The Reivers - End Of The Day

One of my favorite songs of all time by one of my favorite bands of all time. Saw them twice in concert. Met Cindy Toth in a record store in Jacksonville, FL and she was just the nicest. She was just shopping for records but made time to chat it up with me and my friend. Such good times.

John Croslin is another alt rock unsung hero, both as a musician and both as a producer. Spoon, another and much more recognised band from Austin scene, are the perfect example of the previous sentence. When they've been serviced at any level (song writing, production, engineering) by Croslin, Spoon records were always acceptable even if, IMHO, Britt Daniels is a lot less talented as a singer/songwriter/guitarist compared to Croslin. Probably Croslin put everything in place and Daniels been blessed by that. The more recent Spoon records (all after 2007), are surely less coherent compared to all the work with Croslin on the board. This surely means something.Once said this, Reivers are a great band like the Zeitgeist before (they are infact the same band and the same project, Zeitgeist had to change name becouse of legal problems). Someone can say it's just classic 80's guitar pop, then guitar pop is a fine art many try to accomplish often with poor results. This is not the case. The Reivers are not simply guitar pop, There are, in the attitude, thirty year of pop music condensed in quick, effective songs. Especially on this LP, duets with Kim Longacre are delightull and push the comparision from B52's to Velvet Underground: listen to the title track or the background vocals in side 2 opener Almost Home.The Lazy Afternoon, the only cover of the album, reinvented a fifties broadway classic, played in Sweet Jane attitude. It is not a casualty this is the only track produced by Andy Metcalfe, producer of the Reivers debut, and Hitchcock's Soft Boys bassist. Soft Boys are for sure another big influence for Croslin and you can hear this even in the production work he did for Spoon, it has the same attitude.By the way, considering a lot of engineering and production work on this LP is made by Croslin himself, End Of The Day sound really good, like I do expect rock and roll records should sound, timeless and with everything at his place, soundstage, instruments, vocals. Something that many bands had loose this days on the loudness war.This music is now on Spotify and Deezer, carefully remastered with the Croslin supervision: please check it it out, you wont regret it.

I saw them at a club in Austin around 87-88 timeframe on UT campus. That was a cool show. Maybe 100 or so people there. What a great band.

This is one of my top 10 albums of all time. Just beautiful.

Pure indy rock... with a chorus as grand as any stadium rock anthem. That's meant as a compliment!

"in those golden mustang days..."

This song means more to me thirty years later than it did when I first heard it. Simply beautiful.

Damn 80's snare so high in the mix but otherwise absolutely gorgeous.

This is a brilliant song...

One cool ass song!

This has got to be the most nostalgic song of all time.

What is wrong with 3 people that could make them dislike this?!

Simply the best song ever written about childhood

Name another song with discombobulate in the lyrics. ? Lucky to say I saw them play at 9:30 Club in DC in '89 (at least I think it was that year).

I miss them