Friday, June 6, 2008

The Last - L.A. Explosion - 1979


Perhaps the least known of the late-'70s L.A. pop acts, the Last rose from the ashes of the Los Angeles club scene alongside bands like 20/20, the Knack, the Nerves, the Plimsouls, et al. Releasing their debut album on a small, albeit influential, indie label didn't help them gain exposure outside of California, but the music contained on this platter is as brilliant as anything that came from that era. Led by Joe Nolte and featuring his brothers Mike and David amongst its members, the Last's secret weapon was the keyboard/flute-playing Vitus Matare, who added extra texture and flair to Joe's engaging songs. Heavily influenced by '60s pop, this album has it all: pure pop ("This Kind of Feeling," "Someone's Laughing"), sunny beach pop ("Every Summer Day"), punk-pop ("I Don't Wanna Be In Love," "Slavedriver"), psych-pop ("She Don't Know Why I'm Here"), etc. Thinly produced, this album has a charm and innocence to it that not many other artists have been able to match. -AMG

If you like "L.A. Explosion" get it here!

The Last - L.A. Explosion - 1979 pt1

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

it's a perfect choice but it would be interesting to read the credits and the comments of the artworks.
could you scan them , please ?
anyway it is a spectacular work on the powerpop!

jim kosmicki said...

this is one of the greatest albums -- it's nearly perfect. I never get tired of listening to it. There's usually at least one song on an album that I don't listen to after a while (often there's several), but this album doesn't have a clinker on it. I've listened to some of the band's other recordings, and they're good, but they're not as good as this one. For whatever reason, this band, at this point in their career, had it all going right (except for, you know, actually being heard on the radio, selling records and becoming the huge stars that they should have become).

vex_voxtone said...

This is absolute masterpiece and definitely one of my top 10 late 70's early 80's LP's. Psych POP would be the perfect description for this album. Both tiny tie power pop crowds, that were into Plimsouls liked em but also fuzz fueled garage revivalist that were into Unclaimed.
Nolte brothers fffforrevverrr!!!!

Curty Ray said...

Thanks for the great commentaries guy! I always enjoy seeing what others think. This is a classic that never was.
This one flew under the mainstream radar and was overlooked by eveyone, but one listen and this and it will stay in your rotation for life. I had worn out the grooves on two lp's before I finally got it on cd(only $10 from bomp records)

Anonymous said...

I just found out about these guys when looking for another band. It sounds like something I'd like, so thanks for posting this. Haven't listend to it yet - still waiting for RapidShare's delay on 2-part downloads - but certainly appreciate you posting this...getting harder and harder to find "new" sounds that I like.

Documentaries said...

one of the greatest albums , this one flew under the mainstream radar and was overlooked by eveyone,

charlieb said...

Owned the album decades ago, played it endlessly. It's long gone--but I'm thrilled to see it posted here, and with the links apparently still good...

thanks for the memories. I'm gonna grab em now.

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