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The Dream Syndicate’s debut album, The Days of Wine and Roses, has long been considered the cornerstone album of L.A.’s early ’80s Paisley Underground scene, from which the band emerged. However, it was more influential than that: along with R.E.M.’s Murmur and the Minutemen’s Double Nickels on the Dime, the release is often considered one of the cornerstone albums of ’80s indie-rock. In a way it is the missing link between the ’60s-influenced R.E.M. and the post-punk Minutemen. Later period bands such as the Pixies and Nirvana were formed out of the sonic ashes that the original Syndicate lineup left behind.
The original lineup of Steve Wynn, Karl Precoda, Kendra Smith, and Dennis Duck took seminal ’60s rock — most obviously the Velvet Underground along with Buffalo Springfield and the Rolling Stones — and filtered it through the more modern sounds of the Fall and L.A. punk bands Flesh Eaters, Gun Club, et al. In fact, it was flesh eating front man Chris D. who produced The Days of Wine and Roses and got it released on Slash Records, one of the premier L.A. labels of the punk rock era.
Strangely, despite its seminal status, The Days of Wine and Roses has been out of print for the better part of a decade or so. With the rebirth of the band as a live/touring unit over the past two years, Omnivore Recordings has seen fit to remaster this gem, releasing it June 16, 2015.
Calling on the band’s long time archivist Pat Thomas (previously producer of reissues of four other titles from the Dream Syndicate), the previous “bonus tracks” from the 2001 Rhino CD have been replaced with a slew of never-before-heard songs and/or recordings that capture the first year of the classic lineup of Wynn/Precoda/Smith/Duck in all their low-fi glory. These are rehearsal tapes that capture a pair of songs that later turned up on the Medicine Show. Longtime fans have often wondered what it would have sounded like had Kendra Smith stayed in the band for its second full-length album. Now the band’s followers will know: these versions don’t possess the ’70s FM rock sound that Medicine Show had. Instead, they sound like Television’s Marque Moon LP. The four other bonus tracks included in this new version are four original, vintage Dream Syndicate songs that nobody outside the band has ever heard, including a nearly 10-minute Kraut-rock-inspired jam!
The booklet has been revamped as well with new notes that describe the source of the vintage recordings along with fresh testimonies from their peers — members of the Rain Parade, the Long Ryders, Green on Red, Divine Weeks, and Sonic Youth — as well as former Rhino VP of A&R Gary Stewart, and music journalists Chris Morris and Byron Coley.
This is a reissue that is essential for both long time fans who’ve already collected it all before —and the new kids on the block who will soon discover the soundtrack of ’80s college radio for the first time.
According to annotator Byron Coley: “The record still sounds fresh to me. They really captured the sound of a universe expanding. And that is no common thing.”
Track Listing:
Tell Me When It’s Over
Definitely Clean
That’s What You Always Say
Then She Remembers
Halloween
When You Smile
Until Lately
Too Little, Too Late*
The Days Of Wine And Roses
Previously Unissued
Bonus Rehearsal Recordings:
Is It Rolling, Bob?
A Reason
Still Holding On To You
Armed With An Empty Gun
Like Mary
Outside The Dream Syndicate
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