Blixa Sounds has been on a roll with their new wave reissues, and this one is a major release for the label. ROBIN LANE & THE CHARTBUSTERS’ Many Years Ago: The Complete Collection is a 3 CD set that pulls together pretty much everything the band ever recorded, plus some early Robin Lane solo outings.
Lane got her start in the music world in late ’60s L.A. but eventually found her way to Cambridge (our fair city), MA, where she formed The Chartbusters. They didn’t really do any chart bustin’ but they did make a name for themselves in the nascent new wave scene. By 1980 they’d gotten enough renown to get signed to Warner Bros. Records, where they put out two albums, a live EP and a few singles. This set presents their self-released 45, the eponymous first album, Imitation Life and the 5 Live EP, her solo Heart Connection EP and outtakes from those sessions, along with numerous demos and live tracks. If you’re a Robin Lane fanatic then you’ll want this, as it contains a whopping 28 previously unreleased tracks. Phew! Me, I like the band’s guitar-based “modern rock” sound, but I’m not too enthralled by Lane’s singing voice. I don’t know, she comes off kinda unremarkable to me. Like the Pearl Harbor release I already reviewed (here), Robin Lane & The Chartbusters epitomized the slick new wave vibe that was happening then but all these years later, out of context, they come off as your typical, generic new wave band. There’s nothing wrong with it or them, though, and they’re certainly not bad. But the girth of this 3 CD release is a lot to chew.
2.5/5 (Blixa Sounds ETA 818, 2019)
With an era-appropriate band name, PEARL HARBOR AND THE EXPLOSIONS burst out of the late ’70s San Francisco rock scene with a slick, eponymous debut album that epitomized what “new wave” sounded like. Pearl Harbor and the Explosions was, indeed, the sole LP by the band. Warner Bros. put it out in 1980 and here in 2019, courtesy of Blixa Sounds, we have a tidy little reissue with bonus single and live tracks.
Peter Bilt’s twangy Tele guitar licks were clean ’n’ cutting, while the Stench Brothers contributed a tight rhythm foundation – perfect for Harbor’s slightly Lene Lovich-esque vocals. “Drivin’” and “You Got It (Release It)” are the best known songs from the album, and have appeared on numerous compilations on Rhino and other labels (such as 1994’s Just Can’t Get Enough: New Wave Hits of the ’80s, Vol. 3).
This is getting to be a regular and welcome occurrence. ROBYN HITCHCOCK writes a couple of great songs, puts together an excellent band and records them, then treats us to a killer new 7″ single. In this case, Hitchcock recruited The Nashville Fabs, the very same group he took out on the road last fall, to accompany him. I saw them in Seattle at the Neptune Theater and it was a pretty good show, though the band was a little rough around the edges as it was the beginning of the tour. The Fabs apparently found their groove on “Sunday Never Comes” and its B-side because this slab o’ wax is definitely polished and ready for presentation.
What’s decidedly different is that Hitchcock has mostly moved on from writing about animals, insects and frogs (though they weren’t so much the subject matter as the vessels for transport), and his arrangements lack a lot of the superfluous gloss. The A-side was written for the film Juliet Naked and had only been available as a demo for download (see the video below for what that sounds like; it’s quite nice played solo!), while “Take Off Your Bandages” is “a psychedelic manifesto for the current era, inspired by the activism of the students at [Marjorie] Stoneman Douglas High School.” Indeed, both songs have a psychy edge to them, as if The Egyptians were imported from their sarcophagi, sans the trappings of late Eighties record production. Quite fabulous, I must say.
NuDisc 