Dead Angle - Why Don't You

Lo-fi fuzzy girlpop from an LA band who used to be the Tartans (well, most of them anyway). It's familiar, but I still can't get enough.

Released last month on Loglady Records, part of a split 7" with Terry Malts.

The Minutemen - Doctor Wu

The Minutemen were such geniuses in their own right, I feel a bit guilty that their first appearance here is with a cover (of a Steely Dan song, of all things). I suppose the reason for that is that much of their music is the kind that I cerebrally appreciate without necessarily enjoying, if you know what I mean. Though lumped in with the LA punk scene, it would always be more accurate to describe them as post-punk - and even within that genre they were unique, drawing on jazz and funk influences to a degree almost unheard of by their contemporaries. Unfortunately, not being a fan of either jazz or funk, I couldn't really get into a lot of their stuff. But I always felt kind of bad about it.

In any event I did love this one, first of all because I thought it was brilliant that they covered it in the first place - an '80s punk band covering Steely Dan? Seriously? - and secondly because I love what they did with it, the dual vocals where one person sounds like he's trying to do a faithful version and the other is clearly taking the piss. As I said...geniuses.

It's from their 1984 (third) album Double Nickels on the Dime.

Lone Justice - Ways to be Wicked

The first single, a Tom Petty cover, from their self-titled 1985 debut album. I didn't care for this at all back in the day but Maria McKee and her massive voice got their charms into me eventually and I grew to love it. Still not sure about a lot of the rest of the album, though.

The Byrds - The Bells of Rhymney

The Byrds were a huge influence on a lot of the bands who appear on these pages, from the 1960s up to today, so it's fitting to give them a post of their own. While they had better-known songs than this one, it's pretty much always been my favourite, and I think it's one of the clearest expositions of that classic Byrds Sound that so many have tried to emulate. I love everything about it.

Pete Seeger did the original, btw.

Holly Beth Vincent - Honalu

The gorgeous opening track to Holly's second album (titled Holly and the Italians, but credited to her alone), from 1982. This would be on all those New Wave Classics collections, if there was any justice in the world.

The Rain Parade - Blue

Gorgeous little track from the Rain Parade's 1984 EP Explosions in the Glass Palace. Of all the Paisley Underground bands I always thought they had the most perfect sound.

Strawberry Alarm Clock - Incense and Peppermints

Always thought of this as a classic of '60s psychedelia, although a few years ago I read that Strawberry Alarm Clock were to that scene what Generation X were to '70s punk: a band that the real hippies looked down on. But so what? It's still a great song.

From 1967.

The Bangles - Going Down to Liverpool

The BBC had a programme on last weekend about girl groups. It spent a decent amount of time on the Bangles, but unfortunately, it was all in their crap phase (ie after Prince discovered them). So I thought I'd post another one from their 1984 debut album, All Over the Place, which remains one of the finest collections I've ever heard of '60s influenced girlpop. And around these parts, we love '60s influenced girlpop.

I'm not sure how many people know this was a Katrina and the Waves cover. It's not terribly different from the original, though the harmonies are nicer.

Giant Drag - Kevin is Gay

LA duo Giant Drag's 2005 debut album, Hearts and Unicorns, was a fairly solid piece of early '90s-influenced indie rock - sort of a cross between MBV and Garbage - marred only by some really juvenile song titles (they actually get worse than this, believe it or not). The follow-up has been a long time in coming, though we did get a decent taster of an EP a couple years back.

I have the same sort of girlcrush on Annie Hardy that I had on Katie Jane Garside 20 years ago.

The Walker Brothers - The Sun Ain't Gonna Shine (Anymore)

I'm overdue for another '60s classic, so here's one I always thought was immense. Although originally recorded by Frankie Valli (!) this is the version most people will remember. And rightly so.

Loving the drummer's stripey shirt, too.

Holly and the Italians - Rock Against Romance

Anthemic tune from Holly Beth Vincent's debut album, The Right to be Italian. This is really very similar to that Nuns track I posted last week, although being released a year later (1981), it was considered new wave rather than punk. Labels, eh?

BPeople - I Said Everybody

Late '70s/early '80s no-wave sort of band from LA. I picked up a 7" of theirs when I was around 15, I think I found it in a bargain bin or something and thought it looked interesting. I didn't really "get it" at the time though. Rediscovered them a few years ago and while I don't think I was missing a lot, they had their moments, all right. If you're into this sort of thing, you can download a compilation album here.

The Three O'Clock - Marjorie Tells Me

Since I started doing this blog, I've been very pleased to see how many Three O'Clock fans there still are out there (judging by the number of people who end up here by searching for them). They were one of my favourite bands as a teenager - I was actually a member of their fan club, and I didn't join many fan clubs - but I could really count on my fingers the number of people I knew who seemed to have ever heard of them. It's heartening to know that I'm really not alone in my Three O'Clock love, even if this knowledge is about 25 years overdue.

This one's from the 1983 Baroque Hoedown EP. Not one of their better-known tunes, but isn't it just delightful?

Dum Dum Girls - Blank Girl

More sixties-influenced lo-fi girlpop. I know these bands are a dime a dozen these days - and most of them are somehow linked to the Vivian Girls - but I haven't yet stopped finding them irresistible, and I hope I never will.

From their 2010 debut album, I Will Be.

The Salvation Army - While We Were in Your Room Talking to Your Wall

The Salvation Army’s lone album under that name is basically a psychedelic pop record, but one that largely reflects their punk roots – it’s some distance from the fluffy pre-twee sounds that they would become known for as The Three O’Clock. This song is as close as they get to it, a trippy almost-ballad distinguishable from their Sixteen Tambourines period only by the sloppy production.

Best Coast - Wish He Was You

Yet another branch on the Vivian Girls family tree (I'm almost thinking I should create a new blog label just for them), although in this case it's probably fairer to consider the stylistic similarities coincidental. Best Coast have, since 2009 alone, released a large handful of 7"s and one cracking debut album - on about as many different labels - and if lo-fi fuzzy-guitar '60s-influenced girlpop is your thing, well, you'll want to own all of them.

This was a b-side to last year's "Something in the Way" 7".

Neverever - Young and Dumb

Neverever are from Scotland but based in LA and that actually tells you quite a bit about their music too - it's like every classic Scottish girlpop band you love, with surfboards. Sheer delight.

This is from their debut album Angelic Swells (great name, that) released last year. On Slumberland, naturally.

The Eyes of Mind - Alice

A little-known treasure from the Paisley Underground vaults, the Eyes of Mind's entire recorded output seems to consist of Tales of the Turquoise Umbrella, which was mysteriously released as a six-song EP in their native US and a full-length album in Europe. Frankly, they could have released a double LP of this song alone and it would still be worth tracking down - one of the catchiest pieces of bubblegum psychedelic pop you'll ever hear anywhere.

Rank and File - Rank and File

A cowpunk band with the emphasis on the "cow", even though they were from LA (have you ever seen a cow in LA?) and featured alumni of notable punk bands the Dils and the Nuns. A lot of their debut album, Sundown, is just too country for my tastes; this song leans pretty heavily in that direction too, but it's catchy enough anyway.

From 1982.

The Three O'Clock - The Girl with the Guitar

Here's a wonderful little treasure: an acoustic performance of one of the Three O'Clock's loveliest tunes, from their last really good album Arrive Without Travelling (1985). As I said in another recent post, they were twee before "twee" existed.

The clip is taken from IRS's Cutting Edge which was a programme broadcast on MTV USA in the mid-1980s. I would murder someone for DVDs of the series.

This song, by the way, is allegedly about Susanna Hoffs of the Bangles, who the Three O'Clock's Louis Gutierrez was going out with at the time.