#THE DREAM SYNDICATE FREE#

Wynn's music, which made up the bulk of the songs the band played, wasn't really suited to commercial radio. But the band was impaled on the horns of the classic alternative-rock dilemma: their move in a more commercial direction alienated some of their hardcore fans. 'We'd love to sell quadruple platinum and have our music played on every radio station in the country,' Wynn told the Providence Journal. The Dream Syndicate returned to the studio the following year to record Medicine Show for the larger A&M label, this time in a style that showed the influence of pioneer folk-rocker Neil Young. The single 'Tell Me When It's Over' exemplified the album's style and found success in England, kicking off a period of European success for the Dream Syndicate that outstripped their domestic renown.Įxhausted by the stress of touring, Smith left the band in 1983 and was replaced by Dave Provost. Wynn's dark vocals reminded many listeners of Velvet Underground singer Lou Reed, and Precoda's flat-out onslaughts on the electric guitar riveted club audiences looking for an alternative to synthesizer pop. The Dream Syndicate drew on a host of 1960s influences that got the band grouped in with a 'Paisley Underground' category of Los Angeles bands (such as Green on Red) that revived psychedelia and related styles, and merged them with punk energy. It mixed together several of the most vital trends in West Coast rock of the early 1980s. The album became a critical favorite, and Rolling Stone named the Dream Syndicate the best new band of 1982. That caught the attention of Slash Records, perhaps the most consistently successful of the West Coast independent labels of the time, and Slash released the Dream Syndicate's full-length debut, The Days of Wine and Roses, in September of 1982. Released on the band's own Down There label, the EP suddenly attracted a strong core of fans among the enthusiasts of the Los Angeles rock underground. In the same spirit, they made a four-song EP (extended play) record shortly after coming together.

#THE DREAM SYNDICATE FREE#

'In the early days we had no ambition other than maybe getting a few free drinks somewhere,' Wynn told the Providence Journal. The name Dream Syndicate came from an album by Tony Conrad called Outside the Dream Syndicate, which in turn was named after a group from the 1960s that featured Conrad, classical minimalist pioneer LaMonte Young, and future Velvet Underground member John Cale. For two hours they improvised on the Creedence Clearwater Revival hit 'Suzy Q,' and they liked the results enough to continue playing After moving together to Los Angeles, they joined with guitarist Karl Precoda (with whom Wynn had played in a band called Goat Deity) and drummer Dennis Duck for a jam session in Wynn's basement in December of 1981. The Dream Syndicate had its origins with a pair of English majors at the University of California at Davis, songwriter and vocalist Steve Wynn and bassist Kendra Smith. But the debut Dream Syndicate album, 1982's The Days of Wine and Roses, is widely considered a landmark event in the development of the alternative rock genre, and the band's music influenced many younger performers. You wanna go up there and have a big mess.' Wynn's statement could almost describe the Dream Syndicate's whole career in the 1980s, as the band changed styles according to Wynn's interests and finally dissolved when those interests led him in the direction of a solo career. 'If you call your shots and preplan it, then it's nothing exciting. 'You don't want to go out there and have control over everything,' Dream Syndicate frontman Steve Wynn told the Boston Globe, as he explained the conditions under which the band performed its best live shows.

The dream syndicate