Wednesday, July 15, 2009

Great Lost Singles of the 80s (An Occasional Series)

From 1983, please enjoy Greenwich Village's finest, the fabulous Floor Models, and their tear-jerking rendition of the greatest country song ever written about Jewish guilt, the exquisite "Excuses Excuses."





As you've probably guessed by now, the bass player on the above is a guy whose name rhymes with Sleeve Nimels. The song itself -- which I believe, perhaps immodestly, is good enough that it should have become a pop/rock standard by now -- was written by my old chum Andy "Folk Rock" Pasternack, who's also playing the cool Rickenbacker 12-string stuff. Recorded on 24-track during a breathless weekend demo session where we probably tried to do too much at one time -- which accounts for the bare-bones quality of the production -- but I think this is a beautiful piece of work nonetheless.

6 comments:

FD13NYC said...

Wow Sleeve, good song. Sounds like Byrds/Tom Pettyish stuff. Nice work!

steves said...

A gem in any form. I don't think it's possible to do a bad version of this song, although the take by your 90's band is etched upon my psyche.

the prince said...

why it just tugs at my country heart. the country, of course, being russia occupied poland.

Anonymous said...

thats my little Nimels

Anonymous said...

Tugged at my pacemaker,bummed out the cat,good job all 'round !

Anonymous said...

I think when I wrote this I had just read Zuckerman Unbound by Philip Roth, was listening nonstop to Squeeze's Labelled With Love on the East Side Story LP, and recovering from years of listening to Gene Clark's White Light album. Steve heard it as a kind of Searchers tune, and Gerry had this idea to do it like the Stones as if the Stones were trying to imitate The Searchers. Or maybe we were just imitating The Eagles. Definitely one or the other. - AP