The Dream Syndicate
Medicine Show

I was a kid in 1987 when I first listened to Medicine Show, the second album by the Californian band Dream Syndicate released in 1984, and I was blown away. I still remember that a schoolmate had lent me the LP and I promptly recorded it on the A side of a 90-minute cassette. On the B side was The Orphans Parade, the first studio album by the French garage rock band City Kids. But that's another story. I had already encountered the Paisley Underground, that is, the neo-psychedelic musical movement centered in Los Angeles that somehow combined the psychedelia of the west coast with the roughness of punk. The encounter occurred with the more "traditionalist" Green On Red and their excellent Gas, Food, Lodging, from 1985. And it was an encounter that greatly impressed me, but that's another story too. Medicine Show, on the other hand, overwhelmed me. The epic songs, the sharp and nervous guitar that overflowed from every groove of black vinyl, the echoes of Young and Dylan, the new wave attitude, made (and still partly make) my skin crawl and my hairs stand on end.

Probably listening to it today for the first time won't have the same effect, but I assure you that in the second half of the eighties this album represented, and in the opinion of the writer still represents, the best that not only the Paisley Underground but, in a general sense, American Rock has produced. Produced by Sandy Pearlman (already with Blue Oyster Cult and the Clash of Give 'em Enough Rope), Medicine Show combines Velvet Underground and Neil Young and, as the previous The Days of Wine and Roses did more crudely, reinterprets the country and blues roots of American tradition through the lens of new wave and punk.

It is no coincidence that this album was born with the best lineup (according to the writer) of the Dream Syndicate: Dennis Duck (drums), Dave Provost (formerly bassist of the Droogs), Tommy Zvoncheck (actually a session musician who added piano tracks to already completed recordings), Karl Precoda (lead guitar), the latter endowed with great creativity and capable of lightning guitar flashes. But Medicine Show is inevitably dominated by Steve Wynn, who here reaches a stature of composer/interpreter able to rival the greatest storytellers in American music. From this happy union emerged acid country ballads, punk digressions, neurotic jazz phrasings, but most importantly music endowed with great pathos and tension, searing guitar sound and dark sweetness.

"Still Holding on to You," "Burn," "Bullet with My Name on It," "Merrittville," "John Coltrane Stereo Blues," and the wonderful "Medicine Show" are songs full of force and soul, a perfect synthesis not only of the '80s underground but of forty years of Rock 'n Roll. Imagine the silences of Coney Island Baby, the guitars of Zuma, and the romantic anger of Born to Run, and you'll have a rough idea of what we're talking about. "Burn," "Bullet with My Name on It," the title track, and "Merritville" are electric desert ballads marked by the razor-sharp guitar strokes of Precoda. Special mention also for "John Coltrane Stereo Blues," a long psycho-jazz-new wave ride that the band uses to close their concerts, in some ways close to some of the early Talking Heads' works. So much artistic grace corresponded, needless to say, to an undeserved commercial fiasco. However, this does not take away an ounce of value from this noir, sharp, and velvety album. The masterpiece of the Dream Syndicate. A milestone of Rock. One of those albums capable of defining a genre and pointing the direction for future development. Medicine Show is proof that in the underground, the ears and especially the hearts are (almost always) purer and more sensitive than on the upper floors. Welcome to the medicine show.