Translator
Beyond Today: Live at The Farm San Francisco 1986
Liberation Hall
Exit strategies have a way of going awry. Military history is just littered with such disasters. As for Translator, theirs went down a riot, with a celebratory farewell blowout at a venue called The Farm. A well-placed Sony cassette machine roughly recorded the neo-psychedelic, power-pop archetypes’ glorious last stand amid a crush of crowd noise and conversation, the deeply embedded device yielding a document brimming with visceral authenticity. Somehow, the band’s raw energy and creative vitality stayed above the fray, although they often dared to dive down in it.
Art and the environment intersected at The Farm, a cherished San Francisco incubator that also served as a welcoming performance space. Selecting it as the site of their final gig, Translator, boasting a lineup of guitarists/vocalists Steve Barton and Robert Darlington, bassist Larry Dekker, and drummer Dave Scheff, bid their scene adieu after a stirring four-album run with a transcendent, dizzying display of blazing power and mesmerizing beauty that lives on through Beyond Today: Live at The Farm San Francisco 1986. The end came four years after the release of their acclaimed debut LP, Heartbeats and Triggers, put out by local label 415 Records. Critics fawned over it, as the video for “Sleeping Snakes” broke through via MTV and the swaying melancholy of “Everywhere” and “Everywhere That I’m Not” enthralled. They were off and running.
Columbia Records later swept in, unleashing three more Translator records from 1983 to 1986, each one building on the melodic ingenuity and intellectual sweep of its predecessors. And just when the story was getting good, Translator decided they’d had enough, pulling the plug perhaps too early but going out on their own terms. There’s something to be said for that, with future reunions joyfully rehashing the halcyon days of Translator’s all-too-brief existence. Still, after absorbing this archival wonder, it’s tempting to ponder what might have been if initially they’d stuck it out a little longer.
Nicely packaged, with vivid photos of the show taken by Trudy Fisher and authoritative, reminiscing liner notes from Bill Kopp, author of Disturbing the Peace: 415 Records and the Rise of New Wave, Beyond Today: Live at The Farm San Francisco 1986 is enjoying its first-ever physical release. Feeling free and frisky, stretching out jams and embarking on exploratory solos, Translator lets loose here. Out of the blue, Sheff’s frenzy of drumming precision and fury kicks off the massive prog-rock stomp and wild storm of the previously unreleased “Puzzles” — completely out of character for Translator, but utterly epic in scope and transformational, the medley finished off by the agit-pop thrill of “Favorite Drug.” Meanwhile, the dark, swirling pop psychedelia of “New Song” extends into sweet jazzy oblivion, starting off a Beatles-like escapade and melting down in a bonfire of soaring, tortured guitar tumult and crazed fretwork.
Heady stuff, indeed, from Translator, whose unrestrained ascents and sonic blizzards would undoubtedly be endorsed by Steve Wynn and The Dream Syndicate. Elsewhere, Paisley Underground certification is certainly granted to the mid-tempo swing of “Beyond Today,” the easy jangle-pop of “Everywhere” and a briskly paced, hook-filled “Gravity,” while a nostalgic “Necessary Spinning” and a gear-switching “Standing in Line” slam into hit-and-run punk chases of reckless abandon.
Pulled into Public Image Limited’s hypnotic post-punk currents, a liquid and murky “Nothing is Saving Me” gathers strength with a surging bass line and crashes hard, the concert portion of Beyond Today: Live at The Farm San Francisco 1986 laying the groundwork for two sublime new tracks: an infectious and lively “These Days to Come” and a ringing, seductive “With Your Dreams.” Translator comes alive.
