the buttermilk of human kindness

10,000 Maniacs seemed the epitome of worthy, earnest, wholesome fare  - not quite "Bad Music Era" because never less than palatable and well-made, but just part of the filler of the time

Except, they did have two Moments -  perhaps two-and-a-half



A possible reference point here - Patti Smith in she-shaman mode - Natalie dancing barefoot, literally, on stage in those days, often (albeit not here)

A certain gamey aroma to the persona at this point

But the music of "My Mother the War" is coming out of postpunk  and into a folky American-ness - a path paved by R.E.M. (the Gang of Four traces in "9+9") and Violent Femmes

postpunk residuals on this song  being the high-toned melodic basslines (quite frilly), the slashing guitar

Natalie M as the distaff Stipe is the main thing that comes over  - the vaguely mystical vibe, the abstract-leaning imagery, the aura of  invocation

(Stipe also a big fan / influencee of P. Smith)

I think also of Golden Palominos and that unexpected intersection between John Lydon and Richard Thompson

Then a shift towards a wholly (and wholly wholesome) American frame of reference (fellow travelers would include Camper Van Beethoven, Maria McKee, Throwing Muses etc) -   a shift discernible across the board in college rock (although Anglophilia remained a stubborn persistence - the cult of XTC, Robyn Hitchcock solo etc )

College towns make up this sound's prime geographic constituency, not just the coastal states and the N.E. liberal bastion, but blue enclaves within Southern red states ... Athens, archetypal in that regard...  Austin, also...  Chapel Hill



Natalie's voice at its most buttermilk-pancakes here

Video directed by Ade Edmonson (!)  and there is an attempt to glam up Natalie (not so gamey, the aura now) and focus entirely on her (the band appear only momentarily, as silhouettes), with the  record company possibly already envisioning a breakaway solo career

And then the "half" that makes it "two and a half" moments of gorgeous glory

When they did this unexpected cover version, my awareness of Cat Stevens was limited to the "Matthew and Son" 1960s 'character song mini-boom' phase - and then the much later
 "(Remember The Days of the) Old Schoolyard" which I found poignant as a boy (still at school). Oh and there was "Morning Has Broken" of course.... But I had had no idea he'd been a huge star in America in the early 1970s,  riding the singer-songwriter boom, with tunes like this -



I found this an oddly touching song to re-present, earnestly, to the Alternative Nation - at the risk of considerable scorn from your S. Youth / Forced Exposure types

But the other songs of this phase were issue-and-cause oriented, caring 'n' concerned in a way that didn't play well with us Young Gods fans - and lyrically too blunt and literal for us Kristin Hersh fans either.



proto-Lilith Fair fare

If they never did anything quite as mawkish as "Everybody Hurts", they never did anything as perfectly pitched and piercing as "Losing My Religion" either

Aha! Talking of Patti Smith



And then the solo career, about which the missus wrote a sarky piece for the NY Times



The post-Merchant Maniacs carried on without her! And did that thing of replacing the singer with as close a facsimile as they could find.

An unlikely cover - and with a thumping 4to-4loor kick drum underneath, perhaps trying to have an Everything But the Girl meets Todd Terry "Missing" style hit?

9-9

My favorite R.E.M. song by far - , and I never noticed this at the time, but in its slashing rhythm guitar frenzy, there's an audible link to the flint-chipped Andy Gill / Gang of Four sound (Stipe did once say that when Entertainment came out it took the Athens, Georgia scene by storm, you heard it at parties constantly - and it either influenced the likes of Pylon or struck a chord with what B-52s were already doing (musically-rhythmically, underneath the camp 'n' kitsch)



Murmur was a huge album for me, as it was for so many, at the time of its release. But while I kept on loyally buying their albums all through the Eighties, and enjoying them, in hindsight I think there's a sharp nosedive into stodginess and college-rock dullness of sound as we move deeper into the decade. Certainly nothing ever scaled the mystic heights and sublimely tensile dynamism of Murmur again.

Do you know what, I've owned a copy of Chronic Town EP for decades now and have never even pierced the shrinkwrap? How daft is that?  I bought it much later - I think in the US in the late Eighties, probably from a branch of Tower Records - to a visiting Brit those stores seemed paradisical in the sheer range and depth of stuff they carried - - but because things were so hectic with new stuff hurtling out at the young reviewer, I just never got around to listening to it.




Playing Murmur and "9-9" again, it made me realise (did I not notice this at the time? seemingly not) how much early Throwing Muses is an extension of R.E.M.'s American-but-not-quite-"Americana" folk-punk sound. (Much more so than Hersh & Co's professed prime influence, Violent Femmes).



Listening to "9-9", I also heard a connection with this thrilling rhythm-guitar driven stiletto-slashing slice of New Wave.