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The Spoons were formed in January 1988. In the same year they put out
their first tape album for Listen Loudest - garage/punk label from Zagreb.
11 great garage punk standards (City of People, No Friend of Mine, 1-2-5,
Psycho ...) and 1 Spoons song (The Looker) really blew up my mind when
I heard it for the first time. I just had few volumes of Back from The
Grave and 1 Fuzztones LP. So I listened to Spoons every day. It was like
some kind of Spoons mania. They sounded pretty raw, with great fuzz guitars,
here and there some voxy keyboard and harmonica and their singer - Brunetto
Subiotto had really great voice. And then - the whole year I didn't hear
anything new about The Spoons.
I remember one day I watched TV - some music program - something
like local version of Top of The Pops - and saw The Spoons playing their
new song from their first long play record (2nd album). The song was their
original - pretty psychedelic, but still garage punk. Clip was simple but
great - and they looked very cool. So it was another hit of Spoons mania.
I went to the downtown and checked all record stores, but their new record
didn't come to my hometown yet. I read great reviews in some music magazines
and zines and finally one day I bought famous " Voxin' " LP. You know that
tapes are ok, but tapes don't have that magic which vinyl has. All the
way from the record store to my room I looked at the sleeve. I was pretty
skeptical when I saw that there were no covers - only Spoons songs. But
first chords of opening song Without You blew up my mind again. Every song
was great - even better than all those covers from first tape. What to
tell you - my favorites are Baby Blue, Moonlite rider, Go Away, Levitation
and When The Clock Strikes Twelve - but the other songs are also great.
They didn't change their style from 1st tape - only production was much
better.
After " Voxin' " they put out tape again - "Live at Pyramid". Again
lot of garage standards like You're Gonna Miss Me, Bad Little Woman, Gloria
... The atmosphere of The Spoons gig is pretty good caught on this tape
- I guess, cos I never got the chance to see them live. This tape is the
last album with Brunetto. The war was already bitter reality in bigger
part of yugoslavia. He joined Hare Krishna - to avoid army. There he started
the super garage group The Matchless Gift with ex guitar player from Majke.
But The Matchless Gift are not so good like The Spoons or Majke.
The rest of band goes further like The Spoons. Guitar player Romeo
Djomlija wrote the new songs for their 4th album "Web of Fuzz". "Web of
Fuzz" contains 11 new songs and 4 new versions of old songs from " Voxin'
" LP. Why they did that - I really don't know, cos all those new versions
are not so good like old ones. "Web of Fuzz" is vinyl again - the sound
is more punky, it's still garage punk, but production is bit rawer than
usually. This record is ok, but I really miss Brunetto's voice.
Anyway - The Spoons changed the singer again. On their 5th album
" Supervoxin' " - this time it's cd - they recorded 13 songs - most of
the songs wrote Romeo Djomlija again, but they also did few covers. I read
few nice reviews for this cd, but when I got it - it was really a bit disappointment.
Honestly - it's their worst album. There is no energy and they sound like
some reunion band. There are few nice songs like Mysterious Way, but when
I hear really bad version of Strychnine or boring acoustic Dear Miscreants
- I rather forget "Supervoxin' " and play " Voxin' " - one of my favorite
records ever.
I must not forget their video tape "The Story of The Spoons" which
covers the period of their first 4 albums. Tape is really great. It contains
lot of live stuff (picture and sound quality are very good) and few clips
and tv performances with here and there some interview. |