6. The Scene Is NowTotal Jive
They’re friends of ours from New York and of the people who continue to this day of the people on Total Jive only the two guys who formed the band – Chris Nelson and Philip Dray – are the people that have stayed in the group, other members have come and gone. That was their second record and they were part of the no wave scene but they seemed, even at the time, not part of any scene at all. Their first record was called Burn All Your Records, but every one of their records is amazing; it’s their combination of melody and great lyrics on very wide ranging topics and Chris’s singing which is truly unique. Bar None Records put out a compilation of theirs from their first four records a few years ago and I was asked to write liner notes but I couldn’t do it as I just didn’t know how to describe them so I just wrote one sentence. We covered ‘Yellow Sarong’ (on Fakebook) and we’ve done a lot of shows with them over the years so there are a lot of connections between our band and their band. I think I mainly picked Total Jive just so I could mention the song ‘Sartre’s Acid Trip’.
