my power pop addiction, no. 130 (202)

The Nerves are another band that emerged out of the fertile LA pop scene as it began to take shape in the mid 70s as a reaction against the FM radio rock monolith. They're significant not only for their seminal influence but also for the way all three members went on to do good things after the band dissolved (the Breakaways, the Beat, the Plimsouls). The songs on their one and only eponymous EP, released on Greg Shaw's Bomp Records in 1976, are somewhat poorly recorded, but charmingly so, with a satisfying anti-corporate DIY spirit. I don't mind lo-fi recordings when the lo-fi-ness comes out of necessity as opposed to being a pretentious affect or the result of laziness... The Nerves will always be best known for having written and recorded the first version of Hangin' on the Telephone, which later became a hit for Blondie, but I'd have to say that tonight's selection is my favorite song they did. I dig the way it effortlessly throws one hook on top of another. For some reason, whenever I hear it I think it sounds like something on Van Morrison's Moondance or Tupelo Honey. But that's just me. Mostly, though, I just groove on its bouncy, stripped-down tunefulness. It's the sound of a band trying to change the rules of the game...