#smith syndicate

[knightofreveries]

I've got a lot of wips right now...

[doomandgloomfromthetomb]

Kendra Smith - KCRW's Morning Becomes Eclectic, Santa Monica, California, May 31, 1995

It's always nice to stumble across a Kendra Smith recording I haven't heard before. Her discography, whether with the Dream Syndicate, Clay Allison/Opal or solo is not exactly extensive. But that's OK, because it's all so good. This half-hour KCRW session was taped during a promotional jaunt in support of her solo record on 4AD, Five Ways of Disappearing — though "promotional" is a strong word, perhaps. As discussed in the interview with host Chris Douridas, Kendra only planned to play one show over in NYC before hightailing it back to Humboldt County. Interesting to hear her talk a bit about her own unique ideas of how to present her stuff onstage, though ...

You could certainly tag Smith as a recluse, but really, it just seems like she became increasingly disinterested in the machinations of the music industry. And fair enough! Still, listening to the moody (yet playful) tunes she performs here, I'm pulling for a Kendra comeback one of these days. That song Smith contributed to the Leave No Trace soundtrack a few years back and her guest spot on the Dream Syndicate reunion LP were both terrific.

[templarorder]

i love this fucking trend

[patrickelvinart]

Soul Syndicate Band

Soul Syndicate Band feat. Tony Tuff

From the movie: Words, Sound and Power

Soul Syndicate Band

.

[getdownonfryeday]

there is a reality where jacob frye gets wasted at pubs while singing "heaven knows i'm miserable now" to himself after roth's death

[surrender-souls]

killer7 did something to my brain. you guys ever think of hand in killer7? i have so many thoughts, so many questions. forefront of my mind rn is what was kun lan’s taxi driver career in japan like.

[musickickztoo]

Earl "Chinna" Smith *August 6, 1955

[sapphanimates]

roger craig smith voices a character in the megamind tv show.

[nando161mando]

"Today on 'Yeah Nah Pasaran!' on 3CR @sexenheimer & I celebrate our 200th episode by talking to each other about stuff, including by way of providing inadequate answers to the questions posed by YOU, the listener!"

via @slackbastard

[bandcampsnoop]

3/23/23.

The Dream Syndicate have been a growing favorite over the past decades. My friend Rick was always pushing them, and while I never resisted, I never really embraced the band. However, I can state unequivocally that "That's What You Always Say" was an immediate favorite. "Halloween" soon followed. Then my friend Eric played "The Days of Wine and Roses" at one of our many listening parties.

Then I bought "The Complete Live at Raji's" and got the chance to see the band live. Wow.

I'm probably not telling anyone anything they don't already know. But this reissue of The Day of Wine and Roses by UK-based Fire Records is special. The extras are just incredible. People often list other "Paisley Underground" bands like The Three O'Clock, The Bangles, Green on Red and Rain Parade when discussing The Dream Syndicate. And while I have no doubt those bands were part of a scene, they don't necessarily sound like one another.

To me, The Dream Syndicate recalls the work of True West, The Wipers and Television. Steve Wynn started bands here in Davis, California (with Kendra Smith and later Scott Miller), but he formed The Dream Syndicate in Los Angeles.

[ethelrosenberg]

everyone's talkin about oh tooms is gonna come back and eat more livers NO he will not! he got eaten by an escalator did y’all even watch the episode??

[dustedmagazine]

The Dream Syndicate — History Kinda Pales When It and You Are Aligned: The Days of Wine and Roses 40th Anniversary Edition (Fire Records)

The Days of Wine and Roses (Expanded Edition) by The Dream Syndicate

A 40th anniversary is sort of an odd date to celebrate with pomp and fanfare, which makes this overstuffed edition of the Dream Syndicate’s The Days of Wine and Roses exude at least a whiff of opportunism. And to be sure, History Kinda Pales When It and You Are Aligned is overstuffed: four compact discs, 260 total minutes of music, five different versions of “Definitely Clean” and seven (yep) of “That’s What You Always Say” (from the original record; the Down There EP version; a 1981 recording by the 15 Minutes, a band Steve Wynn formed with members of Alternative Learning; a rehearsal rendition and several live recordings—it’s a good song, but that’s a bit much, by any measure). Dream Syndicate completists and musicologists with big historical investments in the Paisley Underground will rejoice. What about the rest of us?

At the very least, we have occasion to remember a great rock record, one of a select few released from the California underground in the early 1980s that still feel absolutely necessary, song for song and note for note. If we stick specifically with punk and punk-adjacent LA, we might mention Black Flag’s Damaged, X’s Under the Big Black Sun, Minutemen’s Double Nickels on the Dime and Gun Club’s Fire of Love. That’s some fierce company. The Dream Syndicate shared a label with the Gun Club, and likely shared a stage or two with at least a couple of those bands. But they were outliers in LA in those crucial years: not hair-trigger punks like Fear or Circle Jerks, not rootsy like Green on Red or the Blasters, not self-consciously arty like Screamers or Bpeople. Musically the Dream Syndicate was more aligned with New York bands, like Television or the Voidoids — and the Dream Syndicate confessed as much by name-checking La Monte Young’s famous NYC drone ensemble in their band’s moniker.

Mostly the Dream Syndicate was a guitar band, Wynn and Karl Precoda playing tangled and brash lines and working the space between dissonance and rock dramatics. You can hear that impulse, toward volume and catharsis, on a great-sounding live set included on Disc 4 of the edition, captured at the Country Club in Reseda, CA, sometime in 1982. “Then She Remembers” sounds like early Sonic Youth until Wynn drags the song back toward the textures of Neil Young and Crazy Horse at their most ragged and feral. In between songs, Wynn quips, “This is San Francisco psychedelia, Quicksilver Messenger Service, Blue Cheer...” He’s goofing on Cali punk’s north-south rivalries, but it’s not a bad set of references for the kinds of guitar antics the band gets into. That Reseda set is one of the real treats among all the accompanying recordings included in History Kinda Pales…, along with a recording of “Open Hour” from a 1982 live performance on KPFK, in which the guitarists channel Verlaine and Lloyd’s sense of interplay. Also check out the cover of “Folsom Prison Blues,” recorded in Tucson that same year; the band sounds like Rank and File on an especially whiskey-soaked night.

Amid all those extras, the most substantive music on the four discs can still be heard in the studio recordings that appeared as The Days of Wine and Roses in late October, 1982. Kendra Smith was still in the band, and her moody presence plays up the record’s Paisley Underground affiliations, as do the psych-rock acrobatics of “When You Smile.” But a lot of the story is told in the record’s first five seconds: those glorious, crashing notes that form the signature riff of “Tell Me When It’s Over.” It’s a great song, one of a few palpably heartbroken, sort-of-love songs from the decade (along with the Replacements’ “Unsatisfied” and Leaving Trains’ “Light Rain”) that laid some formative groundwork for the 1990s’ indie rock. The Days of Wine and Roses reaches its highest peaks on its several sort-of love songs: those just mentioned, “Halloween,” “Then She Remembers.” Those last two address desires that simmer with threat or explode into violence, and the music follows the same logic. If you haven’t for some time, listen to the ecstatic, free-falling guitar break that takes up the second half of “Then She Remembers.” It’s breathless, propulsive and razor sharp. Sort of like the passage of history. 

Jonathan Shaw

[the-physicality]

every time we played phoenix, it was always a competitive game

Tina Thompson, Sheryl Swoopes, and Cynthia Cooper reminisce on playing the mercury and with dt

[kwebtv]

From the Golden Age of Television

Season 1 Episode 6

Dan Duryea as China Smith - Devil in the Godown - Syndication - June 1, 1952

Action Adventure

Running Time: 30 minutes

Written by Robert C. Dennis

Produced by Bernard Tabakin

Directed by Edward Mann

Stars:

Dan Duryea as China Smith

Myrna Dell as Shira

Douglass Dumbrille as Inspector Hobson

Marjorie Lord as Ruth Colton

Clarence Lung  as Han

Peter Mamakos as Constantine

Charlie Lung as Ho-kow