![\"\"](\"http:\/\/musoscribe.com\/images\/translator_forget.jpg\"){kind=spacer}
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Though they’re perhaps best known for their 1982 single \u201cEverywhere That I’m Not\u201d \u2013 a quirky yet extremely catchy rock tune that subsequently found its way onto more than a half dozen compilations of the 80s\/new wave era \u2013 San Francisco’s Translator<\/strong> released four excellent albums during their major-label run (roughly 1982 to 1986). The band’s sound combined then-current new wave textures with a psychedelic influence, but somehow Translator’s music steered clear of the (Los Angeles-based) \u201cPaisley Underground\u201d scene.<\/p>\n Part of that uniqueness may have been due to the fact that San Francisco and L.A. have always had separate and distinct musical undercurrents \u2013 nobody confuses The Grateful Dead<\/strong> with The Doors<\/strong>, or The Byrds<\/strong> with Moby Grape<\/strong> \u2013 but a bigger factor is likely Translator’s emphasis on inventive, powerful guitar. While other bands in the 80s folded synthesizer textures into their music \u2013 often to great effect \u2013 Translator was always primarily a guitar band, led by the two-guitar front line of Robert Darlington<\/strong> and Steve Barton<\/strong>, with able, muscular support from bassist Larry Dekker<\/strong> and drummer Dave Scheff<\/strong>.<\/p>\n Though the band’s string of first-run releases concluded with 1986’s Evening of the Harvest<\/em> (this writer’s clear choice for their best, most fully-realized album), in some ways Translator never really went away. The band more or less went inactive after 1986, but all four members remain active musically. A highlight of their 21st<\/sup> century activity is Steve Barton’s 2011 album Projector<\/em><\/a>, named by this blog as one of that year’s best releases<\/a>. Translator reunites on occasion for live performances, and even released an album of new material — 2012’s Big Green Lawn<\/em> — that’s easily on a par with their 80s work (and thus highly recommended).<\/p>\n For a band that only released four LPs during their initial run, Translator is well-represented with posthumous compilations: 1986’s (inevitably-titled) Everywhere That I’m Not: A Retrospective<\/em> was the first, followed by 1985’s Translation<\/em>, then by the less-imaginatively titled Everywhere That We Were: The Best of Translator<\/em>, and most recently a UK-only collection titled, well, Collection<\/em>. And there’s also Different Time<\/em>, the hard-to-find 2008 two-disc CDR compilation of thirty demos, outtakes and live material.<\/p>\n So why, in 2015, another<\/em> compilation of music from Translator? There are at least two very good reasons. The first is summed up in the title of the new collection released by Omnivore Recordings<\/a>. Sometimes People Forget<\/em>, so let’s remind them. The second, better reason is that the new compilation doesn’t travel well-trodden musical ground: Sometimes People Forget<\/em> is 22 tracks of rare and previously unreleased material from the band, demos and outtakes spanning material that reaches back to the group’s earliest, pre-record deal days. (It’s worth pointing out there there is less than five minutes’ worth of overlapping music between Different Time<\/em> and the new Sometimes People Forget<\/em>.) And for those drawn in by Translator’s official canon, there are many riches to be found in these previously unissued tracks.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/musoscribe.com\/images\/translator01.jpg\"){kind=spacer}
<\/center>The band has always acknowledged a clear debt to The Beatles<\/strong>, but in Translator’s music there are strong echoes of the kind of guitar heroics found on albums by groups like Television<\/strong>. \u201cEven in the really early days of Translator, we didn’t really think of ourselves as a cross between anything,\u201d recalls Steve Barton. \u201cBut if we were forced to, [we’d admit to a] kind of a Beatles-meets-Cream<\/strong> [approach]. I love all of the Cream albums, but especially Wheels of Fire<\/em>. And there’s some Translator stuff that evoked that for me. And the Television comparison: I get that, especially with two [lead] guitars.\u201d<\/p>\n