The Godrays - Songs for TV Stars 7"

The Godrays – Songs for TV Stars 7”

Vernon Yard, 1996

Acquired: Love Garden Shotgun Room, Used, 2008

Price: $.25

 

The title track from this double 7” is probably the most impressive song in the Godrays’ tiny catalog. I can’t guarantee this, as I haven’t heard their full length—also titled Songs for TV Stars—which amazingly only features two tracks from this 7”. I totally expected this to be a selection from the forthcoming album but nope! The Godrays know how to do an album proper! Strangely, the real overlap comes with “Crummy,” which appeared in a different form of the other Godrays’ 7” I own. This version of “Crummy” was recorded into a four-track, features only front man Alex Kemp, and isn’t nearly as good as the version on the “Crummy” single. Partly because the pretty little synth line gets way distorted into obscurity, but mostly because Phoebe Summersquash’s backing vocals make that song. It’s not bad, it just pales in comparison. I wonder which version shows up on the album? Oh yeah, I was talking about the impressiveness of “Songs for TV Stars.” Kemp suckers you in by laying out a serpentine bass line at the outset and littering the track’s empty space with spare little guitar notes. And then he just hammers you with the chorus and its big wall of guitars, Summersquash backing vocals poking through, and a mightily satisfying melody. “No Arms are Good for Holding” and the brooding instrumental “Film Music 2” stray from the pop-tinted glow of their first 7” and Small Factory’s entirely blissful output, but Kemp and Summersquash handle this newfound heavy indie rock with aplomb.

Willfuly Obscure is once again the only place that has the Jams.