The Girl With the Perpetual Nervousness

Rejoice! The Feelies and their 1980 classic Crazy Rhythms is getting the remastered re-release come September, having been out of print for heck knows how long. I have this on vinyl and haven't been able to hear it for years since my turntable hasn't been up to snuff these days so it will be a pleasure to be able to relive this post-punk classic, derivative yet so influential (even the album cover screams 1990's Weezer) with their haunting soundscapes, climbing percussions, and moody dips and swirls, both minimalist and frantic at the same time. Strangely enough this album reminds me more of the early 90's, since I first heard it around 90 or 91 and likened it to some of my favorite Velvet Underground material. I wasn't exactly this hip in 1980, I assure you.

So what was I listening to in 1980? Well, not Red by Black Uhuru, and not just because it came out in 1981 instead. I got this on vinyl back around the same time as Crazy Rhythms but I just managed to pick up a used copy at work the other day because, like The Feelies, it reminds me of the decade that came immediately after. With producers Sly & Robbie's incorporation of classic roots reggae with slick dancehall rhythms, few memories for me are quite as vivid as dancing to "Youth of Eglington" and "Sponji Reggae" with friends down at the seedy old Friar Tucks bar by ODU in the sweltering summer of 1990. A spot which was bulldozed and now taken up by the enormous Ted Constant Center. So not the same.

So what did I actually listen to in the year 1980? Most notably, my father's 8-track to One More Song, the out-of-print second album by ex-Eagles singer/bassist Randy Meisner, which provided the soundtrack to the year I turned eleven and was finally giving up disco for something -- well, I wasn't expecting something quite so laid-back southern California AOR but hey, baby-steps baby. But getting this used at work on the same day as Red was an unprecedented coup, especially since the only way I could get it for my dad again was having one of my regular customers gifting me with a burn just because we were discussing the album at random one day and I told him about how it was one of my father's favorites. But for all its earnest, romantic cheese, there isn't a fumble on this album from beginning to end. Meisner was always my favorite Eagles vocalist, and the record feels very much like the kind of 70's rock (with a touch of early 80's synth) that reminds me of my childhood when my dad started to assert his dominance over the 8-track player and my mom's penchant for Broadway musicals.



I love every song on this -- even the following "Deep Inside My Heart" (with backing vocals by Kim Carnes) which actually reached #22 on the U.S. charts, despite sounding an awful lot like Jackson Browne's "Running On Empty". Or maybe because of it. And yes, my dad had that 8-track, too.