Monday, October 27, 2014

Nude Beach, 77, 2014

Album Review

When we were teenagers, New Jersey didn't have this weird "minors can't all drive around together in one car and can't drive past midnight" rule. I'm not sure when that came in; but, in about 1987, teen driving was pretty much a free-for-all. We'd all pile into my Tercel, Chris's Rabbit, or Justin's parents' Peugeot and drive around all night -- sometimes six or seven of us in the same car. Crazy times.

Cassettes were the thing then. You either had proper, store-bought cassette copies of albums or you dubbed them from LP's on the record player in your room. Chris and I were pretty into Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers, Elvis Costello, Bruce Springsteen, and The Replacements at the time. Those cassettes soundtracked late Friday nights we'd spend driving around in those tiny cars after we'd finished eating the leftover pizza my mother had left out on the stovetop for us. I know Justin liked Elvis Costello and The Replacements. I feel like he kind of just tolerated Petty and Springsteen.

I've said this before, but I like to tell myself that my classic rock-y tastes back then fell more to the left-of-center side of things. Tom Petty and Elvis Costello both eventually toured with The Replacements, and I think you can hear some Petty influence on the later, kind of country-inflected Mats / Paul Westerberg material.

The other thing I'd like to point out here is that, while this was the mid- to late-80s, the best records from these artists -- and the ones we all loved the most -- had come out in the mid- to late-70s, early-80s: Greetings, E Street Shuffle, Born To Run, Darkness, The River, My Aim Is True, This Year's Model, Armed Forces, Imperial Bedroom, King of America, Damn The Torpedoes, Hard Promises, Let It Be, Tim. OK. You can throw Spike and Pleased To Meet Me in there, too.

That's all a run-up to some of the thoughts I had while listening to 77, the ambitious, double-LP from Long Island's Nude Beach. Those memories came flooding in just as album-opener "Used To It" kicked in. Frontman Chuck Betz has that reedy, Tom Petty drawl. Add in the twang of 12-string guitar, and the song transports me to the ripped pleather seats of my silver Tercel. Betz also produced, and he ended up with a clean sound that's missing all the tape hiss and LP pops and clicks of my personal cassettes.

There's the occasional "Where have I heard this before?" riff, like those that open "I'm Not Like You," "Yesterday," and "I Can't Keep the Tears from Falling." You search your brain and can't quite place them. Then the songs go off in their own direction, Ryan Naideau's rumbling drums anchoring all of those influences and roughing them up just a bit. It's just enough to take these sounds from the 20,000-seat arena where you'll usually hear them these days to a small bar or dark basement.

Single "See My Way" starts with an infectious riff and is just a great pop song, rhyming "It's ok" with "see my way," "on your knees and pray," etc. There are the ballads, like the starts-quiet-gets-epic "Time" and the acoustic "It's So Hard." This sound lends itself well to the extended guitar jam, and we get one of those on "I Found You."

It was a pretty daring choice to make a 68-minute, double-LP of songs anchored in the power pop rock sounds of my teenage years. Even back in 1987, acts like Petty and Springsteen were pretty much off the radar of anyone with an appreciation of alternative or underground music. They were on major labels, made the top 40, and got played on the same radio stations as plenty of major label schlock. What Nude Beach succeed at here, though, is reclaiming these sounds from their big budget, major label niche. Carefully crafted, lovingly self-produced, and released on an independent label, 77 has the potential to capture the ears of more than a few jaded listeners.

We would've had this one rattling the tiny speakers of the cheap tape deck I installed in my Tercel. I'm pretty sure everybody would've been into it, too. Even Justin.

77 is out now on Don Giovanni Records and kind of demands to be heard on LP or cassette.

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