HAVE YOU SEEN ME?
Five Albums That Deserve to See the Light of Day
by Rob Brookman
The last few years have seen a cascade of long-overdue CD re-releases, from Pere Ubu's early catalog to Harry Nilsson's neglected Pussy Cats to Ornette Coleman's classic Dancing in Your Head. The recent restoration of the Ramones early albums (see this issue's essay) rights one of the industry's most obvious wrongs, but, given the fickle ways of the music business, plenty of other stragglers remain out-of-print. In compiling this list of M.I.A.s, I avoided albums that are out-of-print in the U.S. but are readily available in affordable import versions (i.e. Lou Reed's New Sensations; Al Green's The Belle Album), as well as now-deleted albums that were recently in print in CD form and, as a result, often show up in the used bins (i.e. Gang of Four's Entertainment; Pere Ubu's Cloudland).
1. The Feelies: The Good Earth -- Produced by Peter Buck, 1986's The Good Earth got the Feelies pegged as scrappy R.E.M. pretenders. Listen closer, though, and the reference point is more post-Cale VU than "Radio Free Europe." True, Buck shaved off the jagged edges that made 1980's aptly named Crazy Rhythms such a wild ride, but every "What Goes On" needs a "Pale Blue Eyes."
2. The Blasters: Non Fiction -- If Non Fiction toned down the punkabilly Blasters purists loved them for while pumping up the production values, it also revealed Dave Alvin as a songwriter who'd come of age. They always said they loved American music; this is where they made their case its should start loving them back.
3. Camper Van Beethoven: Camper Van Beethoven -- Back before their postmodern folkieness devolved into bland folk-rock, they made this beautiful mess. Everything gets thrown in the mix -- guitars-banjo-drums-bass (they think), Joe Stalin's Cadillac, the history of Utah and a bunch of sounds that seem cribbed from some Eastern European ceremony. "Shut Us Down" they sang, but on this irrepressible collection, it hardly seemed possible.
4. The Go-Betweens: 1978-1990 -- Less a retrospective than a reimagining of the Go-Betweens career (with lots of unreleaseds and B-sides putting album tracks into relief), this made a better case for the band's uncommon vision and left-of-center grace than its wan offspring, the unnecessary Bellavista Terrace. Seek and ye shall find.
5. Kid Creole and the Coconuts: Wise Guy -- Welding a funk bottom to a musical sensibility I can only describe as show-tunes-go-Caribbean-then-go-exploring, August Darnell pumped out good albums with seeming ease throughout the 80s. Featuring the contested-paternity classic "Annie, I'm Not Your Daddy" and the class rant "No Fish Today," this is his peak.
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