As a music journalist, you usually try to be objective about what you write. And then sometimes that all goes out of the window, when you suddenly discover your new favourite band.
It was like that the first time I saw Orange Juice, and James, and – this time – the Woodentops. There’s a Liverpool connection, too, because Rolo McGinty was briefly in the Wild Swans.
Here’s the live review from May 1986. Scroll down for a bonus track – a review of their album Giant.
THE CLASS OF '86
MELODY MAKER, May 24, 1986
THE WOODENTOPS
Liverpool University
THE Woodentops are a revelation. They open the door to magic and mystery in music again. They're everything pop ought to be, in a better world. Melody? Harmony? Danceability? Looks? Here, the combination is on a different plane than the usual banal equation. It's all there in "Good Thing" (new single, second in the set) - sublime, beguiling pop that shouts while it's still whispering, with a paradoxical beauty of so many layers that it becomes too simple for words.
And then they're everything that pop isn't: real emotion, real tension, real noise. Docility explodes into protracted fury, shudders into drama. There are hidden depths here and suddenly you're drowning in drums, then swept up by cross-currents of sound.
"You think we're a Velvets band," surmises Rolo after some heckling from his audience. It's not just some of the guitar sounds, the occasional New York vocal, the shades. There's that emotional intensity, that startling switch from gentleness to violence. They hit you and it feels like a kiss.
What do they have that's so extraordinary? A drummer who can destroy at 100 yards. Guitars that strum, scream, weep and joke. A garage organ. Voices that harmonise in whispers, like some Bohemian gospel group. Personality, but serving the sound. Modesty, charm and charisma.
The Woodentops are inspirational. Confess it - the band of '86.
Falling in love
THE WOODENTOPS
GIANT
Rough Trade
Melody Maker, June 28, 1986
"GOOD Thing" — a single — is the most perfect, unsentimental love song you'll hear all year. There's one "Good Thing" on this LP and any number of good things. Except that good is too weak a word. The Woodentops make you want to shout words like magic and adorable and glorious. So what happened to objectivity? It's hard to rationalise something which goes straight to the heart.
Objectively, there are 12 songs here and they don't sound alike and they all sound like The Woodentops: racing rhythms; sensuous whispers, breathless and suggestive; epic simplicity; irresistible beats; versatile guitars; harmonies; important organ; powerful drums; accordion, horns and more. There are tunes in abundance but they're never anything as banal as catchy. There are words that ring true.
Though it's never less than individual and new, there are echoes of anything that's been hip in the last 25 years, and probably a few things that weren't: The Velvets to The Shadows, Suicide to The Distractions (forgotten pop). Love ... Love - the emotion not the group - is what it's all about, even when the songs aren't ("History" has something to say about now). Sigue Sigue Sputnik try to be about sex and just end up sleazy: The Woodentops, being natural, are tender, excited, daring, impatient, and totally seductive.
It is a reined-in version of the live passion but that makes it no less desirable. And though each song starts with total control, they don't always end that way. "Good Thing", holding back for so long, flies off at the last with a cry of "feeling" - which sums up the whole record.
Woodentops' own words are the best. "Travelling Man" goes "Destination mystery, destination joy" and that's exactly what travelling through this is like. "Get It On" has guitars reverberating into urgency; "Good Thing" trembles with beauty; "Give It Time" whispers when it should scream; "Love Train" steams into rock 'n' roll; "Hear Me James" twinkles; "Love Affair" thrills; "So Good Today" hums in a celebration worthy of the Lovin' Spoonful; "Shout" goes wild with repetition; "History" sings with brilliant words and tune; "Travelling Man" rumbles jaggedly; "Last Time" evokes an empty space, and "Everything Breaks" ends with tense, chunky sorrow. You don't know whether to laugh or cry, or just turn the record over again.
This is what all pop should be like, except we'd probably die of delight if it was. They call a song "Love Affair": you could have a love affair with this record.
Watch the Woodentops
Here they are playing Love Train in 1987.
And for those who might not know where the name came from… hard to believe, but my generation grew up on this stuff.
Hypnobeat!
Great stuff. Love The Wooden tops. They have a new LP out.