THE FEELIES - Crazy Rhythms

Crazy Rhythms is a seminal record that provided one of the earliest blueprints for the next 30 years in the development of “indie”. The Feelies were from New Jersey, and shared a strong affinity with the Velvets, Talking Heads, and Television (with whom they shared a dual lead guitar set-up), but their collective instrumental twitchiness pointed in a different direction from their New York forebears. In some ways, they had more in common with New Zealand’s The Clean, another key early indie band that didn’t fit into the main subcultures that emerged out of punk (post-punk, new wave, etc.). You can hear echoes of their sound in The Wedding Present (whose frenetic strum is all over this record, most distinctly on the cover version of “Everybody’s Got Something To Hide Except Me and My Monkey”), Yo La Tengo, The Smiths, The Vaselines, and even Stereolab (check out drone rocker “Forces at Work”, with only one chord change in its 7 minutes). As with the band's recently reissued follow-up (1986's The Good Earth), the original track listing is preserved; bonus tracks, which include demos and live reunion recordings from earlier this year, are available on a download card.