Tuesday, August 2, 2022

The 1981 Listening Post - Doug and the Slugs - Wrap It!

 Doug and the Slugs - Wrap It!



#589

1981 Housekeeping

Doug and the Slugs

Wrap It!

Genre: Canada’s second best national treasure

4.25 out of 5



Highlights:

Dangerous

Real Enough

Not on the Corner

Wrong Kind of Right







I’ve told the story before.

Me. Walking around the streets of NYC. 

Wander into a thrift store.

They have records. 

I buy Red Snerts and a record by a band called Doug and the Slugs.


This is that one. I haven’t heard it in 30 years so Imma take it for myself.


That opener…what a beast. Slow it down and it’s maybe not as great, but John Watsons incessant bass drum is killer. It announces they are a party band that is here to rock your socks off. How was this not a hit? 

They follow it up with a 50s Doo-Wop fake out. It’s a trash can hit that immediately flips into ska. “Real Enough” is one of the best tracks of the year. 


And that was it. For some idiotic reason I listened to those two tracks and probably had to run to dinner and never got back to it. I mean, I put those two on every mix tape for a couple years and bopped to it in my family’s van driving around New Jersey but the rest of it? Somehow I didn’t get to it. 


How’s the rest?

“Not on the Corner” is a blazing pub rocker. 

“Wrong Kind of Right”…is it a Christmas tune? A novelty track? A great track? Definitely the last part. It just sounds like a Christmas song cuz of the bells and that Jew’s Harp gives it that novelty feels bit…it’s just a good song. It’s the forebear of a Barenaked Ladies kinda tune.

All of Side One is worth your time all the way to the rocking’ spy tune “Freshman Alibi”.


Let’s flip this bitch over for the first time.


This is a party record. “Forget About Me”, “Embarrassed”, these are basement party tunes. It’s ends with “River”, the make-out song. This record is supposed to be a party. A kegger. For that, it’s a keeper. 


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7rkVfSi2QPY


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