Pearl Harbor & The Explosions
Liberation Hall
History shouldn’t judge Pearl Harbor & The Explosions too harshly, the band’s name a lightning rod for controversy. Predictably, there was a backlash to such irreverent willfulness, but being provocative was all the rage in punk/new wave circles in the late ‘70s/early ‘80s. And the somewhat naïve San Francisco upstarts, fronted by the former Pearl E. Gates, once a backup singer and dancer with The Tubes, caused a stir with the edgy moniker. That was the point.
In hindsight, maybe that was a Golden Gate Bridge too far, as radio shied away from giving the new wave darlings the generous airplay they deserved, even with the spry, and slightly skewed, initial salvo “Drivin’” catching a bit of MTV hype. Ultimately, it didn’t matter. They weren’t in it for the long haul anyway, splintering not long after releasing their lone self-titled album in 1980, Harbor parting ways with brothers Hilary and John Hanes — they’d all been in Leila and The Snakes beforehand, the Hanes boys later having assumed the stage name Stench — and Peter Dunne, aka Peter Bilt, after about a year of touring. It seems they weren’t on the same page about where to go from there.
What’s odd, is their accessible, distinctly melodic sound and high-energy panache could hardly be called “confrontational.” Ordering up well-crafted, cheeky guitar pop with its jazz-fusion diversions and clever forays into R&B and rockabilly — delivered with a side of sass left as a tip to The Waitresses — it was jaded by heartbreak but still immaculate and tight, exuding off-kilter charm. Newly reissued, Pearl Harbor & The Explosions is a snapshot of late 20th century escapism and youthful attitude, its sterling, wiry contents — the CD and download versions enhanced by seven bonus tracks, with one attached to a sky-blue vinyl offering — are eminently ready for reappraisal.
Starting up Pearl Harbor & The Explosions, appealing opener “Drivin’” hits the road, appearing again in the fuller, slightly slower form of its 415 Records single, which originally moved an impressive 10,000 units for the scrappy label. Upbeat and touched by the hand of Big Star, “You Got It (Release It)” hops in, soaking in ‘70s West Coast sunshine and turning up later in a different take among the added ephemera here in yet another richer, somewhat denser 415 Records single. From there, more eclectic impulses take over on the original LP, squirrelly outros and guitar intricacy becoming more common, as an infectiously choppy, yet occasionally woozy, “The Big One” stops and starts in fitful, jazzy buoyancy and a locomotive “Don’t Come Back” comes around the bend, huffing and puffing with infectious psychobilly combustibility.
All bets are off when “Get a Grip on Yourself” boogies with Chic, but the punk intensity of X spills out of “Shut Up and Dance” and the hyper catchy “Up and Over,” a ball of nervy excitement. And then there are the smoking live extras from 1979, each cover different from the last, as the rabble-rousing radiation cloud of Nick Lowe’s seething “Let’s Eat” crashes into a modern swing update of Joe Bennett & The Sparkletones’ “Black Slacks,” which predicted the rise of jump-jive revivalists like Big Bad Voodoo Daddy, and their hustling reimagining of Ron Wood’s “I Can Feel the Fire” is island music gone wild.
A sweaty, roots-rock workout, “Busy Little B-Side” throws shade at the music industry as a non-LP B-side, and it’s a corker of a leftover. Certainly, they’d experienced all the glad handing and broken promises they could take and were mad as hell, or at least perturbed. A little dated, perhaps, Pearl Harbor & The Explosions is nevertheless a classic and should be treated as such.
