Embedded Files
UNDER-APPRECIATED ROCK BAND OF THE MONTH FOR APRIL 2010: THE BREAKAWAYS
In the early 1970’s, when the concept-album craze, side-long classical-style keyboard exercises, and other similar pretensions in rock music started to run their course, many rock scribes began to search for redemption for popular music by a return to the carefree energy of the 1960’s. No one quite got it right as to what actually came to pass, but Greg Shaw – publisher of Mojo Navigator, Who Put the Bomp, and other storied fanzines, some of which actually predated Rolling Stone – put his faith in what he called “power-pop”: teenage pop music in the standard 3-minute format but backed up with a hard-edged punk rock aesthetic. Pete Townshend coined the term power pop in a 1967 interview to describe the music that his band the Who and Small Faces played; many of the Beatles’ mid-period singles are also in that style, such as “Paperback Writer” and “Day Tripper”. Among American bands, “Time Won’t Let Me” by the Outsiders and “Go All the Way” by the Raspberries are early power-pop hit songs.
By 1971, the term “punk rock” had already been applied retrospectively by Greg Shaw as well as Greil Marcus to American bands such as Question Mark and the Mysterians, the Standells, the Seeds, the Shadows of Knight, and the Kingsmen who managed to score some hit songs during the height of the British Invasion. In 1972, Lenny Kaye popularized the term in the first definitive compilation album that he helped assemble for this music, called Nuggets: Original Artyfacts from the First Psychedelic Era, 1965-1968; his liner notes are almost as legendary as the double-album itself. (This music is now referred to as garage rock and psychedelic rock).
As it turned out, three competing and complementary strains of music arose seemingly overnight by 1974: In addition to power pop, they were what most of us know as “punk rock” – e.g., Ramones, Sex Pistols, Patti Smith Group (with Lenny Kaye on lead guitar), the Dead Boys – and “new wave” – e.g., Elvis Costello, Blondie, Talking Heads, the Runaways – the latter band, the first successful all-female rock band, is now the subject of a major motion picture. Punk and new wave were almost interchangeable terms before long, and some of these bands definitely had a foot in both camps: The hotbed of punk rock in the early days was the CBGB club in New York City, but the house band there almost from opening night, Television (one of the great guitar bands) is now viewed as one of the earliest new wave bands, even though their original vocalist and bass player Richard Hell would leave the band to form one of the punkiest bands of the time, the Voidoids. Eventually the label “new wave” was applied to so many different kinds of musical artists that the term lost its meaning, and the same is true to a lesser extent of power pop. But it wasn’t like that in the beginning.
Unfortunately, the power-pop movement was somewhat overwhelmed by these other forces, but some marvelous records were pressed nonetheless with some success. In late 1974, Greg Shaw’s first release on his Bomp! Records record label were two tracks from 1972 album sessions by the Flamin’ Groovies that the band could not get anyone to release. The “A” side was “You Tore Me Down”, backed with a fine treatment of the old Paul Revere and the Raiders song “Him or Me”. As Shaw put it: “All I knew was that music this good had to come out. . . . And that’s as good a foot to start on as any, I reckon.”
In 1975, a band called the Nerves was formed as a true power trio: Jack Lee, Peter Case, and Paul Collins were talented musicians as well as dynamite songwriters. They came up with an EP and a handful of singles that included a minor hit, “One Way Ticket”. The lead song on their EP, “Hanging on the Telephone” was gloriously covered by Blondie and became the opening track on their breakthrough album Parallel Lines. Rumor has it that someone put the Nerves EP on while the band was on their way to a gig, and the rest is history. “Heart of Glass” might have been their #1 hit song, but as the follow-up, “Hanging on the Telephone” reached #5 in the UK and ensured that Blondie would remain a force in rock music well into the 1980’s – in fact, they are still touring and recording good albums to this day. It wasn’t until 2008 that a proper retrospective album for the Nerves came out, called One Way Ticket – on the Bomp-affiliated Alive Records label – that includes their recorded output as well as some additional related tracks, plus seven nice live tracks from a 1977 show.
The Nerves broke up due to the usual musical differences – not surprising considering that each member of the band was fighting to get their songs recorded – and THE BREAKAWAYS immediately formed. Basically, it was just the duo of Peter Case and Paul Collins plus whatever guitar player or two that they could scrounge up to join the session; there were three different line-ups in the group in their short history. Their sound is sparer than that of the Nerves, but no less energetic for all that. One of their earliest tracks is also one of the best: “Walking out on Love” was part of the Nerves’ live show but had never been recorded by that band. Peter Case and Paul Collins worked through most of 1978 getting as many songs on tape as possible, along with a handful in the recording studio.
By the end of 1978, these two had also gone their separate ways, with Peter Case forming the Plimsouls and Paul Collins starting the Beat (later Paul Collins’ Beat). In early 1982, the Plimsouls released the quintessential power-pop song "A Million Miles Away", and it was a bona fide FM hit before Geffen Records wrested the band away from Bomp! Records and pulled the song from the market until their album was finished. The Plimsouls recorded a couple of good albums for their label, and the Beat did the same, but it wasn’t what could have been. Jack Lee might have been the best songwriter of the three, but he retreated from the music scene after releasing just one solo album.
In 2009, tapes resurfaced of their early sessions that the Breakaways hadn’t even remembered that they had made, and Alive Records also put together a CD for this group called Walking out on Love: The Lost Sessions. Together with the Nerves CD, One Way Ticket, this album is being offered in a specially priced package with a brand new Alive CD of the Plimsouls at the top of their game playing live at the Whisky a Go Go in October 1981, called Live! Beg, Borrow & Steal. Highly recommended. Check it out at the Bomp! mailorder site: http://www.bompstore.com/breakaways-nerves-related-powerpop-walking-out-on-love-the-lost-sessions-cd/.
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The Honor Roll of the Under Appreciated Rock Bands and Artists follows, in date order, including a link to the original Facebook posts and the theme of the article.
Dec 2009 – BEAST; Lot to Learn
Jan 2010 – WENDY WALDMAN; Los Angeles Singer-Songwriters
Feb 2010 – CYRUS ERIE; Cleveland
Mar 2010 – BANG; Record Collecting I
Apr 2010 – THE BREAKAWAYS; Power Pop
May 2010 – THE NOT QUITE; Katrina Clean-Up
Jun 2010 – WATERLILLIES; Electronica
Jul 2010 – THE EYES; Los Angeles Punk Rock
Aug 2010 – QUEEN ANNE’S LACE; Psychedelic Pop
Sep 2010 – THE STILLROVEN; Minnesota
Oct 2010 – THE PILTDOWN MEN; Record Collecting II
Nov 2010 – SLOVENLY; Slovenly Peter
Dec 2010 – THE POPPEES; New York Punk/New Wave
Jan 2011 – HACIENDA; Latinos in Rock
Feb 2011 – THE WANDERERS; Punk Rock (1970’s/1980’s)
Mar 2011 – INDEX; Psychedelic Rock (1960’s)
Apr 2011 – BOHEMIAN VENDETTA; Punk Rock (1960’s)
May 2011 – THE LONESOME DRIFTER; Rockabilly
Jun 2011 – THE UNKNOWNS; Disabled Musicians
Jul 2011 – THE RIP CHORDS; Surf Rock I
Aug 2011 – ANDY COLQUHOUN; Side Men
Sep 2011 – ULTRA; Texas
Oct 2011 – JIM SULLIVAN; Mystery
Nov 2011 – THE UGLY; Punk Rock (1970’s)
Dec 2011 – THE MAGICIANS; Garage Rock (1960’s)
Jan 2012 – RON FRANKLIN; Why Celebrate Under Appreciated?
Feb 2012 – JA JA JA; German New Wave
Mar 2012 – STRATAVARIOUS; Disco Music
Apr 2012 – LINDA PIERRE KING; Record Collecting III
May 2012 – TINA AND THE TOTAL BABES; One Hit Wonders
Jun 2012 – WILD BLUE; Band Names I
Jul 2012 – DEAD HIPPIE; Band Names II
Aug 2012 – PHIL AND THE FRANTICS; Wikipedia I
Sep 2012 – CODE BLUE; Hidden History
Oct 2012 – TRILLION; Wikipedia II
Nov 2012 – THOMAS ANDERSON; Martin Winfree’s Record Buying Guide
Dec 2012 – THE INVISIBLE EYES; Record Collecting IV
Jan 2013 – THE SKYWALKERS; Garage Rock Revival
Feb 2013 – LINK PROTRUDI AND THE JAYMEN; Link Wray
Mar 2013 – THE GILES BROTHERS; Novelty Songs
Apr 2013 – LES SINNERS; Universal Language
May 2013 – HOLLIS BROWN; Greg Shaw / Bob Dylan
Jun 2013 (I) – FUR (Part 1); What Might Have Been I
Jun 2013 (II) – FUR (Part 2); What Might Have Been II
Jul 2013 – THE KLUBS; Record Collecting V
Aug 2013 – SILVERBIRD; Native Americans in Rock
Sep 2013 – BLAIR 1523; Wikipedia III
Oct 2013 – MUSIC EMPORIUM; Women in Rock I
Nov 2013 – CHIMERA; Women in Rock II
Dec 2013 – LES HELL ON HEELS; Women in Rock III
Jan 2014 – BOYSKOUT; (Lesbian) Women in Rock IV
Feb 2014 – LIQUID FAERIES; Women in Rock V
Mar 2014 (I) – THE SONS OF FRED (Part 1); Tribute to Mick Farren
Mar 2014 (II) – THE SONS OF FRED (Part 2); Tribute to Mick Farren
Apr 2014 – HOMER; Creating New Bands out of Old Ones
May 2014 – THE SOUL AGENTS; The Cream Family Tree
Jun 2014 – THE RICHMOND SLUTS and BIG MIDNIGHT; Band Names (Changes) III
Jul 2014 – MIKKI; Rock and Religion I (Early CCM Music)
Aug 2014 – THE HOLY GHOST RECEPTION COMMITTEE #9; Rock and Religion II (Bob Dylan)
Sep 2014 – NICK FREUND; Rock and Religion III (The Beatles)
Oct 2014 – MOTOCHRIST; Rock and Religion IV
Nov 2014 – WENDY BAGWELL AND THE SUNLITERS; Rock and Religion V
Dec 2014 – THE SILENCERS; Surf Rock II
Jan 2015 (I) – THE CRAWDADDYS (Part 1); Tribute to Kim Fowley
Jan 2015 (II) – THE CRAWDADDYS (Part 2); Tribute to Kim Fowley
Feb 2015 – BRIAN OLIVE; Songwriting I (Country Music)
Mar 2015 – PHIL GAMMAGE; Songwriting II (Woody Guthrie / Bob Dylan)
Apr 2015 (I) – BLACK RUSSIAN (Part 1); Songwriting III (Partnerships)
Apr 2015 (II) – BLACK RUSSIAN (Part 2); Songwriting III (Partnerships)
May 2015 – MAL RYDER and THE PRIMITIVES; Songwriting IV (The Rolling Stones)
Jun 2015 – HAYMARKET SQUARE; Songwriting V (The Beatles)
Jul 2015 – THE HUMAN ZOO; Songwriting VI (Psychedelic Rock)
Aug 2015 – CRYSTAL MANSION; Martin Winfree’s Record Cleaning Guide
Dec 2015 – AMANDA JONES; So Many Rock Bands
Mar 2016 – THE LOVEMASTERS; Fun Rock Music
Jun 2016 – THE GYNECOLOGISTS; Offensive Rock Music Lyrics
Sep 2016 – LIGHTNING STRIKE; Rap and Hip Hop
Dec 2016 – THE IGUANAS; Iggy and the Stooges; Proto-Punk Rock
Mar 2017 – THE LAZY COWGIRLS; Iggy and the Stooges; First Wave Punk Rock
Jun 2017 – THE LOONS; Punk Revival and Other New Bands
Sep 2017 – THE TELL-TALE HEARTS; Bootleg Albums
Dec 2017 – SS-20; The Iguana Chronicles
(Year 10 Review)
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