LOVE MONSTERS

Four-Song EP

(Boston 1983)

There’s no chapter, paragraph or even footnote about Love Monsters in the history of Boston rock. As far as I know, their entire career unfolded behind the gates of Harvard University.

I don’t think the band would have left a trace if they hadn’t won a 1983 campus Battle of the Bands.

After a surprise upset over Speedy & the Castanets, someone thought Love Monsters should release a 7″ to commemorate their victory. I’m not sure this record was ever distributed off-campus and the band broke up when Dan Wilson graduated.

Harvard bands were generally pretty terrible and Love Monsters most definitely the great exception. Matt and Dan Wilson had played Boston clubs in Animal Dance the year before (no Animal Dance 45s or cassettes, as far as I know) and went on to greater things in Trip Shakespeare, but Love Monsters played just for the college kids.

I’m sad to report that Speedy and the Castanets qualified as terrible. There was absolutely no hint that Dean Wareham and Damon Krukowski would later go on to form Galaxie 500 with Naomi Yang.

Trip Shakespeare’s A&R person at A&M would have liked to hear “Kiss Away the Tears,” a genuine love song stripped of all the weird lyrical obsessions that have plagued Matt Wilson’s commercial development (cf. “Rebecca” on this EP).

The Harvard Crimson newspaper archive offers some interesting real-time commentary:

• Love Monsters win!: here
• It’s hard to be a college band: here

Dan Wilson’s Free Life is out now on American Recordings.

• Download: “Cold Days“
• Download: “Picture of a Girl“
• Download: “Rebecca“
• Download: “Kiss Away the Tears“

(self released: no label or catalog number)

VOLCANO SUNS

“Jak”

(Boston 1985)

The endless problem: musicians are unemployable, yet punk rock seldom pays the bills.

Every town needs its own patron of the arts who’ll let the rock bands work for a living wage even if they constantly take time off to go play $50 shows in the next town.

Atlanta always had Fellini’s Pizza, where today’s lunch was often served by the guy who you saw rock the bar last night.

After Mission of Burma broke up, Peter Prescott joined legions of other musicians at the Copy Cop on Boylston Street in Boston. Musicians with restaurant jobs fed their bandmates when they could get away with it. Copy Cop was better; millions of show fliers were illicitly printed by generations of musicians who took advantage of Xerox downtime. Noisy machines weren’t really a problem: a copy shop wasn’t any louder than a rehearsal room and you could run the copiers no matter how hung over you were.

Peter was both the drummer and the front man in Volcano Suns. The lineup changed, but Peter managed to make five more albums after this one, moving from Homestead to SST to Touch & Go.

• Download “Jak”

(The Bright Orange Years - Homestead Records HMS 020)

THE BLACKJACKS

“(That’s Why I Always) Dress in Black”

(Boston 1985)

I’m sure no one was more baffled by the Blackjacks’ lack of success than Johnny Angel himself.

After a brief stay in NYC with his punk band Thrills, singer Johnny Angel returned home in 1983 and put together the Blackjacks. I’m sure Johnny thought he’s formed the perfect Boston rock band, writing the sort of Clash/Springsteen hybrid songs that got local bands massive airplay on WBCN, the dominant commercial rock station.

“Dress in Black” finds the seam between the New York Dolls and the J. Geils Band. It’s hard to fathom now but, before Malcolm McLaren created “punk rock” as a marketing concept, the Ramones just thought they were another rock and roll band from New York City. My favorite bit in this song is the direct rip from The Lollipop Shoppe’s 60s garage 45 “You Must Be a Witch” that comes right before the guitar solo.

It’s a mystery why this didn’t connect and make the Blackjacks local headliners. Maybe Johnny Angel was just a little too good at figuring out the formula and the local Stompers fans just didn’t want that much math in their rock.

The Blackjacks broke up and Johnny Angel resurfaced in Los Angeles, where he became far more famous as a rock critic for the LA Weekly.

Bands always complain that critics are just jealous because they can’t write a song themselves. Every time I see Johnny’s name in print, I hear this song in my head and wonder if the band he’s writing about is a tenth as good as this one.

• Download “Dress in Black”

(Dress in Black LP - Throbbing Lobster Records Bisque-5)

NEW MODELS

“Permanent Vacation”

(Boston 1981)

The Cars don’t get enough credit for all the effort they put into helping other Boston bands in the early ’80s. Maybe they felt obliged because Ric Ocasek and Ben Orr had struggled for years in Cap ‘n Swing, never quite getting a record deal. Even David Robinson’s time in The Modern Lovers had amounted to a few great record reviews and almost zero record sales.

When the checks started rolling in, the Cars bought Synchro Sound in the Back Bay and Ric produced amazing records by ex-La Peste singer Peter Dayton and Bebe Buell.

New Models got to open for the Cars at Boston Garden in 1980 and Ric later produced this single that was released on Newbury Comics’ Modern Method Records.

By the time I moved to Boston in the fall of 1981, “Permanent Vacation” was playing all the time on WBCN. It seemed like a complete miracle that a local band with no record deal could have a real, live radio hit on Boston’s #1 commercial station (not that it wouldn’t seem like one now) and I bought this single in spite of endless abuse from everyone at the college radio station.

New Models never got that major label deal, releasing one EP on New Jersey’s PVC Records. Leader Casey Lindstrom played guitar on Ric’s first solo album but the band faded away.

Unfortunately, “Permanent Vacation” has also disappeared; a song that proposes suicide as an escape from a toxic relationship seems more inappropriate now than it did in 1981.

Art note: a computer scan doesn’t quite do justice to the record’s extra-hot pink sleeve.

• Download: Permanent Vacation

(Modern Method Records MM 009)