My Cultural Highlights: THE FLAMING STARS

A true Italian will never advertise a great family restaurant hidden behind the noise and the walls of the main Piazza. They will want to have it all to themselves, for who needs bulky rucksacks on the floor and sprawling maps on the tables? Who needs a waiter explaining to you that they have run out of your favourite red wine or the best tuna in town? It's not selfish. At worst, it's practical.  

Similarly, there are favourite bands you do not tell other people about. These are not necessarily the favourite bands, but for whatever reason you have given yourself this exclusive right to their music and you have no desire to share. Maybe you discovered them at a particular moment in life and maybe the memories are just overpowering.

Truly, the only reason why I'm writing about The Flaming Stars now, ten years after discovering them, is that The Flaming Stars are no more. Completely by chance, I decided to go to their official website the other day in order to check on the recording sessions for the new album, and was shocked to discover that "After 25 years, 41 record releases, 8 John Peel Sessions and shows on 3 continents The Flaming Stars have decided to call it a night. As the song says: “Here's to you, wherever you are” for your support over the years… From Max, Mark, Paul, Huck & Joe". This was dated July 29, and it was tragic. 

I have never been to any of their concerts (apparently, they were magnificent live), and I only stumbled into that world of classy, oversized suits three or four years after the release of their final record. Yet somehow they have always been this constant presence in my mind as well as on my vinyl record player (is there a band better suited for vinyl?). Over the recent years, there have been hints and rumours that they are working on a new album, that there is a clear promise of another "Alfredo Garcia" and another "Senator McCarthy". This, however, is not happening anymore. And it is liberating in one sense and one sense only: finally, I can write about them.

The Flaming Stars were a garage band with style. To understand the visual image, look no further than the cover of their first LP, Songs From The Bar Room Floor (which included the immortal "Bring Me The Rest Of Alfredo Garcia"). To get the idea of the music, well, you've got seven albums of near perfection. This was some seriously beautiful music, and I do mean beautiful. For even when they went for something noisy (and, being a garage band, they did that a lot), they somehow managed to make it sophisticated in the way that could only be achieved by someone in a suit and a tie. You listen to "Stranger On The Fifth Floor" (one of the greatest songs of all time) off Named and Shamed, and this noise is downright gorgeous. 

For a bit of a rougher edge, I'd suggest listening to Gallon Drunk, a band Max Décharné used to drum for (interestingly, his drumming credits also include the late great Nikki Sudden). Here, with The Flaming Stars, he was the lead singer and the principal songwriter. His voice gives that nocturnal vibe that made the band sound a lot more soulful and emotional than the constraints of the genre would generally allow. But then the constraints of the genre were never an issue with The Flaming Stars. They sounded unique. You could give me a million reference points that would include anyone from Nick Cave to Gene Vincent to Lloyd Cole, but all that would fall short of defining the sound which they created. 

The image was so complete, from the record covers to the song titles to the actual music. Stare for a few seconds at the 50s pin-up girl against the backdrop of the Western hero face from Sell Your Soul To The Flaming Stars, and the driving rush of "The Street That Never Closes" is exactly what you might hear. Memorable, atmospheric garage rock with a soulful edge. Somehow, they created music that existed outside time, so there is probably some great irony to the fact that Wikipedia still begins its article in that obsolete and pleasantly old-fashioned way: "The Flaming Stars are [sic] an English underground garage punk band".