Double LP
If you're gonna commit to some seriously unabashed Velvets worship, then who better to have join you than true originator Maureen Tucker! Before Sun City Girls, that's exactly what brothers Richard and Alan Bishop, along with guitarist Jesse Srogoncik, did with the formation of Paris 1942, a short-lived expression of blasted rock 'n' roll devotion that, despite their age and inexperience, they somehow managed to capture in fairly great detail. Recorded in 1982 over four sessions in Tucket's living room, and eventually seeing a release via Majora in 1997, this latest archival collection extends the legend further by gathering together that first LP with an additional lesser heard 7" EP and 11 previously unreleased tracks. Taken as a whole, it's an astonishing document that feels tied to the energies and possibilities of a very specific moment, its VU influence very much unignorable but also charged with the outre instincts that would come more to the fore in the Bishop's later works. Here you can also hear connections to '76 NYC underground of Television, Dead Boys, Mars, and also the regional mutations of Cleveland (Pere Ubu especially) and their own outsiderdom in Phoenix, AZ. The personnel bring the headlines here, for what they did both before and after, but as a document in and of itself, this is a special thing, overflowing with the excitement of shared vision, its freak-flag flying high. Such things should never be hoisted from the mast.
FFO: Velvet Underground, Mars, DNA, Television, Pere Ubu
