36 Songs, 36 Days (2012 Edition), Day Eleven: Impossible Years by The Dancing Hoods

Portrait of a Band That Should've
Been But Never Was....

And tonight, another visit to The Hall of Bands That Should've Been Bigger....

During last year's cycle, I made a brief reference to Sparklehorse when discussing a cover version of one of their songs . Sparklehorse was the brainchild of one Mark Linkous, a gifted and very tortured musician who commited suicide before the band's fifth album was completed. Sparklehorse was a dark, conflicted little band that pretty much acted as Linkous' confessional during those later years of his life.

But before there was Sparklehorse, there was The Dancing Hoods. And The Dancing Hoods should've been the band Linkous was known for.

Unlike the dark, vaguely grunge indie sound of Sparklehorse, The Dancing Hoods were full on, high octane power pop full of crunchy guitars and dancable riffs. While some people might make comparisons to the band's patrons The Replacements and The Del Fuegos, I think a more accurate comparison is to their English peers The Godfathers. Both bands play tough, kick ass music, the vocals barely concealing the snarl in the speaker's tones, the melodies compelling and being both of the present and of the past. Listening to them for the first time after receiving a vinyl rip of their first album, 12 Jealous Roses (from which this song came from), was a revelation. I literally wondered where this band had been all my life, and was floored when I learned of their connection to the mopey, more low-key Sparklehorse.

I simply cannot praise this song, or this band enough. If you like power pop like me, you owe it to yourself to seek out their two albums, 12 Jealous Roses and Hallelujah Anyway. I suspect that Linkous' self-destructive tendencies, a disastrous move to Los Angeles and an inability to land any major label interest led to these two albums falling out of print. However, if you go to the excellent blog Power Pop Criminals, you might be able to find out more about the album and the band.

Here's the song...

30 Songs, 30 Days, Day Thirteen: Meetings With Remarkable Men by Harvey Danger

Boy, am I falling down on this year's cycle...

Anyway....Harvey Danger. A Seattle band that bucked the then-popular trend of being 'grunge,' most people would remember them as one-hit wonders thanks to the snarky, snarling, ska-tinged "Flagpole Sitta." Me, I actually loved them because of many of the things that earmarked them as commercially unviable--the absolutely ungainly vocals of Sean Nelson, the very stutter-stop nature of their lyrics, the noisiness of the melodies that came off as power pop songs that had guzzled too much coffee and wouldn't sit still--and this is a live recording of one of the signature songs from their ill-fated second album, King James Version.

It's a great little number, with a kicking bass line and a mocking lyrical screed about how heroes always sort of pass on, whether they're Jesus Christ, Morrisey or Kip Winger, while still believing in their own relevance. And the last twist of the knife, when Nelson reminds us that 'your mother loves you, don't be proud, she has to,' has a particular sting considering that this was the lead single on an album that fell prey to the corporate reshuffling of the music industry in the late 90's, consigning it to limbo for over a year--at which point the bounce the band had gotten from 'Sitta's' notoriety has long faded away. It's a wonder that the band limped on, breaking up, reforming as a trio, putting out another album (the rather graceful and mature Little By Little), re-releasing that third album, creating one of my favorite Christmas songs ever ("Sometimes You Have To Work On Christmas (Sometimes)"), finally breaking up for good...and still having time to release a final single as a free download this past month.

I wonder if somehow Harvey Danger is another plank in that bridge of bands with really unschooled vocalist in them that I love--a bridge that presently leads me to one of my favorite still-extant bands, The Hold Steady. They certainly don't deserve to be lumped together with the novelty acts and also-rans of the one-hit wonders...

The song never got to be a single (The lead off single from King James Version, a serio-tragic portrait of a woman who escapes from her dull, grey life into a wild west fantasy called "Sad Sweetheart of The Rodeo," tanked)...but here it is in YouTube-y glory...

30 Songs, 30 Days (2009 Edition), Day Eleven: Vigil by Tribe

And now, a little sidetrack into Obscure Bands of The 90's.

This is one of my favorite bands that just Never. Went. Anywhere. It wasn't until recently that I learned from this article by David Medsker that they were a massive phenomenon in their home town of Boston (which once again proves, given my music proclivities and my love for a certain baseball team, that I may have been born in the wrong city).

And the odd thing is that when I first saw them, I didn't like them. They opened for Toad The Wet Sprocket one night during my years as a college student-cum-music journalist and I just didn't get them, even though I was rather struck by lead singer Janet LaValley--try to imagine Emma Peel strung up on heroin and finding herself stuck in front of a dream pop band. It wasn't until I came across their first album, Abort lying around my friend S. Guy Guimento's house and listened to it did I become a fan. It must've been a bad show I caught that night, because on the album their music was amazing--creepy at times, sweet at others, and with a massive swirling soundscape I just fell in love with. I then made it a point to catch their next show...and the show after that...and the show after that...and....

Well, you get the idea. I became a follower of the band, and loved them to death. I became so enamored that some of the members used to recognize me from show to show...which I guess makes me sad. But at least I now know I wasn't the only one who was going to shows by Ethyl Meatplow and the like because they were opening.

Tribe is one of those bands that, like Big Dipper, was a victim of the Signing Frenzy of the early 90's. Abort, from which this paen to night terrors comes from, did poorly, and their follow-up Sleeper did even worse despite some national coverage of their first single "Supercollider." In light of that poor showing, Slash Records released them, and the band went their separate ways. Granted, the separate ways included the husband and wife team of Terri Barous and Eric Brosius creating a video game called Guitar Hero, so it seems to have worked out okay for them.

(About that national attention--I remember quite vividly hearing a piece of NPR that interviewed LaValley and Brosius, as well as members of the Supercollider project....talk about strange transpositions).

If you like dream pop, you really need to give these guys a listen. I was fortunate enough to come across a website that includes everything you need to know about them, including mp3s of the demos for what would have been their third album. They're one of those forgotten bands that really don't deserve to be forgotten.

Here's a video that contains a live version of this song....