THE BREAKAWAYS
Basically dropping everything and pushing a band to the top of the heap on the UARA/UARB stack has happened only one other time among these posts, and it was quite awhile ago: the UARB for April 2010, the Breakaways. I had ordered a power-pop package from Bomp!: a retrospective album of, a brand-new CD of a killer live show by the Plimsouls, and then a CD by the Breakaways. After Jack Lee left the Nerves, the other two members of the band, Paul Collins and Peter Case started playing with a variety of other musicians. They used the name the Breakaways, but it arguably never was really a band: These guys just wanted to keep making music together. They were only around for a little over a year, and they are actually the third of three bands by that name that are listed in Allmusic. The Breakaways did make one bonafide studio recording of “Walking out on Love”, a wonderful song that had been part of the Nerves live set for years, though they had never gotten around to making a studio recording of it. Otherwise, just about everything they did was rehearsals and live shows, and no one ever thought that any of that material had survived. Pretty soon, those two parted ways also, with Peter Case forming the Plimsouls and Paul Collins starting the Beat.
Then someone found a tape of a lot of their rehearsals that they had forgotten had even been made, and this was turned into a CD called Walking out on Love: The Lost Sessions. Ostensibly, the UARB article was about the Breakaways, though I was really most excited about the Nerves.
Since that time, I have purchased several albums by Paul Collins and one by Peter Case, and they never disappoint. Jack Lee retired from the music scene after he only made one album; I haven’t gotten it yet, but it is definitely on my want list. I keep hoping to hear about a reunion of the Nerves, though; that would be worth getting on a plane to see!
(December 2012)
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(Retrospective album of the Breakaways, the UARB for April 2010, released on November 10, 2009 on Alive Records)
(May 2013)
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The second song on Destination: Bomp! is by a past UARB, the Poppees; and there are also tracks from two other past UARB’s: the Breakaways (credited as Paul Collins) and the Unknowns. Who knows how many future UARB’s are represented as well.
(September 2013)
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It was about a year ago that I started my series on Under-Appreciated Rock Bands of the Month (including one Under-Appreciated Rock Artist of the Month), to celebrate the more obscure albums and bands in my record collection that had not yet been profiled in Wikipedia. It has been great fun, and I have learned quite a bit myself in doing the research. Some of these albums have been in my collections for ages, while the Breakaways album had just arrived the month before I wrote the article.
(Year 1 Review)
