| The Dream Syndicate | |
|---|---|
| Origin | Los Angeles, California, USA |
| Genres | Alternative rock Paisley Underground |
| Years active | 1981–1991 |
| Labels | Ruby/Slash |
| Past members | |
| Steve Wynn (vocals and guitar) Karl Precoda (guitar) Kendra Smith (bass) Dennis Duck (drums) David Provost (bass) Mark Walton (bass) Paul B. Cutler (guitar) |
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The Dream Syndicate[1] was an alternative rock band from Los Angeles, California active from 1981 to 1989. The band was associated with the Paisley Underground music movement.
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While attending the University of California, Davis, Steve Wynn and Kendra Smith played together (with future True West members Russ Tolman and Gavin Blair) in the Suspects. Moving back home to Los Angeles, Wynn recorded a single called "15 Minutes" (as in 15 minutes of fame) as his intended farewell to music. Instead, while rehearsing in a band called Goat Deity, Wynn met Karl Precoda, who had answered an ad for a bass player, and the two joined to form a new group, with Precoda switching to guitar. Smith came to play bass, and brought in drummer Dennis Duck, who had played in the locally successful Pasadena-based Human Hands.
Duck suggested the name "The Dream Syndicate" in reference to Tony Conrad's early 1960s New York experimental ensemble (better known as the Theater of Eternal Music), whose members included John Cale.
On February 23, 1982, the Dream Syndicate performed its first show at Club Lingerie in Hollywood. A four-song EP was recorded at the home of Tom Mehren in Pasadena (not in Wynn's basement as has been rumored) with Paul B. Cutler (guitarist for 45 Grave and The Consumers) engineering and producing and released on Wynn's Down There label, and the band quickly achieved local attention for its often aggressively long, feedback-soaked improvisations. Obvious sources were The Velvet Underground (the Dream Syndicate could be called early VU revivalists) and Television, but echoes of the Quicksilver Messenger Service and Creedence Clearwater Revival could also be discerned. "It was an overnight thing," Wynn recalled of their success. "There was no dues paying. It was very weird, and it screwed us up in some ways."
The band was signed to Slash Records, whose subsidiary Ruby Records released its debut and by far best-known album, The Days of Wine and Roses, in 1982. The next year saw the UK (Rough Trade Records) release of the album's anthemic lead track, "Tell Me When It's Over," as the A-side of an EP which also included a live cover of Neil Young's "Mr. Soul."
Kendra Smith left the band and joined David Roback, formerly of the band Rain Parade, to form Opal. She was replaced in the Dream Syndicate by David Provost.
The Medicine Show was recorded in 1984 in San Francisco with producer Sandy Pearlman (Blue Öyster Cult, The Clash). The commercial failure of the album contributed towards the group's temporary breakup. They opened tours for R.E.M. and U2 and released the 5-song EP This Is Not the New Dream Syndicate Album - Live (1984), the last record to feature Karl Precoda on guitar (who soon after left to pursue a career in screenwriting) and the first appearance of bassist Mark Walton. The band left A&M after the label rejected its demo for "Slide Away", later released on the semi-official It's Too Late to Stop Now.
In 1985, Wynn and Dan Stuart of Green on Red wrote 10 songs together which were recorded with Dennis Duck, among others, and released by A&M as Danny and Dusty: The Lost Weekend.
After a brief hiatus, Wynn, Duck and Walton joined with Paul B. Cutler (of the proto-Goth 45 Grave) to form the final version of The Dream Syndicate; they recorded two more studio albums, Out of the Grey (1986), produced by Cutler, and Ghost Stories (1988), produced by Elliot Mazer (producer also of several Neil Young albums, including Harvest and Time Fades Away). A live album, Live at Raji's, was recorded (also by Mazer) before Ghost Stories but released afterward.
Posthumous releases include 3½; The Lost Tapes 1985–1988, a collection of unreleased studio sessions including cuts produced by Vitus Matare (of L.A.s Paisley Underground heroes The Last and later Trotsky Icepick,) and The Day Before Wine and Roses, a live radio performance recorded just prior to the release of the band's first album.
Steve Wynn has continued on as a solo artist. Mark Walton went on to play with the Continental Drifters.