Goodfellas
WAYNE COUNTY & THE ELECTRIC CHAIRS - Things Your Mother Never Told You . LP
€16.90
Jayne/Wayne County's most audacious album is also possibly among the most important albums of its age.
Released in 1979 just as the new wave was teetering on the brink of some kind of bold step forward, Things Your Mother Never Told You was one of the sudden shoves which sent it sprawling into its destiny. Electro-punk starts here.
Producer David Cunningham takes only a portion of the credit; in years to come he would lead the Flying Lizards into the realm of heavily stylized electronica.
But County's songs match his ambitions all the way, from the harsh, grating soundscapes behind "C3"'s muttered imprecations to the soft-spoken paranoia of "Waiting for the Marines," and onto "Berlin," the song that put into words everything David Bowie (among others) tried to convey about that city via image and insinuation.
It's not all electro-art smarts, of course. "Boy With the Stolen Face" and the pouting, punishing "Wonder Woman" are archetypal Electric Chairs - a reminder of how, at the band's very best, they could run the Rolling Stones close in the swaggering rock & roller stakes - and the murder mystery "Wall City Girl" could have fallen off a forgotten volume of Nuggets or... more
Released in 1979 just as the new wave was teetering on the brink of some kind of bold step forward, Things Your Mother Never Told You was one of the sudden shoves which sent it sprawling into its destiny. Electro-punk starts here.
Producer David Cunningham takes only a portion of the credit; in years to come he would lead the Flying Lizards into the realm of heavily stylized electronica.
But County's songs match his ambitions all the way, from the harsh, grating soundscapes behind "C3"'s muttered imprecations to the soft-spoken paranoia of "Waiting for the Marines," and onto "Berlin," the song that put into words everything David Bowie (among others) tried to convey about that city via image and insinuation.
It's not all electro-art smarts, of course. "Boy With the Stolen Face" and the pouting, punishing "Wonder Woman" are archetypal Electric Chairs - a reminder of how, at the band's very best, they could run the Rolling Stones close in the swaggering rock & roller stakes - and the murder mystery "Wall City Girl" could have fallen off a forgotten volume of Nuggets or... more
Tracklist:
Side Us
Wonder Woman
Wall City Girl
Boy With The Stolen Face
Un-con-troll-able
Things Your Mother Never Told You
Side Them
Berlin
C.3.
Midnight Pal
Waiting For The Marines
Think Straight