Disturbing the Peace: 415 Records and the Rise of New Wave<\/i><\/a>. And a new DVD release, The Price of Sex<\/i> adds to SVT\u2019s body of work. Featuring a number of music videos \u2013 hey, this was just before the dawn of MTV, after all \u2013 it shows the group in all its glory.<\/p>\nSVT was the group named most often when I asked interviewees for the book which 415 act was most deserving of greater success than they achieved. But until now, the available evidence to support the assertion of the those-who-were-there has been thin: Though excellent, the band\u2019s 415 release Extended Play<\/i> has something of a thin sound (for reasons outlined in the book). And their later album for another label is good, but also fails somehow to convey greatness.<\/p>\n
By contrast, these music videos from 1980 do just that. The group is simply on fire as the four musicians sink their teeth into the material. To be sure, everything about the visuals — the clothing, the instruments, the production values, the dated special effects, the 4:3 aspect ratio \u2013 screams \u201cearly \u201880s.\u201d But the power, precision and intensity of the songs comes through loud and clear.<\/p>\n
Even the performance of \u201cHeart of Stone\u201d (a 415-era single) has more spirit and energy than its official counterpart. The music videos look and sound like documents of live-in-the-studio performances, and the immediacy that comes across is a key to the quality of the collection.<\/p>\n
The band had more material than it would capture on two singles, Extended Play<\/i> and No Regrets<\/i>. And while its questionable use of Nazi imagery in the otherwise-unheard \u201cRock Reich\u201d is unfortunate, the song itself is on fire. The performances by the quartet \u2013 Marnell and Casady plus versatile keyboardist Nick Buck and mighty drummer Paul Zahl \u2013 make a compelling case for SVT as one of the new wave era\u2019s lost treasures.<\/p>\n
A pair of live clips round out this new collection from Liberation Hall and authorized by the surviving members of the band. An incendiary cover of Eddie Cochran\u2019s \u201cCome On Everybody\u201d blows away the Sex Pistols\u2019 version, and the otherwise-unheard \u201cHow Could You Ever\u201d is blistering as well. The live cuts date from before Zahl took over the drum seat from Bill Gibson.<\/p>\n
Packaging is minimal, and at least one bit of provided information is incorrect: the back cover indicates a runtime of 72 minutes. The truth is much closer to 30 minutes. But where The Price of Sex<\/i> and SVT are concerned, quality wins out over quantity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
SVT is one of the coolest bands you\u2019ve likely never heard of. Led by singer, songwriter and guitarist Brian Marnell, this San Francisco-based band had talent to burn, combining musical […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22937,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[25,49,50,55,62,65],"tags":[4390,1072,4394],"class_list":["post-22935","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-dvd","category-new-release","category-new-wave","category-powerpop","category-rawk","category-review","tag-415-records","tag-jack-casady","tag-svt","cat-25-id","cat-49-id","cat-50-id","cat-55-id","cat-62-id","cat-65-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22935","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22935"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22935\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22943,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22935\/revisions\/22943"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22937"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22935"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22935"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22935"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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SVT is one of the coolest bands you\u2019ve likely never heard of. Led by singer, songwriter and guitarist Brian Marnell, this San Francisco-based band had talent to burn, combining musical muscle with sharp songwriting. But the group didn\u2019t last long, and their recorded output was limited to a couple of singles, and EP and one long-playing album.<\/p>\n