Dig ‘in: The Bug Club, Jack Logan and Paul Budin, Lightheaded
Check out what the No Wristbands team is listening to and what’s in our show calendars this month on our latest Dig ‘in.
INCOMING
The Bug Club - Very Human Features (Sub Pop Records LP)
Like overhearing, at a party, tantalizing bits of interesting conversation, strands of Bug Club’s “Appropriate Emotions” keep catching in my brain: “Eternity seems long to me / And when you say I will, I hope I feel one of the / Appropriate emotions for a homo sapien to feel in situations like this.”
That’s just one of many intriguing moments on Very Human Features, the Bug Club’s fourth album, wherein Welsh writing duo Sam Joseph Willmett (guitar, vocals) and Tilly May Harris (bass, vocals) wend wryly through the surreal landscape of humanity’s long crawl out of the muck, through the quandaries of adulthood, and beyond. This picaresque weaves Satan, charity bands, boredom, whammy bars, and Lieber and Stoller into a wary, literate examination of the meaning of life and our place in the universe: “I′m sure the Lord is listening / How the hell would He know my name.”
The Bug Club’s defiant punk-pop exuberance and Willmett and Tilly’s rough/smooth vocal contrast are happily reminiscent of the Mekons, with soupçons of “Sweet Jane” textures and other stylistic nods. The jazzy lounge intro of “Jealous Boy” evolves into the frustrated shout, “So tell me how I am not allowed to be the jealous boy I am,” continuing, hilariously, “He sounds nearly almost exactly like Ringo Starr / Peace and love isn’t enough / To make me feel better / When I′m mad, I′m so mad I could just twist and shout, ooh!” That Beatles-y “ooh!” was a delightful surprise! As was the danceable, weird pop of “Beep Boop Computers”: “My brother’s best friend′s sister’s partner had a baby / We′ve never ever felt a love so pure and sacred / And all the beep boop computers knew the emptiness that I (Ooh) / I left in San Francisco (Ooh) / Only metaphorically, though / ‘Cuz I′ve never even been to the West Coast.”
Guitar solos are spare here, but effective: melodic, barbed, or raucous, as the moment decrees. Although they do warn, in “Twirling in the Middle,” “Are we doin’ the rocksteady? Are we doin’ the rocksteady? ... Just when you’re ready for this to be over, we’ll start playing solos. Oh no….”
I’m late to this party, but catching up is going to be so much fun! -Tina Woelke
Jack Logan and Paul Budin - Staving Off the Decay (self-released digital 2-LP)
What made the ’80s music scene in Champaign-Urbana so special was the sense of community that was fostered amongst its participants. That irrepressible spirit and creative incubator environment prompted New York Rocker’s Andy Schwartz to declare it “the new pop capital of Mid-America” in his review of the B-Lovers debut single back in the fall of 1982.
It was during that decade that Paul Budin (The Outnumbered, The Last Straw) and Jack Logan (Lava Treatment, Liquor Cabinet) first became acquainted. Budin had traveled down from the state’s northwest suburbs to attend the University of Illinois and Logan, who grew up downstate, spent some time in C/U before eventually relocating to the Athens, Georgia area. During this period, Logan and Bob Kimbell collaborated together on some material that would later turn up on Kimbell’s Weird Summer records and the pair would go on to release two albums (1998’s Little Private Angel and 2022’s Woodshedding) together for Parasol Records. Roughly fifteen years ago, the three artists had designs on assembling a tour together that Logan had sardonically coined the “Staving Off the Decay tour.” While that idea never came to fruition, Logan’s recent return to Illinois led him to reconnect with Budin and inquire whether he had any music that he’d be interested in working together on.
In the spirit of the aforementioned C/U community, the endeavor expanded to include contributions from old friends with tenure in the likes of Lonely Trailer, Weird Summer, The Martyrs and The Vertebrats. At a length of 23 tracks, there’s an abundance of variety represented here (keeping in mind that Logan’s solo debut, Bulk, contained 42 tracks that Peter Jesperson had winnowed down from over 600 songs that were sent his way). Logan’s soulful, baritone delivery shines through on numbers like “Comes and Goes” and “Roomful of Strangers.” On “Sit Tight,” he explores the murky backwaters as he’s dragged into the swamp blues by the Ant Hattie crew of Tim Stephens, Steve Burton and Joe Wachtel. Budin reaches back to his Outnumbered origins for the garage stomp of “Phoenix,” welcoming back drummer cohort Kenny Golub and Martyrs guitarist Kent Whitesell. “Cicadas” pairs Rebekah Songer and Brian Reedy (Lonely Trailer) on vocals for an ephemeral breakup song that’s disarming and forthright. The recording fittingly closes with “4 AM,” a tender ballad between Budin and his spouse, Ann Dwyer, that looks to counter life’s finite nature with an unlimited desire to make each moment count. Mission accomplished. -Bruce Novak
Lightheaded - Thinking, Dreaming, Scheming! (Slumberland Records LP)
As a similar point of origin to Robert Pollard, Lightheaded’s guitarist Stephen Stec toils as an English teacher while using his free time to construct addictive pop songs with vocalist and bassist Cynthia Rittenbach. Thinking, Dreaming, Scheming! follows last year’s promising Combustible Gems album for this New Jersey outfit with five new tracks principally recorded with Gary Olson (The Ladybug Transistor) out east and Alicia Vanden Heuvel (The Aislers Set) out west. It’s coupled on the flipside with the five songs they previously did with Kevin Basko (Rubber Band Gun) for their 2023 cassette EP, Good Good Great!
“Crash Landing of the Clod” was written after an encounter with one of Stec’s disruptive students, with its dreamy girl-group delivery belying the turmoil that inspired it. The sprightly “Me and Amelia Fletcher” pays homage to the British indie pop icon (Talulah Gosh, Heavenly, The Catenary Wires), whose Skep Wax Records label is handling the overseas distribution for this disc. “Same Drop,” with a trumpet contribution from Olson, is cut from the same cloth as the 53rd & 3rd and Sarah Records catalogs that showcased Fletcher’s early creations. Their faithful rendition the obscure 1966 b-side single “Patty Girl” (that they’ve rechristened “Patti Girl”) by Franklin, Ohio band Gary & The Hornets is resplendent with the sort of lovelorn vibes that make Lightheaded so enticing and hard to resist. -Bruce Novak
UPCOMING
Hurray For The Riff Raff
Where: Old Town School of Folk Music / Directions
When: July 17 & 18, 8:00 PM
The Past Is Still Alive by Hurray For The Riff Raff hasn’t left the rotation in my house since its release in 2024. An album of beautifully crafted songs sung with Alynda Segarra’s impressive voice, I find myself returning to it over and over to dissect whatever track has become the new earworm in my head.
Now that Segarra has moved north to become a resident of Chicago, it feels appropriate that they are being welcomed by the city with two sold-out shows at the Old Town School of Folk Music’s Maurer Hall on July 17th and 18th. Supported by Philly-based songwriter Greg Mendez, Segarra and crew will undoubtedly find an appreciative audience in one of Chicago’s best sounding rooms. Since finding a stray ticket to these shows may prove impossible, don’t hesitate to snag tickets to Hurray’s upcoming bill with Ani Difranco at Evanston’s Cahn Auditorium on September 5th. -Mike Moran
Kim Deal
Where: Thalia Hall / Directions
When: July 23, 7:00 PM
Steve Albini engineered the majority of Kim Deal’s solo debut, Nobody Loves You More, that was released by 4AD this past November. Their long standing friendship dates back to Albini’s work on Pixies’ 1988 Surfer Rosa album. At Albini’s honorary street dedication ceremony during the same week that her record dropped, Deal recounted how Albini and his coterie of card sharks would sucker her into their poker games with unsurprising results. On Nobody Loves You More, Deal pushes her chips all in, unafraid of the outcome.
The record was the end result of over a decade’s worth of songwriting, commencing in 2011 and wrapping up in 2022. During the latter stages of its creation, Deal was tested by the death of her parents and an uncle and aunt all within a year’s time, only to be shaken again last year with the news of Albini’s fatal heart attack. There’s a vitality to Deal’s latest work that emerges in the punchy buoyancy of “Coast,” the contrarian snarl of “Disobedience” and the electroclash audacity of “Big Ben Beat.” In these times of survival mode, Kim Deal refuses to go gently into the night. -Bruce Novak
Hotline TNT
Where Wicker Park Fest
When: July 25, 9:00 PM
Hotline TNT founder Will Anderson grew up in northwest Wisconsin and started the band in Minneapolis before settling in Brooklyn in recent years. He still considers himself a Midwesterner at heart and the call of home led the band to record their most recent album, Raspberry Moon, in Appleton, WI with Amos Pitsch (Dusk (34), Tenement, Technicolor Teeth) at his Clutch of Memory studio. A Midwestern work ethic also resulted in the band touring nearly year-round in 2024 with a long-sought-after solidified lineup of Lucky Hunter (guitar), Mike Ralston (drums) and Haylen Trammel (bass). That contingent led to the collaborative Raspberry Moon, whereas past recordings were written exclusively by Anderson. Hotline TNT’s trademark guitar wash remains intact and is abetted by crisper tempos and a heightened melodic sense. Their current Path of Totality tour finds them touching down in the heart of Guyville for the congestion of Wicker Park Fest before circling back around for a SubT performance on September 12. -Bruce Novak
UNCOVERED
The Vapors - New Clear Days (United Artists Records LP)
I didn’t know much about The Vapors when I bought their 1980 full-length debut New Clear Days on audio cassette based on how much I loved their MTV video for the song “Turning Japanese.” Nor did I understand that the single in particular was an ode to Onanism (self-love) or even what that might mean. Since then, the song’s interpretation has taken on a life of its own (now primarily referred to as an ethnic slur), but writer (and lead singer and guitarist) David Fenton has said it could have easily been turning Lebanese or Portuguese or some such, he just woke up in the middle of the night with the phrase in his head, and worked it into a song he was in the process of writing.
So taking the song on its face, without any baggage, real or perceived, there’s no denying the hook, the pace, the frantic phrasing, and the outright catchiness of “Turning Japanese.” Like the music video, the song integrates some tropes from Asian music, beginning with the introduction, which during composition process was chosen to repeat throughout the song, although as Fenton told “Songwriting” in 2021, that part itself “isn’t actually Japanese—it’s Asian, certainly, but it’s more likely to be Chinese, so I got that completely wrong!”
Lyrically, it’s clear that the narrator of the song is obsessed with a girl, or at least with a picture of this girl, indicating “I’ve got your picture / I’d like a million of you, all ‘round my cell” and continuing, even more creepily, that “I want a doctor to take your picture / So I can look at you from inside as well.” Thematically, “Turning Japanese” is a direct descendant of The Who’s “Pictures Of Lily” and Ringo Starr’s “Photograph,” and this begs for exploration in the vein of Susan Sontag’s “On Photography.” That is not my intent today.
Like so many so-called “one-hit” wonders, there’s a lot more to love on New Clear Days than just that single, even if their other songs never had the popular traction of “Turning Japanese” (it hit #3 in the UK, #1 in Australia, and peaked at #36 in the USA on the Billboard Hot 100).
The album begins with the rhythmically riveting fashion satire “Spring Collection,” leading into their best-selling song, then followed by their first single “Prisoners” on the U.S. version (the running order I grew up with), but on the original UK release, the lengthy “Cold War” and the brief “America” follow. Like the album’s title and cover artwork (a radiated weather forecaster pointing to radiation warnings on a weather map of the UK), both tracks are products of their time, the former rather boring (captured better by XTC with “Living Through Another Cuba” on Black Sea, also released in 1980), and the latter fun, but rather inconsequential.
“Trains,” follows fittingly, and should have been a winning single, channeling the frenetic energy akin to “Turning Japanese,” and similarly capturing a paranoid zeitgeist, punctuated by a few dynamic guitar solos and a catchy chorus. Similarly, Fenton sings how he’s “got no idea where to go from here / Maybe that’s why we’re living in bunkers” on the next song, the next natural step when the world realized that diving under a desk in a classroom wouldn’t be much protection in a nuclear war.
The Vapors’ third single, “News At Ten,” follows, referencing a popular news program on Britain’s ITV, making fun of someone turning into a homebody, “you pick up a paper and appear to be quite serious,” the narrator complains about their friend who used to “come out and play.” “I can’t hear you, you make no sense to me,” Fenton sings. This single only made it to #44 in the UK.
The Vapors turn in their most The Jam-like performance on the sprawling and catchy “Somehow,” which comes next. The similarity to those UK mod rockers is not coincidental—the Guildford, Surrey band was “discovered” by The Jam’s Bruce Foxton whilst playing in a pub, and he went on to co-manage them (with John Weller, the father of The Jam’s Paul Weller), they toured extensively opening for The Jam, and the song “Turning Japanese” was produced by The Jam’s producer, Vic Coppersmith-Heaven.
The meditative “Sixty Second Interval,” follows, sporting lovely vocal harmonies, electric power chords, and a cool “walking” bass line. The final single from New Clear Days was “Waiting For The Weekend,” released as such with the addition of a horn part, but it failed to chart. True, the lyrical theme is not an original sentiment, but The Vapors still conduct a mini-power-pop clinic within the song’s three minutes (and eight seconds).
The lengthiest composition concludes the album. “Letter From Hiro” is an epic masterpiece, all jangly rhythm guitars, echoey vocals, powerful bass, and a guitar solo that might have made Mark Knopfler blush. Somehow the song wraps all of the influences of The Vapors, including, it should be said, more Japanese motifs, as well as all of the aforementioned influences into such a successful combination, the listener can only hold their mouth agape, and rewind the tape. Perhaps if it could have been condensed to a length less than the running time of its six minutes plus length, this could have been a successful single as well.
On the precipice that would become Japan’s involvement in Word War II, the narrator receives the “Letter From Hiro,” but it came too late. Fenton alternates detached meditative vocals with passionate pleas on the song, to dramatic effect. On paper, the song and the context (bookending a new wave, power-pop record released in a pivotal Cold War year) seem fundamentally bizarre, but now it should be seen for what the song is, a masterpiece.
I’m not sure where my cassette of New Clear Days is today, and even if I could find it, I’m not sure I have a working tape deck. The Vapors (and their label, as United Artists morphed into Liberty Records) rushed to capitalize on their success with Magnets a mere 10 months later, in 1981. Some fans claim that’s even better than their stellar debut—I have it on vinyl, and despite having two turntables, neither of those work either, at present, so I can’t argue that point. Frustrated with their lack of success, and blaming their label for lack of promotion (perhaps accurately), The Vapors called it quits in 1982—they lasted four years.
Like a lot of ’80s acts today, of course, that isn’t the end of the story. According to Allmusic, in 2016, bassist Steve Smith was playing live with his band the Shakespearos, and Fenton and lead guitarist Ed Bazalgette joined the group on-stage to play “Turning Japanese.” Later that year a reformed version of The Vapors played a handful of shows opening for Foxton and Rick Buckler’s tribute band of sorts, called From The Jam.
The reformed revision played a few dates in NYC in 2018, and recorded a third album in 2019, which was released in 2020, Together. Although scheduled to perform on “The Lost 80’s Tour” that year, it was scuttled by the pandemic, and they’ll be touring on that bill beginning at the end of this July (they’re just one of ten acts, also including A Flock of Seagulls, Big Country, General Public, China Crisis and Icicle Works). The Vapors played shows celebrating the 40th anniversary of New Clear Days in 2021, and performed at the Cruel World Festival in May 2023.
When I put forward the idea of revisiting New Clear Days, I had no idea about any of this, nor that The Vapors released their crowdfunded fourth album, Wasp In A Jar, just this spring. Next year will mark the 45th anniversary of New Clear Days, and almost as remarkably, in my book, the 10th anniversary of their reunion.
All of this is to say, although the music might not be as fresh and revelatory as it was in the early 1980s, there is a reason for the resurgence of The Vapors. Time doesn’t erode the value of a good song, and New Clear Days is packed with those. -Craig Bechtel
We recommend listening along over at our Spotify page. Here’s this week’s content: