In every year of every decade there are at least three bands who press their thumbs into the putty of public consciousness and another thirty just-as-goods (or better) who stir the excitement of friends, specialists and bystanders.
Some of these heroic others have something that is worth coming back to a decade or two later. Especially if they were well ahead of their time or if they offer a fresher take for contemporary retro artists who are mining the legendary eras for period authenticity.
I'm not sure how THE LUCY SHOW fit in now. Mark Bandola is currently working on his eclectic TYPEWRITER project. Fellow Canadian accomplice Rob Vandeven is a little harder to track down.
THE LUCY SHOW (based in London) had their debut moment on A&M before being dropped in the now-routine clumsy style of the lurching memory-loss multinationals. This rich and beautifully recorded second album came out on Los Angeles label Big Time (a label that seems to have gone broke not so long after). Words on Music have now reissued all the original songs plus seven additional tracks. There's a video on the enhanced CD version.
The spread of styles and ideas reflect mid 80s pretty well – hinting at a wide scatter from COMSAT ANGELS and TEARDROP EXPLODES through PIG BAG to ORANGE JUICE and prefiguring U2 sounds in the guitar chiming department. There's even a bit of KULA SHAKER premonition (on extra track "Civil Servant").
What the album certainly doesn’t have is the kind of focussed mood that most albums are now required to demonstrate. "All over the shop" is how it might be described by sloppy A&R types. Guitar epics, synth-pop love songs, rock anthems, emotional singer songwriter stuff … it's all energetically there and it's all fit for purpose and of better than merchantable quality.
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I can see why it was re-released. It was (and sounds like) a labour of love that spanned all that was exciting in indie pop at the time. All who worked on it can listen again now and pat themselves on the back for a job well done. But in 2006, just as 1986, the clear single voice that pop fans demand is missing. It’s full of music (and could be an object of study on a Contemporary Music course, so prolific are the techniques on show) but it remains stubbornly anonymous. Any one of the tracks could be a satisfactory template for one of today's finely distinguished and single-minded indie bands. As an album it's a glorious pattern book rather than a single creative piece.
So on balance, I think it’s the insiders (again) who will value this most. If you're about to form a band called something like Angels of Dust, check out this album first. It should keep you in good ideas for the first couple of years.
www.thelucyshow.com
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