PAUL COLLINS
Paul Collins (born 1956, New York City) is an American writer, author, music producer, and multi-instrumentalist. He is best known for his work in the power pop groups The Nerves, The Breakaways and The Beat. (More from Wikipedia)
In
1975, a band called
the Nerves was formed as a true power trio:
Jack Lee,
Peter Case and
Paul Collins were talented musicians as well as dynamite songwriters.
The Nerves broke up due to the usual musical differences – not surprising considering that each member of the band was fighting to get their songs recorded – and
the Breakaways immediately formed. Basically it was just the duo of
Peter Case and
Paul Collins plus whatever guitar player or two that they could scrounge up to join the session: There were three different line-ups in the group in their short history.
(April 2010)
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It is really not surprising that there was no article on the Breakaways, since it was mostly just two guys from the Nerves –
Peter Case and
Paul Collins –
who were jamming together for about a year. No one even knew that much of anything by the duo had been recorded until a tape showed up in the late 2000’s.
(April 2012)
* * *
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.
Since that time, I have purchased several albums by Paul Collins and one by Peter Case, and they never disappoint. 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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(April 2013)
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Many of the seminal bands in these rock movements released albums on the Bomp!, Voxx, Alive or Total Energy labels; most of them are not household names by any means, but they are recognized by those in the know as being important bands that shaped the history of rock and roll. Some of these better-known bands and artists are the Romantics, the Modern Lovers, the Dead Boys (and Stiv Bators individually), the Plimsouls (and Peter Case individually), the Beat (and Paul Collins individually), the Stooges (and Iggy Pop individually), Devo, Nikki Sudden, the Black Keys, and Soledad Brothers.
(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)
