Every band has its price.

Of course, Mick & Keith probably complained about the Rice Krispies to Andrew Loog Oldham right up until the day they fired him. Musicians are like that.

AUTHORITIES

“Radiationmasturbation”

(Stockton, CA 1982)

I’ve yet to encounter a black mood that this record can’t improve.

California hardcore bands weren’t taken very seriously on the east coast, probably because they never let their politics get in the way of being funny.

• Download: Radiationmasturbation
• Authorities page on MySpace

(Selecta Records Pick 1)

COUNT FIVE

“Psychotic Reaction”

American Bandstand 1965

Count me as one of the few people gullible enough to spend years looking for the imaginary Count Five album catalog after reading the CREEM Magazine issue with Lester Bangs’ notorious “Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung’ essay. You can see it for yourself here in the Amazon Reader.

Charlie Pickett & the MC3

“If This is Love, Can I Get My Money Back?”

(Florida 1988)

Fact: Charlie Pickett started making records in 1981, a mere 15 years after the garage band explosion of 1966. It’s now 2007, more than 15 years after the alternarock explosion of 1991. You can work out what that means for yourself.

That’s not a random fact: Charlie’s first cousin Mark Markham led Mark Markham & the Jesters, Ft. Lauderdale’s most successful 60s punk band with a single picked up by RCA for national distribution.

Mark made a big impression on his much-younger cousin. Charlie Pickett & the Eggs recorded Mark’s song “If This is Love Can I Get My Money Back?” on their first single in 1981. I’ve been looking for a copy of this record since 1982 with zero success. I hear it’s amazing.

Charlie somehow made it to Minneapolis and recorded a decidedly not-punk album called Route 33 for Twin/Tone Records in 1986. Even though everyone remembers Twin/Tone for releasing the Replacements and Soul Asylum, the label always tried to make mainstream records on the cheap. Records by the Suburbs, the Wallets, Curtiss A and Figures may have their charms but they don’t really fit with the label’s underground image. Route 33 was probably Twin/Tone’s best fake-major-label record, but it didn’t make Charlie Pickett a star.

So Charlie went back to Florida and put together the MC3. Safety Net Records got Peter Buck to produce The Wilderness, a full-on garage band record that included this fine new version of “If This is Love.”

Since this was 1988, the label made some CDs but good luck finding one.

• Download: If This is Love Can I Get My Money Back?

(Safety Net Records NET 15)

Julian Cope wrote “Read It in Books” with Ian McCulloch when they were in the Crucial Three with Pete Wylie.

Ian took the song when the band broke up and recorded it with Echo & the Bunnymen and it became one of their best-known songs.

I don’t think Julian’s acknowledged it since then, but he played it last Thursday May 24th in Dublin and someone was there with a camera phone.

THE ROYAL COURT OF CHINA

“It’s All Changed”

(Nashville 1987)

This is a rough one. Radio was wrong. The cool kids were wrong. And I just missed it.

“It’s All Changed” is a magnificent record, a genuine candidate for Lost Hit of the 80s.

The Royal Court of China signed to A&M without first getting their college-rock credibility. There were no profiles in MATTER magazine, no EPs on Twin/Tone or Coyote and no showcases at the New Music Seminar. Their manager pissed off lots of people in Nashville when she proclaimed that she had come to town to teach the locals how the music business really worked. The scene was still small enough in 1987 that, absent an immediate radio hit, indifference from the Right People could doom your record.

Of course the band made sure that the immediate radio hit wasn’t coming by insisting on a one-minute intro. Forget getting to the hook by the one-minute mark, we don’t hear a vocal until 1:09 and the chorus doesn’t finally show up until two minutes in, long after most programmers would have turned it off.

But what a chorus it is. Leaving aside that the b-verse would have been a fine chorus all by itself, the real hook is a stone killer, the kind that’s pushed everything else out of my head for the last month. I’m sure there’s a well-supported label story as to exactly why “It’s All Changed” wasn’t the most dominant rock song of the year, but no real-world circumstances can really explain how both the scenesters and the industry completely screwed up this time.

Still, A&M had the good sense to let the band record themselves (maybe they learned something from the Dream Syndicate Production Disaster of 1984) and they made an album that sounds great twenty years later.

Historical note: 1987 was the last year when CDs were considering an audiophile specialty item and lots of unproven bands didn’t get one. A&M did made CDs for everything they released but artists like The Royal Court of China got such tiny pressings that it’s almost impossible to find one now. I ripped this from a promo copy of the LP, still available for $1.99 at finer used record stores).

• Download: It’s All Changed
• Watch the video on YouTube
• The band has an excellent website

(A&M Records SP-5174)

I have an overly simplified unified rock theory from my college radio days: all rock bands are either trying to be the Beatles, Dylan or the Stones. Under duress, the rule can be expanded to include Led Zeppelin as the fourth archetype but then you’re already backing down from the fights you’re trying to start.

Here’s the rule: no matter how you feel about the Beatles (overrated), Dylan (underrated by me at the time I made the rule but I grew up and learned better) and the Stones (still impossible to overrate), you always want to go for the bands that imitate the Rolling Stones. Failure to match the Stones gives you a garage band but unsuccessful Beatles makes for power pop. And failed Dylan is too horrible to contemplate.

The Turtles are a good test case; they made one of the better runs at being the Beatles but they achieved their most sublime moment here, the one time they decided to be the Stones.

JUNKYARD

“Hollywood”

(Los Angeles 1989)

Junkyard thrived during the Lip Service Era, those confusing four years between Appetite for Destruction and Nevermind. For a moment, the Sunset Strip sleaze-rock bands represented a return to the real rock n roll of the New York Dolls and the Faces. Unfortunately, those 80s drum sounds obscure many virtues but occasionally a song like “Hollywood” survives the major-label production.

Best of all, Junkyard featured Brian Baker on guitar just seven years removed from Minor Threat, a fact that defies commentary.

• Download: Hollywood

(Geffen Records 9 24227-2)

You know you’re on the right track when the band kids are playing your song.

Family Force 5 deserved better than they got from Warner Bros. but, at this point, their career is certain to last longer than the label will.

Check out the band’s video for “Love Addict” here and go to their MySpace page here.

THE CHEMICAL BROTHERS

“The Pills Won’t Help You Now”

(UK 2007)

The Chemical Brothers’ We Are The Night CD comes out July 2nd in the UK. “The Pills Won’t Help You Now” appears in the Private Psychedelic Reel slot at the end of the album.

The vocal is by the singer from Midlake. The Trials of Van Occupanther was one of my favorite records of last year and it’s available on iTunes.

Audio Player : “The Pills Won’t Help You Now”