Peter Holsapple & Syd Straw
KCRW-FM “Snap” Session
Santa Monica, CA
Sept. 4, 1986
FM capture (Ex- sound quality, probably
from master or first-generation tape)
Includes studio banter with
host Deirdre O'Donoghue (R.I.P.)
Ilene Markell also plays bass
and sings on one tune during the session
HIGHLIGHT: Lots — this is a really enjoyable set because everyone is relaxed
& having a great time. (Deirdre, you are missed...)
BIG THANKS to the taper, original uploader &
Mark45rpm for supplying the missing tracks!
 |
Syd & Peter, lost in the music
Dennis Stein photo via Flickr |
SAMPLE: "Diamond (Santa Monica, CA 1986)"
01 The Price of Love (Everly
Bros. song)
02 Lonely Is as Lonely Does
03 Take Me for a Little While (Trade
Martin song)
04 Next to the Last Waltz
05 Pushin’ It Back
06 World On a String
07 Keep Up With You
08 Kind of True (G.
Palominos cover)
09 Private Number
10 You Don’t Miss Your Water
11 Up In the Air
12 Diamond (P. Holsapple song, rec.
by G. Palominos)
13 Darby Hall
14 I Want to Live (Ilene Markell composition, sung by Ilene)
15 Junkie Girl (W.
Becker cover)
16 We Were Happy There
17 Listening to Elvis*
18 (final
chit chat)
*First appeared on the Coyote Records comp Luxury Condos Coming to Your Neighborhood
MP3@320
Alt. Link
Musicians:
Peter Holsapple - guitar, vocals
Syd Straw - vocals
Ilene Markell - bass
Bonus feature:
A Most Excellent
Blog Remembrance of This Recording
THE RUMPUS (therumpus.net)
December 20th, 2008
I think it was in 1986 or thereabouts that my friend Jim Lewis
gave me a bootlegged cassette of a live radio appearance by Peter Holsapple and
Syd Straw (with, I think, Ilene Markell, on bass and backing vocals — all of it
taking place on KCRW). Jim was my close friend in college, and he went on to
become a novelist and journalist. These days he lives in Austin, Texas. Chief
among the many bands that Jim made me aware of, back then, were The dB’s,
featuring Peter Holsapple and Chris Stamey, and I became such a devotee of The
dB’s and the other architects of the “Hoboken sound” that I actually moved to
Hoboken (in 1985), and lived there for about seven years. I lived a couple of
blocks from Yo La Tengo, and used to see Chris Stamey on the bus going into the
city. I went to Maxwell’s, the club that served as the epicenter of the Hoboken
sound, a lot. I got Bob Mould’s autograph there once. Anyway, the
Straw/Holsapple cassette had something really luminous about it. Peter and Syd
played a bunch of dB’s songs, those from LIKE
THIS and THE SOUND OF MUSIC, as
well, as some of Straw’s songs from the Golden Palominos album, BLAST OF SILENCE, on which she sang. And
I’m pretty sure they covered their amazing duet, “Never Before and Never Again”
[Rob says: apparently not — alas].
Somehow I’d missed the Straw era of the Golden Palominos. I had
their first album, a much artier affair featuring Arto Lindsay, Bill
Laswell, and John Zorn, et al. And I’d heard some of VISIONS OF EXCESS on the radio station, including “Omaha,” the song
on which Michael Stipe sang. But it wasn’t until I heard the KCRW show that I
understood what incredible singer Syd Straw was. I admired Holsapple already
(and I ran into him on a plane once, when he was touring with Hootie and the
Blowfish–and let me tell you there’s something strange about running into the
heroes of your young adulthood when they are playing in Hootie and the
Blowfish), and he shines on the bootleg, too, but Syd’s voice, which is part
faux-country, part Broadway, and a fair amount Vaudeville, really struck
something in me. Especially on songs like “Diamond,” Holsapple’s song from BLAST OF SILENCE, and “Listening to
Elvis,” a Straw song from a Hoboken sampler called LUXURY CONDOS COMING TO YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD, Syd had some bittersweet
(emphasis on bitter) and tragicomic (emphasis on tragic) quality that could not
help but move even the casual listener. I wore out that cassette.
Read the
rest of Rick’s great reflection HERE.
