The Feelies - 'Crazy Rhythms' (Stiff)

I listen to this record quite often. It somehow cuts through the familiarity that saturates so many other albums from this time; the songs have seeped deep into my cortex, with every note and tom-tom tap memorised to the point of instinct, yet it doesn't feel like I'm on a mental autopilot when listening to it. This early Feelies lineup is so different than their subsequent albums, probably due to the presence of Anton ("Andy") Fier, who left after this record. The opening cut is pretty much the roadmap - 'The Boy with the Perpetual Nervousness', which explicitly lays out the nervous energy that made this early lineup so great. It's a song where only Bill Million plays any guitars, a studio assemblage for sure, and the rest of the band is on various percussion. Larks Tongues in Aspic this is not; I wish I could say layered guitars were influenced by Glenn Branca, but I doubt it; it's jittery, tight and coherent, but succinct and still a pop song. The more catchy songs, like 'Crazy Rhythms' and 'Moscow Nights', could be punk thrashers with different production and a different singer. In the voices of Million and Glenn Mercer, it's comes off as some hybrid of R.E.M. and Mission of Burma (both of whom the Feelies pre-date). It's all good, though. Nothing stays beyond its welcome, even the seven minute 'Forces at Work'; when the contrapuntal ascending and descending guitar lines break out at the end of 'Loveless Love', it fades out before it starts to be show-offy. This is a total guitar album; 'Forces at Work' is epic in the way it crescendos, yet it's never jerkoff Yngvie-style stylings - the players aren't necessarily virtuosos on the fretboards, but they have a masterful way of assembling things. The vibe of Crazy Rhythms is fun and hyper without being overly aggressive, and the fashion of the members from the cover and liner photos is so proto-indie chic it would be a cliché if this wasn't 1980. The Beatles cover is just in line with the rest of it, and it doesn't feel silly or gimmicky. This is a great band and this is a great debut, and it's nice that they change gears so abruptly on their next album (which took six years to come out!).  I don't have a bad thing to say here, nor anything insightful either; I feel like I've just been describing this record by pointing out how balanced it is and what it is not, more than what it is. I'll tell you this - I throw on 'Moscow Nights' or 'Crazy Rhythms' some time just when I want to jump around and play a weird sort of air guitar, and I'm glad no one sees me doing so.

The Fall - 'Live at the Witch Trials' (I.R.S.)

Whenever you evaluate the first release of an extremely prolific artist, it's a bit interesting to think about how there were no guarantees they would ever release any more records. What if this had been it? The Fall's first album is certainly not their best, but it's mostly great, and certainly sets the pace for what's to come. Yet the most interesting thing about it, maybe, is that it's the first of so many. All of the things are in place here by the end of the first song - the driving sound of indie future, Smith's sneering mockery with extemporaneous asides, something vaguely approaching pop form - and I can only think about what these young kids must have been like to spend time with. Certainly when bashing out 'Frightened' in some Mancunian garage, there was no certainty that 33 years later they'd be an institution, with countless albums, songs, and members. The Fall are an interesting band culturally, as I've meet lots of other casual Fall fans like myself, and we're all capable of being devoted to one particular era of the band without even dabbling in the others. I remember meeting a Fall fan whose expertise was in the Frenz Experiment era, and they had no idea what Perverted by Language sounded like -- just as I've never heard Extricate or I Am Kurious Oranj (though I'm sure they are fine records). To really sink into all 58 albums or whatever it is (72 according to discogs) requires a strength I just do not have. So I always stuck to the first handful, figuring they were the most influential and therefore the best (an arrogant assumption, for sure). Witch Trials has at least one all-time classic ('Rebellious Jukebox') and some underrated gems, such as the title track, a loose noodling sketch that serves more as an introduction to the perfect 'Futures and Pasts'. The presence of keyboards, even primitive ones, definitely separates them from Sham 96 or the Clash; they are haunting bells on 'Two Steps Back', a druggy moon hanging over the bleak 'Industrial Estate's of the North. Is this pure poetry, the birth of a new lyrical prophet? Or just another 'everything + the kitchen sink' art-school project? What I found so curious is that during my years living in Britain (2005-2008), all of the local bands still sounded like early Fall, though more like 'No Xmas for John Quays' than any of the messier bits. Whether this was direct inspiration or filtered through a few microgenerations, I'm not sure, but M.E. Smith is still royalty to a lot of people and there's not much sign that his geyser has slowed down since this.