“2011” (Sunset Blvd. Records)
By Eleni P. Austin
I came across the Smithereens first long-player, “Especially For You” in the fall of 1986 and listened to it incessantly. It got to the point where my cassette tape was making that squeaky mouse sound, a true indication that the tape was wearing out from constant play.
At this point in Rock & Roll history, Punk, Post-Punk, New Wave, Cow-Punk and Power-Pop were elbowing their way onto MTV as well as adventurous radio stations like KROQ, 91.X and KCRW. That made it easier to ignore the ascendence of Hair Metal and the syrupy dross that clogged the Top 40. Much like Squeeze and another up-and-coming band, Crowded House, The Smithereens managed to take a page from The Beatles playbook, matching nuanced narratives to indelible melodies, without ever sounding dated or derivative.
Jersey natives Jim Babjak (guitars), Dennis Diken (drums, percussion) and Mike Mesaros (bass) had been friends throughout school, graduating Carteret High School in 1975. A couple years later Pat DiNizio (lead vocals, guitar), placed an ad in The Aquarian Weekly, looking for like-minded musicians who drew inspiration from Buddy Holly, The Clash, Nick Lowe and Elvis Costello. Also folded into the mix was a clear affinity for British Invasion progenitors like The Beatles, The Who and The Kinks.
The band paid their dues playing countless bars and clubs up and down the East Coast. Their debut EP, Girls About Town, was self-released on their own, D-Tone label. Three years later they returned to the studio to record a second Extended Play, Beauty And Sadness, which garnered airplay on college radio stations.
By 1985, they had sent a demo to Enigma Records. The SoCal indie label that focused on Punk, Alternative, Heavy Metal and Techno. The Smithereens’ persistence paid off and they inked a deal, then headed into the studio with producer Don Dixon (R.E.M., Dumptruck, Tommy Keene). Especially For You arrived in 1986. A watershed effort, it distilled their myriad influences into a heady brew that was at once fresh and familiar. Two songs, “Blood And Roses” and “Behind The Wall Of Sleep” received airplay on MTV and radio and began to climb the charts, reaching a very respectable #51 on Billboard’s Hot 100.
The band was off and running. Following extensive touring, the band reconvened with Don Dixon and recorded their 1988 follow-up, Green Thoughts in an astonishing 16 days. The record spun off three hit singles and the album reached #60 on the charts.
More excellence followed. 1989 saw the release of 11, two years later they returned with Blow Up and A Date With The Smithereens arrived in 1994. The band took a five-year hiatus and closed out the 20th century with God Save The Smithereens.
For the next 10 years, they concentrated on honoring their musical heroes by recording albums dedicated to The Beatles and The Who, along with a couple of live sets and a Christmas album. 2011 saw the release of their 11th album (and first release of all-original music since 1999’s God Save The Smithereens), pithily entitled 2011. Don Dixon was back as producer, but Mike Mesaros had left the Smithereens in 2006, by 2016, he had returned Anchoring the low end on 2011, was Severo Jornacion.
In 2015, Pat suffered a couple of serious falls that resulted in some nerve damage. He continued to experience health setbacks and, sadly, passed away in 2017. A year after his death, The Smithereens chose to soldier on as a touring band. They enlisted simpatico guest vocalists like Power Pop God Marshall Crenshaw, Gin Blossoms front-man Robin Wilson, and most recently, Sunshine Pop legend, John Cowsill, from The Cowsills.
Luckily, the boss and bitchin’ kids in charge at Sunset Blvd. Records have continued to carry the Smithereens torch. 2023 saw the release of The Lost Album, a collection of tracks recorded when the band was between record deals in the ‘90s. Although it was kind of an odds & sods collection, it coalesced beautifully, proving that their sound remains timeless, no matter the context. Now the label is reissuing their hard-to-find 11th effort, 2011, on CD and vinyl.
The record kicks into gear with the Punk-tastic “Sorry.” Slashing power chords collide with bellicose bass lines and a pummeling beat. Dispensing with niceties, lyrics like “Words you whisper in my ear just make me wanna run, wanna disappear, cause I don’t look at things the way you do, I’m not happy when you’re around, you make me wanna run, wanna hit the ground, and you’re just not the girl that I once knew/I would like to make your day, but I’d rather fade away, I would like to say I’m sorry, but I won’t,” cut to the quick with a Dylanesque efficiency. Tensile acoustic riff-age is swiftly supplanted by a splayed electric solo that ricochets through the break
The following track, “One Look At You,” completely reverses course, expertly flipping the script. Opening with a defiant F chord, sinewy guitars are shackled to buoyant bass lines and a basher beat. Heartfelt lyrics sweetly pay homage to an elusive dream girl: “One look at you and I knew that we’d be together, you disappeared and I thought you were gone forever/On and on I see your face, everywhere and every place, on and on I see your face, one look at you and I can see everything.” Brawny guitars fuse on the break, somersaulting atop lush harmonies. As a final chorus recedes, the shuddery F chord is reprised, and the track winds down with a swirly, Psychedelic coda.
The Smithereens have always viewed love through a prism of beauty and sadness. That approach remains resolutely in place on this record. Take the chugging “As Long As You Are Near Me.” The song is powered by stately piano, angular guitars, time-keeper bass and a cantilevered beat. This lovelorn declaration of adoration and allegiance is aimed at the one who got away: “You fly a little too high, I wonder what happened to you, you’re like the 4th Of July, it’s just not the same without you, you, you, you.” Guitars toggle between serpentine and scraggly on the break, mirroring the lyrical angst.
Then there’s the melancholy “Bring Back The One I Love.” Menacing guitar riffs line up with pastoral acoustic notes, buoyant bass and a rat-a-tat beat. Sad-sack lyrics chronicle an abrupt break-up: “My girl is leaving town, left me here six feet under the ground, they say she’s homeward bound, she’s the one I love but she just won’t talk to me, when I’m in a crowd she’s the only face I see.” As guitars ring and chime on the break, self-pity gives way to a momentary epiphany: “The girl has come and gone, it didn’t last too long, she never did belong to me.”
Meanwhile, the hazy and hallucinogenic “A World Of Our Own” yearns for insular isolation, free from outside distractions. Distorto guitars echo and sway, matched by thready bass and a piledriver beat. Unswerving lyrics map out a path that points toward a folie a deux: “When we’re here inside with nothing to do, Baby, I feel just fine being with you, I will tell them all to please just leave us alone, you and I will live inside the world of our own.” On the break, angelic “ahhs” momentarily cocoon vroom-y guitars just as they achieve supersonic lift-off.
A couple of tracks look past affairs of the heart. “Nobody Lives Forever” is particularly poignant in light of Pat’s untimely passing. Opening with a 1-2-3-4 count-off, muscular guitars and spidery bass lines are wed to a walloping beat. Lyrics offer up a gimlet-eyed carpe diem: “There’s nobody listening to the words I say, tell them to live for today, one thing I know is I’m not coming back, nobody lives forever, nobody lives forever.” Like a prayer or a mantra, he insists “This I know, life is stronger, no tomorrow.” Rollicking guitars bluster through the break, slightly ahead of a pugilistic percussive salvo that detonates like a series of smart bombs.
“Turn It Around” is an attempt to mend fences. Downstroke guitars connect with fluid bass runs and a kinetic beat. Pat’s vocals are buoyed by stacked harmonies, as perspicacious lyrics tackle the tough questions like “How many years will it take, til we learn from our mistakes, when all our races are run, will we still be chasing the sun?” On the break, shivery keys, shaker percussion, a bludgeoning beat and tremolo’d guitars underscore the desire for detente.
The best songs here confirm that even after 31 years, The Smithereens were at the top of their game. On “All The Same,” jangly guitars, roiling bass lines and a see-saw beat anchor a Country-flavored melody. Lyrics limn the callous caprice of 21st century romance: “Love is gone, so are you, you’ve got better things to do, now I find in the end, I have lost my one true friend/But it’s all the same, and I refuse to play your game, no matter what I do for you I’m still to blame.” Sprawling guitars twang and spiral on the break. But the winsome melody and jaunty arrangement can’t compensate for dashed expectations: “I’ve been told life is great, good things come to those who wait, now she’s gone and I find love is just a state of mind.” A rambling guitar solo delivers the last word.
On “Rings On Her Fingers,” reverb-drenched guitars twitch and quiver, tethered to blistering bass lines and a hell-for-leather backbeat. Lyrics are suffused with longing and regret as a husband confesses “You came along and slipped into my heart, you came along and ripped my world apart, you’re not the only one to know what I’m going through, now I’m the lonely one, cause I’m still in love with you…there’s a ring on her finger, but she isn’t you.” Spanish-tinged guitar rides roughshod on the break, but the hard-charging arrangement can’t outrun heartache.
“Viennese Hangover” is another treatise on temptation wrapped up in ¾ time. Peeling guitars partner with brisk bass lines and a stutter-step rhythm. Coruscating bells dart through the mix as lyrics offer some hard-won perspective: “I’ve got a home and a life of my own, there’s just no way I’m giving in, I’ve got a wife and a job that’s alright, I won’t be wrong, it won’t be long until I’m gone and then you’ll see it’s meant to be.” A courtly guitar solo uncoils on the break, shading regret and recrimination on this contemplative roundelay.
Other interesting include “Goodnight Goodbye” and “Keep On Ringing.” Both share musical DNA with a couple of trailblazing songs. The former is primarily a bare-bones affair, just Pat’s tender tenor, acoustic guitars and a bit of a tambourine shake. But the barbed chorus invites comparisons to R.E.M.’s “Orange Crush.” The latter recalls the ticking time bomb Psychedelic ferocity of “Time Has Come Today” from The Chambers Brothers.
The album ends on a high note on “What Went Wrong.” Careening out of the speakers, fuzz-crusted guitars and jittery bass are bookended by a knockabout beat. Like some long-lost Garage Rock classic, the track channels The Yardbirds, The Nazz and The Who. Lyrics conduct a marital post-mortem “Well, I recall that you say you were sorry for the things you said to me, I was still so angry and I acted so insensitive with hostility, cause I could not find the words that would describe the love you took from me/And I’m wondering to myself what went wrong, and I cry myself to sleep at what went wrong.” But, to quote Carole King, “it’s too late baby.” Skittering guitars snarl on the break echoing the calibrated chaos that characterized the symbiotic soundscape that Pete Townshend, John Entwistle and Keith Moon pioneered 60 years ago. Upping the ante, a pounding big beat navigates the arrangement’s aural switchbacks, as reptilian riffs slither through the mix ahead of a final, and explosive drum fusillade. It’s a thrilling, full-throttle finish to an excellent record.
If we still live in the cassette era, 2011 would undoubtedly start squeaking like a mouse after countless hours in the tape deck. This time out, it’s the vinyl LP that will probably take a shellacking, as pops and skips embed themselves in the grooves. It’s a testament to the enduring power of The Smithereens.
