Sometimes before you can move forward, you first need to look
\nback. It’s true in life; it’s true in music. Personally, I admire
\nthe fact the when Tempe, Arizona’s long-gone favorite sons the Gin
\nBlossoms re-grouped this year, they didn’t rush a new album out.
\nThere were practical reasons, of course – five years of rust as a
\nmusical unit and no record deal, for a couple of big ones.<\/p>\n
But still, as a fan it’s nice to have the guys spend a little
\ntime reminding us why we missed them and learning to play together
\nagain before tackling the challenges of a new studio album. This
\nmonth saw the re-release of not one but two Blossoms
\noldies-but-goodies. Second in line was the 10th anniversary deluxe
\nedition of the magnificent
\nNew Miserable Experience<\/i>, the subject of next Thursday’s
\nreview. First, though, came the re-release of this little diamond
\nin the rough – the Blossoms’ first full-length indie record, dating
\nall the way back to the band’s club days in 1989.<\/p>\n
\nDusted<\/i> is rough around the edges in all the ways you might
\nexpect. The production is almost non-existent, as if this was
\npretty much a plug-in-and-play live performance. Compared to the
\nband’s later, trademark rich twin-guitar sound, this album’s
\nguitars sound soft and\/or tinny, the drums muffled, the vocals
\nslightly distant, like the guys were standing a few feet away from
\ntheir mics, still midstream in the process of figuring how to
\nattack these songs.<\/p>\n
Do-it-yourself albums are usually like that; the songs really
\nhave to stand or fall on pure musical merit rather than
\nprofessional production values. Not surprisingly – remember, this
\nis the disc that got the band signed in the first place – they do.
\nThe band – Robin Wilson on lead vocals, Jesse Valenzuela on guitar
\nand harmony vocals, Bill Leen on bass, Phil Rhodes on drums and
\nDoug Hopkins on guitar — was still learning, but the
\nbursting-at-the-seams talent present in the room is obvious.<\/p>\n
One of the amazing things to hear is the difference in the songs
\nthat two years later made it onto
\nNew Miserable Experience<\/i>. “Lost Horizons,” “Found Out About
\nYou” and “Hey Jealousy,” three of the band’s strongest tracks, were
\nall recorded at considerably faster tempos here. (As the band’s
\nmanager said recently on their e-mail list “Yes, they really did
\nplay everything that fast. The tape speed isn’t wrong.”) You’re
\nleft to speculate on why. Was Hopkins, the tortured musical prodigy
\nwho wrote all three songs before alcoholism and depression sent him
\nspiraling out of the band, having a hard time letting the
\ndesperately melancholy lyrics stand on their own? Did it take
\nNME<\/i> producer John Hampton’s influence for the band to
\nrealize the songs have more emotional impact played at a more
\ndeliberate pace? Or were they just young and impatient?<\/p>\n
Other intriguing artifacts on this album include first takes on
\nthe Gram Parsons-ish country-rock ballad “Angels Tonight,” the wry
\nWilson rocker “Idiot Summer” and Hopkins’ tongue-in-cheek porn-star
\ntribute “Keli Richards,” all staples of the band’s early live
\nshows.<\/p>\n
The reamining tracks catalogue both the Blossoms’ prodigious
\nmusical abilities and their still-present learning curve. One-time
\nlead singer Valenzuela takes the mic for three tracks (“Something
\nWrong,” “I Can Sleep” and “Fireworks”), all high-energy, melodic
\nrock numbers that deserve consideration for re-recording, but also
\neach a strong argument for Robin Wilson as the band’s lead
\nvocalist. Valenzuela is an excellent writer and guitar player, but
\nhis gentle, smoky voice is better suited to harmonies and ballads
\nthan taking the lead on heavy rock songs.<\/p>\n
The positive aspect of the garage-band production is that it
\nstrips the songs down to their musical core. In its major-label
\ndays, the richness of the band’s twin-guitar attack tended to
\nobscure their roots and influences. I remember reading about
\njangle-rock progenitors the Byrds’ tremendous influence on the
\nBlossoms and straining to hear it through the turbo-charged guitar
\nleads. But with
\nDusted<\/i>‘s stripped-down sound, it’s impossible to listen to
\nsongs like “Something Wrong” without thinking “So that’s what
\nMarshall Crenshaw and the Byrds would sound like together.”<\/p>\n
Any Blossoms fan is going to want to own this album both for
\nstrong rarities like “Slave Dealer’s Daughter” and to hear the
\noriginal versions of classic Blossoms cuts like “Hey Jealousy.” For
\neveryone else, production values aside, this album – available via
\nthe Benchmark Records
\nWeb
\nsite<\/a>, as well as CDNOW– stands up well as a historical
\nmilestone in the still-unfolding career of a great band.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":26256,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[5734],"rating":[5617],"class_list":["post-37478","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-gin-blossoms","rating-rating-b-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/37478","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37478"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/37478\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26256"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37478"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37478"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=37478"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=37478"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}