Native Sons / 10/5/60
Los Angeles's Long Ryders were unabashed in revering their musical ancestors. The front cover of the country-rock quartet's debut album aped the planned photo forBuffalo Springfield's unreleasedStampede, and the group dressed in the same sort of sheepskin jackets and Nudie vests asNeil YoungandGram Parsonswore back in their heydays. They even asked ex-ByrdGene Clark to sing with them. (Lead Ryder Sid Griffin would take his love of rock history even further by writing thefirst bookon the life of the late country-rock pioneer Parsons. He's now a widely published music writer.) Given all that, it's easy to write the Long Ryders off as just another in a series of early- to mid-'80s West Coast groups going through a momentary "paisley revival." But the group's first two releases--an EP called10-5-60and their debut long-player,Native Sons--show that this was a band that could often take borrowed influences to new and exciting places, fusing punk energy and southern-rock populism with the secondhand West Coast milieu. "Tell It to the Judge on Sunday" and "Never Got to Meet the Mom," in particular, were songs strong and vibrant enough to brighten up any Springfield album.--Don Harrison