the feelies - classic or dud?

Been listening a lot to both vinyl and digital formats ("People Unintentional Soft Tomorrow Hospital" is crazy fun). The vinyl release is so gorgeously done, I haven't got the heart to take off the shrink wrap...
It's an awesome reissue.

The Willies demos & live stuff that that essential blog has posted now has me wanting a similar reissue package for those. They're so esoteric/idiosyncratic, sometimes barely there - gripping stuff.

Are Boomkat the only source for flacs?

Yes. The only other source that seems to be serviced by our distributor is actually more expensive. Most services charge a lot because of bandwidth I assume.

Love the Feelies family tree. When are we going to get Yung Wu? And will anyone remind me whether Wake Ooloo is worthwhile? Those albums are still in print, but I haven't heard them in 15 years.

i know that bar none wants to do some sort of roundup boxset/comp of various feelies family tree stuff. whether the band wants to do it is another question! wake ooloo has its moments, but it's always struck me as the least inspired of mercer's projects. his solo album from a few years back is great though.

& if anyone didn't get it, i have re-upped that willies collection after it was deleted from mediaf1re. get it while you can. i'm pretty ok with posting it -- it didn't come directly from the band, but pretty close. anyhoo, yeah, it is awesome!

(listening to the Willies - thanks tyler)

zomg K'werk cover! sweet (even with the duff notes)

kind of fascinating listening to the demos, I listened to a lot of stuff that sounded like this circa the late 90s and imagined it to have been invented by New Zealanders several years after these demos, I guess

wait which one is the kraftwerk cover?

"Midnight" starts off as "Kometenmelodie 2" (and confusingly not "Mitternacht") off Autobahn

I don't know if the other parts are from somewhere else or just a general jam but it's p. great anyhow. thanks again

oh ha, totally missed that! but i think you're right!

So I saw Yung Wu and the Trypes perform at the South Orange Elks Lodge last night to a an audience of what was mostly friends and family and Elks and NJ locals and a few record nerds travelling from distant places like Princeton and Queens. Pretty damn amazing. And while we can discuss how this family of bands are some of the greatest interpreters/cover acts of all time, I should add how special it is to watch Yung Wu introduce all the cover songs by briefly describing the song...and holding up a copy of the actual record, such as Phil Manzanera's Diamond Head or the Cd that featured the Move's Walk Upon the Water.

Gah! Sounds amazing. Crazy jealous.

yeah, would've liked to see that!
yung wu's cover of manzanera/eno's "big day" is so great.

I should also mention that a certain Feelies/Trypes/Yung Wu/Luna drummer, whom I've never actually met outside of Facebook, spoke his first words ever to me by running up to me, shaking my hand, and saying "where's my royalties, motherfucker".

I said they were being auctioned off as there was a raffle going on. Later on I thought "up my nose" would've been a funnier response.

haha! stan seems like a good guy.

http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m59mb1Qvft1rxbnrlo1_1280.jpg

I have to say that the Feelies have become one of my favorite bands over the last few years. Since the Crazy Rhythms and Good Earth reissues, I've really gotten into them and studied their music.

The recent Trypes reissue is excellent in presentation and contents. A beautiful package; a lot of care clearly went into it.

First post here, by the way. Long time on again/off again lurker.

HI DERE. Introduce yourself:

Introduce Yourselves!

TFAW has quietly become my most played of their records.

The recent Trypes reissue is excellent in presentation and contents. A beautiful package; a lot of care clearly went into it.

Thank you very much for the kind words!

hi austin. yeah, the feelies took about a decade to become my favorite band. i loved 'em from the first time i heard them, but as the years went by, i realized they were the perfect band (for me, anyway). and with the trypes stuff, the recently surfaced willies stuff, they just keep on getting perfect-er.

hoping a tape of Dr. Robert's Inner Light Ensemble emerges!

"You remind me of a TV show, that's alright I'll watch it anyway" is one of my favorite lyrics ever

Thank you very much for the kind words!

You should be very pleased with the results. It's one of my favorite things to come along in quite a while.

the aficionados will already have it, but here's an excellent early feelies show http://www.aquariumdrunkard.com/2012/10/04/the-feelies-cbgb-nyc-december-14-1977
couple of tracks that never made it to the studio, plus an extremely early slipping into something.

Big Plans did make it to the studio. Was going to be the B-side to the Ork single I think, with Fa Ce La.

has it ever actually been released [bootleg or otherwise] though? i've never heard it...

dan you should do an Ork Records comp! look how cool this stuff is. stop what you're doing and make it happen!

ORK 81975 Television - Little Johnny Jewel Pt 1 & 2.
ORK 81976 Richard Hell - Another World/You Gotta Lose, Blank Generation
ORK 81977 Marbles - Red Light/Fire And Smoke
ORK 81978 Alex Chilton - The Singer Not The Song EP
ORK 81979 Prix - Girl, Everytime I Close My Eyes/Zero
ORK 81980 Mick Farren - Play With Fire/Lost Johnny
ORK 81981 Link Cromwell - Crazy Like A Fox/Shock Me
ORK 81982 Chris Stamey - Summer Sun/Where The Fun Is
ORK 81983
ORK 81984 Feelies - Fa Ce'La/Big Plans (unreleased)
ORK 81985 Blue Vein - Get off My Cloud/Connection (unreleased)

ORK NYC 1 Television - Little Johnny Jewel Pt 1 & 2/Little Johnny Jewel Pt 1 & 2 (live) 12"
ORK NYC 2 Idols - You/Girl That I Love
ORK NYC 3 Revelons - The Way You Touch My Hand/96 Tears
ORK NYC 4
ORK NYC 5 Cheetah Chrome - Still Wannna Die/Take Me Home
ORK NYC 5 Student Teachers - Christmas Weather/Channel 13

I almost did a Student Teachers CD, back in the early days of Acute. Channel 13 is absolutely a favorite song, which I first heard on a Chuck Warner CD. Then there's two songs on that ubiquitous Marty Thau 2x5 compilation, What I Can't Feel and Looks. Past Tense, 1 of 4 songs from the "Easter 78 Halloween 80" EP showed up on the ROIR NY Singles Scene compilation (same place I first heard Theoretical Girls).

They were one of a bunch of great young later CBs bands, I once noted most of which were produced by various members of Blondie. Nervous Rex, US Ape, The Mumps etc.

Anyway, some of the source material quality was pretty spotty and I wasn't as confidant in the restoration abilities at the time, and didn't think in the end that it would attract enough interest. But there's a pretty seriously good CBGB's power-pop type half hour of material there that probably deserves a vinyl release as well.

I'm going to hjack the Feelies thread for a brief look at lesser known CBGBs bands.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bOYmwCa4bkc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pmnaJQmW5_U&feature=watch_response

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yke96ZVxCkc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mLRK26IWa48&feature=related

my band opened for u.s. ape once! cbgb. a guy from that band told us "don't let a weekend gig at cbs be your highest goal." hah! we broke up before we ever got a weekend gig at cbs. plus i once played with a guitarist who had dated lauren from nervous rex. and i think one of the student teachers guys was a contemporary of mine at college. don't think i knew him though. there was another campus band called the exhusbands that i did know, and that somehow got inter-tangled in the student teachers family tree. (http://www.snee.com/exhusbands/) please keep hijacking.

yeah kind of interesting that there was such a power pop thing happening, aside from the db's you don't really hear about any of these bands? or maybe i'm just not looking.

& to get back to the feelies, it is irritating that the band didn't take advantage of that crazy rhythms reish a few years back to put out those early singles/sessions. but they must really not like them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smoynB8HWaE

I've offered to do it hell, I BEGGED!

Maybe they'll do it some time but mostly I think they weren't totally satisfied and preferred to focus on getting the actual releases back out there and work on new stuff.

you didn't beg hard enough.
looks like the feelies are playing next spring in baltimore and philadelphia. maybe i'll fly out!

https://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-snc7/302650_476923579007799_1438162660_n.jpg

Need my brain to be on feelies RIGHT NOW.

true story -- the new band i'm playing in is (tentatively) called Forces At Work.

you guys better be ruling

i know, that is really my hesitation in calling the band that -- it's a lot to live up to!

gah!
http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_mcrpc41H3v1rxbnrlo1_500.jpg

anti designer jeans night!

when that's the degree of attention Alex Chilton could get...

ha, i didn't even notice him. did the peppermint lounge turn into some other club or did it just close?

Was there ever a direct relationship between the Vulgar Boatmen and Feelies? Because I just heard this song for the first time in a while, and, well ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kqoYlmPVeAo&feature=related

ha, haven't heard that before, but yes, the backing track sounds like it was directly lifted from the only life sessions.