THE PLEASURES PALE, s/t (12" vinyl LP, 1987)

My turntable is shit -- total shit.  [UPDATE 2-12-2013 -- I have a better one.  Ignore this and the next couple of paragraphs.] It's part of a GPX combo purchased at Best Buy for $40 in 1995 (my mom actually bought it for me -- no shit). While the cassette deck on that combo delivers decent sound, the signal from the turntable sounds like it's coming through Alan Sherman's "Japanese transistor radio" and finally received by The Professor on Gilligan's Island with the little white ear-piece stuck in his ear -- but only as Mary Ann would hear it standing on tip-toes (to push her breasts out) next to him.

I did a lot of processing to boost the overall presence, and I think I made some headway. But for now, vinyl rips on this blog will be notably weaker than cassette rips. When I get a better turntable (summer maybe?), I promise I'll re-rip and re-post all the vinyl.


Anyway, there's little I can tell you first-hand about THE PLEASURES PALE. I never saw them live, but they were quite popular in Dayton around 1986-87 -- I'd venture more popular than GUIDED BY VOICES at the time. The bass player, Luis Lerma, was (with his brother Tere) later in the THE TASTIES in the mid-'90s. At least one of the Lermas was in FRANKENSTEIN'S KIND in 1988. Both have been around Dayton forever, playing music, making movies, and doing god knows what else--occasionally assisted by older brother Larry (who I actually know a little better than his younger brothers) and others. But I can't tell you what bands either of them is currently in (if any). Perhaps you can tell me.

I used to play this LP a lot when I was at WWSU. My favorites were always the two that mentioned Dayton: "it could be heaven just as well" and "my town has no cafes." The latter would, I think, make a fine anthem for the Gem City. Check out some of the more appropriate lines:

in a place i'll call 'nowhere'...

my town has no cafes
no place for us to say,
'we're tired, so tired, of the same dead things'

down in my familiar gutter
with nothing left to utter
it's late, it's late, late, late Dayton

It's not exactly T.S. Eliot (okay, it's not even Elliott Smith), and the average Daytonian may find it difficult to sing at Dragons games. But if poetic aptitude and vocal accessibility were prerequisites for an anthem, do you really think people would've put up with "The Star Spangled Banner" for two centuries?

(then again, maybe TOXIC REASONS' "Ghost Town" would make a better Dayton anthem? no money... no fun... Yeah, that's what I'd pick. Ah, but who am I kidding? If Dayton ever adopts an anthem, it'll probably be something by GUIDED BY VOICES -- or ALAN THICKE...)

The music here is fairly straight-up mid-'80s new wave: heavily flanged guitars, cavernous reverb, esoteric lyrics--reminiscient of THE CURE, NEW ORDER, and THE SMITHS (though with a few nods toward rock-a-billy and mod rock, which sets them apart from most of their cookie-cutter contemporaries). Call it shoegazer, call it goth-pop, call it alternative. Whatever... you'll get a definite time-capsule vibe off this.

This LP was released on Cincinnati-based Heresy Records, which makes it an oddity among Dayton releases of that era. This is the only release I know of from Heresy. Most Dayton bands in the late '80s were releasing either on IWanna Records (TOOBA BLOOZE, THE OBVIOUS, THE HIGHWAYMEN) or under their own imprimatur (MOM, POETIC JUSTICE, BIG BROWN HOUSE).

THE PLEASURES PALE were:

Jeffrey Bright - singer
Mitchell Swann - guitarist
Luis Lerma - bass guitarist
Jeff Keating - drummer

The only other thing I can tell you about THE PLEASURES PALE is that "Lovely! Lovely!" appeared on the WWSU 4-Play record in 1987 and that Mitchell Swan apparently played in GUIDED BY VOICES in 1983 (or so I gather from this article from the Boston Phoenix). Even the GUIDED BY VOICES Wikipedia page missed that one.

The Boston Phoenix article also refers to THE PLEASURES PALE as "SMITHS-clones." I think that's a little too dismissive. Okay, they didn't break any new ground here, but Morrisey's overwrought sense of maudlin is (thankfully) absent. If nothing else, I can appreciate that.

Although popular here and elsewhere, THE PLEASURES PALE weren't everyone's cup of tea. Witness...

"Weak-kneed pop of all styles--from Byrdsy twang to Smiths-like laments to wimpy country to fey rockabilly. No bite, nothing to move me, except to move the needle. They even ask, on one song, 'so what is a sissy?' Look in the mirror, pal!"
---Suburban Voice #24 (1987)

About the rip, the end of track 9 has an a capella vocal by a woman who's not credited anywhere on the album. Right at the end of that portion, the vinyl has a bad repeater scratch that I couldn't work through. So I let it repeat three or four times and just faded the track out. It's not what the band intended, but I thought it sounded kind of cool. I liked it so much that I added a track at the end reprising the skip a few times with some additional flange and ambience. It fades up and then down in about 20 seconds.  [UPDATE 2-12-2013: On the re-rip this same skip made it impossible for me to get a good recording of the song immediately following it.  That song is "Lovely, Lovely," which also appeared on the WWSU 4-Play record.  To me, the two recordings sound identical, so I swapped out the crappy rip of "Lovely, Lovely" from this 12" and replaced it with the version from the WWSU record.]

My scanner is only 8.5" x 11", which is obviously too small to do this 12" sleeve--even in two passes. So there's no scans included in the download package. The best I could come up with is a photo of the sleeve, insert, and poster that I ripped off this ebay ad. To pay the seller back, here's a link to the ad where you can buy this record for $24.77 plus $4.50 for shipping and handling (Jesus Christ! $29.27 for this?!?!?! -- Gail got hers for a buck... I guess if you can work in a GUIDED BY VOICES connection (check the ad), you can jack up the price on anything!).

[UPDATE 2-12-2013: The lovely Teresa Winner was kind enough to take some photos of the cover, insert, and poster on her iPad.  Those pictures are included in this download.  The photos, however, are not high enough resolution to make the lyrics legible, so for those who want to read the lyrics, I made higher resolution scans of them.  Those are also included in this download.]

This record comes to us courtesy of the Gail Dafler collection. Gail wants to know if the kid in the poster is one of the Lerma boys. Anybody know?

Track List:

1. no, joy
2. my town has no cafes
3. in my dandelion field
4. monday mourn
5. love bites back sorely
6. uneasy's disease
7. all about men
8. a heavy coat of jokes
9. but she didn't
10. lovely! lovely!11. be
12. it could be heaven just as well
13. [uncredited female vocal (reprise)]

Download it! (63 MB) (line re-upped 2-12-2013)

UPDATE 2-12-2013: This is a new rip on better equipment -- worth getting even if you already downloaded the previous one.

Okay then, let's recap: the vinyl rip is shitty [UPDATE 2-12-2013: not anymore], The Boston Globe called them "Smiths clones," Suburban Voice called them sissies, and I compared their lyrics unfavorably to Elliott Smith's (and I don't even like Elliott Smith -- now there's a sissy for ya...). Is there any more abuse that my blog could possibly assist this cruel world in heaping on this utterly inoffensive (and not half-bad) pop combo from twenty years ago?

Oh yeah... I just noticed: that ebay ad I mentioned? It refers to them as "The Pleasures Principle." son of a bitch...

If anyone can tell me anything more about THE PLEASURES PRINCI-- uh... I mean, THE PLEASURES PALE, post a comment. I'm all ears.

take care

---Jones

ps. I got the flyer scan from gigposters.com. Don't you love it: "Dayton Invasion!"? (I came this close to renaming the blog...). And can you believe $2 to see GUIDED BY VOICES and RHINO 39? Those were the days... That show took place on January 11, 1986. RHINO 39 was incredibly popular 'round these parts as I remember, though they hailed from Los Angeles. They played a fairly original melding of punk and new wave. For more info, you can check their MySpace page. You can download RHINO 39's 1979 seven-inch record "Prolixin Stomp" over at the mind-poppingly expansive music blog Killed by Death Records. But be warned, KBD is more addictive than crack (and only slightly less addictive than nicotine). You'll download one record, then another, and another... soon you're out on the street trying to score LEATHER NUN MP3s... and before you know it, you're strung out on '77, pal!

pps. Don't confuse the punk (i.e. good) RHINO 39 formed in the '70s in L.A. with the heavy metal (i.e. heavy metal?) RHINO 39 formed in the '90s in Chicago.

[CORRECTION]: Okay, I noticed the flyer said "THREE area bands!" So I did a little digging and found out that the RHINO 39 that played that show was NOT the L.A. RHINO 39 (who, in fact, are really from Long Beach). No, there was a Dayton band called RHINO 39, which was actually my first impression, but when I found the California RHINO 39, I just assumed I was mistaken. Okay, so we've established that there was a Dayton RHINO 39. Now all I need do is locate some music by them. By the way, here's a link to a Dayton Voice article and an entry on someone else's blog, both of which mention the Dayton RHINO 39.

ppps. My next band is going to be called THE PLEASURES PRINCIPLE! (wasn't there a Star Trek episode called "The Pleasure Principle"?)

pppps. Goddammit? How long does it take to upload something to Rapidshare? The little progress bar reached 100% forty-five minutes ago, and it's just been sitting there like a dumb shit ever since! I gotta find a new host... Okay, there it goes.

WWSU, 4-Play (7" vinyl, 1987)

One word of warning about today's download: it's the first vinyl offering on this blog, and my turntable blows. There'll be a noticeable difference in the overall presence of the sound as compared to the cassette stuff you might've downloaded (like, compared to the cassette stuff, the vinyl will sound like it's coming through a one-speaker AM radio). [UPDATE 2-12-2013: ignore this.  I have a better turntable now.  This rip is much better.]  I'm planning on getting a new turntable some time in December. When that happens, I'll likely re-rip and re-up the vinyl links with better sounding files. But for now, the sound of vinyl will just have to suck. Anyway...

WWSU is Wright State's campus radio station. I worked there from early 1988 to late 1990. At that time it was (at least as far as I know) the only place in Dayton to hear anything approaching decent music on the radio (WOXY's signal didn't reach too far north of Beavercreek, and although WYSO had Jim Carter's "Around the Fringe" show, that station didn't play music consistently), which was probably the reason that so many people who were involved in local music worked there at one time or another. And why not? For people who ate, slept, and drank music in one way or another, it was Candyland. Here's why:

In addition to the main broadcast studio, they had a secondary studio for recording in-house PSAs, station IDs, news (real and fake), station IDs, whatever. It wasn't incredibly sophisticated, but it had a quarter-inch reel-to-reel, 8-channel mixer, a couple of turntables, microphones (beautiful old microphones that any sound engineer would give their right arm for today), etc. I used that studio to record tons of mix-tapes (two turntables made it easy to get that perfect, radio-style segue between cuts) and a few strange audio collages. But probably the most creative thing to come out of that studio was "Das Boot," which was Darryl Brandt and Matt DeWald just ranting over a generic industrial beat (I can't really describe it, but if I ever dig up a copy, I'll post it). They put it on a cart (that's short for "cartridge," which was a plastic box about the size of an 8-track tape with about 5-10 minutes of tape on a loop inside--you could set a cue-tone right at the beginning of whatever you had recorded so that when the DJ played it, he or she could get a precision start upon pushing the play button), and DJs would play it on their shows. It became a bit of a campus hit.

WWSU had an incredible library that included thousands of records, tapes, and CDs from obscure indie rock artists and most of the better major label releases (i.e. "alternative" when that term meant something). They had KILKENNY CATS, MASTERS OF REALITY, THE DAYLIGHTS, FOURWAYCROSS, and hundreds of other great bands I've never heard of anywhere else (not even on the web). They had original pressings of SCREECHING WEASEL's first two albums that included songs that were left off later versions. They had a HUSKER DU 12" single from Zen Arcade with that Husker symbol etched in the b-side, which I've never seen anywhere else. They had promotional singles with outtakes, live cuts, remixes. They had racks and racks of cassette-only releases. They had picture discs and colored vinyl. All together, that music library would probably fetch somewhere in the six-figures on ebay today.

New records came in the mail every fucking day! Just about everybody who worked there was pretty good about not stealing anything if it was the only copy. And although plenty of us copped duplicates and promo pieces (I got my share), it always seemed there was plenty to go around.

The artists and labels who sent music to college radio stations would take any kind of promotion they could get. This was true even for bands on major labels. So if you wanted to see a free show and meet the band afterward, all you had to do was call the artist's management and identify the radio station you were working for. I got into dozens of shows that way, including SOUNDGARDEN, CONCRETE BLONDE, VOIVOD, MISSION OF BURMA, CORROSION OF CONFORMITY, THE DEAD MILKMEN, DINOSAUR JR., BOB MOULD, PETER MURPHY, D.I., THE REPLACEMENTS, SONIC YOUTH, LOVE AND ROCKETS, THE PIXIES, BILLY BRAGG, NINE INCH NAILS, and I almost always got to meet the band afterward (one notable exception being PETER MURPHY, who wouldn't even let us backstage -- asshole...).

WWSU used to sponsor "Alternative Tuesday" in the Rathskellar, which was a shitty campus eatery just down the hall in the old student union. The Imminent zine article I posted a couple weeks ago has a pretty fair description of the place: "[It] was so lame, it made the Rhine Room look like CBGB’s.... I looked about the place waiting for Marcia Brady to appear." But you could get Black Label there, so I guess it wasn't all bad (and I remember a four or five week period when Kattie Dougherty was addicted to their calzones). Every Tuesday night, some WWSU staff members (I remember Darryl Brandt and Matt DeWald DJing a lot, but there were many others) would clear the tables to make a big dance floor and haul some turntables and a PA down there. Before 1470-West (local gay bar) started doing a similar thing on Thursdays, this was the only place in the Miami Valley you could get alternative dance pop and industrial music in a club atmosphere. Sometimes they'd book a band instead of having a DJ. I saw DEMENTIA PRECOX, DANSE POSITIVE, and RED MATH there. Alternative Tuesday was also the site of the Alternative Fashion Show fiasco of 1988 (which I've been putting off blogging on in hopes of scrounging up some pictures, but if none turn up soon, I'll post the story without). Finally, I'm pretty sure Alternative Tuesday is where I first met Gail. It was just this great big party where you always knew someone interesting would show up -- in the middle of the week.

WWSU was incredibly supportive of local artists. Unlike all the commercial stations in town, who limited local artists to some lame-ass specialty show that lasted for thirty minutes once a month (and even then they usually played the forgettable variety of hard rock bands or top-40 wannabes -- believe it or not, commercial radio in the '80s was even more clueless than it is today), WWSU included locals in regular rotation. WWSU is where I first heard THE OBVIOUS, THE HIGHWAYMEN, and DEMENTIA PRECOX, and it's where I made a point of playing every local release I could get my hands on.

Unfortunately, nothing lasts forever. At college stations, student management usually changes every academic year, and weak managers are subject to the will of whatever idiot staff "advisor" the college sees fit to place. About a year before I quit, Wright State hired just such an advisor. I don't remember her name, but she talked a lot about "paradigms" and "new models" and "the business of media" -- which pretty much translated to, "WWSU should have exactly the same programming that commercial stations have." Some time in the mid-'90s, they sold all the vinyl for about a tenth of what it was worth then (which is about a hundredth of what it would be worth today). Dave Graeter told me that Laura Pop-Tart bought every HUSKER DU record for a quarter each. Worst part is, I missed that sale, so I didn't get shit! Motherfucker...

Of course, some of the things that made the point of working at a college station have been made irrelevant today by consumer technology. Local bands can get better exposure on the web than any radio station could offer. Any decent rave or club plays the same music (or its present-day counterpart) and has fewer restrictions than Alternative Tuesday. No record collection anywhere at any time can match what's available through audio blogs, file sharing, and legitimate music download sites on the web. And any PC or Mac will give you production power that's as good as the average studio (even bands are recording entire albums on PC). But at the time, college radio stations like WWSU were a vital place for the music-obsessed.

This entry is only the first of two or three I'm planning on WWSU. Today I just wanted to talk about the station and why people who were dissatisfied with what the mainstream music industry was offering would congregate there. In subsequent posts, I'll be talking about some of the personalities that made WWSU such a great place to be. But enough words--let's get to the music.

For your downloading pleasure, I Remember Dayton presents Side One of a WWSU-produced 7" EP of local artists released in 1987. I'm only giving you Side One because that's the "modern rock" side. Until Spring Quarter of 1988, WWSU used to split its schedule into jazz during the day and modern rock at night (I think the switchover was 3 p.m.). Side Two is a couple of local jazz artists, and because this blog is called "I Remember Dayton PUNK and INDIE ROCK" (and because I just don't like jazz), I'm not going to the trouble of ripping that side.  UPDATE 2-4-2013: That's really kind of a stupid reason not to rip the whole thing, so when I did this re-rip, I got both sides.

Track List:

1. That Hope, "Space Boys in Love"
2. Pleasures Pale, "Lovely, Lovely"
3. Chain Link Fence, "A Sound Alternative"
4. The Blues Doctor, "No Midlife Crisis Blues"
5. Ocean, "East Coast Cruise"

Download it! (24 MB) (link re-upped on 2-4-2013)

UPDATE 2-4-2013:  In addition to the second side, this new package also contains scans of of the test pressing of this record.  It was also recorded on much better equipment than the old rip, so even if you have that package, consider downloading this one.

I know nothing about THAT HOPE, except that they hailed from Bloomington, Illinois.

Of PLEASURES PALE, for now I'll tell you that Luis Lerma played bass and that they were gigging around Dayton in 1987. I'll be posting their album some time in the next couple of weeks.

CHAIN LINK FENCE is from Boston. The cut is a brief promotional spot for the station (whose catch-phrase at the time was "WWSU, A Sound Alternative") recorded in the secondary studio.

I'm not wild about the design of the sticker (left) included with this record. To me it just screams "AM RADIO, 1974!" I much prefer the "alternative" logo the station adopted in '88 (right).

There's no date anywhere on the packaging, but this was out before I started working there. My impression is that this record came out early in 1987, though it might have been a year earlier.

The cover picture (by Ty Greenlees, who went on to a distinguished career with the Dayton Daily News) shows the WWSU main broadcast studio in 1987. Try to ignore the tacky wood panelling. Instead, check out the reel-to-reel on the left, the tube driven board and cart rack in the middle, and the dual turntable setup on the right. Go, analog technology! And what's missing? Look ma, no CD players! WWSU didn't get one until 1988.

From what I can tell, WWSU today is playing indie rock and other styles--everything from country to speed metal. It just depends on what DJ is on the air. Most of the time, it's pretty good stuff. I usually catch a good mix of indie rock contemporaries and classics. But occasionally, I'm wondering if the DJ is taking any prescription medication (like the other day when I heard the DOOBIE BROTHERS, followed by some speed metal act--what the fuck?). When there's no DJ, they're apparently automated, and it seems that the automation plays mostly contemporary indie rock. But this is all guesswork based on the few times I've tuned in over the past few months and from reading the WWSU Wikipedia entry (the pathetic WWSU web site is a marvel of brevity, containing no information about the station's programming or personnel -- and the listening link was broken last time I checked).

I like to think that WWSU is just as fun and interesting a place to work now as it was then. But honestly for music listening, I'm an XM satellite radio man now. Between Fungus 53 (punk channel) and XMU (newer indie rock channel), I hear far better music programming than any terrestrial radio station I know of. And if I'm feeling nostalgic for the old days, XM's channel Fred plays a mix that I would swear was ripped right from WWSU playlists circa 1989.

take care

---Jones