Greg Shaw 2

GREG SHAW – Poppees Singles

After a few false starts, the Poppees were signed by Greg Shaw as the first new band for Bomp! Records – Bomp is still going strong, issuing the Poppees anthology album this year among other great records, and has several allied labels, such as AIP, Alive, Total Energy, etc. The comprehensive website Allmusic (specifically, Mark Deming) says of the Poppees: “[T]hey lasted just long enough to provide a link from the first stirrings of the power pop movement to the dawn of New York’s New Wave scene.” Greg Shaw himself has said: “In its usual fashion, history has over-simplified what happened in New York; the Poppees are a reminder that it wasn’t all ‘blank generation’ posing.” (Blank Generation is the title of the first album by Richard Hell and the Voidoids).

Bomp released a single for the band in March 1975 (just the third single for Bomp), “If She Cries” b/w “Love of the Loved”. The young producer for the 45, Craig Leon, who also played piano on the “B” side, was the producer for the seminal first album by Ramones the following year. Their second single for Bomp later in 1975 – “Jealousy” b/w “She’s Got It” – was produced by Cyril Jordan of the Flamin’ Groovies; the first 45 on Bomp was by this band and was released in December 1974. Though the Poppees mention “our forthcoming album” during the live tracks on the anthology album, that would have to wait until this year it seems.

“Since I Fell for You” sounds like a lost Beatles track and is one of the “obscure R&B tunes the Fabs would surely have envied” (as Greg Shaw put it).

(December 2010)