Crazy Rhythms

I'm working on a play. I haven't said those words in over thirty years, and it's good to say them. Once upon a time I was a playwright, and that's what I wanted to be, but like so many wishes and dreams, it didn't pan out. Since then I've written screenplays and short stories and one novel, but I think plays are the thing for me.

In coming up with an an idea, I decided to return to days I remember well: it's 1980, the day after The Empire Strikes Back opened. The setting is a comic book shop, but next door is a record store (selling only vinyl, maybe some cassettes).

The year 1980 was an interesting one, as I went over the list of releases that year. Classic rock was heaving its last breaths. Paul McCartney and Elton John both out new albums that years (fuck, they still are!), but to us college kids the future lay in new wave. I was never really into punk, I mean hard-core punk like The Sex Pistols and Ramones (although I have learned my proper respect) but I was very much into new wave. While Pink Floyd's The Wall still dominated many college dorm stereos, new groups like The Police and Talking Heads were gaining my interest.

One group that I missed entirely was The Feelies, who are now thought of as indicative of that era, as much as Joy Division. They were from New Jersey (not too far from where I lived in 1980) and formed in 1976. From the cover of their first album, Crazy Rhythms, which came out just before in time to be mentioned in my play, they look pretty clean cut. And they were in response to punk, not part of it, so they get dumped in the huge rock pile called "post-punk." They are also labeled jangle-pop for their very loose and easy guitar work. To get into the mind-set of 1980 I listened to it this week.

There are a few interesting things about this record. One, they have some of the longest mostly silent intros I've heard. The first song "The Boy With Perpetual Nervousness," goes for many seconds without a sound, which made me think my CD player wasn't working. "Forces at Work," at over seven minutes, more like a prog-rock song than punk, the intro, with just some very minor tapping noises, goes almost two minutes.

They also do a Beatles cover that is better than the original, which is very rare. "Everybody's Got Something to Hide Except for Me and My Monkey" is one of the most punk songs the Beatles ever did, and The Feelies get it. A chugging guitar lick throughout and vocals that sound like they are coming from the next room are winners.

All the songs are fine here, including the very pop "Fa Ce-La," "Moscow Nights," "Raised Eyebrows," and the title track. Lyrically they are not great poets, but the title track (which ended up being the name of a record store in Montclair, New Jersey) does have some remnants of the era:

"Said it's time to go, well alright
I don't wanna go, I say alright
You never listen to me anyway
You're always talking, never much to say
You remind me of a TV show
That's alright, I watch it anyway
I don't talk much cause it gets in the way
Don't let it get in the way"