The Year in Music – Books and Reissues

This year saw the release of many books and albums that looked back on music history, as well as an art show that reflected on Milwaukee’s past.

by

Gig’s Up!

Milwaukee’s history of underground music was reanimated when Real Tinsel gallery papered its walls with music posters for three months celebrating Gig’s Up! The show traced the earliest rumblings of punk and new wave music in Milwaukee to the work of currents artists—crude collage often intersects with well thought out elements of design. A hardbound book and panel discussions were also part of the show. The three-month showing was a longer time than the original flyers were seen stapled to telephone poles.

Books

Another chapter of Milwaukee punk was chronicled by Sahan Jayasuria with Don’t Say Please: The Oral History of die kreuzen.  Jayasuria balances the arc of the group who evolved from hardcore circuit road dogs into a band open to wildly imaginative influences. The author’s enthusiasm and commentary, including folks orbiting die kreuzen’s scene, go a way to explaining the band’s continued influence. Jayasuria chatted with Shepherd Express’ Sonic Rendezvous podcast in September.

Illinois band Souled American continues to this day and predates the Americana tag—and it might be more accurate to describe them, bastardizing Greil Marcus, as old weird Americana. A semi-reliable narration of the story of the band’s debut album, 35 Days of Fe by Camden Joy is at turns heartbreaking and inspiring. In 1988 Rough Trade Records released albums by Lucinda Williams and Souled American. “The response to Lucinda’s record completely changes her life. The response to Fe leaves the lives of Souled American completely unchanged.”

Ann Arbor native Deniz Tek had the music of the MC5 and The Stooges in his blood when the guitarist-songwriter relocated to Australia and formed Radio Birdman with vocalist Rob Younger in 1974. Retaliate First: How One Band Smashed the Rules of Australian Rock and Roll tells the story of the influential band whose history began the same time as The Ramones, halfway across the globe. Murray Engleheart gets the scoop on the pre-history of the band, their home-turf club The Oxford Funhouse, the acrimonious break-up and subsequent reunions from the principals and eyewitnesses. Tek would go on to be a U.S. Naval surgeon and F-16 pilot whose nickname “Iceman” would be appropriated for the movie Top Gun.

Ry Cooder’s shadow has grown from his shaky days as a session musician to the call to bail out Captain Beefeart’s early career to collaborating with the Rolling Stones to a breathtaking series of film soundtracks. As éminence grise to a wide-ranging vista of music appreciation, Cooder gets the deluxe treatment from German film critic Frank Schnelle. I Sing You a True Song: The Ry Cooder Story is a whopping 400+ page dive into Cooder’s work. As entertaining as it is scholarly, Schnelle’s delight as a fan and listener is matched by his thorough research.

Jeff Copeland’s Love You Madly, Holly Woodlawn is  really the biography of a biography. Subtitled A Walk on the Wild Side with Andy Warhol's Most Fabulous Superstar, it illuminates the story of the trans woman who inspired the Lou Reed song and offers insight into how Copeland came to write the 1991 book A Low Life in High Heels. “… I unwittingly ended every sentence I wrote with an exclamation point,” the author recalled.

Reissues

Not exactly a reissue, but significant to say the least. Omnivore Recordings’ You Can’t Hip A Square: The Doc Pomus Songwriting Demos collects six CDs, mainly demos, of songs that defined the early days of rock and roll. Originally performing as a singer, the effects of childhood polio eventually led Doc Pomus to focus on songwriting. He would go on to write songs that were hits for Elvis Presley, Ray Charles, The Coasters, Dion and the Belmonts and a long list of others.

Among the Hip demos, “Suspicion” makes you wonder how far up the charts Doc’s version might have climbed. A home recording of “This Magic Moment” from a house party shines a light on the spirit of the evening and begs for that time machine we have been promised.

While his best-known collaborations were with Mort Shuman, he would also work with Ellie Greenwich and a cast of others;  Pomus’ radar would never fail—in the late ‘70s he co-wrote with Willy Deville.

While the Hip collection is of importance, the story of the project overseen by producer Cheryl Pawelski and sonic alchemist Michael Graves could be a standalone documentary osirisstudio.com

Necrophilia, incest, arson, impotence—and that is just side one of the original album. The Dream Syndicate’s Medicine Show (40th Anniversary Expanded Edition)  as shepherded by archivist-producer Pat Thomas and singer-songwriter Steve Wynn, is a vérité set that straddles the lead up and live dates following an album that might easily have been titled Mayhem.

Signing to major label A&M Records allowed the band a huge recording budget, access to a big-time studio and producer Sandy Pearlman who had worked with The Clash, Blue Öyster Cult and the Dictators. In his memoir I Wouldn't Say It If It Wasn't True, Wynn recounts the stress of the Medicine Show recording sessions.

The four CD set includes the remastered album, rehearsals and live performances including a 1984 Chicago show what was a radio broadcast and later released in truncated form as This Is Not The New Dream Syndicate Album... Live! That concert was recorded the day after the band’s incendiary set at Milwaukee’s Summerfest opening for college darlings REM.

As a sonic history, the collection follows the band from its psychedelic garage rock limitations to fearless jamming. Along the way, founding bassist Kendra Smith gets replaced by journeyman Dave Provost, who played on the album. He in turn gets replaced by Mark Walton who still is part of the group.

A 1982 show from CBGB is particularly unhinged. A cover of Eric Clapton’s “Let It Rain” has Wynn channeling the infernal howl of Jeffrey Lee Pierce and the Gun Club. The collection’s through-line is the evolution of one long song. “It’s Gonna Be Alright” (the not-yet-named “John Coltrane Stereo Blues”) seems to be a prescient portal into what the group would become and continues to this day. “Coltrane” is the thread that runs through the collection and is heard in seven versions. The song is as much an exercise (exorcism?) as a field of sound—a launching platform that seems to unfold to its own whims as each night develops. Wynn and Karl Precoda’s guitars stab, thrust and parry, Wynn’s vocals threaten to crash and burn, Tommy Zvoncheck’s keyboards keep things grounded while Dennis Duck and bassist Walton or Prevost provide a groove that never veers.

Ever the fan, Wynn is heard scattered across the live shows, quoting The Doors, The Velvet Underground and covering CCR and Santana. The unreleased track “Witness” somehow never made the cut to an album.

And Wynn still walks the walk. A late November ’25 show in Green Bay was canceled due to a snowstorm, but he dutifully played a charming set filled with stories the following night in Madison. In January ‘26 The Dream Syndicate kicks off European dates performing Medicine Show in full.

Patti Smith’s debut album Horses was released in November of 1975. Five decades later the world is still catching up. Listeners can tell you the circumstance when they first heard the album or saw its striking cover image; buttons were issued reading “Horses Changed My Life.”

The album balance’s Smith’s vision, the musicians’ scrappy improvisation and producer John Cale’s gutsy studio psychology. Smith’s opening shot across the bow at a cement-footed music biz is “In Excelsis Deo / Gloria (Version),” with the blasphemous left hook, “Jesus died for somebody’s sins. But not mine.” Smith simultaneously mined rock and roll mythology while morphing Van Morrison’s Them-era garage anthem into something altogether new; beat-era poetry mixed with the musical energy of unbridled youth.

If you weren’t paying attention, the train had left the station. Smith and her group were at the vanguard of what came to be known as punk and new wave.

The title 1985: The Miracle Year refers to the transition Minneapolis trio Hüsker Dü made from independent label SST Records to major label Warner Bros. Today people barely know what a record label is, but four decades ago the chasm was wide and the heretical move of “selling out” was a legit conversation point.

Miracle Year includes a full set from the end of January ’85 at First Avenue, the marquee Minneapolis club above the intimate 250-capacity 7th St. Entry where the band frequently appeared. The 23-song set burns in defiance at the day’s minus-11 temperature. The Beatles, The Byrds and Mary Tyler Moore all figure in the set lists including a cameo by Soul Aylum’s Dave Pirner.