Paley Brothers
Continuing my casual, ambling, aimless exploration of Boston tuneage with the Paley Brothers' one and only LP, an eponymous number from 1978.
Their very first studio recordings were actually produced by a young Jimmy Iovine. (The full-length was handled by Earle Mankey, a pretty significant player himself, as part of Halfnelson and, for a brief while, Sparks, but it's the Iovine tidbit that's really compelling, right?)
Super-duper clean-cut power pop not dissimilar to the Ramones' bright, breakneck punk, but with more blue-eyed charm and less leather-clad bluntness. Actually, they covered Richie Valens' "Come on Let's Go" with the Ramones.
And they, too, attempted a collaboration with Phil Spector, though it went extra bad for them and led to their breakup. Apparently. One song was squeezed out from that union, however, a Spector-penned, expectedly kitschy fifties throwback titled "Baby Let's Stick Together," which had previously been performed by Dion.
After the split, one of the boys, Jonathan, joined the Nervous Eaters, a group Ric Ocasek got involved with during the nascent days of the Cars. The Cars connection came to the fore while the Brothers were still functional, though: they taped a couple songs with a band that included Elliot Easton, and that stuff eventually came into the world on a 7-inch, in 1981, credited to the Young Jacques. Novelty surf rock situation.
Their very first studio recordings were actually produced by a young Jimmy Iovine. (The full-length was handled by Earle Mankey, a pretty significant player himself, as part of Halfnelson and, for a brief while, Sparks, but it's the Iovine tidbit that's really compelling, right?)
Super-duper clean-cut power pop not dissimilar to the Ramones' bright, breakneck punk, but with more blue-eyed charm and less leather-clad bluntness. Actually, they covered Richie Valens' "Come on Let's Go" with the Ramones.
And they, too, attempted a collaboration with Phil Spector, though it went extra bad for them and led to their breakup. Apparently. One song was squeezed out from that union, however, a Spector-penned, expectedly kitschy fifties throwback titled "Baby Let's Stick Together," which had previously been performed by Dion.
After the split, one of the boys, Jonathan, joined the Nervous Eaters, a group Ric Ocasek got involved with during the nascent days of the Cars. The Cars connection came to the fore while the Brothers were still functional, though: they taped a couple songs with a band that included Elliot Easton, and that stuff eventually came into the world on a 7-inch, in 1981, credited to the Young Jacques. Novelty surf rock situation.
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