drivin n cryin

“Toy Never Played With (Athens demo)

(Atlanta 1988 - released 1992)

drivin n cryin has always been a complicated proposition. They either sounded like the Carter Family or AC/DC, depending on which night you saw them (or even sometimes just where you were standing in the room). Fans claimed them as the Great Southern Rock band, even though the two main guys were from Milwaukee and Minneapolis. And they were a profoundly regional phenomenon at a time when MTV was supposed to erase U.S. cultural differences.

And yet drivin n cryin’s music mattered in a way that was unfashionable then and seems inconceivable now. Somehow they bridged the R.E.M. & Lynyrd Skynyrd cultural divide, inspiring a profound, tent-revival atmosphere at every show.

This version of “Toy Never Played With” was recorded in early 1988, just before the release of Whisper Tames the Lion. Peter Buck produced and John Keane engineered in Athens, GA. The band had yet to find this song’s swing, so it’s not as good as the version on Mystery Road. But it has an amazing roadhouse piano and captures some of the band’s live ferocity.

Island Records released it in the UK in 1992 as the b-side of the “Fly Me Courageous” single but it probably sold more copies on import at Wax N’ Facts & Wuxtry Records than it did in the UK. This version of “Toy Never Played With” has never been reissued.

I managed the band for almost six years back then and recently helped them get their Island & Geffen albums reissued on iTunes.

• Download: Toy Never Played With (Athens Demo)

(Island Records UK CID 523)

This entry was posted on Friday, May 18th, 2007 at 6:21 pm and is filed under Georgia, 80s. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.