Fortuitously #2

 

I still bumble blindly around on YouTube sporadically, and occasionally take an unexpected turning and strike gold, such as when I discovered a collections of clips of The Feelies performing live at the Peanut Gallery, a bar in their home town of Haledon, New Jersey, on May Day 1983, which sort of blew my mind as it was everything that I had dared hope The Feelies live might be. I wasn’t even aware The Feelies were active in 1983. And yet there they are, immortalised on film, in grainy black and white, performing a special commemorative Crazy Rhythms set which is amazing in so many ways.

The clips have been shared by Janice Demeski, who’s been literally part of the band’s extended family over the years, and they capture so perfectly the hyperkinetic stagecraft of Glenn Mercer and Bill Million. Those guys remind me of the toys you used to wind-up and let loose on your mum’s lino. There are other earlier clips of The Feelies on YouTube, but this set is special because of the unexpected nature of the performance and because it comprises a full show, albeit a fragmented one, free to view. And for the past five years this magic has been hiding in plain sight.

It wasn’t exactly a revelation seeing the group’s hyperactive onstage presence, as there have been clues. A clip of The Feelies performing ‘The Boy With Perpetual Nervousness’ at CBGBs in 1979, broadcast on New York cable TV via Paul Tschinkel’s Inner Tube, may be the earliest footage of the group, augmented by I believe Charles Beasley on percussion, with Glenn looking a little like a young Robert Forster. The Inner Tube archives on YouTube are a goldmine and include clips of The Cramps, Contortions and DNA among other treasures.

Then there is the incredible footage shot by Merrill Aldighieri at the Hurrah nightclub in New York on 11 September 1980 with Glenn in a smart white shirt bouncing around the stage like Tigger and Bill in a checked sports shirt with short sleeves, hunched over his guitar, darting back and forth, with his specs making him look like the missing link between Buddy Holly and Alan Horne, all non-stop movement with odd echoes of Racey and The Beat, very definitely dynamic tension. Anton, cool as anything, pounds on the tom toms mostly, and is that Dave Weckerman on percussion?

Keith and Bill take turns at the standalone snare and tom tom, and Keith, at the side of the stage, is initially in a skinny tie and dark suit. He must have been sweltering like mad. Then the next night A Certain Ratio play at the same venue with ESG as support and Martin Hannett at the mixing desk. Imagine being able to go to both concerts. For us less fortunate ones, both The Feelies’ and ACR’s performances are available in full via the ArtClips site which is a repository for Merrill’s work.

I have to confess that to a large extent I am guilty of preserving these dandies in aspic: ACR and The Feelies in 1980-ish. In 1980 my brother gave me ACR’s The Graveyard and the Ballroom cassette for my 16^th birthday, and a few weeks later (in April) Crazy Rhythms came out. To me both of these were conceptually perfect: the sound, the look, the whole approach. All those aspects played a key part. Crazy Rhythms still seems amazing, as if it was beamed in from a different planet.

Avant garde bubblegum I would later call it, which sounds suspiciously Stereolab-like, though that makes sense as listening to ‘Red Sleeping Beauty’ and ‘Frans Hals’ way back I was reminded of The Feelies. I strongly suspect that in later life Crazy Rhythms’ percussive dimension had a lot to do with falling for early jungle or drum & bass sounds, certainly the top-end frenetic renegade snares aspects. That percussive dimension is very much there in the 1983 live set too, with I believe Stanley Demeski making his debut as drummer, alongside another percussionist (is that one Dave Weckerman?), with Bill and Keith taking turns again at the snare at the side of the stage.

Before Crazy Rhythms, in 1979 Rough Trade put out the ‘Fa-Cé-La’ / ‘Raised Eyebrows’ 45, which came without any context but fitted perfectly alongside the label’s acts like Subway Sect, Monochrome Set, Swell Maps, Raincoats, Kleenex, Delta 5, The Pop Group, with that  buzzing insects / alarm clock guitar sound, but above all the attraction was that photo on the back which I studied over and over and over.

Musically, I doubt I had any real reference points for that single or for the LP. For me, this was pre-Postcard, before I’d really heard the Velvets, probably before I’d got the Modern Lovers debut, and I was certainly not familiar with other reference points the group cited like Steve Reich or Fripp & Eno, both of which it seems were a big thing for them. Minimalist composers and ambient producers didn’t mean anything to me back then.

I guess I was less interested in historical context and instead tried to see how The Feelies fit in as part of the modern pop tapestry. Where did they fit in my mind? I suspect one immediate connection was to The Cure who were a big thing for a moment back in 1979, hence the reference in Shack’s ‘John Kline’. Those singles, ‘10.15’, ‘Boys Don’t Cry’, ‘Jumping Someone Else’s Train’. I loved them. I seem to recall the NME were really sniffy about The Cure early on, but in Sounds my favourite writer Dave McCullough gave Three Imaginary Boys a five-star rave review. What else? Buzzcocks’ ‘Pulsebeat’ and ‘Noise Annoys’, the new Liverpool guitar heroes coming through, Sergeant and Finkler, plus the high velocity pure pop of the Good Vibrations label, Rudi, Protex, The Outcasts et set. Certainly, The Fall digging repetition and Wire playing pop. That sort of (new) thing.

Crazy Rhythms if I remember rightly was put out by Stiff at a budget price, £2.99 or something. I bought it on instinct. The Feelies most definitely were not on the radio all the time here. There were no TV appearances and practically no live shows in the UK: one in April 1980 at the Electric Ballroom in Camden with the Monochrome Set and Eric Random on the bill (you can see the logic there) then a hastily arranged set supporting The Cramps at The Venue near Victoria the following night. And The Feelies had the misfortune of being on a rather uncool label and were not really taken up by the music press in the UK, at least not by the writers I religiously read or followed.

The press coverage I remember was a two-page feature in the August 1980 edition of Zigzag, which was a few months after the LP came out. This was a pretty straight Q&A piece by Ray Bonici (not a name I followed or was even really aware of, but looking him up he did some of the big names like McCartney, Jagger, and so on). This really stayed with me, particularly some of the things Mercer and Million said. In the same way some of the other things in Zigzag in 1980 really stayed with me: Kris Needs on Orange Juice, his piece on Cristina too, Robin Banks on Vic Godard to tie-in with the release of What’s The Matter Boy?, Jane Garcia with Lydia Lunch circa Eight-Eyed Spy and Queen of Siam, the latter of which Zigzag editor Kris Needs enthusiastically reviewed. 

Oddly, I kept some copies of Zigzag while my editions of The Face were lost along the way. But I can still vividly recall a photo of Glenn Mercer from one of the first issues of The Face which I cut out and used in a fanzine several years later. For me that photo invented the 1980s. I think it was by Jill Furmanovsky, but there are group shots from the same day by George Chin which are worth seeking out, as is the one below taken from the John Peel Wiki site. In these shots Glenn has a short back and sides with a heavy fringe which I imagine Michael Bracewell might have approved of as being in the Isherwood / Auden tradition or for fitting in with his beloved ‘young man dressing as a Vorticist’ look.

While my own copies of the first few issues of The Face are long-gone, my friend Per-Christian confirms the photo that stayed with me is from the third issue. What I hadn’t remembered or didn’t recall was that it appeared next to a shot of Bruce Springsteen (there being a  New Jersey connection) which to me at the time would have seemed a strange juxtaposition of the old and the new. Then, over the page, there was a small feature on The Feelies, which again was by Ray Bonici.

So, yes, as wonderful as The Feelies sounded, the way they looked seemed just as important. They told Zigzag: “It’s a real orderly like look. It’s just the way our environment is.” I rather liked the idea of this New Jersey suburb where Stepford Wives-style all the guys would be walking around dressed like The Feelies. I strongly suspect this was not the case. But I would argue their look was hugely influential here, particularly with the Postcard groups, and the peripheral acts like The Bluebells, Pale Fountains and especially Felt.

Maurice Deebank, reflecting on his time with Felt and the way the group looked, would later say: “Yeah, we used to have an image. We used to dress quite smart, the baggy trousers, the checked shirts. We used to buy shirts a lot from Kensington Market. I think we had a great image, visually.” Felt were definitely not like The Feelies onstage though. I don’t remember Felt moving at all.

Oddly, for someone who wasted so many hours reading the music press when he should have been doing homework, I have no recollection of seeing a March 1980 feature on The Feelies in the NME by Richard Grabel, their NYC correspondent, which came with a standfirst that was casually offensive and used the lazy language that would plague independent or underground sounds throughout the 1980s and beyond. I know I never saw it as the accompanying Joe Stevens photos were magnificent.

Glenn and Bill are wearing grey slipovers or tank tops which rather wonderfully echo a live shot of the 1978 Subway Sect by Mike Laye which I am pretty sure is simply a wonderful coincidence. But there are all sorts of coincidental similarities between the two groups, even going beyond their respective ultra-cool images. Each group was a 3-piece nucleus plus a drummer. Each liked their guitars to produce an “irritant factor” with a wild, trebly sound. Both outfits frowned on the use of cymbals. Both bands were from the suburbs and embraced exaggerated ordinariness. They shared a dislike and distrust of rock rituals and the pop process, like gigs, tours, rehearsals, interviews. The Feelies’ view was that a live show should be a special event and have a sense of occasion. The story goes that initially they only played on Public Holidays.

Where these two great groups really differed though was in the way Subway Sect’s laissez-faire indifference contrasted sharply with The Feelies’ steely resolve. That may have something to do with The Feelies being older. I don’t know. They didn’t look it. But they absolutely insisted on producing what was their debut LP, and in certain ways they were closer to Dexys, with the no drinking, no smoking, no drugs puritanism. And there were echoes too of Jonathan Richman with their interest in healthy eating and exercise, like the way every day Bill would go jogging with Glenn, covering three to five miles each time. As an aside I understand that Feelies percussionist Dave Weckerman attended the 100 Club Punk Festival in 1976 by chance, so he probably caught the debut Subway Sect performance. I wonder how he explained them back home in the suburbs.

Anyway, The Feelies’ image was a strange one really, a sort of thrift store preppy or Ivy Look mutation with odd things like the pegged slacks which they said were necessary for the way they moved onstage. On the LP cover Anton Fier wears a Ralph Lauren long-sleeve top. As with Marie et les Garçons’ use of a Lacoste tennis shirt on a record sleeve around the same time, I wonder how familiar with those brands we would have been in 1980 in the UK. I suspect it was rather more of a Fred Perry place.

That LP image is actually an old photo and appeared a year earlier with a Paul Rambali article on The Feelies for the NME in March 1979. This was pre-Rough Trade when it was suggested they would sign for Ork, which would have been cool with the ‘Little Johnny Jewel’ connection. Again, I don’t remember seeing this piece, though ironically a few weeks later in the paper’s Easter Bank Holiday mod special a Paul Rambali story (based on the tall tales of C.P. Reeves, later a Y Records artist), ‘Land of a Thousand Dances’, would feature alongside the (for me) life-changing Penny Reel piece, ‘The Young Mod’s Forgotten Story’.

Somehow there has been a received notion that The Feelies’ look was based on the preppie or Ivy Look tradition, but I don’t recall reading that at the time. I doubt I even knew what preppie or Ivy Look meant. I was only just getting to grips with modernism. Out of curiosity I searched online and got a rather wonderfully odd AI response which reads strangely like something I might have dreamed up:

I couldn’t get this out of my mind. I could not really disprove it for I have absolutely no recollection of ever seeing a picture of The Feelies back then wearing outdoor clothing, and it began to trouble me. I mean, what would The Feelies wear in the winter? Duffels? Pea jackets? Old overcoats? I really don’t know. There must be people out there who do know though. For me, these things are important. I would dearly love to see photos of The Feelies wearing winter clothes in 1980.

Speaking of which I rather like the fact that the excellent group Horsegirl have referred to The Feelies’ look circa Crazy Rhythms as a total inspiration. Their wonderful LP Phonetics On and On from last year is a modern classic, and one I would have missed were it not for my friend Daniel Williams who pointed me in its direction with a couple of rather irresistible reference points (The Sea & Cake’s The Biz and the Go-Betweens’ Send Me A Lullaby) and some sage words in praise of Cate Le Bon’s fantastic minimal production which few people would have been brave enough to go for.

Phonetics has rather a strong 1979 Rough Trade feel or sound to it at times, at least to these cloth ears, which on ‘2468’ becomes a very pronounced Feelies thing while always being identifiable as a Horsegirl sound. And they know their stuff. To coincide with the album’s release the group hosted a series of superb and incredibly varied radio shows for NTS, as a nice echo of Jessica Pratt’s Rhythm on the West broadcasts the previous year. At their age I thought I was cool and knew it all, but I wasn’t and didn’t. Compared to Horsegirl I really didn’t have a clue.

Among the things featured on the handful of Horsegirl Sounds Radio Hour shows were The Particles, Rosa Yemen, Brigitte Fontaine, Prefects, Gina X, Sandra Cross, Mina, Sheila Chandra, Anna Domino, Slapp Happy, Family Fodder, Francis Bebey, Syd Barrett, Aggrovators, Sam Prekop, Velvets, Only Ones, Hasil Adkins, Joe Strummer, Snapper, Jean-Paul Sartre Experience, J.J. Cale, Monochrome Set, Kevin Ayers, A Certain Ratio, Jacques Dutronc, Ela Orleans, The Apostles, Blue Eyed Soul, and Bill Orcutt. Not bad, eh?

I wonder if Horsegirl have seen those Feelies live clips from 1983. Probably. It’s funny in a way as in 1983, when I had no idea The Feelies were still going one way or another, my interest in American sounds was reignited by REM and the Violent Femmes. The latter initially and then very much the former. REM’s appearance on the Friday evening music show The Tube in November 1983 promoting Murmur was a revelation, with Michael Stipe in a (pre-ubiquity) hoodie looking like Chris Bailey’s baby brother, Mike Mills in a paisley shirt looking like Ken from Citizen Smith trying to be an Undertone, Peter Buck whirling around with his Rickenbacker. It all seemed like manna from heaven.

Then the following Spring at the Marquee down Wardour Street for an REM show that turned into an end-of-tour celebration with a series of encores memorably featuring ‘So You Want To Be A Rock & Roll Star’ segueing into ‘Does Your Mother Know?’ as the group prowled processional around the stage in single file, not quite Nutty Boys-style but close, or is that my memory playing tricks?

If you rummage around on YouTube, you may find clips of The Feelies covering REM’s ‘Shaking Through’ which has a nice symmetry to it. And Peter Buck helped produce The Feelies’ comeback LP The Good Earth (a record that shares its title with a Pearl S. Buck novel, coincidentally or not) which came out here on Rough Trade in 1986, though I have absolutely no recollection of hearing or seeing it at the time, which is odd, but I guess there was too much happening on our own doorstep. Nevertheless, I really regret not seeing The Feelies in London in 1986. Ah life.

The highlight of The Good Earth for me is ‘When Company Comes’ which was among a batch of tracks the group were playing live in the latter part of 1980 with a view to recording a second LP. These were more experimental, largely instrumental compositions, and I guess in a modern context not far from what Ex-Easter Island Head were doing on their recent excellent Norther LP. Stiff, however, were very much: “What do you call that noise that you’ve put on? This is pop? Oh no, you’re not putting that out with us.” A missed opportunity. So, The Feelies withdrew to their Haledon suburban sanctuary, and got involved with splinter projects (a-Feelie-ated acts?), including Glenn and Bill performing as part of The Willies who, it seems, played the Peanut Gallery a week before The Feelies show that inspired this piece.

I believe The Good Earth is a particular favourite of Horsegirl and generally is probably a closer reference point than Crazy Rhythms. Myself, I probably like it a lot more now than I would have done at the time. It’s worn well and has a fantastic sound, a very un-rock like one, which was unusual for an American group back then. This would be the first of a handful more Feelies LPs that would appear sporadically, each of which I think is great and warmly natural sounding. The world is a better place for having these Feelies recordings in it. But I sort of miss the conceptual approach that I felt was so much a part of the Crazy Rhythms-era.

So, it was a blessing to discover Some Kinda Love, a CD where The Feelies perform the music of the Velvet Underground, released by Bar/None Records (of Hoboken, New Jersey) on October 13, 2023, exactly five years after it was recorded live at the White Eagle Hall in Jersey City, an event to tie-in with the Velvet Underground Experience exhibition on Broadway. It is the sort of thing that really should not work, that could so easily be Heritage Rock Inc. at its worst, but it is a total joy, right down to Bill Million’s artwork which is the ‘Fa-Cé-La’ single sleeve with the Velvets’ Warhol banana superimposed: simple but perfect.

I first heard parts of it thanks to my very old friend Keith which is apt as we both loved Crazy Rhythms as teenagers and he drew the Velvets’ debut sleeve as part of the cover he designed for our Fun ’n’ Frenzy fanzine back in 1983, which was mostly his work with some fevered nonsense by me (no change there then!). I was so taken with what I heard round his place that I more-or-less ordered a copy of The Feelies play the Velvets CD as soon as I got home.

Who else but The Feelies could have got away with this? Glenn Mercer has the perfect voice for this project, sure, and the band has always had that unbeatable lightness and rhythmic momentum that I loved about the Velvets (and I guess we all have our own idea of the ideal Velvets). There’s no ‘I’m Set Free’, ‘Pale Blue Eyes’ or ‘Foggy Notion’, but generally the selection is delightful, and I really like the way this does not become all about The Feelies. Instead, like great actors, they take on a role and totally convince. I guess the closest thing to a jarring note being struck is the presence of a pair of Bongos for the encores, but that makes sense too with the New Jersey connections between the two groups going back 40-odd years.

I have to confess I do not listen to the Velvets much these days, but they have been such a huge part of my life. And listening to this Feelies set (which I have done frequently) reminds me that I played live recordings of the Velvets far more than the studio LPs: Live 1969 and Max’s, plus all those old cassettes we exchanged like love letters and those venue names that are tattooed on our hearts and souls like La Cave, the Gymnasium, the Boston Tea Party, the Matrix, and so on.

For The Feelies, in a way, this live performance would have sort of brought them full circle. For, in that NME piece by Paul Rambali, published in March 1979, he wrote: “Their sound revolves around thickly monotonous rhythmic pulses, born of evenings spent covering Velvet Underground songs for disinterested New Jersey bar crowds.” He goes on to state it “derives its distinctive appeal from the use of subtle accents melody-wise that ricochet around the musical framework … sort of like Eno meets Jonathan Richman.” Now there’s an idea. A Feelies play the songs of Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers show, somewhere I can get to, before its too late and while there’s a world still to win.