not new music tuesdays

Bobb Trimble - Iron Curtain Innocence (1980, Vengeance)

Every time I listen to this album I'm overwhelmed by how out of place it sounds. By the time 1980 rolled around there was very little music coming out that could even be considered remotely psychedelic. Apparently Bobb Trimble failed to notice this, or maybe he just didn't give a shit. At a time when his peers in Worcester, MA were neck deep into punk rock, Trimble broke suit by unleashing a whopping 300 copies of this space-psych-folk masterpiece to little or no reception. Instead of the Black Flag/Ramones/Sex Pistols influences that were the norm at the time, the music on Iron Curtain Innocence draws from the Beatles, Tyrannosaurus Rex (Marc Bolan, cool!!), and Love, while the wavering falsetto vocals remind me of the female vocals on Comus' First Utterance.

In the years since it's release, record collectors have paid up to $1500 for original copies of Trimble's albums. Thankfully, Secretly Canadian has reissued both Iron Curtain Innocence and it's follow-up, 1982's Harvest of Dreams on both lp and cd, making them available to people that aren't big enough assholes to spend over a grand on one record!