Wrecks from Wrecks by Lach

"This is one of my earliest songs. My band Proper Id was playing around with occasional shows at CBGB's and a lot of my early tunes were Punk. Though, the G to Am vamp was a nod to Hello, I Love You by The Doors.
The lyrics were revamped for 2023. As I started working on it a few weeks ago, parts of the old lyrics seemed dated. Then, Tom Verlaine died while I was reading a biography on Kerouac where it talked about Thomas Wolfe being a big influence on Jack. Now the song was less a narrative description of a night out at a punk club and more an abstract canvas holding all these concurrent and old influences together. So the line became "Boys made of neon" as Tom's band before Television was The Neon Boys (The magical drummer for Television, Billy Ficca, was my drummer too). The line "Stumble homeward, sweet angel" is from the title of Wolfe's novel "Look Homeward Angel". I felt it needed something French. Tom's named after the French poet Paul Verlaine, Morrison is buried in France, Kerouac was French-Canadian. I looked at the tombstones of the artists involved but none of the epitaphs worked. Then I remembered a line of Napoleon's that a character in my new novel, "Langdimania", quotes and added it as the last line. It's from Napoleon's farewell to his old guard.

Then, there's the sound collage break. Well, as the lyrics were a collage, why not take it one step further. First I layered five guitar tracks and liked it, but knew it needed something else. I wanted a train sound, a French conductor asking for tickets and a French women. I researched old French movies with no result. I researched movies that are out of copyright and found Hitchcock's 'The Lady Vanishes', perfect! So, I downloaded it and a french version as well. I watched the English version take time notes for good bits. Then found those bits in the french version and recorded them using my Rhode mic. Then, the old William Burroughs cut and paste, and Bob's your uncle! The train sounds are from 1920's steam locomotives. The cover art is a photo of Margaret Lockwood from the film. Oh yeah, one trick I'm proud of is that I took the sibilant ess sound at the end of the last "Wrecks" and repeated it fading into the steaming chug-chug of the train to help carry the listener into the scene.
Whew!, that's a lot of stuff for a two minute punk song!" - Lach

Lach, founder of the Antifolk movement and star of BBC Radio 4's The Lach Chronicles.

‘Beat-punk-unplugged joy!’-The Guardian UK

‘Splendid! Best of it's kind!’- Mojo

‘Incredibly bright, influential, funny, poetic.’-Suzanne Vega

‘Best punk guitarist since Johnny Ramone.’-Billy Ficca of Televis

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