Many months back, David Anthony Singer sent me a gorgeous song, The Orchids, from Califone. I knew it was a cover and that the original version was by Psychic TV, a band I vaguely remember hearing about freshman year in High School. Born out of earlier punk bands Alternative TV and Throbbing Gristle, Psychic TV began publishing a monthly series of 23 live albums in 1986, but stopped without explanation after 17.The tenth, a picture disk known as Album 10, could only be obtained by submitting tokens contained in each of the previous nine releases. The band subsequently earned an entry in the Guinness Book of World Records for most records released in one year.
I hunted down the original version of The Orchids and enjoyed it immensely. Whereas Califone's version is hushed and melancholic, the original has an innocent, naive quality to it. Its the kind of track I would expect to turn up in the next Wes Anderson Movie, as at the rate he's moving through the Kinks catalogue, he'll soon be up to the "Come Dancing" era.
DOWNLOAD THE ORCHIDS BY PSYCHIC TV
VIDEO BONUS!!!! I enjoyed "The Orchids" so much that I went searching for more from Psychic TV and happened upon "Godstar", a pop nugget that pays tribute to Brian Wilson from the Rolling Stones, using the riff from Brown Sugar as its main motif. It sounds entirely unlike "The Orchids". Rather, it sounds to me a lot like Echo and the Bunnymen, Love and Rockets, and even the Pixies. Heres the video:
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