In a just world, this guy should have been huge. I’ll be pre-ordering this shortly, the package which includes a 45 of the demo versions of “There She Goes” and “Walking Out On Love.”
After two long years of painstaking research and development, we present to you, the first major memoir covering the birth of DIY Power Pop, from Paul Collins. From it’s initial conception as a film script to it’s re-birth as a full-bore rock & roll revelation, this is one crazy story from beginning to end. Outlining the first National DIY cross-country tour by an unsigned band in 1977, and by default, creating the pathway for the true indie underground network of the 80s to take as a template. It wasn’t even a second thought for Collins and bandmates Peter Case and Jack Lee, but the underground rock & roll world is a better place for it. But until now, the real details of the origins of The Nerves, Breakaways, and The BEAT have eluded most of us, so with this tome of incredible survival stories from the trenches, Paul Collins opens up and reveals all the drama, victories and defeats with such an impassioned voice, you won’t be able to put it down. The coverage of the pre-Punk 1975 landscape of both LA and San Francisco is unmatched, and your mind will be BLOWN.
Featuring TONS of previously unseen photos, flyers and ephemera from the earliest days of The Nerves lineup as a FOUR PIECE, to the legal documents challenging The Paul Collins BEAT vs The English Beat, to the ill-fated Nerves reunion, and so much in between. Truly a smorgasbord of juicy details and revelatory discoveries await, balancing the failures with triumphs from the mid 1970s to the mid 2000s, when Paul returned to the touring circuit. From literally renting out a space for the first documented Punk show in Los Angeles in March of 1977, to The Screamers story about buying a copy of The Nerves EP at the Capitol Records swap meet and smashing it to pieces- it’s all in there, along with so many more soon-to-be-legendary tales from the real trenches you don’t usually rise out from unscathed….
And here he is more recently. Fuck yeah!
Should be a great read. Those were interesting times, at once exhilarating and dull. Exhilarating because punk and power pop bands were popping up all over and spreading indie roots. Such bands were usually isolated locally, so tended to bond with bands from other towns. So you got the impression that something exciting was going on. But it was all far under the radar of mainstream musical culture, which remained dull as dishwater. That would slowly change during the next few years, but when you’re 19 a few years feels like a century.
Another interesting facet of that period is how much punk and power pop overlapped. There was hostility here and there bewteen them, but also much cameraderie which slowly vanished in the 80’s as the division became more stark.
I’ll turn in my 1978-82 pop merit badge as I didn’t know anything about the history of the Plimsouls. I like that they were initially called the Tone Dogs.
I feel like “Should Have Been Huge” would be a great musical Jeopardy category.
The list is endless.