The Nitecap –––––– Go To The Line (1982)
Whenever I’m digging through dollar bins, I’m always looking for the staples: The Beatles, Pink Floyd, and Led Zeppelin. Though I rarely stumbled across these types of albums, it’s the hidden gems that make crate digging worth it. I would have never found The Nitecaps if it wasn’t for my patiences and the same goes for most of the groups on this blog. I’m so glad I grabbed this one.
I never knew I wanted a pop punk group with heavy horns, a range of vocals, and high energy grooves this much. Every beat these dudes hit rattle the bass on my record player. The above video is the music video for the opening track “Same Situation.” I watched it after I listened to the entire album and was amazed by the lead vocalist. While it’s not actually live, he has such crazy energy and it drew me closer. I might be slowing falling in love with this group.
The second track is “Go To The Line” and holds that early eighties new wave vibe similar to that of The Human League. It’s catchy and upbeat, but for being the title track I expected more from it. “Hot Pavement” is like if David Bowie wrote “Sound and Vision” with Sting, and while it’s not my favorite track I was able to jive with it’s odd beat.
The first side closes with “Somebody Cares” which brings things down a notch from the raspy yelling highlighted in “Can’t Let One More Day Go By.” It’s a lovely ballad reminiscent of the late 40s with it’s soft horns and reaching vocals. When John Xavier’s voice finally rung out with so much more caritey, backed by Al Maddy and Peter Jordan, I officially fell in love with this group. I was even more struck when the only live video available of them online was them playing this tune. Give it a good listen and try to convince me that these guys shouldn’t have been way bigger than they were.
With these dollar albums, sometimes it’s hard to find any information on them. I can’t find any records on the success of this album but I’m disappointed that they didn’t hit the charts when ABC’s “Look Of Love” reached #4 on the UK charts. Make that song a little more bluesy and you’ve got “The New Me.”
The Nitecaps are a great glimpse of the underground new wave and pop punk scene of the early 1980s and I wished they had more than just this one studio album. “ It`s not hard to imagine Xavier and the band maturing to the point where they could have released a very good album. As it is, they left behind a pretty good album, worth picking up in a used record store if you felt the `80s new wave/pop party ended too early (Midnight Rambler.)” The LP isn’t worth too much with prices ranging up to $10 for pristine copies. For me, this was more than worth the price. I will be raving about this group for the next few weeks and you bet “Is This The Dream?/Good Times (Medley)” will be on repeat.
