this is from the Other Music weekly email of new releases (cd release also available):
THE NERVES
One Way Ticket
(Alive)
One Way Ticket compiling the band's highly influential, self-titled EP from 1976, along with a slew of demos and unreleased live recordings. And it's on yellow vinyl, for those of you reaching for the LP version. Formed in 1975, the short-lived trio of guitarist Jack Lee, bassist Peter Case (who would go on an form the Plimsouls) and drummer Paul Collins were founders of the Los Angeles pop scene, and their aforementioned EP would originally be distributed by Bomp! Records. The Nerves may have shared the stage with punk rock legends like the Ramones but their place in rock 'n' roll history was cemented when New York new wave giants Blondie covered their song "Hanging on the Telephone" on 1978's Parallel Lines. I don't think I need to tell you how that turned out! One Way Ticket features that track along with the rest of the four-song EP, but where it's really at for me is the live material. In fact, both the live and demo version of "Letter to G" have been set to repeat on my stereo for days now. The tinny drums are almost something you'd hear on a Joy Division album although I'm sure neither band knew of each other at this point in time. Songs like "Stand Back and Take a Look" and "Come Back and Stay" are real power pop classics -- simple and catchy, broken pop songs. So those of you who have caught the power pop bug and who've picked up that newly reissued Urinals Negative Capability comp, as well as all of you Black Lips fans, I'm looking at you. This is E-S-S-E-N-T-I-A-L! You know what to do...
