The Dream Syndicate – What Can I Say? No Regrets…Out Of The Grey + Live, Demos & Outtakes (Fire)

The Dream Syndicate add some muscle to their 1986 album, Out Of The Grey, making this 3-disc set a startling improvement to an album never really got its due.

With a name like The Dream Syndicate (taken from a pre-Velvets John Cale/Tony Conrad band) they just had to be cool. And they were, thanks to their 1982 debut album, The Days Of Wine And Roses. This was a band lumped into what was called The Paisley Underground…post-punk rockers (mostly from LA) with strong psychedelic leanings and lots of jangle. Others include The Rain Parade, The Three O’ Clock and the early Bangles (then The Bangs).

Like most of these acts (The Bangles not included) they received more accolades than record sales at the time. But like their like-minded brothers and sisters in Dunedin, they have become very influential over the passage of time.

At the end of ’84, The Dream Syndicate were floundering having lost guitarist Karl Precoda and bass player Kendra Smith and been dropped by their label. Remaining members Steve Wynn and Dennis Duck threw in the towel briefly, but then added guitarist Paul B. Cutler and bassist Mark Walton, they gave it another shot in ’85.

This is where  we pick up the story.

The resulting album, Out Of Grey, produced by Cutler, was released in ’86 but failed to rekindled the fire generated by their first records. It was criticised at the time for being too “slick” sounding and despite complaints of “selling out” it didn’t. The band limped on for a few more years, splitting again in ’89 and have since reunited in 2012 and, with Wynn and Duck on board, have been making new music again.

Recently signed to Fire Records, the label has just issued this 3-CD box set complete with a book full of interviews, photos and essays (which I haven’t seen) and 51 tracks (many previously unreleased) which I have heard.

Despite a new remastering job, the original album still lacks some spark, but the two extra discs more than make up for it. Disc 2 finds the band playing a set in Rochester, New York, at a small club called Scorgies on June 16^th, 1985. Your intrepid reviewer had seen the original version of the band at the same venue just two years earlier and can vouch for the rock & roll cred of both the venue and the musicians.

Listen to Out Of The Grey Live At Scorgies 1985

Freshly regrouped, the “new” Dream Syndicate sound explosive here, playing mostly new tunes that will be tamed by comparison when the album is eventually recorded and released the following year.

The third disc is just as good featuring demos and covers never heard before…Wynn and company play tunes by Neil Young, Alice Cooper, Pink Floyd, Cream…even The Temptations.

So, these additional discs of live cuts and rare demos more than make up for whatever was lacking in the original Out Of The Grey, which, to be honest, with 35 years hindsight now sounds pretty good as well.

Marty Duda

Click here to order What Can I Say? No Regrets…