Leaving Trains' Kill Tunes
Classic Garage/Roots-Punk 1986 release on SST records
It’s odd trying to explain to people acts that for a brief moment had swag coming out the pockets, particularly when that moment lasted for less than 18 months. For our own part, we wonder how much is related to the fact that we saw this very GD tour and it blew our damn doors off. Not enough people cite singer Falling James’ (Moreland) Iggy fascination, and in concert she* did the Iggy worm, winding up on the ground before the stage writing and crawling on the floor. It happened four decades ago and we can still see it. Amazing performance. (Here’s a tape from Maxwell’s during that tour.)
James got in on the ground floor of the L.A. punk explosion, as a sort of satellite franchise of the Paisley Underground crew in Hollywood, forming a band (the Downers) with David Roback (Opal, Mazzy Star) in 1980, a year before he joined his brother Steven’s band, Rain Parade. (Roback had been in a band with Susanna Hoffs’ brother, John Hoffs, called the Unconscious) before launching Leaving Trains in ‘80/’81, releasing their 1984 debut, Well Down Blue Highway.
It’s more roots-punk but it has some of the same shambling, self-destructive, imminent implosion energy that the Replacements would make their trademark, and which Kill Tunes also captures so keenly. The bassist/guitar combo of Tom and Manfred Hofer carried over from James’ high school band, the Mongrels, before leaving the band after the Kill Tunes tour. While Blue Highway is a good effort, it’s quite tame compared to the rocket-fuel of their subsequent 12-song 30-minute SST debut.
Surely part of what makes this disc work is the balance between the more tuneful roots rock of the debut and this garage-punk offshoot. These slower tracks offer some relief from the swirling mayhem of the other tracks. The road song “Kinette” conjures a romance left behind, leaving James “dying by the mile, somewhere // Over the backyard fence, I know you’re there” over a jangly psych-folk hook. It’s also a good example of James’ clever, quirky readings, as with the elongated “the sed-a-tion, is wearing of-ff.”
The final song is another of these slower, roots tunes with a clear reference to second album Gun Club with the lonely bluesy peals of guitar in the opening. Always a favorite of ours, it conjures a sort of movie ending with the idea of a long fly ball that falls just short of leaving the house. “Send me to the minors, and I will go down,” James sings, “but I will pitch my way back into this town… suspended from the rafters, a stranded sensation.” The last verse suggests “the promise of the OUT-field, falls dead on the Warning Track,” before a lone acoustic riff rides into the sunset.
The rest of the album is a rip-roaring hook-lined garage-punk free-for-all.
Most people get a bit fixated on the pretty dream pop “Light Rain,” which very much sounds like a Dream Syndicate song, with it’s tonal (versus chord) driven sound surfing sharp scimitars of chiming distortion, with a rubbery bass riff, as James relates a heroin-related self-destruction story. (Are there any other heroin metaphors?) Particularly fetching is the way James escalates from “can you hear anything I say” to the shouted “can you hear anything at all,” pantomiming the frustration of those trying to pick up the pieces.
It’s followed by what almost sound like a 33rpm blues song played at 78, “She’s Looking at You,” which is just about the most infectious thing the Trains ever wrote. Indeed it is probably the most infectious thing James ever wrote, but on the next album, the new bassist, Eric Stringer wrote the following song, which I suggest may be the peppiest punk song imaginable that doesn’t cross the line into cloying, “Walking With You”
Jerked around again, it’s time I finally learned
I’m Lonely, I’m Tired, I’m Sick of Being Burned,
You can deal with Love if that’s your idea of fun,
But I me I think I’ll stick with alcohol & guns
Anyway. “She’s Looking At You” isn’t really much lyrically, but it’s a helluva catchy tune. Guitarist Tom Hofer really outdid himself with those guitar breaks.
We feel we’re not alone in saying that Leaving Trains were our gateway drug for discovering The Saints, via one of their most pissy, bitchy songs, “Private Affair,” with the kind of blistering kiss-off at which James excels. “You say you got all the answers, put’em all on the telephone,” he sings. “We got new thoughts new ideas, we’re all so groovy, it’s just a shame we’ve all seen the same old movies.”
No surprise then when James rips into that same orifice two songs later on the blistering “10 Generations,” channeling Patti Smith’s “My Generation,” as he delivers the sad verdict, “We’re all posers, we’re all fakes / we’re the same has-beens we’ve grown to hate.” The break is just James asking, “Where are they now” as the guitars slashes and tears down the edifices we just built in disgust.
“Kinette” closes the first just as “Warning Track,” closes the album – remember this was the era of vinyl, and so there were really two sides and honestly, it’s hard to pick a favorite, though usually the second side’s obviously weaker songs. Not so much here.
James, who would not only follow Iggy into dresses, but eventually embrace trans, offers perhaps his first and best piece on identity with the punk rock “Black.”
I’m not black and I’m not white, I’m irrespect of creed, what you can’t define, uptown, downtown, across the reservation, you can’t hear a word I’m saying...
Call what you don’t want 'charity' / the color of my skin, coincidence, guess I’m just a ghost again
It also has a really tight great close. Not enough acts close with that brief final flourish. We miss it. Similarly, on the opening of "Vicki," the double tracked vocals are singing stuff behind his vocals, it’s “Frere Jacques” all over again. Really love the machine gun drum open to. The musicianship of this album definitely gets understated. You can tell these guys have been playing together for several years.
It’s something of a vamp-style throw-away but the rambunctious spirit makes it charming, in the way of old rom-coms where stalking was seen as romance. “I would rather firebomb your house, than see you with those another guys,” James sings.
We can only assume that – given the associations – when he sings “I always try to stand on your side of the stage,” he is talking about Paisley Underground garage-pop act, The Bangles, and their singer/guitarist, Vicki Peterson.
The penultimate song is one of my favorites, as James returns to his self-destructive Romper Room with “Terminal Island.”
Because I’ve already drowned in your eyes / Always there behind
Planted in a field of depression, just keeping an eye on the crows
And the runway, burning down, we hide in the underground
… maybe we’ll be here tomorrow / a terminal island always surrounds us”
The break is this classic C&W riff drenched in reverb, signaling how quickly cowpunk has snuck up on everyone. Honesty it’s nuts he ending with warning track instead of this but it is the slower song.
There was a dancer on the navy base,
a kick under the table and brush against her arm
Grey stretching steeples arising from the base
there is a certain grace in a self, destruct, shun
In writing this piece, we discovered that our adoration was not just our own. It turns out no less than Tom Waits expressed they were a favorite around the time this album came out, according to am album review in the music magazine, Nerve.
It would take way too much time to chronicle James' comings-and-goings or the revolving backing band. For a long time, James was a LA Weekly columnist. The band fizzled out around 2001. A great wit, and what an album.
