Time Never Forgets: Scruffy the Cat to Receive Reissue Treatment
Kevin Oliver
Posted On August 13, 2014
I spent most of my collegiate years being sucked into the college radio experience, which in the 1980’s was full of great unsung bands that in those pre-internet days you felt like were your little secret; when they in fact had plenty of pockets of fans around the country from touring other little college towns like yours. Boston in the 1980s was a particularly fertile ground for great bands, and one of my personal favorites was Scruffy the Cat.
An unassuming bunch of guys who didn’t play loud, or all that fast, weren’t punk or retro, their tunes have been cited as alt-country precursors, rock ‘n’ roll tributes, and all manner of other attempts at describing what was in actuality a fairly original sound. Built on 50’s and 60’s rock and pop but filled out with jangly guitars and acoustic instruments, they were Mumford and Sons (to cite a more current devotee of frenetic acoustic pop songs) a few decades earlier, only without the big hits. Songs such as “Time Never Forgets”, “Upside Down” and the classic “My Baby She’s Allright” are nonetheless permanently ingrained in the jukebox of my mind.
So it was with suprise, elation, and a few ‘hell yeah’s’ thrown in that word came of the impending reissue of the band’s albums originally released on the Relativity imprint, they have been unavailable digitally for years. First out, however, is a 23-track compilation of unreleased material, The Good Goodbye: Unreleased Recordings 1984-1990, on Omnivore Records, which encompasses sessions from their beginnings as a Boston garage band to their final studio takes at Ardent in Memphis, Tennessee. This is a wonderful treasure trove for fans of the band and a welcome rounding-out of a discography that always felt a bit truncated. Some of the songs are demo versions of what would make it on the official albums, but there are many totally unheard tracks as well.
The only sad part of this is that Chesterman passed away from cancer in 2013 and will not be around to see the love of Scruffy renewed by the band’s original fans and perhaps a new appreciation from those who missed them the first time around.
pre-order the compilation and get more info from Omnivore Records HERE
CD/Digital Track List:
1. BIG FAT MONKEY’S HAT
2. THE BURNING CROSS
3. EVERYTHING
4. THE GHOST SONG
5. LOVER’S DAY
6. HAPPINESS TO GO
7. OLDEST FIRE IN THE WORLD
8. TIGER TIGER
9. LOST HIGHWAY
10. TONIGHT
11. SHADOW BOY
12. SLOW DOWN
13. MOMMA KILLED HATE
14. WELL… ALL RIGHT
15. RED LIGHT
16. I LIKE THE WAY YOU DANCE
17. THE DOCTOR SONG
18. SWEET NEWS
19. I KNEW THAT YOU WOULD
20. LOVE SONG #9
21. HOPE
22. PORCH FLAMBE
23. THE GOOD GOODBYE
All tracks previously unissued except Track 20
