While Uncle Tupelo is commonly credited with spearheading the rise of
the alt-country movement (referred to in some quarters as "No
Depression") that flourished throughout the 1990s, its true origins
can be traced back to a number of Los Angeles-based cow-punk bands that
inhabited the margins of the Paisley Underground scene during the early 1980s. Bands such as Tex and The Horseheads, Blood on the Saddle, The
Beat Farmers, Rank and File and many others helped pioneer the unique
fusion of country music and punk that would profoundly inform alt-country stalwarts Uncle Tupelo, Wilco, and Whiskeytown a decade later; however, no
cow-punk band was more influential or as talented as The Long Ryders who
integrated influences such as Gram Parsons, The Byrds, and Buffalo
Springfield into a harder-edged punk-infused sound. The seeds for what
eventually became The Long Ryders were sown in an uber-obscure and
militantly retro Los Angeles garage-psych band called The Unclaimed,
which Sid Griffin had joined in 1978 after tiring of the then-nascent punk scene. However, Griffin soon felt trapped by the band's
unwillingness to broaden their mid-sixties aesthetic and consequently
left in late 1981 to form the nucleus of what would quickly evolve into
The Long Ryders, which early on included Steve Wynn who soon left to
form The Dream Syndicate. Fatefully, the band's formation coincided with
the beginnings of the Los Angeles-based pysch-rock revival that
eventually (and quite reductively) came to be known as the "paisley underground," a scene that actually featured an eclectic mix of bands
that were linked together more through strong friendships and an ethos
of mutual support than any sense of a shared musical approach.
Sid Griffin: "There was tremendous sharing in those days. At first
everyone was on equal footing and then some bands became rather
possessive and a bit more private but the Long Ryders were always
looking at things from a socialist perspective. People shared amps,
guitars, worked for other bands [...] Steve Wynn put out the early Green
on Red album, I worked doing merch for several bands, Matt Piucci of
Rain Parade became a kinda guitar roadie if you needed help like that
and the Bangles sang back up on a lot of other people's records. Many of
the bills of the day were three of these bands all at once. Perhaps
Bangles, Dream Syndicate, Long Ryders, something like that." The early
days of The Long Ryders featured several lineup changes, but their debut
EP, 10-5-60, produced by former Sparks guitarist Earl Mankey,
established the band as peerless exponents of the kind of
country-infused jangle-pop The Byrds were doing in their post-Sweetheart of the Rodeo
incarnation. Starting with the stellar Griffin-penned jangle rave-up
"Join My Gang," a song that might actually be better than a good
percentage of the material many claim it is emulating, and also
featuring the raucous title track, a garage-rock holdover from Griffin's
days in The Unclaimed, 10-5-60 finds the band on the precipice of greatness. Following the release of 10-5-60, the band's bass player, Des
Brewer, jumped ship to resume his career as a longshoreman, which
apparently appealed to him more than touring; as a result, Tom Stevens,
who at the time was working at a record store, joined The Long Ryders,
thus ushering in the band's classic line-up. Having recently signed to
Frontier Records, the band entered the studio with producer Henry Lewy
whose résumé included the first two Flying Burrito Brothers LPs, and the
result, their first full-length LP, Native Sons, represents a step away from the occasionally literalistic approach of 10-5-60
and step towards something approximating what Gram Parsons once
described as "cosmic American music."
Tom Stevens: "From the start, The
Long Ryders were all about hybrids of pure American styles of music, as
mostly defined by 60s bands, both rock and country. That all distilled
through skilled songwriting into more of the classic style that you hear
on Native Sons [....] I think at the time The Long Ryders were
at the very height of their songwriting powers, and ability to naturally
hybrid cool styles into a single form." From the opening track, "Final
Wild Son," a snarling paisley update of Bob Dylan's "Highway 61
Revisited," to "Wreck of the 809," a psych-drenched version of
R.E.M.-style Jangle-Pop, to the brilliant single, "I Had a Dream," a
song that manages to stand shoulder to shoulder with the band's
formidable influences (Griffin's vocals can't help but recall Gene
Clark) and to lay out a sonic blueprint that would keep Jeff Tweedy busy
for the better part of a decade, Native Sons stands as The Long Ryders' masterpiece. State of Our Union was the
band's second full-length and first major label release. While there is a
palpable production sheen cast over the proceedings, it ultimately
lends this brilliant set of songs a certain punchiness that serves the
music well. The album kicks off with a stone-cold classic in "Looking
for Lewis and Clark," a powerful political anthem that sets out to punch
a few holes in Reagan's "morning in America" myth. Another standout is
"Here Comes That Train Again," a gorgeously spacious piece of jangle-pop
that repeatedly conjures the ghost of Gram Parsons. Although it is arguably over-produced, State of Our Union is one of the most beautiful and
enduring albums to emerge from the paisley underground scene as well as
one of the most eloquently political albums of the 1980s. Drummer Greg Sowders:
"we wanted to control our own art and it was just a very do-it-yourself
attitude that we learned from the punks. But ultimately we thought punk
rock in L.A.- I do kind of exclude X because they were very musical- but
a lot of them really sucked [....] But that do-it-yourself attitude and
the 'we want to control everything ourselves and deal directly with the
fans'- that's what we learned from the punks. Plus, we liked to play
our songs kinda fast."
Sid Griffin: "There was tremendous sharing in those days. At first
everyone was on equal footing and then some bands became rather
possessive and a bit more private but the Long Ryders were always
looking at things from a socialist perspective. People shared amps,
guitars, worked for other bands [...] Steve Wynn put out the early Green
on Red album, I worked doing merch for several bands, Matt Piucci of
Rain Parade became a kinda guitar roadie if you needed help like that
and the Bangles sang back up on a lot of other people's records. Many of
the bills of the day were three of these bands all at once. Perhaps
Bangles, Dream Syndicate, Long Ryders, something like that." The early
days of The Long Ryders featured several lineup changes, but their debut
EP, 10-5-60, produced by former Sparks guitarist Earl Mankey,
established the band as peerless exponents of the kind of
country-infused jangle-pop The Byrds were doing in their post-Sweetheart of the Rodeo
incarnation. Starting with the stellar Griffin-penned jangle rave-up
"Join My Gang," a song that might actually be better than a good
percentage of the material many claim it is emulating, and also
featuring the raucous title track, a garage-rock holdover from Griffin's
days in The Unclaimed, 10-5-60 finds the band on the precipice of greatness. Following the release of 10-5-60, the band's bass player, Des
Brewer, jumped ship to resume his career as a longshoreman, which
apparently appealed to him more than touring; as a result, Tom Stevens,
who at the time was working at a record store, joined The Long Ryders,
thus ushering in the band's classic line-up. Having recently signed to
Frontier Records, the band entered the studio with producer Henry Lewy
whose résumé included the first two Flying Burrito Brothers LPs, and the
result, their first full-length LP, Native Sons, represents a step away from the occasionally literalistic approach of 10-5-60
and step towards something approximating what Gram Parsons once
described as "cosmic American music."
