V04-T14 Love Comes In Spurts

.....Supposedly, later this year will see an official DVD release of the Sonic Youth/Nirvana tour documentary "1991:The Year Punk Broke". I was kind of shocked that it's not available already, as I can remember the impact it had on younger music fans when they were between the high of discovering NEVERMIND and the low of hearing about Cobain's death. Sonic Youth fans are still waiting (perhaps forever) for a home video version in any format of "Put Blood In The Music", the excellent documentary on the New York music scene prior to the tour, a large chunk of which is devoted to Sonic Youth.

.....Since Richard Hell doesn't do much in the way of performance anymore, the recent bit of news took me back to one of the last musical projects he did that garnered significant press outside New York. Right after "1991: The Year Punk Broke" hit theaters in 1992, Hell and Sonic Youth collaborated as Dim Stars for an album and single. He's recorded bits since then, but his musical efforts seem more like a hobby next to his writing these days. Today's selection, by contrast, was one of the first (if not the first) of his recordings.

Volume 4: "THE LITTLE BROWN ONES ARE THORAZINE, GEORGE", track 14

• 02:05 "LOVE COMES IN SPURTS" (Tom Verlaine, Richard Hell)
• performed by The Neon Boys
• original source: 7" EP Shake SHK 101 (US) 1980 (previously unreleased 1973 demo)
• and my source: VALP SHAKE TO DATE Albion SHAKE1 (UK?)1981

.....I only know Albion as a British label (hence the name), but to be honest there's no nation of origin anywhere on the jacket or label. The Neon Boys were Tom (Miller) Verlaine , Richard (Meyers) Hell and drummer Billy Ficca. They would later add guitarist Richard Lloyd and rename themselves Television, shortly after that replacing Hell with bassist Fred Smith. By 1979 Television had released two studio albums on Elektra without Hell, who had released his own LP BLANK GENERATION on Sire. The Shake label was a New York based operation. In 1980 they released a split EP with both bands being Richard Hell endeavors. One side had two of the six known recordings by The Neon Boys. The other side had two unreleased Voidoids songs. All four tracks made it onto the label sampler SHAKE TO DATE, whose liner notes alluded to a second Richard Hell album they intended to release. That must have meant the flawed DESTINY STREET, eventually released on Red Star in 1982 and which Hell years later rerecorded.

.....At the time I compiled this tape I knew Hell had rerecorded "LOVE COMES IN SPURTS" with the Heartbreakers and again with the Voidoids. Looking over my original notes, I can't see much more in the way of discrete facts such as that and what I've included in the paragraph above. There are some personal observations that might be worth your time.

....."This is one of those songs that keep showing up in rock literature, yet more people have heard of it than heard it. Odd, since there are several recordings of it..."

.....Also, "I picked this track for the compilation mostly for its historical value (it sure wasn't for sound quality) and because I never met a pun I didn't like. Also, this and Patti Smith's PISS FACTORY represent the New York scene that followed Warhol's Factory, with the New York Dolls being the link between the two." All I could add to that is that Wayne County was the most likely link between Warhol and the New York Dolls. The link between the Dolls and the rest was more direct, although if I had to wedge someone between them as an aesthetic exercise... I don't know, Genya Ravan, maybe?

.....In the next post, the puns continue. This time they're across the Atlantic.