MARY MY HOPE

“One Cigarette”

(Atlanta 1989)

After my last post about Mary My Hope, Peter from Fansite: Mary My Hope asked me to rip the b-side of “It’s About Time.”

Here you go.

• Download: “One Cigarette“

(Silvertone Records ORE 3)

R.E.M.

“Carnival of Sorts (Box Cars)”

(Nickelodeon “Livewire” - 1983)

You try to tell the kids that R.E.M. kicked ass and they never believe you.

Here’s real live televised proof: R.E.M. kicked ass.

Cultural anthropologists, please note the genuine 80s New Wave Dancing videotaped in its natural environment.

THE BRAINS

“Money Changes Everything”

(Atlanta 1978)

Nothing touches this record’s epic hopelessness.

You probably know the cover version from the Cyndi Lauper album that sold 5 million copies. That’s good, because it means Tom Gray’s songwriting royalties were enormous.

But The Brains’ original version mixes Roxy Music synthesizer yearning with an incredibly blunt garage punk anger. That directness makes for a bitter alienation far more disturbing than anything in the Factory Records catalog.

“Money Changes Everything” came out on Gray Matter Records with two different silkscreen sleeves, each designed by Sean Bourne

The single got the band signed by Mercury Records in the UK and the first album featured a de-fanged re-recording of “Money Changes Everything.” A second album followed right away but neither record was a hit. The band didn’t dress like punks or new romantics, so they were doomed over there from the start.

The original lineup of the Brains featured Rick Price on guitar. Mauro Magellan became the band’s drummer for their last tour. Rick later switched to bass and joined the Georgia Satellites with Mauro.

As far as I can tell, this version of the song has never been reissued or compiled on CD. Even though I’m sure Tom Gray welcomes the money that came from the Cyndi Lauper version, the magnificence of this record has been almost completely obscured.

• Download “Money Changes Everything”

(Gray Matter Records GM 1)

MARY MY HOPE

“It’s About Time”

(Atlanta 1989)

Anyone who says they can handicap their local rock scene is either lying or out of their mind.

In early 1988, you could ask anyone hanging out at Atlanta’s White Dot which band was Atlanta’s Next Big Thing; almost everyone would have picked Mary My Hope (with maybe a few stray votes for Rockin’ Bones).

No one in town took Mr. Crowe’s Garden seriously because no one knew much about the recordings they were making with George Drakoulias, songs that would be released the next year as Shake Your Money Maker.

Mary My Hope was the prohibitive favorite. They were the first signing to Silvertone, a new UK label started by Andrew Lauder of Radar Records fame. They traipsed off to Rockfield Studios in Wales to make a record with producer Hugh Jones, best known for Echo & the Bunnymen and the Teardrop Explodes.

Museum was a fine album but somehow the band’s original combination of Bowie glam & Southern rock became very British and the songs lost a bit of their original groove.

That shouldn’t have stopped the album from becoming a hit. “It’s About Time” was a killer lead single and Mary My Hope embraced the glammed-up image that they thought the UK wanted.

Unfortunately, someone at Silvertone’s parent company signed a Manchester band called The Stone Roses and convinced Andrew Lauder to add them to his label’s roster. “I Wanna Be Adored” was a depth charge that changed the history of British rock and Mary My Hope quickly became a label afterthought.

Lead singer James Hall went on to a fascinating career as a solo artist and Rockstar Without Portfolio. Record companies (especially) and hardcore fans continue to rave about his live performances but I don’t think he’s ever again had material as good as the songs in Mary My Hope.

Guitarist Clint Steele (who wrote “It’s About Time) later played with the Swans and Sven Pipien ended up playing bass with the Black Crowes, the band no one in Atlanta would have picked to click.

Download: It’s About Time

(Silvertone Records ORE 3)

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.

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)