Wynn has since enjoyed a solo career fronting The Miracle 3, as well as collaborations with REM‘s Pete Buck as The Baseball Project. Wynn and Duck took the severance cash and regrouped with Mark Walton and Paul Cutler for Out Of The Grey (1986) and Ghost Stories (1988), recorded by Neil Young producer Elliot Mazer. When Medicine Show flopped, A&M politely asked The Dream Syndicate to leave. He became a screenwriter and later formed his own band, Last Days of May. Tension between Wynn and Karl Precoda resulted in Precoda quitting the band by the end of 1984. It was a more psychotic album than the debut, drawing inspiration from Big Star‘s Third/Sister Lovers and Neil Young‘s Tonight’s The Night. The Dream Syndicate were an immediate critical success and the album was picked up in the UK by Rough Trade, who issued it in 1983, and the band soon found themselves opening shows for REM and U2 in the States.īut after a punishing coast-to-coast tour – and with the major labels circling – Kendra Smith quit the band to form first Rainy Day, then Opal, with the Rain Parade‘s David Roback.ĭave Provost came onboard for Medicine show (1984), recorded for A&M and overseen by Blue Öyster Cult/ Clash producer Sandy Pearlman. The whole thing was recorded in three days. The Days Of Wine and Roses combined Creedence choogle with the attack of The Fall and Pere Ubu. The group signed to Slash Records, LA’s leading indie imprint at the time, for whom they recorded their exhilarating debut LP in September 1982. Live gigs were freewheeling adventures in sound, with the band distorting Wynn’s songs into new shapes, and the Syndicate soon became major players in the local psychedelically inclined scene which included Rain Parade, The Three O’clock and The Bangs (later The Bangles). The Dream Syndicate covered The Lonely Bull, Season of the Witch, See That My Grave Is Kept Clean, She Turns to Flowers and other songs. Eight days later they recorded a debut EP in singer Steve Wynn’s basement, releasing it on his own Down There label. Taking their name from La Monte Young’s early 60s drone project, The Dream Syndicate’s first show was at Hollywood’s Club Lingerie in January 1982. They were maniacally devoted to a brand of tense, wired rock ‘n’ roll that obviously echoed their inspirations – as well as drawing close to contemporaries Felt and The Go-Betweens. Thursday, March 17, 10pm, Hotel Vegas Patioįriday, March 18, 10:20pm, St.Emerging from the early-80s US paisley underground with their meticulously wrought concoction of The Velvet Underground and Television, The Dream Syndicate were The Strokes ten years before The Strokes. After all these years, we’ve settled into this thing that we really like, and the kind of music we all dig.” The Dream Syndicate It fits right in and ties up all the loose ends. “This record almost feels like a summation – the sweet spot right down the middle of those three. “We’re really proud of the three records we’ve done after reuniting,” notes Wynn. The band’s new deal with Fire also includes Ultraviolet Battle Hymns and True Confessions, a new LP out in June. “It’s not like we haven’t been playing those songs anyway – the last show we did in Brooklyn in December we opened with ‘Until Lately.’ But I don’t think we’ve ever done the album all the way through – that’ll be fun.” “This year we’ll really be embracing The Days of Wine and Roses,” Wynn says. The singer-songwriter and his bandmates – guitarist Jason Victor, bassist Mark Walton, keyboardist Chris Cacavas, and drummer/SXSW virgin Dennis Duck – return to Austin for two shows: one for British label Fire Records, who just reissued the outfit’s out-of-print 1986 LP Out of the Grey in the box set What Can I Say? No Regrets, and the other to celebrate the 40th anniversary of that iconic debut, which Fire re-releases later in 2022. “After all these years, we’ve settled into this thing that we really like, and the kind of music we all dig.” – Steve Wynn
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