BUH BUH BUH BUH BUH BUH – What?
Oh, hi.
It’s June – time for another exciting Album of the Month. Drum roll…12 selections from The Purdins Greatest Hits.
Backstory. The Purdins walk their own path. In late 1980-something they showed up at my basement door and wanted to make a record because they dug the Green Pajamas. We made a very cool little five-song 7” EP. (It actually got reviewed in Willfully Obscure in 2011). The Purdins rightfully decided they need to go to a better funded operation and off they went. I dig those Purdins and have kept a small eye out since. Kurt left the band and sort of joined Mazzy Star I think. Zak started The Electric Eelstudio down in pre-trendy Georgetown. The Purdins are really a great, disturbing band live at fine cesspools like Squid Row. The timeline blurs. Tony starts directing Shakespeare in vacant lots. Peter plays in some different bands like Huge Spacebird. Some guy in Cleveland or Minneapolis named Joe Howe is a Purdins fan and puts out The Purdins Greatest Hits in 1995 on the Bands We Like label. Some days you can buy a used copy on Amazon. Six people review it there and they all give it 5 stars. The disc is branded “WIMP ROCK FOR LOSERS”. I don’t think they came up with that line. I think Keith Livingston did, but I might be wrong.
Fast forward. 2009. I put together the Green Monkey Records Anthology. We have a show with 8 bands. Including The Purdins. Just great. Been occasionally bugging them about putting out The Purdins masterwerks ever since. There are dodgy tales about the existence or non-existence of master tapes. I get Tony to do a song for one of ourXmas albums. Pretty great. Pursuit continues. It is becoming less ephemeral.
Which brings us to the AotM. The Purdins Greatest Hits contains 25 selections. Plus bits between songs. Song 25, “The Purdins Live at the Hollywood Bowl” goes on for 18 minutes and 45 seconds, mostly at -33 dB so you think there is something wrong with your stereo. With Great Deliberation, I have selected twelve. I did not consult the band about with 12 or we would still be doing this. I think you will enjoy these. If you did not before, you will now love The Purdins. Like me.
In other news, Jeff and Susanne Kelly’s “By Reckless Moonlight” is out to press and will be out next month. It is the conceptual child of 1987’s “Coffee in Nepal” and is really great. For September we have a couple things on the burner that we will update on as we get closer.
Boogie chillun –
td
June 2014
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The Purdins:
Tony Driscoll – Vocals, A. Zachary – Bass, Peter Lansdowne – Drums, Kurt Elzner – Guitar, Christian Carbone – Guitar.
1. Dazzling Bag Of Paint Chips
2. Mrs. Jones
3. Big
4. Psychedelic Day
5. Carol Said
6. Friendly Fuel Man
7. Greg Brady
8. Tracy
9. AM-PM Lady
10. Jet Plane
11. Genocidal Love
12. Plane Flying Over My Head
Music and songs by The Purdins.