{"id":22997,"date":"2022-05-20T05:30:01","date_gmt":"2022-05-20T09:30:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=22997"},"modified":"2022-05-20T21:58:42","modified_gmt":"2022-05-21T01:58:42","slug":"album-review-times-beach-step-in-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2022\/05\/20\/album-review-times-beach-step-in-time\/","title":{"rendered":"Album Review: Times Beach — Step in Time"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>The creatively fertile arts community in the Bay Area \u2013 centered for a time around the San Francisco Arts Institute \u2013 informed the music scene. As I wrote about in my latest book, Disturbing the Peace: 415 Records and the Rise of New Wave<\/em>, many of the region\u2019s punk and new wave bands came out of that arts scene. Penelope Houston of the Avengers (not a 415 act, I should note) had been a student at SFAI. And members of other bands including The Mutants and Romeo Void counted SFAI alumni among their members as well.<\/p>\n

But the arts influence wasn\u2019t confined solely to punk and new wave artists. Times Beach could more accurately be described as \u201cart pop.\u201d The group cultivated a following in the Bay Area, playing the familiar places \u2013 Mabuhay Gardens, The Stone, Berkeley Square and so forth \u2013 and went so far as to record half an album\u2019s worth of material with none other than Philip Lithman (aka Snakefinger) producing the sessions.<\/p>\n

Those tapes were never released, at least not in any official capacity. But now, more than a third of a century later, those five tracks plus assorted other recordings have been compiled on a vinyl-only release titled Step in Time<\/i>.<\/p>\n

Quite a few musicians passed through the ranks of Times Beach in the band\u2019s brief time in the spotlight. Perhaps the most well-known among them is keyboardist Eric Drew Feldman; these days he\u2019s part of the Residents\u2019 orbit.<\/p>\n

But those musical touchstones don\u2019t reveal much to hint at the sound of Times Beach. Arty for sure, the group had a cinematic, thrilling sound, one that owes a great deal to musical theater. Their character has hints of The Tubes, albeit without the latter\u2019s smart-alecky comedy. The roaring, shimmering vibe of \u201cFear in the Western World\u201d is the kind of thing that \u2013 one might have thought \u2013 would have found wider success in the era of MTV. The commanding vocals of (among others) one Mariana Trench(!) are stirring and anthemic. And Snakefinger\u2019s production choices emphasize the group\u2019s strengths.<\/p>\n

Put another way, Times Beach was commercial, but in the best sense of the word. The songs scream out for music videos to accompany them: \u201cCool\u201d combines a West Side Story aesthetic with an edgy, punk-vibed arrangement. The reggae character of \u201cFugitive\u201d should have scored big in a musical landscape dominated by The Police. The male-female duet vocal approach is employed on most of these tracks, with (I think) guitarist St\u0113v LeGrand handling the male parts.<\/span><\/p>\n

A dance-funk vibe is at the core of \u201cTaking Orders,\u201d a tune that\u2019s halfway between Queen\u2019s “Another One Bites the Dust\u201d and The Tubes\u2019 \u201cPrime Time.\u201d Ed Frantick\u2019s guitar work is inventive and catchy on this track and throughout the album.<\/p>\n

A KUSF interview with LeGrand and Trench wraps up the first side of the LP; the musicians discuss their backgrounds in theater but emphasize their focus upon music. The second side features miscellaneous tracks capturing the band live onstage at various Bay Area clubs. Though the fidelity of those tracks tends toward bootleg-esque, the lack of song duplication underscores the fact that Times Beach truly did have enough material for an album. And a solid one at that. Even with the dodgy audio quality, the arranging quality of the band shines through.<\/p>\n

Taken as a whole, these 11 tracks provide an intriguing window into a band that truly deserved more success than it found. The band\u2019s manager in 1983-84, Stephen M.H. Braitman is the man responsible for bringing this slice of Bay Area new wave (or whatever) to modern-day listeners. Even if you weren\u2019t there at the Mab, this LP will take you back. Recommended.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The creatively fertile arts community in the Bay Area \u2013 centered for a time around the San Francisco Arts Institute \u2013 informed the music scene. As I wrote about in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22998,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49,50,62,65,73],"tags":[4837],"class_list":["post-22997","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-new-release","category-new-wave","category-rawk","category-review","category-vinyl","tag-times-beach","cat-49-id","cat-50-id","cat-62-id","cat-65-id","cat-73-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22997","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=22997"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22997\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23023,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22997\/revisions\/23023"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22998"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22997"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22997"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22997"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}