Saturday, November 15, 2008

The Long Ryders "10-5-60" (1983)





  • Although they played the same clubs as most of Los Angeles' "paisley underground" bands (i.e., Dream Syndicate, Rain Parade) and even featured Dream Syndicate leader Steve Wynn in an early lineup, the Long Ryders were actually more a roots rock group strongly influenced by Gram Parsons.
  • The group was founded by Kentucky native Sid Griffin, a Parsons devotee who moved to Los Angeles after hearing about that city's punk scene, with guitarist Stephen McCarthy and drummer Greg Sowders. The group's first bassist Barry Shank, along with Griffin, had previously been a member of the L.A. garage revivalists Unclaimed. He was replaced by Des Brewer just before the band went into the studio for the first time. The Long Ryders' 1983 debut EP, 10-5-60, was a blend of punk attitude, '60s rock, and traditional country (Griffin played steel guitar, autoharp, and mandolin). Brewer soon left as he was not committed to touring. His replacement, Don McCall, lasted for one tour before he was asked to leave. The band's lineup was stabilized when Indiana native Tom Stevens joined.
  • Their first full-length album, the following year's Native Sons, was also arguably their best, and featured guest vocals from former Byrd Gene Clark. Subsequent albums, while still of considerable artistic merit, failed to find an audience despite the band's incessant touring. Reeling from the defections of Stevens in June of 1987 and McCarthy in September, and unhappy with Island's promotional efforts and seeming disregard for the group, the Long Ryders called it quits on December 15, 1987. McCarthy formed Gutterball and, along with Griffin, contributed to the 1993 Gram Parsons tribute album Commemorativo. Griffin, meanwhile, moved to London and formed the Coal Porters; today he works as a music critic and writer, foreshadowed by his definitive 1985 biography of (who else?) Gram Parsons.
  • It didn't take a genius to figure out that Sid Griffin and his fellow Long Ryders loved the Byrds with all their hearts, but they rarely made their affection quite so obvious as on their debut EP, 10-5-60. The photos on the front and back cover clearly echo old Byrds promo shots, and the opening cut, "Join My Gang," sounds like some long-lost outtake from Turn! Turn! Turn!, while "I Don't Care What's Right, I Don't Care What's Wrong" and "Born to Believe in You" wouldn't have been out of place on The Notorious Byrd Brothers.
  • But if 10-5-60 doesn't always speak of a startlingly original vision, the truth is hardly anyone short of the Byrds did this kind of stuff quite so well, and they absorbed the trappings of mid-'60s folk-rock so completely that they sound less like a throwback than some vintage band who somehow passed through a wrinkle in time and ended up in 1983 — they walk the walk and talk the talk. And Griffin was thankfully still getting the revved-up snottiness of his days with garage mavens the Unclaimed out of his system, because the rave-up title track (written with fellow Unclaimed vet Barry Shank) is one of the hardest rocking cuts the Long Ryders ever released, and it ranks among the most exciting performances to come out of the '80s garage revival.
  • The Long Ryders would gain a lot in the way of depth and ambition by the time they next entered a studio, but 10-5-60 proved they already had the talent, vision, and energy that would make them one of the more memorable American bands of the 1980s.

1 comment:

S8KMick said...
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