The Dream Syndicate - Medicine Show (1984)

The Dream Syndicate is an American alternative rock band from Los Angeles, California, active from 1981 to 1989. The band is associated with the Paisley Underground music movement; of the bands in that movement, according to the Los Angeles Times, it "rocked with the highest degree of unbridled passion and conviction". Though never commercially successful it met with considerable acclaim, especially for its songwriting and guitar playing.
After waves of positive press, A&M Records signed the Dream Syndicate and they went into the studio with producer Sandy Pearlman, who spent five months in the studio guiding the band through their second LP.
Given their sudden rise to success, the Dream Syndicate probably would have dealt with a certain amount of critical backlash no matter how their sophomore effort turned out, but “Medicine Show” was greeted with openly hostile reviews, largely because it sounded practically nothing like the album that sent tongues wagging two years earlier. Where The Days of Wine and Roses was a raw but passionate fusion of Highway 61-era Bob Dylan and the Velvet Underground at their most primal, Medicine Show sounded big and polished, but also dusty and weathered, with the terse, nose-thumbing lyrics of the debut replaced with dark, complex narratives full of bad luck and bad blood backed with booming drums and roaring guitars that were significantly more rockist than what Steve Wynn and Karl Precoda brought to their earlier recordings.
Viewed in the context of Wynn's career, Medicine Show marks the spot where the lyrical themes and musical approach of his later work would first come into focus, but it still doesn't bear much resemblance to what the Dream Syndicate would create on their subsequent albums in its grand, doomy tone and obsessive but curiously unobtrusive production style. Medicine Show isn't a grand failure as its initial detractors claimed, but it isn't the triumph some revisionist fans imagine it to be, either; there are a few great songs scattered throughout (especially "Merrittville" and "Armed with an Empty Gun"), and once it works its way in, the 8:48 of "John Coltrane Stereo Blues" is as potent a guitar workout as anything this band would ever release. But in most respects, this finds Wynn and his bandmates reaching for something they couldn't quite grasp, and Tom Zvoncheck's keyboards, for all their drama, never really find their way into the music. Lots of bands let loose with a major-label budget for the first time have made lavish records that didn't quite work, but unlike most of them, “Medicine Show” doesn't sound like a grandiose waste of money. Instead, it's a widescreen guitar spectacle with the soul of a Jim Thompson paperback, and if it doesn't always work, enough of it does to make it worthy of serious reappraisal.

Track listing

01. "Still Holding on to You"  (Steve Wynn)  - 3:39
02. "Daddy's Girl"  (Steve Wynn)  - 3:02
03. "Burn"  (Steve Wynn)  - 5:34
04. "Armed with an Empty Gun"  (Steve Wynn)  - 3:56
05. "Bullet with My Name on It"  (Karl Precoda)  - 6:20
06. "The Medicine Show"  (Steve Wynn)  - 6:29
07. "John Coltrane Stereo Blues"  (Dennis Duck, Dave Provost)  - 8:48
08. "Merritville"  (Steve Wynn)  - 7:20

Credits
Steve Wynn - guitar, vocals
Karl Precoda - lead, rhythm guitars
Dennis Duck - drums
Dave Provost - bass
Tom Zvoncheck - piano, Hammond B3 organ
Sid Griffin - background vocals
Stephen McCarthy - background vocals
Paul Mandl - background vocals
Gavin Blair - background vocals
Mastered By - George Marino
Mixed By - Dave Wittman
Engineer - Eric Van Soest, Ken Huncovsky, Paul Mandl, Rod O'Brien
Producer - Sandy Pearlman

Notes
Recorded at Time Enough and World Enough Studios, S.F., CA, except for drum tracks recorded at The Automatt, S.F., CA. Mixed at The Automatt, S.F., CA. Mastered at Sterling Sound, New York, N.Y.
Recorded By - Paul Mandl
Recorded By [Drum Tracks] - Rod O'Brien
Genre:  American Underground, Alternative rock
Length: 45:08

© 1984 A&M Records