listening today to michael shelley's always excellent radio show on wfmu, he and fellow dj gaylord fields started discussing the leopards, a 70s band out of kansas city. they're notable mainly due to the fact that they sound remarkably like the late-60s/early-70s era kinks. i've since "acquired" both their '77 debut, "kansas city slickers" (moon records) and their '88 followup, "magic still exists" (voxx???). it's pretty mindblowing. the tone is there, the themes, lead singer dennis pash pulls the ray vocal off, and they manage the ultimate challenge-- the stealing of the riffs without actually stealing-- with ease. and they're pretty solid albums in their own right. worth checking.
which led me to a band i'd been meaning to mention for a while. chicago's green released an album in 1987 that ranks up there with any of the great records from that era. "elaine mackenzie", like the aforementioned records, owes it life blood to the davies, but what stuck me initially to the band was their sounding like the early pye singles and dragging the kinks oeuvre through it. leader jeff lescher's songwriting is so self-assured that when it hits the wrecklessness of the band (harmonies go everywhere!), it's pure fucking awesomeness. the first four tunes match pretty much any out of the box lineup that i've heard. dig this out of obscurity. i still have the goddamn tdk tape that was given to me with this on it.
sadly, outside of their followup single "REM" (haha) and the next pretty damn great LP "white soul", i don't own anything of theirs. that's a crime.
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