BLOG POST REDUX
Now here's a record that is truly lost. Nobody talks about it, it's forgotten. It's in my record collection and I've barely considered it as anything. I was reading a blog (sorry forgotten the name) the other day and there it was with a little spiel and a dead download link from like 7 years ago. In Melbourne in the early 90s I picked up a stack of records on the Homestead label for next to nothing in a bargain bin . Live Skull, UT, Great Plains etc. I'd heard or heard of those bands but I'd not heard of these guys, I bought it anyway (probably due to the cover). It sat alongside my Live Skull record as a good noisy LP but it couldn't really compete with you know who, could it? So it rarely got played. Well that's what I thought.
So I pulled out Nice Strong Arm's Reality Bath after over 20 years of ignoring it and guess what? It's a little lost gem from the 80s underground. They obviously loved their Joy Division and MX80 Sound. They didn't sound unlike their peers Flipper, Bailter Space etc. Nice Strong Arm also predate/influenced Pavement, Trumans Water, Unwound and in particular Polvo. Looking through what info I could find on the interweb, one common criticism aimed at the group is that their songs were directionless. They're songs are definitely not directionless. Like Throwing Muses circa mid/late 80s Nice Strong Arm's guitars just took a different route to the rest. The guitars turn down strange paths exploring uncharted nooks and crannies, then new harmolodic vistas open up seemingly out of nowhere. This is the most compelling aspect of the band. You get the feeling the critics and public alike (including myself) missed the point. Sure the name Nice Strong Arm has got to be one of the most pox names ever for a group, so that can't have helped their chances. They moved from Austin to New York after this album and recorded 2 more records before breaking up in 1990 which is all news to me. Reality Bath never got issued on cd and isn't even a cult record as far as I can tell.
*I wrote this piece back in Jan 2014 but only just discovered the full LP on youtube the other day. So this time you can actually have a listen to what I'm talking about. It still hasn't been reissued since the 80s but there are a couple of copies going cheap on discogs. Snap one up before the Reality Bath cult begins.
i really liked that album too, and also (slightly less) the follow up Mind Furnace. Actually interviewed them in NYC when they were up for the CMJ Festival in i think '89, but not entirely sure i wrote it up. They had a great splashy cavernous sound. Mind Furnace went more postpunk as I recall - which would have been very out of step with everything happening then.
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ReplyDeleteI shall try and track down Mind Furnace, sounds intriguing.
ReplyDeleteListening again to Reality Bath I found it had some Space Rock, Eastern and even Goth-like textures amongst what I'd already mentioned.
It'd be cool if you could dig up and publish that interview Simon.
I have a vague recollection of flicking through a book about Homestead Records a few years back, wish I'd bought it.