THE NERVES
The Nerves were a mid-1970s American power pop trio, based in Los Angeles, featuring guitarist Jack Lee, bassist Peter Case, and drummer Paul Collins. All three members composed songs and sang. They managed an international tour in the U.S. and Canada, including dates with The Ramones, and performances for the troops as part of the United Services Organization (USO). (More from Wikipedia)
As I remember, I already had an article partially written on somebody else when an order from Bomp! Records came in that included a specially priced package of new CD’s by three related power-pop bands: the Nerves, the Plimsouls and the Breakaways. I already knew the Plimsouls’ hit “A Million Miles Away”, but just about everything else was a revelation, including the Nerves’ original version of “Hanging on the Telephone” that became Blondie’s follow-up hit after their monster “Heart of Glass”. I quickly checked Wikipedia and determined that the Breakaways did not have an article, so I dashed off a UARB post on them, hoping to interest others in this amazing music.
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.
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The only record on YouTube by the Breakaways is “Walking out on Love”; this song was often performed in the Nerves’ live shows but had never been recorded by them. You can hear the song at www.youtube.com/watch?v=b9sYvy4G3NA . Green Day performed “Walking out on Love” as their last encore following the final performance of their musical American Idiot on Broadway; that version is also available at www.youtube.com/watch?v=HAgKwA7-GLI&feature=related .
(April 2012)
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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. 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.
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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Along with John Denney (lead vocals) and his brother Dix Denney (guitar), the Weirdos began working on some early songs like “Teenage”, “I’m Not Like You”, “Bad Bad”, “Go Kid Hugo”, “Scream Baby Scream”, and “I Want What I Want”. Even though they had no drummer initially, encouraged them to do a concert anyway, so they played at the Punk Palace without one. Local DJ and fanzine writer Phast Phreddie – not to be confused with early rapper Fab 5 Freddy – began talking up the Weirdos and also introduced them to drummer Nicky Beat, who had recently left the Kim Fowley assemblage Venus and the Razorblades.
(March 2017)
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But I likely will keep putting out what I call the “Story of the Month” (I have my web pages broken down into short “Items” and longer “Stories” on whomever or whatever I am talking about) that I uncover as I load up the web site. These Stories are on well known (well, better known anyway) songs and albums and rock bands and other topics that are not of the Under Appreciated variety. I started those last year and meant to list the ones in my year-end post last time but forgot, so here is that list from the past two years:
December 2013 – The Standells
January 2014 – (skipped)
February 2014 – Hasil Adkins
March 2014 – Bobby Darin
April 2014 – Nuggets
May 2014 – The Nerves
June 2014 – The Outsiders (American band)
July 2014 – The Million Dollar Quartet
August 2014 – Scientific Proof of the Existence of God
October 2014 – Walter/Wendy Carlos
November 2014 – The Trashmen
December 2014 – John Birch Society Blues
January 2015 – John Mellencamp
February 2015 – Child Is Father to the Man
March 2015 – Dion DiMucci
July 2015 – “Lola”
August 2015 – Bob Dylan the Protest Singer
(Year 6 Review)
