The 1981 Listening Post - The Saints - The Monkey Puzzle

The Saints - The Monkey Puzzle

#67

February 1981

The Saints

The Monkey Puzzle

Genre: Garage Rock

4 out of 5

Highlights:

Miss Wonderful

Monkey (Let’s Go)

Requisite 80s cover: “Dizzy Miss Lizzy”. A damn perfect version of a song that fits their style and idiom. I dare say it brings them closer to The Replacements than the Stones. 

I know nothing of the Ed Kuepper era Saints. I know that, later, both entities would put out stellar discs. But this is the first Saints record without that founding member. So, that makes this, I guess, a Chris Bailey record. And if that means we get more of him, I can’t wait. 

These songs are staunchly in the retro-60s almost mono vein. Which means that they could stand side by side with The Long Ryders but also are about to get swept away by gated drumming. The same way that all those great nugget bands of the 60s couldn’t hold George Martin’s codpiece.

If you love early Stones, like Aftermath era Stones, this is for you.

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/566mHg5gdWKA03e3PgaOZ5?si=hX26WRfEQzqtRFXh-fDNig 

The 1984 Listening Post - The Saints - A Little Madness to Be Free

The Saints - A Little Madness to Be Free

#198

July 1984

The Saints

A Little Madness to Be Free

4.25 out of 5

Walk Away

The Photograph

The Angels

Ghost Ships

Let’s stay down under for a wee bit more, since the sheer output from that country is staggering. I’ve heard a lot of sounds from that place but this is the first time I can think of that someone is aping Mick Jagger as blatantly as Chris Bailey here. I heard their two 1978 records and they were fine, but this is much more lush and picaresque. Bailey may be trying to sound like a bluesman from down under but he’s fooling himself. He’s a punk who is growing up and disillusionment in life and the world is catching up to him, these songs are those of an old soul, someone with his own map of the world in his voice. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZwm5eci0xA