The Dream Syndicate

American indie rock starts here. When this classic was released in 1982, everyone mentioned how much it sounded like the Velvet Underground; now it's amazing how many bands sound like the Dream Syndicate. O.K., that's out of the way. Now hit "play" because Days of Wine & Roses is a great freaking record.

Punctuated as well as buoyed by drummer Dennis Duck, Karl Precoda shapes a guitar master's trick bag of basic chords and ungodly electric accidents into drones that won't quit, so abrasively tuneful I get off on this album strictly as a groove--the way I get off on perfectly mindless funk like, say, the Gap Band singles. But Steve Wynn's take on the usual world-weary table topics is gratifying matter-of-fact and no more, and music like this--music where the fun is in the no-fun--feels incomplete when it stops there. (Grade - B+)