The release of archival material by the Stockton, CA-based outfit Torn Boys is yet another fine discovery from the fertile underground of the 1980s. 1983 offers selections from the year in which the band burned brief but bright. There’s vinyl in three colors (black, white, and green) and a compact disc available now through Independent Project Records, with all formats accompanied by a bonus DVD that contains newly shot videos for four of the album’s tracks.
The start of the Torn Boys resides in performances by school chums Jeffrey Clark and Kelly Foley, the pair singing and playing acoustic guitars at parties, clubs and cafés, where they reportedly rotated covers of Television, the Velvets, and “Mack the Knife” with their own material. The brief fragment “And Now” on 1983, credited as being live from the Blackwater Café, might be evidence of these beginnings.
To commence with strong (if not lofty) ambitions but in such a scaled back manner, just two guys with acoustic guitars, is indicative of the era and their locale; in the 1980s, outside of the cities with major music scenes, upstart musicians did what they could to get heard. Clark and Foley corralling drum machine programmer-synth player Duncan Atkinson and guitarist Grant-Lee Phillips so quickly into their scheme underscores that they were on the right creative track.
In the short span of their existence Torn Boys landed a radio performance on the student-run college station of the University of California at Davis); two songs from that KDVS show, “Mystery” and “Mack the Knife” are included here (sadly no recordings of Velvets or Television tunes seem to have survived). An additional KDVS number, “Fountain of Blood,” is found on the compilation Source: The Independent Project Records Collection; a different version of this song is included on 1983.
That the music of Torn Boys is only surfacing now in no way indicative of a modest level of quality. To the contrary, the contents of 1983 fit in very nicely with the sounds of subterranean California that surrounded them during the era. There is guitar shimmer in opener “See Through My Eyes” and in “May Day” that conjure a psychedelic (i.e. Paisley Underground) aura, while simultaneously, the use of drum machine and synth adds a new wave element to the equation.
To elaborate, this wavy component wasn’t an attempt to slither into the commercial zone but rather establishes Torn Boys as a non-retro inclined affair open to new possibilities. Perhaps the best description of the band’s music is art-punk, a style that thrived in California during this period. As “Mystery” plays, it’s pretty easy to consider Torn Boys as stylistic kin to such lauded Cali art-punk bands as Urinals, 100 Flowers, and especially during 1983’s closing track “Lady Luck,” the great and terribly underrated Human Hands (a similarity that’s really located in the angsty edge of the vocals).
But there are definitely distinctions to be made. Partly through the use of novel tech, “Mystery” and “Fountain of Blood” offer a post-punky Anglo vibe (notably without affectations) that hits its apex in the Joy Division-ist darkwave of “New Drums.” Also, that version of “Mack the Knife” is far more in the tradition of Kurt Weill (with a nod to the Gun Club) than Bobby Darin.
Yet another distinctive wrinkle are vocal harmonies described by IPR as Everly Brothers-like, a comparison that hits just right. Really, had Torn Boys stuck it out a while longer and wrote a few more songs they could’ve found a solid home on the Enigma label. But ‘twas not to be: Phillips and Clark relocated to Los Angels, effectively ending the group as they formed the decidedly higher profile Shiva Burlesque. Phillips is most noted for his work in Grant Lee Buffalo.
Remaining in Stockton, Foley went on to play in Broken Toys and in Hospital, the band of Gary Young, which places him on the margins of the Pavement narrative. Atkinson continued to play locally and work as a sound engineer, as well. This is all to say that Torn Boys was a starting point, not a fleeting highpoint. In 2024, the songs on 1983 cohere into a very appealing listen.
GRADED ON A CURVE:
A
