Dave Edmunds: From small things came a palace

Dave Edmund's artistic arc had the legendary guitar-slinger zooming through exaltation, enrichment, and grand evolution. 

In the 1970s and 1980s, he went through brash Pub Rocker, Power Pop, and New Wave periods as refreshing as they were influential. With one boot in the Pub Rock scene, and the other in a burgeoning Rockabilly revival, the irrepressible Welshman with the leather-tooled drawl lightning-bolted his way from Love Sculpture to solo acclaim, from Rockpile renown to still further solo scintillation and, today, revered pantheon status.

Dave's classics from that period are now recommended study in Rock'n'Roll classrooms the world over: "Sabre Dance," a 1970 cover of Smiley Lewis's "I Hear You Knocking,"  "Queen of Hearts," "Girls Talk," "Bad Is Bad," "I Knew the Bride," "Knife and Fork," "Slippin' Away."

Over the same decades, Dave's instinctive bent for Rock'n'Roll perfect pitch earned him abundant production demand. Many benefitted from his production ear: Shakin' Stevens and the Sunsets, Brinsley Schwarz, Ducks Deluxe, the Flamin' Groovies, Paul McCartney. King Kurt, the Stray Cats, Fabulous Thunderbirds, and others. 

Those years saw Edmunds winning in various stylistic modes, though his fine efforts all shared righteous Rock'n'Roll grounding. Among important efforts yet meriting consideration:

In 1979, ably backed by his Rockpile confreres, Dave wrought his melange of pub rock-skirting-rockabilly and winking wit. One would be hard-pressed to cite a more potent package. 2023 import.

Freshly returned is this 1980 cult-favorite that presented rave-ups and gently crooned movements, instilling in its era (and beyond) masterclass lessons in musicianship. Judicious teen cats who'd only recently unearthed dust-blanketed wax sat forward. 

As a combo, Dave Edmunds, Billy Bremner, Nick Lowe, and Terry Williams were celebrated for ripping up stages as they blasted rousers accessible to all hip ears. (And their gifts had helped Edmunds's 1979 Repeat When Necessary [Swan Song] become the treasure-chest it was.)

It was to the day's New Wave fashion-sense that the four cleverly tailored Pub Rock, Rockabilly, and Power Pop inclinations into party-time finery. Seconds of Pleasure was and remains a delight for discriminating turntables.

Yep Roc's LP rerelease includes a 7" 4-track titled Nick Lowe and Dave Edmunds Sing the Everly Brothers. A scant 1000 yellow vinyl copies of this LP were pressed. Haste is counseled. 

Some cuts came into being whilst Rockpile was extant. Members assist mate Dave, as they had on his previous Repeat When Necessary. Also present are outtakes hailing from jams previous. ("Baby Let's Play House" dates from a 1968 session.) Such is the immaculate Pop shimmer of "It's Been So Long" that Ray-Ban cheaters are advised. The Wicked Pickett's "Three Time Loser" is stepped up a bit, though Dave's reading retains the original's determination. General appraisal turns up jocular outings of crisp vintage, slid betwixt tunes culled from Elysium's Seeburg. 

Significant is Dave's free-skimming recollection of George Jones's 1964 "The Race is On." Backing him here are the Stray Cats, whose own debut full-length was produced by Dave the same year.

2015's all-instrumental "On Guitar...Dave Edmunds: Rags and Classics" was the culmination of a career quite well spent. The star not only engineered and produced, but played every instrument, as well.

Having long since proved himself as a stormy rocker, Edmunds let up on the accelerator to explore an impressive range of musical area populated by Merle Travis, the Beach Boys, Elton John, Booker T and the MGs, Kate Bush, and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. 

And while I'd long had a profound appreciation for Edmunds's trademark swaggering rock'n'roll output, and never for a single moment doubted his amazing fretwork abilities, I was stunned by the majesty and fulfilled ambitiousness. 

At each passage's unfolding - some tenderly articulate, others imposingly declarative - the listener was reminded that true musical power lies not only in bombast or volume, but even more spectacularly and compellingly in wisely-measured, educated application.

Dave played all instruments with appropriate regard for their places in the whole. And it was greatly to his credit that, as producer, he ensured a harmoniousness in which each part advances the triumph of the whole.

Gentle, melodic narrative and lush, placid backdrop can provoke emotions and imaginings not likely to bloom from ear-shattering gallop. Maturity lends a richness, a seriousness to endeavors. One knows when a master speaks.

Dave Edmunds, a careening rocker who knew exactly how to knock a house down, contrived palaces.

Alan Vega

Live at Rockpalast 1982   CD + DVD

(Play Loud! Productions)

The vocal half of infamous 1970s NYC exotic Suicide team, the late Alan was truly a unique specimen: A sequins-opulent, street-corner necromancer whose outlaw persona featured alternating yowls and hisses, abruptly punctuated by grand mal epileptic haloos and shrieks that rang into dimensions uncharted. 

Some audience members were driven into boulevards by his hyperventilated expostulations, and Suicide partner Martin Rev's synth/rhythm box bubblings. But others found strange merit, in times otherwise made great by Manitoba, Thunders, Bators, and the Ramones bunch.

The beyond-all-reasonable-margins Vega/Rev duo threw synthesized startlingness, Bubblegum ditties, and crackling airs that had survived Brillo-Pad roughing ups into some oddball blender, festooning the product with one-foot-dangling-over-the-palisade poetry. Even now, few could probably listen to "Frankie Teardrop" in its entirety. (And yes, that's a challenge.)

Of course, Alan's between-lyric grunts and whoops had not birthed themselves; Rockabilly progenitors both famed and obscure had imprinted his manic gesticulations. That heritage inspired Alan's subsequent endeavors to weave the Rebel genre into efforts tottering on modern music's precipice. His later reinvention of Gene's "Be Bop A Lula," based around the Peter Gunn theme (and heard, here), evidenced as much.

In the post-Suicide era, Alan's gymnastic larnyx remained his trademark. And that was full-on good. Instrumentation displayed on Live at Rockpalast 1982 is a bit more involved than Martin's one-man voltaged razzmatazz. The more orthodox guitar/bass/drums unit at Alan's elbow had motored his Collision Drive LP a year previous. (It saw release on both the Celluloid and Vogue labels.) 

Songs captured here are more than mere aural compositions; they are experiential. Vega's spotlit presentations were happenings, and his shambolic wavings signaled offbeat shamanic ritualism. As best as can be restrained within vinyl grooves, tracks portray a possessed performer in the happy grip of a cool mesmerism which only the committed know.

All that having been said...

Sound quality isn't always optimal. Distortion of a sort not planned makes its appearance. But it isn't nearly sufficient to sabotage listening gladness, and besides, such is sometimes to be anticipated with in-concert recordings. (It does lend an I-am-there worth, though you'll have to imagine jostling fans all around.) Included with this CD is a DVD containing 2002 documentary "Alan Vega: Collision Drive."

Unique specimen Vega may have split gig time between hip-bopping evocations and victorious battles with unseen antagonists from curious realms. We'll never know...

Recommended: "Magdalena," "Goodbye Baby," "Jukebox Babe," "Je T'Adore," "Outlaw," "Be Bop A Lula"

Videos: "Magdelena/Goodbye Darling/Jukebox Babe/Be Bop A Lula/ Sexy" (abbreviated Rockpalast live clips)   "Jukebox Babe"

Play Loud!

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