, had a sweetly amateurish sound that illustrates how varied American radio used to be. This comp pulls together scarce 45s like “A Smile and a Ribbon” (Enid Coleslaw’s fave) and “Very Nice is Bali Bali,” plus a few cuts with boy singer Mike Clifford and the original demos that caught Ross Bagdasarian’s ear. The sonic equivalent of a two-foot long Pixie Stick.

Sam Phillips a boot and a shoe CD (Nonesuch)... Framed in relentless junkman percussion, Phillips moans her existential, ultimately hopeful, origami tunes. I suspect repeated listenings would be rewarding ones.

The Pilgrims Telling Youth… The Truth CD (LRL)... Would you believe… a sixties, Midlands UK R&B/pop band preaching the gospel in language that couldn’t possibly be misread as referring to girls and cars? I’m not sure I do, either, but whoever put this package together (or, if you will, the Pilgrims) clearly had a blast melding godly lyrics with convincing vintage arrangements and production. And “Wait and See” has a great primitive drum line that might justpresage Mo Tucker... or not.

Sandy Posey Born To Be Hurt: The Anthology 1966-1982 CD (Raven)... Posey’s reading of Martha Sharp’s “Born a Woman” is one of those great “did I really hear that?” pop moments, a cheerily masochistic affirmation of everything feminism was supposed to eradicate. And while Posey played the sad little skirt on tracks like “A Single Girl” and the stunning, Dreiser-esque “Hey Mister,” she could also spit out a P.F. Sloan kiss-off like “See Ya Round on the Rebound.” Raven philanthropically strips out the considerable dross from her increasingly countrified recorded work, and it’s worth picking up for the above mentioned tunes, and a great version of “Love of the Common People.”

The primeTime sublime Community Orchestra A Life In a Day of a Microorganism CD (Corporate Blob)… If you’ve ever cared at all about subcutaneous life, you need this disc. A big fat art-joke spliff with damp purple buds bricolaged from Bernard Herrmann, David Axelrod, The Bonzo Dogs and Faust rolled in, this 45: 29 of recorded whimsy is the second album from a near-anonymous collective (accurately) described on its website as “Monty Python’s illegitimate children flunk out of music school.” Or you could call it “The High Llamas without songs” or “High Modernism hits the corn-shucker” or “Listen While High.” The title composition is preceded by four short pieces, with “Fashion Flag For a Part-time Patriot” displaying much quicksilver wit amid mock sonorities, Gershwin wheezes and Aaron Copeland’s fruity plains. The main piece is subjected to an unfortunate mugging by our good friend, the Narrative, much in the same way as the old science educational films it satirizes bludgeoned cool nature footage. That American civilization resembles such society as one might find in a dingleberry subjected to intense magnification is not a new idea. Still, the fifty thousand or so ears on this planet attuned to this rare level of genre-smash will need this very badly indeed. (Ron Garmon)

Red Planet We Know How It Goes CD (Gearhead)... Recipe for a Red Planet cocktail: take one part cheeseball ’78 synth, one part eternal teenybopper, two parts snappy hooks, shake in a sealed Camaro, chill to the temperature of a summer skinny dip and serve… often.

Reigning Sound Too Much Guitar CD (In the Red)... Maximum treble overdrive, with snappy hooks, slobbery harp, subterranean Misfits choruses and this relentless, snotty urgency that’s too rare these days.

The Robbs S/T CD (Collectors’ Choice)... Kicking off with a mildly martial, boyish take on Eric Andersen’s romanto-folk classic “Violets of Dawn,” the faux Robb (actually Donaldson) Bros.’ debut soon veers into wonderfully snotty bubblegum territory with “Cynthia Loves,” an exuberant warning about a world class heartbreaker. The Robbs were the house band on Where the Action Is out of L.A., but went home to Chicago to record, and these tracks have that midwestern goodtimey soul-pop vibe, drenched in cool organ and twining fraternal harmonies. Good songwriters, too: the originals hold their own with the few covers, including a Sloan-Barri number and a terrific jangly traditional tune, “Jolly Miller.”

Rocket from the Tombs Rocket Redux CD (Smog Veil)... Sure, it’s the rock and roll equivalent of raising grandpa in a seance, but turns out the old man’s still got balls. Richard Lloyd’s incendiary guitar stands in nicely for the truly departed Peter Laughner, David Thomas gene-splices his Ubu vocal stylings into what used to be straight ahead rock songs, Cheetah Chrome can’t sing and doesn’t care, and I think I’m smelling smoke. Since the ultra-influential (proto-Pere Ubu, -Dead Boys) combo could only previously be heard in a live ’75 radio session and demos, it’s just a damn fine thing to see their vision formally realized.

The Sadies Favourite Colours CD (Yep Roc)... Channeling a corduroy-bedecked dream Burritos by way of Gene Clark’s Byrds, Toronto’s Sadies bring heart and class to an again popular, but oft hollow genre. And yeah, that really is Robyn Hitchcock singing on the last track.

77 Sunset Strip OST CD (Collector’s Choice)... Fridge-cool cop jazz soundtrack from the show that spawned a million jive spinnin’, comb wieldin’, wannabe Kookies. There was no lingo on the original Warners disc, and it’s a shame Collector’s Choice doesn’t do the bonus track thing, cos the addition of Edd Byrnes’ “Kookie, Kookie (Lend Me Your Comb)” 45 would provide some useful cultural mapping. Nevertheless, the disc’s a tasty slab of moody backgrounds redolent of late night busts and failed capers.

The Shakes Gigantes del Pop! CD (Teenacide)... 14 fresh slabs of brainiac pop-punk delight from the sweetly surly Shakes, whose addition of Dan “Gremmy” Collins on bubblegum organ (and mental hospital vocals on the Mumps’ “Crocodile Tears”) has given them a nice new edge to flick around our ears.

Shark Pants Porno Snakehead CD (Recess)… When I cracked open the case I looked at the cover art and wondered whether this was going to be more like Sigue Sigue Sputnik, Black Flag or their misguided love spawn. Thankfully it’s closer to Black Flag, not too much though. They’re more beholden to trad sixties garage punk than hardcore, but played at a breakneck 78 rpm. Zoom. Good good stuff. Loud, fast, still rules and it brings a tear to the eye. (Margaret Griffis)

The Shemps Spazz Out with the Shemps! CD (Reservation)… We live in a world where frat boys are listening to the Hives. Good for them, I guess, and maybe they’ll graduate to the Humpers with our help. I had the occasion to entertain a collection of these beefy-armed types recently, where I put on the Shemps and they started slamming around in my tiny apartment, breaking up all my furniture (which I duct-taped up only days before after a particularly nasty Mummies-playing destructionfest). Everyone was happy as drunken, bruised clams at the Shemps, especially when I showed ‘em the cover art, an illustration of Japanese schoolgirls gleefully killing some beefy-armed guy. It’s Northwest ‘60s punk filtered through NYC ‘80s hardcore. The Shemps get an A+. (Nathan Marsak)

Richard Shindell Vuelta CD (Koch)... This is the first of Shindell’s six records I’ve heard, so I can’t say what changes moving to Argentina has brought to the East Coast folkie’s sound. He’s a compelling, if low key, performer, restrained yet emotive, who brings traditional melodies and themes smartly into the politicized present. Pretty, thoughtful, understated and refined.

Skeemin’ NoGoods S/T CD (Idol)... Raw midwestern punk/boogie running a fever and ticked off to the point of maximum efficiency. I dig.

The Slats Pick It Up CD (Latest Flame)… Although they need a little work, the new release by the Minneapolis/Iowa City trio has intelligent songwriting with solid musical back-up. My only complaint is that they don’t go far enough down the paths they seem interested in. More skronk, more melodies, more more more. Drink to excess or take drugs or get laid or whatever it’ll take to loosen up those sphinctie muscles. Bows to nineties’ favorites Guided By Voices, Pavement and Nothing Painted Blue, but otherwise good. (Margaret Griffis)

Sloan Action Pact CD (Koch)... The first half of Action Pact is such catchy, crunchy, pure seventies pop fun that I was singing along to songs I didn’t know by the first chorus. The second half is just good-not-great rocknroll. But averages are meaningless when talking about songs this strong, and at least they sequenced ‘em right. Get it.

The Smithereens From Jersey It Came! Anthology double CD (Capitol)... The eighties weren’t just Aquanet and lycra, not even on major labels. The ‘reens were a real live rock and roll band that, while sounding cool enough to linger in hipster obscurity, somehow managed to hit the charts. Graced with Pat DiNizio’s neat hand with a hook, stellar taste in producers (Ed Stasium, Don Dixon, Andy Shernoff, Alan Betrock) and deep catalogue collections heavy on the British Invasion, doo wop and Brill Building, these cats made some great contemporary pop. The Especially For You tracks are particularly compelling, transforming noir film titles into gotta-hear-‘em-twice lovesick janglers. Demos and live cuts make this set appealing to fans and neophytes alike.

Solger Codex 1980 CD (Empty)… The horrible production values can’t cover up the qualities of this nearly lost hardcore record. Solger lasted just a few months in 1980, but left an indelible mark on the nascent Seattle hardcore scene. Cleaned up (but not too much) by Jack Endino, the CD includes their complete recorded works (slim) and a live show. The CD is probably better suited for the hardcore or grunge completist than a randomly interested listener, but it’s entertaining. (Margaret Griffis)

Nikki Sudden Treasure Island CD (Secretly Canadian)… Apparently Nikki’s new band dresses in couture pirate drag. This hasn’t dissuaded masters like Ian McLagan, Mick Taylor and former partner Dave Kusworth from dropping by the sessions, which for all I know were held on a cobweb-draped galleon in a secret inlet off the Irish coast. Small splashes of gospel choirs drape Nikki’s bluesy, circular riffs and romantic lyrics starring doomed loves, incorruptible beauties and wasted wastrels.

sun zoom spark transmissions from satellites volume one CD (SlowBurn)... It’s four in the morning, and you’re stoned, thirsty and covered in burrs, and just over the next rise there’s this suburban house with a garage and a band and cold beers. Just as you see the light in the kitchen window there’s this terrible lurch and then… just nothing.

Sharon Tandy You Gotta Believe It’s… CD (Big Beat)... A brassy soul-pop chick from London by way of Johannesburg, Sharon hooked up with the Fleur de Lys, who backed her on her best known track, “Hold On,” a freakbeat track unusual for its mix of mod aggression and husky feminine vocals. This 26 cut comp includes mid-sixties recordings for Pye, Atlantic and Atco, plus a few unreleased songs, with the common factor being Sharon’s big, emotional voice, which is simply overwhelming on the more ordinary tunes. But “Hold On” and “Daughter of the Sun” are quite deliciously out of control slabs of psyched out girlie pop, and there are some nicely Dustified moments on the tunes recorded at Stax.

Deniz Tek and Scott Morgan 3 Assassins CD (Career)... Detroiters speak of Scott (Rationals, Sonic’s Rendezvous Band) Morgan’s vocal prowess in awed tones similar to those Australians apply to Radio Birdman guitar whiz Deniz Tek. Send these two out on the French and Italian road with the brutal backing of the A-10 and the results are predictably fiery, from the stunning opening take on the MC5’s “Future Now” through recent Tek originals, SRB classic “City Slang” and the Stooges tunes that close the set. Let’s hear it for assimilation.

The Thanes evolver CD (Rev-Ola)... Generous career survey of the ever-cool Scotch garage revivalists who, while steeped black in vintage sonic styles, never sound like they’re doing it by the numbers. Lenny Helsing was just born too late, but he never let that stop him and his mates making great, moody psych-folk-punk-ravers that really feel timeless. With tracks taken from scarce singles, EPs and albums, plus a few unreleased gems, evolver pulls together material that would be tough and costly to replicate. Includes liner notes by Mike Stax, a Helsing interview and detailed song notes.

Thee Fine Lines S/T CD (Licorice Tree)... A swell little bit of Billy Childish/ Headcoatees-style lowbrow garage action, all throb, fuzz and swagger… only with better teeth, cos they’re from Austin.

Thee Shams Please Yourself CD (Fat Possum)... The trad blues folks down at Fat Possum have signed themselves a band of electrified youngsters, and they’re serving up a tasty, sloppy scene that’s somewhere between the psychedelic Stones and the Cynics at their raunchiest, with unexpected sidetrips into atonal piano balladry.

David Thomas and Two Pale Boys 18 Monkeys on a Dead Man’s Chest CD (Smog Veil)… The wacky cover art and jokey title (not so jokey once you begin to obsess on it) didn’t prepare me for what I’d assumed would be another Thomas effort even more atmospheric and electronic than the great 2001 platter Surf’s Up! But the sonic novels—Thomas’ description—Thomas has penned for 18 Monkeys is Cle-punk Americana at its darkest and finest in years, maybe ever. (Apols for the comparisons, but) the first side thumps and lurches like a looser, early Cave (the opener “New Orleans Fuzz” = what? “Swampland?” “Tupelo?”)… and the record then slides into Waitsian territory, with melodeon and musette and Thomas’ muttered narratives, narrating what I don’t know or need to know. Elegiac and, dare I say, buoyant in places. This is music to detox to, sitting in the dark, alone, sweating, or at least that’s how I enjoyed it. Twice. Intones Thomas in “Habeas Corpus,” “maybe the darkness won’t hide what we’ve done.” Even with all the noise, Thomas and the Boys don’t shed light on chaos, but on an interior, as opposed to exterior, trembling. And you can’t hide that. Anymore. Shuffle nervously, don’t walk, to go fetch this disc. (Nathan Marsak)

timewellspent S/T CD (Parasol)... Not all orchestral pop is hatched in grimy urban climes. This delicate, occasionally spacey set is the brainchild of a pair of South Floridians, though they did send the finished tapes up north for Thom Monahan to apply his patented Pernice Brothers sheen to the mix.

Trembling Blue Stars A Certain Evening Light: Uncollected Recordings 1996-2002 CD (Shinkansen)… Being the worthy b-sides and rarities of a most elegant and worldly pop phenomenon; hushed, clever, lovely stuff, no less human for the bits of electronics and Martian dub.

Twink Supercute! CD (Mulatta)... In his toy piano, uke, cardboard box etc. ensemble, Mike Langlie and pals explore the outer reaches of kiddie sound, layering serious and goofy noise into a dense, cartoony electronic net punctuated with the squeaks of real and stuffed animals. This material is available in a conventional CD, or in a beautifully packaged box of three-inch CDs with a tiny picture book featuring Twink himself, a little bunny. Jazzy, dark, silly, bizarre, and yes, sometimes supercute.

The Ultra 5 Denizens of Dementia CD (Green Cookie)... Cool ‘n’ moody organ-swathed garage rock with the unexpected addition of some very sweet femme vocals. Ultra trashy, and fuzzed to the gills.

Townes Van Zandt Acoustic Blue CD (Tomato)... A tasteful blend of late European live recordings of Townes standards and a stark last studio remake of “Nothin’,” laid down three weeks before he died. As with pretty much everything he ever did, truthful, beautiful and raw.

V/A Dirtnap Across The Northwest CD (Dirtnap)… Incredibly strong selection of unreleased punkity roque songs from thirty-one of the Northwest’s finest like the Spits, Rotten Apples, Hunches, Gloryholes, Briefs, etc. The gathering is fairly diverse: Ramonesrock, synthy Nu Wave, glammy tunes, hard and junky rock, so there’s something for practically everybody here that has a taste for fresh punk. Highly recommended and one of the best comps of the last few years. (Margaret Griffis)

V/A Heart So Cold! The North Country 60s Scene CD (Bacchus Archives)… Upstate New York and some place called Vermont were darn fine partsatheworld to get warm in the winters between ’61 and ’65. Everybody was goin’ to the Rollerland, as is evidenced in the comp’s finest, craziest track, “Everybody’s Goin’ to the Rollerland” by Empire recording artists “Wild” Bill Kennedy and the Twiliters. No, I take that back, the craziest track is the Ravens’ “Oobie Doobie Do,” a previously unreleased (!) slop-screamer whose lyrics have been described as “Gertrude Stein singing rock n’ roll.” Some of the tracks go Liverpudlian, and Hawaiiana from New York always makes me cock my head, plus there’s spysurf and garage snot and lotsa beat, beat, beat. Me, I’m going to Plattsburgh—goin’ to the Rollerland. (Nathan Marsak)

V/A Heroes & Horses: Corridos From the Arizona-Sonora Borderlands CD (Smithsonian Folkways)… Very pleasant sounding ballads from the Arizona-Mexico borderlands. The corridos are the border version of the blues. The songs tell the old stories of revolution and generals, but also the lower brow interests of horse racing and the difficulties of mining and even jail. The musical style is recognizable from old Mexican or even Hollywood movies. It’s very familiar and sentimental. Good for a hot day at the cantina drinking una cerveza bien fria. (Margaret Griffis)

V/A The Midnite Sounds of the Milky Way CD (Big Beat)… Solid mid-sixties label sampler highlighting Danville, IL’s Milky Way Records and the frantic garage and novelty slabs cut at their Midnite Sound studios. Among a slew of terrific folk-rock, spaced out instros and sneery rockers lurks Willie & the Travelaires’ “Fiery Stomp,” the fascinatingly amateurish surf-meets-bubblegum vision of a rockin’ Amish man who showed up at the studio in a horse-drawn buggy!

V/A Por Vida: A Tribute to the Songs of Alejandro Escovedo CD (Or Music)… A truly amazing cast—Lucinda Williams, Steve Earle, Bob Neuwirth, the Faces’ Ian McLagan, Mott’s Ian Hunter and nearly thirty more—pay tribute to the songs of ailing Austin, TX-based troubadour Escovedo, who Scram readers are most likely to know through his time in early SF punks the Nuns and Slash-signed cowpunks Rank & File. This guy is the rarest of breeds—a singer/songwriter-type whose songs are as informed by the Velvets, Stooges, Stones and all manor of ‘70s rocking as they are by the Townes Van Zandt/Steve Young/Rodney Crowell tradition. This record is a revelation—I’d only paid scant attention to the man’s records over the years—but truly, the number of jaw-droppingly great songs on evidence here has had me scampering to pick everything he’s done. (David Laing)

V/A Shakin’ In My Boots: A Texas Rock N’ Roll Compilation CD (Licorice Tree)… Brand new comp from a brand new label out of Texas–this baby goes crazy-beyond the Elevators and the Thaks, kids. Shakin’ is a heady brew of rhythm n’ booze, slop rock, organ scuzz, garage assault, plus a great outer space-laced surf instro that’s worth the price of admission right there. Of course, with fifteen songs of raunch-rock there are bound to be a couple soundalikes, but when they sound like this, you can quit yer damn complaining. All in all, one xtra-fine house-party rocker if, you know, you’re skipping town the next day and blowing off the security deposit. (Nathan Marsak)

Vetiver S/T CD (DiCristina)... Vetiver mainman Andy Cabic writes, plays and tours with Devendra Banhart, and his debut has a similarly loopy, arcane feel, with strings for sweetening. I can imagine all the musicians in this friendly, tight-knit scene gathering in an ancient roadhouse and summoning ghosts with their gentle, spooky songs. Let the folk bats fly.

Tony Joe White The Heroines CD (Sanctuary)... Just got hepped to the early work of swamp-rock legend Tony Joe (thanks, James!), and am pleased to note that his latest is everything you’d want the inventor of “Roosevelt and Ira Lee” to be playing thirty-five years later. Tony Joe comes across like a wisely raunchy soul whose seen and done a lot, and that experience informs his gruff vocals and fluid, incisive guitar lines. Alternate tracks showcase duets with Emmylou Harris, Jessi Colter, Lucinda Williams, Shelby Lynne and Michelle White, but it’s the solo “Robbin’ My Honeycomb” that’s the knockout, an understated tale of cuckoldry seasoned with a hint of menace.