Links: Anatomy Of A Flop

Today, one of may favorite websites for intelligent rock music discussion, Rock Town Hall, shines a light on one of my favorite jangly 80’s bands, the dB’s.

Go to this RTH post to find a link over to an interesting NY Times Article by dB’s frontman Peter Holsapple called “Anatomy of a Flop.” (And be sure to bookmark Rock Town Hall while you are there.)

Those Jangly Eighties, Vol 2: The dB's

[For the background on this series, see here.]

Today's featured jangly rock band are The dB's of Winston-Salem, North Carolina (in particular, the Peter-Holsapple-era dBs).

The dB's formed in the late 1970s and released four nice power pop albums before disbanding. Key member Chris Stamey departed after two albums to pursue a solo career and produce records. This left a bigger role for Peter Holsapple as the new frontman. Holsapple created a poppier sound that I really enjoy. (He later went on to be part of R.E.M.'s touring band and contributed significantly to R.E.M.'s hit album Out Of Time.)

Read more about the dBs at all music.

My sentimental favorite dB's album is Like This from 1984. Check out this standout track about a hard-luck breakup:

The dB's - Amplifier (buy album).

I love how that one starts.

Similar in style was 1987's The Sound of Music, which is now out of print. Objectively, this album is probably even better than Like This, but I always seem to favor the first album I hear from a band. Try these tracks:

The dB's - Molly Says
The dB's - Never Before And Never Again (Guest vocals by Syd Straw. Also guesting on the album is the legendary Van Dyke Parks.)
The dB's - Working For Somebody Else

These lighthearted, catchy pop songs are what "indie" rock sounded like back in the 1980s. I like it a lot better than most of the dirge-like, self-important indie music we get these days.

Hopefully somebody will reissue The Sound Of Music. It deserves to be heard.

(I've got a vinyl copy autographed by the band at a 1987 show at Rick's Cafe in Ann Arbor. Holsapple wrote "Paul B. Careful" on my copy, which makes me think I might've been drinking at the time....)