At Home He's a Tourist...Part 3--The Go--Instant Reaction--Chronicles from the Skinny Tie Revolution

They say you can't keep a good man down, but certainly the adage is not true in musical world.

Take this band from just due south of my neck of the woods, Yonkers, New York--Westchester's biggest city. The Go.

Back in 1980 they released a 4 song ep entitled Instant Reaction, which is no doubt a pretty rare collectors item these days. But overall I wouldn't think that most people remember them. Because that's the last thing that was released by them for a very long time.

Of course, the logical outcome was that their first full length release would come out in 2005 on a Japanese label dedicated to mostly unheralded mod, power pop, and punk pop groups, Wizzard in Vinyl. Its a label that has  released a lot of interesting things. And in the case of Instant Reaction, 18 previously unreleased songs are included! These were mostly home recorded. It seems that Wizzard in Vinyl isn't releasing anything anymore unfortunately so invariably releases like this are also becoming collectors items. Which is a shame, because clearly the enterprise must have been a labor of love. Japanese labels like this and 1+2 records have really released some great things.

But to the matter at hand. When I was in High School, I really loved music, hard rock, metal, Beatles, The Who, Beach Boys--what you might expect of a kid in the mid-1970's. But there seemed to be a change on the horizon. Being in the suburbs, we heard about the punk rock, but basically that it was an evil thing, an assault on our musical loyalties! They couldn't play their instruments, there were no classically-trained axemen to gloat about. But of course punk wasn't something you heard on the radio--you had to go get it if you wanted it. And there was a substantial moral opprobrium directed toward the people who embraced the movement. Between Punk and Disco there seemed to be a lot of people wanting to burn things, which even at the time I thought was pretty weird. But what we did manage to hear was a modified version of the new sound, something a little more familiar, more palatable, less confrontational and fractious. "New Wave".

That of course was the new music of groups like Cheap Trick, The Cars, The Knack, The Police, The Records, The Romantics, even Elvis Costello before the Ray Charles incident. And of course, there were groups like The Shoes, and The Nerves who I didn't hear until much later, who spawned the superb bands The Plimsouls and The Beat. But all these artists were part of a disparate movement of sorts. If you've heard the Jordan Oakes Yellow Pills comps, it's evident that this was happening all over the U.S. The skinny tie brigade. I know that it all felt pretty exciting to me at the time, all huge hooks and energy.



And certainly I wasn't the only person who felt this way. There is the old adage about all the bands that were inspired by the Sex Pistols concert in Manchester, but how many bands were inspired by the perfect pop of  "Starry Eyes" by the Records, or My Sharona? To my ears, the guys in The Go would fall under that category. While the liner notes indicate that they were big Ramones fans, the music fall more toward the pop variety than punk. In fact the music at times sounds like revved up Buddy Holly tunes.

The Go:
Tom Conte: Guitar, Vocals
Kenny Dutch: Guitar, Vocals
George Peters: Bass, Vocals
Joe Bryo: Joe Bryo

The great thing about the expanded version of Instant Reaction is that the many extras included are extremely worthwhile. Sometimes reissues have additional things included to entice fans who already own the originals to buy the same product again. There is often a common sense reason why the bonus track never saw the light of day. In the case of The Go, I find that I like many of the home made recordings better than the numbers on the 1980 ep. Though they never released anything after the EP, obviously they had aspirations and continued to hone their craft and got better. Even without the full studio treatment, these songs are top-notch power pop tunes.

I wish I had anecdotal information about these guys, but I didn't learn about the band until a few years ago. I certainly never saw them play live. And I didn't buy this recording until I was able to get it at a reasonable price. And I'm certainly glad I did, because this is overall a very solid collection. We get a chance to hear songs like You Wanna Be Like Her, Ricki, Let It Rip, The Girl I Let Go, She's Never Alone, Kerri Tells Me, Come Back Rosalyn, and Too Cool, which might have never seen the light of day otherwise.



The two snippets at the end of the Cd are a real reminder of how things were back then, particularly in the burbs. For a lot of people there was a real line in the sand drawn between the new music and what is now known as classic rock. Stepping across that line could affect your reputation among your peers. Young people are particularly serious about things like this--it's about fighting the good fight to save Rock and Roll from the barbarians (and the BeeGees). One of the snippets is an ad for the Instant Reaction ep, where they state "yeah, its a bit new wave, but give it listen and then decide". Listening before you make snap judgments is always a good philosophy, of course, and not isolated to musical appreciation. If happened to be in a band at that time, maybe you wanted to be part of this new movement, but on the other hand you didn't want it to cost you popularity.

The second snippet is taped from a radio station, when a caller calls criticizing the music of The Go.
He doesn't really like it, kind of sounds "New Wave". More Skynyrd, please. It seems odd today that music like this could be controversial, because it really doesn't sound very different from a lot of conventional pop music of the time. The songs are mostly about getting girls, or losing girls. Of course, in those days punks were walking targets, getting the crap beaten out of them for their appearance, so thankfully times have changed for the better. Mostly.

While I wouldn't call Instant Reaction a desert island disk, it is a very enjoyable collection. I probably picked it up initially because of the Westchester connection, but anybody who loves a good pop song should enjoy this. The Go have actually had a few reunion shows over the past decade, but as far as I know this did not lead to any new recording sessions. Let's hope that there will soon be an easier way for more people to get their mitts on this music. And let's at least give credit to Wizzard in Vinyl for making a recording like this possible.