Tune In / Turn On / Drop Out: The Television Personalities Radio

Collecting radio sessions tracked during more than a decade of evolution, Tune In, Turn On, Drop Out: Radio Sessions 1980-1993 captures multiple angles of the shambling genius of Television Personalities and the projects driving force, songwriter Dan Treacy. The band crawled out of the initial fury of punk with songs that were shaggier, less serious, and far less angry. Treacy was more fascinated with the fantastical and the inward than the rebellious societal angst of punk, and he funneled punks chaotic excitement into songs that were happy and melodic. Tune In, Turn On, Drop Out kicks off with four songs from a 1980 Peel Session. "Look Back in Anger" and "Picture of Dorian Gray" represent the earliest spark of the band, and the mixes here are clearer than those that appeared on the groups particularly lo-fi 1981 full-length debut, …And Dont the Kids Just Love It. Four tracks from an additional BBC session in 1986 offer both melancholic jangle with "Paradise Is for the Blessed" and the kind of sillier, whimsical fare Treacy excelled at with "Salvador Dalis Garden Party." The bands influence on the next waves of college rock is more apparent in these tunes, with their nonchalant delivery and mix of thoughtfulness and absurdity serving as a direct influence on the indie rock sensibilities of the early 90s. The back end of the compilation is drawn from early-90s sessions, with a 1992 session for Boston-area station WMBR producing ten songs and a 1993 set for New Jersey independent radio beacon WFMU closing out the album with six additional songs (the WFMU portion of the audio is a bonus download, and the songs arent included on some versions of the compilation.) By the point of these sessions, Television Personalities had transformed somewhat, with the pointy-edged mod-punk of their earlier days being stretched out into lingering dirges like "All My Dreams Are Dead" and oddball Fall-esque improvisations like "Wandering Minds." These sessions also find the band running through a roster of covers ranging from the expected (fun and straightforward renditions of tunes by the Raincoats and the Buzzcocks) to the striking (a sweetly fragile take on Daniel Johnstons "Honey I Sure Miss You") to the bizarre (a somewhat dismal post-punk take on Crystal Waters 1991 club hit "Gypsy Woman"). The different radio sessions touch on various parts of the spectrum of joy and weirdness that Television Personalities reveled in during these phases. Its alternate versions and rarities offer some interesting behind-the-scenes sounds, and the Peel Sessions in particular boil away some of the noise that obscured the production of the bands earliest songs. ~ Fred Thomas