New Wave for the New Week #86

Put The Specials, R.E.M. and Oingo Boingo in a sonic blender, and the result you get might not be all that different from the sextet known as The Pressure Boys.

Energetically bursting out of Chapel Hill, NC, in the early 1980s, The Pressure Boys began life as a band of high school classmates who fumbled their way through covers of Madness and Specials songs at parties in and around Chapel Hill.  As their musicianship improved, they began widening their scope of musical influences.  Bringing aspects of bands like XTC and the aforementioned Oingo Boingo into the mix, The Pressure Boys soon created a unique sound that was slightly off-kilter, but nonetheless peppy and enjoyable.

They soon came to the attention of the noted southern-alternative-music production team of Mitch Easter and Don Dixon, who produced their first release, Jump! Jump! Jump!, in 1983.  The record's lead cut, "Tina Goes To The Supermarket," encapsulated everything that made the band so popular at home: the somewhat syncopated take on the basic ska beat, the frenetic pace, the audible fun the band was having.  That sonic recipe, given the Easter/Dixon stamp of approval, helped The Pressure Boys break out of the local Chapel Hill scene and land on college radio playlists everywhere.

The following year saw the release of the four-song Rangledoon ep, which included their most ambitious outing to date, "Where The Cowboys Went." Turning the ska down a notch and upping the southern charm, "Cowboys" was clearly a stab at college radio stardom.  Sounding a bit like Green On Red's goofier siblings, "Cowboys" is an excellent song that caught the ear of a major label: Epic Records included the cut on their 1985 compilation Epic Presents: The Unsigned, a collection of (as the title describes) bands that had not yet signed with a major label.

Unfortunately, Epic passed on signing the band, and it was back to the drawing board. 1987 saw the release of Krandlebanum Monumentus, the band's most polished vinyl release. Boasting a sparkling new re-recording of "Tina Goes To The Supermarket," and promoted by a video clip for "Around The World" that got the band introduced to the MTV's 120 Minutes crowd, the record is highly recommended. 

That would turn out to be the last anyone heard of The Pressure Boys until a retrospective CD, The Incomplete Recordings: 1981-1988, appeared in 2008 in conjunction with the band reuniting for a couple of live shows to benefit research for a cure for cystic fibrosis. Containing all of the band's essential material from "Where The Cowboys Went" to "Around The World" (including the re-recording of "Tina Goes To The Supermarket"), it's an excellent starting point for those new to the band.  The CD, like all of The Pressure Boys' releases, has fallen out of print, but can be had as an mp3 download from Amazon.com.

Here are two clips for this week's NW4NW entry: first up, the very DIY video for "Where The Cowboys Went;" following that is the band performing a live rendition of "Tina Goes To The Supermarket." Enjoy!

New Wave for the New Week #48

There came a point, about the middle of 1983, when the standard in music videos changed from the early shoestring-budget chromakey clips of bands singing their songs amid various cheap-o video effects to high-minded "concept clips" that told a story. What was once a three-minute promo clip for a song became twice as long, with some sort of scene played out using the band as actors before getting around to the song itself.

Usually, only the big-name major-labels had the budgets to create these mini-movies, but in early 1984 a little-known indie label out of North Carolina, Dolphin Records, created one for their band-of-the-moment in hopes of gaining a slot in MTV's airplay rotation and the national exposure that came with it.

Although the clip was timely (a take on the Indiana Jones saga so popular at the time) and well done, and although the song was fantastic and the band local cult heroes in Durham, NC, "Change Gotta Come" by The X-Teens never received the airplay that was hoped for.

Kitty Moses (vocals and bass), Robert Bittle (guitar), Ned Robie (drums), and Todd Jones (keyboards) formed The X-Teens in 1980 and immediately released their first of three excellent records, ...big boy's dream. Mixing ideas and sounds gleaned from Elvis Costello, Pylon, and The B-52's into a twitchy, poppy blast, The X-Teens found an eager audience in the early '80s North Carolina New Wave scene.

Two more albums would follow: X-Teens in 1983 and Love and Politics in 1984; but the band was getting frustrated that their regional success was not translating into a wider fan-base. When "Change Gotta Come" failed to break them big, the band split up.

The X-Teens remain well-known in their home state, and are often pointed to as forerunners of what would become known as "The Chapel Hill Sound" of the mid-to-late '80s as defined by NC bands like Let's Active, The Connells, and The dB's. Indeed, all three of The X-Teens records were produced by Mitch Easter and Don Dixon, whose trademark sound practically defined that subgenre. All three records are well worth your efforts in finding, but for now, here's our first NW4NW entry for 2010 (and a fitting title as we enter a brand new year with hopes of better days than 2009 left behind!), "Change Gotta Come" by The X-Teens. Enjoy!

New Wave for the New Week #25

Image via Wikipedia

Raise your hand if you knew of and loved any of the following bands: Flat Duo Jets? The Pressure Boys? Southern Culture on the Skids? The X-Teens? The Connells? Let's Active?

If these band names brought a smile to your face and memories of a gloriously jangly, irresistibly catchy, slightly off-kilter pop sound to your mind, then you, my friend, have known the joys of being immersed in the "Chapel Hill" sound. In many ways the lesser-known sibling to the Athens, GA sound made famous by bands like The B-52's, R.E.M. and the like, the Chapel Hill sound burst forth from North Carolina in the 1980s and swept across college radio in a wave of pop-based delight. For a brief period, it seemed as though anyone who lived in or moved to North Carolina was capable of picking up a guitar and making fantastic records. And, just as the band Pylon had been the initial model that all of the Athens bands tried to emulate in one way or another, so too did the Chapel Hill scene have its "blueprint band".

Chris Stamey and Peter Holsapple formed The dB's way back in 1978. Their first single ("(I Thought) You Wanted to Know", credited to "Chris Stamey and The dB's") was released in the fall of that year, and quickly defined the band's sound: ringing guitars, upbeat tempos despite downbeat lyrics, and tight, Beatle-esque arrangements. They quickly became darlings of music critics everywhere on the strength of two solid albums, 1981's Stands for Decibels and 1982's Repercussion. These two albums (reissued on one CD in 2001) are must-haves for fans of power pop; not a bad song can be found on either.

Stamey left the band the following year, but Holsapple and the rest of the crew carried on. 1984's Like This continued in a similar vein, although a tinge of country began to creep into the mix and a clunker or two made the final cut. The final dB's album, 1987's The Sound of Music, has its moments but is overall fairly forgettable. By that time, the bands that worshipped at the altar of The dB's had passed them, and their time was done.

An excellent compilation of alternate takes and demo recordings, Ride the Wild Tom-Tom, was put together by Rhino Records in 1993, and is a worthwhile starting point for those wishing to take their first steps into the wonderful world of The dB's. In the meantime, here's this week's New Wave for the New Week entry, the seldom-seen video for the single "Neverland" (1982). A perfect distillation of what made The dB's so wonderful, it may be the most joy-filled break-up song you'll ever hear!