In my never ending quest to unearth long forgotten and hard to find great tracks I present to you Hyacinth Girl by Winter Hours. This New Jersey band was a College Radio favorite in the mid 80's, but never rose above cult status. Their records are long out of print and it's tough to locate any of their few CDs without parting with an arm or a leg. The 1986 record on which Hyacinth Girl appears, Wait Till The Morning, has the dreaded "this item has been discontinued by the manufacturer (we still have those in this country?)" tag on its Amazon.com listing. This band is said to have been influenced by Buffalo Springfield and or The Byrds, but it sure sounds a lot like R.E.M. Unless you are Henry Rollins, that isn't a bad thing as far as I'm concerned.
Don't look for a Winter Hours reunion anytime soon though. Their lead singer with the Jim Morrison like voice, Joseph Marques Rodriguez, died in 2003 of an alleged overdose. Much like their New Jersey peers, The Feelies, they should have been much bigger than they ever were. But don't listen to me (ever!)...there is a 26 song tribute CD out called A Few Uneven Rhymes (if you can find it of course) with contributions by members of The Violent Femmes, Nada Surf and The Feelies. Not bad for a band that struggled to be heard at all right? They had a few minor singles other than Hyacinth Girl, but not many. Smoke Rings and Roadside Flowers come to mind, but if the legend is true the band sort of lost its spirit when a deal with Chrysalis Records fell apart towards the end of the 80's. You can find out more about what happened to them if you are interested by clicking on the link below, but suffice to say Hyacinth Girl is a masterpiece of a song any self respecting person walking around claiming to be an 80's expert should be all over.
As glorified as 80's music is it irks the hell out of me that songs like True by Spandau Ballet or I Want Candy by Bow Wow Wow are considered representative of what was really good about that decade while songs like Hyacinth Girl are completely ignored. It blows my mind. Nobody knows better than I do that music is a subjective thing, but if I never heard Turning Japanese or countless throwaway tracks from that era ever again it wouldn't bother me one iota. Just don't try and separate me from songs like Hyacinth Girl or they'll be trouble. Put this is your iPod right now! Your friends will think you rock...because now you do...enjoy!
As glorified as 80's music is it irks the hell out of me that songs like True by Spandau Ballet or I Want Candy by Bow Wow Wow are considered representative of what was really good about that decade while songs like Hyacinth Girl are completely ignored. It blows my mind. Nobody knows better than I do that music is a subjective thing, but if I never heard Turning Japanese or countless throwaway tracks from that era ever again it wouldn't bother me one iota. Just don't try and separate me from songs like Hyacinth Girl or they'll be trouble. Put this is your iPod right now! Your friends will think you rock...because now you do...enjoy!
Posts
