Review: The Bongos' 'The Shroud Of Touring: Live In 1985'

GUEST POST: Jordan Oakes

As a band, they marched to the beat of a different bongo.

It was post punk/power pop—equal parts jittery and melodic—influenced as much by the legendary group Television as the sound of AM radio. Songwriter Richard Barone’s sweet vocals, which evoke the Paul McCartney of “And I Love Her,” were the perfect foil for his fuzzy, sometimes snarly, sometimes jangly, guitar.

The compelling tension of the band’s approach came from the push and pull of a ‘60s pop center and an avant garde husk. Imagine the milk-wholesome Herman’s Hermits making a deal with the devil, selling their soul to hedonism. Or The Searchers on heroin needles and pins. The Bongos flirt with danger; and not just by virtue of their seamless, inventive union of bipolar genres.

At other times, they settle into a wet, dreamy amalgam of ornate arrangements and cushiony production. Parts of 1985’s Beat Hotel are like being served a plate of tangy cream cheese in a blanket of meringue. I love their sound, but I like it rough.

The Bongos were in their quintessence when playing live.

They were a pop experiment that was fitfully arty and aggressive, laced with abstractly rendered Baronian themes such as space travel, sweltering climates, biblical mythology, and primal longing. “Telephoto Lens” has a powerful riff that cleverly drains the blues from The Yardbirds and does something in a different vein.

Assertive punk pop ditties like “In the Congo” made The Bongos an edgy East Coast antithesis to the breezier skinny-tie bands rocking Los Angeles. There were other New York combos like The Individuals and Necessaries. They all captured a sense of angst and twitchiness that furthered the power pop cause while embracing irony and art damage.

The Shroud of Touring has done something magnificent.

While most live albums are merely an attempt to amp up and de-frill an unduplicatable studio sound, this collection finds The Bongos right in their element. The songs from 1985’s Beat Hotel are thrown into the cold, unforgiving water of live performance, emerging with a splash and moving along swimmingly.

I was lucky enough to have seen The Bongos twice—in Hollywood in 1984, and in St. Louis a year later. To say they rock is an understatement. Hearing these tracks, from three very different-sounding albums, lined up like ducks in a row, is a revelation.

“Apache Dancing” is a great tune, but on Beat Hotel it was overdressed in a busy arrangement.

Here it’s pared down to the same kind of blunt, winnowed ecstasy as the songs from their flawless debut, Drums Along the Hudson. They even include the Tommy Roe-ish “I’ve Got a Secret,” which appeared only on Barone’s Nuts and Bolts album from 1983, a side project he released (probably never to be reissued, sadly) with member James Mastro, who’s part of the Touring lineup.

It’s the best of The Bongos played live, all 17 songs filtered through the same telephoto lens, glowing in the dark.

CD Available From Jem Records May 23

Jordan Oakes founded, published, and edited the Yellow Pills power pop magazine beginning in 1991, and compiled five Yellow Pills CD compilations beginning in 1993. His journalism has also appeared in Sound Choice, Speak, The Riverfront Times, The Christian Science Monitor, Rolling Stone’s ‘Alt-Rock-a-Rama’ book, and elsewhere. He’s a published poet and occasional standup comedian. He loves dogs and dog-eared magazines.

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