The “lost classic” is one of the most familiar tropes of rock and roll legend—the album that should’ve/could’ve been huge, but was somehow sidetracked by the vagaries of the music business and consigned to a dusty tape vault somewhere. Mark Doyon’s Foldback Records imprint, a subsidiary of Wampus Multimedia, has dedicated itself to reissuing—or in this case issuing—albums that have for one reason or another been unjustly neglected.
Uncle Green was formed in suburban New Jersey in 1980 by high school freshmen Jeff Jensen (vocals/guitar), Matt Brown (vocals/guitar), Bill Decker (bass), and Peter McDade (drums), four guys who over the course of the next decade built a reputation for strong melodies and songwriting with a quirky flair. After issuing a couple of independent albums, the boys signed with Atlantic in 1992, released Book of Bad Thoughts, toured heavily without breaking through, rechristened themselves as 3 Lb. Thrill, delivered their strongest album yet for avid supporter Brendan O’Brien’s 57 Records imprint (a subsidiary of Epic) and then, with encouragement from O’Brien, set about recording an album in their rented Atlanta home that would achieve their every artistic aspiration.
If given only a single sentence to describe the resulting 32-track double album Rycopa—which would be a crying shame—I might go with: this is the sound of creativity unleashed. There’s something beautiful about setting a group loose in a studio and letting them go wherever their hearts and imaginations and talents take them. The influences heard here are myriad. There’s definitely a core foundation of Athens, GA rock—R.E.M. and the B-52s are both clear influences, though Uncle Green is neither as self-consciously serious as R.E.M. nor as over-the-top cartoonish as the B-52s. They also bear comparisons to groups like Big Star and Fastball in their sterling power-pop craftsmanship and obvious affection for all things Beatles.
Rycopa redefines the adjective “sprawling” across its epic length, 32 tight yet endlessly imaginative tracks unfolding one after another over two full discs. It doesn’t feel like a concept album, or at least the concept behind it isn’t obvious; instead, it feels like an exceptionally long, diverse, interesting tapestry of songs, most of them quite concise. If there’s any past analogue to be found for Rycopa, in terms of its wide-angle vision and kaleidoscopic range of styles, you can’t help but go to The White Album.
Naturally, their label at the time—Sony—hated it. And the band foundered, and dissolved. And the tapes went into the vaults. And 14 years passed before the guys finally got them back. A Kickstarter campaign funded a final mix for the album, it subsequently found a new home with Foldback Records, and here we are.
The lasting impression Rycopa leaves is of a quartet of musical savants with the ability to pull off anything they set out to tackle. Swirling psychedelia (“The Miracle Of Me”)? Sure. Swampy blues rock with slide guitar and complex harmonies (“Geronimo”)? No problem. Space rock (“Feel Like Buddha”) with hints of sci-fi (“Dymaxion”)? Absolutely. Airy Brit-rock (“Super Kitty, Uh Huh”)? They’re spot on, mate.
Nowhere is the boys’ pen sharper than on “It’s A Red, Red, Red, Red, Red, Redneck World,” which starts out with blues harp, name-checks both Abe Vigoda and Peter Frampton, and wraps up with banjo, slide guitar and a wolf-whistle. It’s inspired lunacy. So, of course, the next one (“Beautiful Mess”/”Throwaway Queen”) opens with clavinet and killer funk guitar, and the one after that (“Sunshine Life”) is an earnest piano ballad. Want some accordion? “Save A Seat For Me” is just for you. And then there’s “True Punk Life,” which opens with a classical guitar flourish before turning up the distortion for punky, raging power chords. They close out disc one with “Standing Out In The Rain,” which sounds like a lost collaboration between Ben Folds and The Jayhawks—right before a trip to “Little India,” drenched in sitar.
The second disc is more of the same, in the sense that as each song finishes there’s no hint of what’s coming next, except that it’s going to be different, and it’s going to be played with great skill and total conviction, in true “musical chameleon” style. Whether they’re slamming you against the wall with the heavy, ranting hard funk of “Wassamatta With You?“ or messing with your head via the chiming acoustic balladry and oddball-outsider lyric of “Lucy In The Streets With Dimetapp,” or closing things out with rave-up that sounds like a sing-off between the B-52s and Cake (“Grrrrranimal Party”), Uncle Green / 3Lb. Thrill constantly find a way to both obliterate your expectations and make you smile. Among their finer sonic confections is “Sunrise Lullaby,” with its Sgt. Pepper–esque melding of music box, toy piano and impressionistic lyrics.
As was often the case with those original mop-tops from Liverpool, one of the things that holds these diverse tracks together is the clever vocal arrangements of tunes like “Geronimo,” “Don’t Want Money” and “Blue Cocoon.” I mean, who doesn’t love a good gang vocal, full of camaraderie? Add the studio noise and between-song bits they throw in and it all starts to feel like you’ve been invited in for an extended hang in the studio with a slightly goofy but extremely talented band, as they proceed to throw every single thing they’ve got at you.
The four guys in Uncle Green / 3 Lb. Thrill have long since moved on, started families and forged new careers. On these tracks and in the vintage photos inside this album’s gatefold, however, they are forever preserved as young bucks with the guts and talent to dive in head first and keep swimming until they had a double album’s worth of amazingly diverse music.
Is Rycopa a “lost classic”? Well, that might stretch the term a bit—to these ears, it’s more “very, very good over a lengthy run time” than outright spectacular—but it is remarkably diverse and well-executed. It’s an album in the truest sense of the word, a kaleidoscopic collection of songs showcasing the full breadth and range of this quartet’s multifarious musical talents, and a creation that emphatically deserves to be heard.