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The Feelies
Americana
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Haledon, New Jersey (USA). It's here, in this little town in the NY area, where the story began. In the mid-seventies, when the punk era was about to explode, Glenn Mercer and Bill Million started playing together in a band called The Outkids.
The drummer was Dave Weckerman, while Glenn played guitar and Bill the bass guitar. They toured for a while in the area, and in 1976, when they met Keith Clayton (bass) and Vinnie DeNunzio (drums), Bill changed to the rhythm guitar and Dave to percussions: The Feelies were born.
It took some time before the band could enter a studio to record its first album. In the meantime the drummer changed again, Anton Fier joined the group. In 1978 the Village Voice dubbed the then-unsigned Feelies "The Best Underground Band in New York", and one year later they finally published their first single: Fa Cé-La (Rough Trade). Then a few months later the band signed with Stiff and in 1980 Crazy Rhythms was released.CBGB'S Flyer
It's a wonderful record, very original compared to the punk/new wave scene of those years. With nervous drumming, unconventional silences between songs, and a wonderful guitar sound, Crazy Rhythms is a masterpiece that influenced a lot of musicians: one name above the others, R.E.M.
But something went wrong. Despite the enthusiastic critics on both sides of the ocean, the record didn't sell very well; moreover, the band didn't like to play live so they made relatively few promotional shows, and people at Stiff didn't appreciate it. And the group was not satisfied with the label too: they had the impression that Stiff was more interested in self promotion than in bands' development. These problems culminated with Stiff's total displeasure with a demo tape of new material which The Feelies sent them. So eventually the band and the label decided to mutually part ways. By the way, several of the songs included in that demo tape later appeared on The Good Earth. |
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