You can feel confident dispensing with the occasionally necessary weighing of obscurity versus quality when considering the recent reissue of UK post-punks the Happy Refugees' 1984 mini-LP, Last Chance Saloon (originally released on Gymnasium Records). Augmented with the band's 1982 Gymnasium single, as well as outtakes and demos, Return to Last Chance Saloon (released by Acute Records this week, and only their second vinyl release) sheds light on one of the more curious, not to mention unknown, bands to emerge from the legion of artful noisemakers of early-'80s England.
To celebrate the rescuing of their music from the purgatory of record collector auctions, the band will play with Crystal Stilts at Brooklyn's Knitting Factory on Friday, December 9. You can also catch them live on WFMU's own Cherry Blossom Clinic, Saturday, December 10 from 3:00 to 6:00pm and at the Cake Shop in Manhattan later that same night.
Happy Refugees-Hamburger Boy
Happy Refugees-This is Cold
Though reissues come fast and furious, and, frankly, don't always warrant the enthusiasm with which their arrivals are often heralded, there's something special about the Happy Refugees. Particularly if you're a fan of the more ramshackle tunes of the UK DIY scene born out of the "Winter of Discontent."
Return to Last Chance Saloon works as a veritable clearing house for the various styles of the era. The mark of the Fall is unmistakable on "Hamburger Boy"; while the junk-shop skree of the Swell Maps pops up on "Inertia." Meanwhile, the title track chugs along with a bent Beefheartian groove that reminds one that there can indeed be a stark contrast between "punk" and "post-punk" if you want there to be. Yet the band intrigues most when they indulge a certain wide-screen pop wistfulness on the one hand (see: the soaring, keyboard-driven "This Is Cold") and almost dirgy melancholy on the other (see: "When the Tide Turns"). It can be quite moving, and the contrast perfectly encapsulates the band's mercurial, almost schizophrenic approach to songwriting. The end result is less pastiche than it is a rough-and-tumble portrait of a group of individuals using all the sounds at their disposal to create art during a rather dismal time in British history.
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