Urban Verbs

For no reason other than that I'm listening to their second album as I'm typing this stuff up, I'm gonna tell you about the Urban Verbs. They were a New Wave-ish band from Washington, D.C., in the late Seventies through the mid-Eighties. They were at best a regional hit and have mostly descended into obscurity now. That's a shame, as they were unique and very good.

Click the link above for history, etc. As I said, the Urban Verbs were different. For starters, they were fronted by a poet, Roddy Frantz, not a singer. As a result, he tended to declaim his lyrics, and not sing them, not unlike Patti Smith. It took some getting used to. I've found most folks either like it or never can stand it. But they were great lyrics!

Every morning I go under the city,
Handful of change takes me away from it all.
I leave my problems up on the street
And ride the subway where it's always warm.
Subways, we're all going the same direction.
Subways, we're all going the same speed.
Subways, it all gets obscured,
Then it begins to make sense.

They also stood out for a synthesizer player, Robin Rose, who pushed the range of his instrument. He could play regular keyboard stuff, but he more frequently used the synth for bird noises, hums and buzzes, echoing screeches, anything he could wrest from it. If you've heard Pere Ubu, you have an idea, as he clearly follows Allen Ravenstine's trailblazing path.

All the music was written by guitar player Richard Goldstein. He's now working in the music department at NPR. His guitar sound was smooth sometimes, slashing others. It was a large sound, not unlike The Edge of U2, though in a more integrated way. The band's instruments managed to come together perfectly, interlocking into a driving force.

Because their frontman was the brother of Chris Frantz of Talking Heads, they got some comparison to that band, and it's not quite right. The Verbs were a straight-ahead rock band with special touches and a sound that hid its angles underneath a shimmering surface. It would be fair to say, in a broad sense, they were New Wave. But they were also pretty non-commercial.

Their first album, Early Damage wasn't particularly noteworthy. A dark, muddy production that tried to shoe-horn the band into a stereotypical English "New Wave" sound only smothered the songs. Two songs did still stand out: "Terminal Bar" and the fantastic "Acceleration." Built on a walking, rising bass line, with the drums snapping along like shoe heels, only to be brought up short by a stuttering chorus, then snapped back to that bass line, it's far and away the showcase of the album. Too bad they didn't use it on their second album.

Next time, they had the wisdom to hook up with producer Mike Thorne of Wire fame, who was far, far more sympathetic to them. He cleaned up the sound, placed each instrument in a secure place that still meshed with everyone else, and let Rose's synths really shine while keeping Goldstein's guitar front and center. From the smooth, rumbling "Subways," through frenetic rockers like "The Angry Young Men," and "Frenzy," to the taunting "Ring, Ring," to the love song "The Only One of You," to story-songs like "Tina Grey" and "The Good Life," there's not a duff track on the album. It's playing right now on the CD. Even after twenty years, I still regularly listen to the whole thing.

If that's not a recommendation, I don't know what else is. Unfortunately, the albums aren't on CD. You can search around for the songs on Kazaa, etc., or you can try the Web for folks who will dub it to CD for you. It's worth your time. Trust me.

"Ring, ring, my telephone's talking...."