I heard about Pearl Harbour\u2019s Don\u2019t Follow Me, I\u2019m Lost Too<\/i> album decades ago, but never came across a copy until this brand new reissue from Liberation Hall arrived in the mailbox. The record first came to my attention because, recorded in 1980, it features Clash rhythm section Topper Headon and Paul Simonon, who were recording Sandinista!<\/i> at the time. Throw in Wilko Johnson of Dr. Feelgood and Ian Dury & the Blockheads on lead guitar, his Blockheads bandmate Mickey Gallagher playing keyboards and producing, and Gary Barnacle on sax, and you have quite an intriguing group of musicians. If only you could find the thing back then.<\/p>\n
Of course, none of this addresses Pearl herself, who had danced with The Tubes and been in a San Francisco new wave band called Pearl Harbor And The Explosions. When the band actually imploded<\/i> after a single LP in 1980, Pearl\u2019s then paramour, Clash manager Kosmo Vinyl, suggested they decamp to England to record an album because he might, you know, be able to find a few guys that had some free time or something.<\/p>\n
Arriving in London, Harbor would add the requisite \u201cu\u201d to her last name and set about recording an album of what sounds like early rock and roll, rockabilly, and girl group standards, but are actually mostly tunes penned by Harbour or Harbour and her bandmates. The record begins with just such a song, \u201cAlone In The Dark,\u201d written by Harbour and starting off the record like\u2026 well, sort of like \u201cBrand New Cadillac.\u201d Harbour has a voice that ranges from husky to honeyed with the occasional yelp and some gravel when she pushes it, as with the volcano\/WWII-referencing Wanda Jackson standard, \u201cFujiyama Mama,\u201d which is certainly done justice by the assembled musicians. In fact, Steve New, who\u2019d been in the Rich Kids with ex-Pistol Glen Matlock, plays guitar on these songs. But then comes a curveball: \u201cEverybody\u2019s Boring But My Baby,\u201d which I would\u2019ve thought was an obscure tune by the Crystals or Shangri-La\u2019s. But, no, it\u2019s another Harbour composition and sung with a voice to match Mary Weiss. It\u2019s a great song and possibly my favorite on the record.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re In Trouble\u201d and \u201cDo Your Homework\u201d are fun rockabilly workouts with Headon and Simonon locking in like they might be used to it. \u201cCowboys And Indians,\u201d written by Englishman Otis Watkins, who released a single on Stiff Records in 1980, takes a successful stab at honky-tonk via Waterloo. \u201cLosing To You\u201d maintains the country vibe, but this time more in the Kitty Wells-mold. It was written by another Stiff artist, Nigel Dixon, who plays rhythm guitar throughout the album and would later end up in Havana 3 A.M. with Paul Simonon.<\/p>\n
The tempo accelerates again with \u201cFilipino Baby,\u201d a nod to Harbour\u2019s Filipino heritage, although the song dates to 1899 and was first record in the late 1930s. Here it\u2019s perhaps a little more Blondie than Patsy Cline. \u201cLet\u2019s Go Upstairs\u201d and \u201cRough Kids\u201d are somewhat more by-the-numbers rockabilly songs, while \u201cOut With The Girls\u201d is a bit of a riff on Commander Cody\u2019s \u201cHot Rod Lincoln.\u201d \u201cHeaven Is Going To Be Empty\u201d is a dead ringer for a song you might\u2019ve heard on an \u201980s country-pop station, complete with big production and late-song key change, but it\u2019s another Harbour song and quite a good one. Mick Jones adds a little lead guitar, even. \u201cAt The Dentist\u201d is a jokey toss-off and would\u2019ve ended the original album on a new wave note. <\/p>\n
The original album had 11 songs. The purple vinyl reissue adds an additional six singles and b-sides, all of which are in the rockabilly vein, albeit with less heft than the album material. The CD tacks on another two demos for a total of 19 tracks, but the first half of the original album is where things shine brightest.<\/p>\n
Apparently not seeing any marketability in rockabilly or American roots music, Warner Bros. would release the record but do virtually nothing with it, which is likely why I never saw a copy. Of course, less than a year later along would come the Stray Cats and everybody was wearing poodle skirts and swing dancing to \u201cRock This Town.\u201d By the \u201990s another rockabilly roots revival was in full swing. But like Robert Gordon a couple years earlier, this was a bit ahead of its time, and is a record worthy of exhumation. It\u2019s certainly more Wanda Jackson than London\u2019s Burning, but fans of both American roots music and first wave English punk will surely find something to enjoy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":97,"featured_media":35050,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[10979],"rating":[5612],"class_list":["post-46927","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-pearl-harbour","rating-rating-b-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/46927","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\/97"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46927"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/46927\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35050"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46927"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=46927"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=46927"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}