REVIEW: Tommy Keene, Songs from the Film (Geffen)
- Joann D. Ball
More than ten years after its initial issuance, Geffen Records has finally released Tommy Keene's major label debut Songs From the Film on compact disc. For those who have treasured Keene's unique brand of power pop since the record's critically acclaimed 1986 release, having SongsFrom the Film on CD is a wish come true. Finally, there's no need to worry about how to replace a well-worn vinyl or cassette copy of what was a hard-to-find musical gem. After relishing Songs on disc, one can only hope that a re-release of Keene's second and final long-player for Geffen, 1989's stellar Based on Happy Times, is also planned. Even though the CD revolution was well underway when Based on Happy Times hit music stores, few discs turned up in the racks because Keene was dropped from the major label around the same time.
But let's go back to the mid-1980s, when the snap, crackle and pop of records was a common experience, when portable cassette players were still somewhat new and when college radio was energing from campus basements. Back then, Tommy Keene was hearalded as The Next Big Thing and it seemed as though a pop revolution was just around the corner. Coming out of the same Southeastern U.S. scene as college radio faves R.E.M. and Let's Active, Keene attracted a host of major labels majors by virtue of the strength of the EP's Places That Are Gone and Back Again (Try), his two releases on North Carolina's Dolphin Records. Geffen eventually signed Keene, and recognizing that his sound was descended from the classic pop of the Beatles, sent him and his band off to Beatles' producer George Martin's Air Studios in Montserrat to record. The magical result was Songs From the Film, produced by the Fab Four's old engineer Geoff Emerick, who captured the essence of Keene and company's sound and the spirit of unfettered and straightforward pop. The record's title itself is Keene's nod to his Liverpudlian forefathers' influences as it refers to the way the movie soundtracks to "Help" and "Hard Day's Night" were prefaced by the unforgettable phrase "Songs From the Film."
Listening to it now, it's not too hard to figure out why there was much talk about Keene and the heightened anticipation about the release of Songs. Keene's unmistakable pure powerpop stood out amidst the New Wave of the period and recalled a pre-MTV era when songs were memorable without the aid of a video. Keene's sincere and emotional vocal presence is wrapped in and around irresistible melodies and textured, chiming guitars on songs like the opener "Places That Are Gone," "In Our Lives," "Call on Me" and "As Life Goes By." And as the record's first US single, the bass and beat driven swirls of "Listen to Me" put Keene on the airwaves of hip commercial FM stations and cool college stations. Remember how great "Places" sounded next to David & David's "Welcome to the Boomtown" and 'til Tuesday's "What About Love," two other great singles from stellar 1986 releases?
The 1998 version of Songs From the Film features 21 tracks, including the original 12 cuts (slightly altered here by the previously unreleased "Take Back Your Letters" slipped in as track #11) plus bonus songs. Resurfacing here are five of the six cuts (minus the live version of "Kill Your Sons") from the Run Now EP, which was released almost a year after the long-player. The song "Run Now" has the electricity and charge that has always been one of Keene's most distinctive features, and the stories that are "Back Again" and "They're In Their Own World" capture the quirks of relationships and friendships. Rounding out the musical flashback are three other previously unreleased tracks including the cover of The Flamin' Groovies' "Teenage Head", which Keene and his band often performed live.
The resurrected and enhanced version of Songs From the Film has a musical flow that takes the listener on a memorable sonic journey. It works amazingly well, because it has an inherent balance between Keene's softer introspective songs like "Underworld" and "The Story Ends" and more aggressive and upstart assaults from that are "Papaer Words and Lies" and "Gold Town." Geffen was wise to release Songs in such a way that it captures a critical moment in Keene's career and in pop music history. While one wonders what would have happened if Geffen had stuck by Keene almost a decade ago, releasing Songs at a time when power-pop once again emerges as a viable option for listeners otherwise burned out by the latest music fads may finally give the sound the push it needs to finally breakthru from the underground.
Despite the meteoric rise and subsequent crash and burn of his major label excursion, Keene persevered and continued to ride the rock 'n' roll roller coaster by returning to his indy label roots and playing the clubs. Since the early 1990s, Keene has looked back not in anger but with true dedication to his passion by releasing a collections of old and new material. And actually his Spring 1998 effort Isolation Party on Matador Records - bristles with the same kind of promise of his two major label records. Perhaps once and for all, the long overdue CD release of Songs From the Film will get Keene's name up on the big, bright marquee of rock and roll.
