The first thing that grabbed my attention when I heard the TJM EP, You're Not Going Out Dressed Like That, was that it was the first new record I'd heard that didn't have that wall of distorted, buzz-saw guitars from the Ramones' first LP, via the Pistols, Clash, Buzzocks, etc. It made it sound pretty radical to my youthful ears. Everything else coming out around that time (and for a while afterwards) was either the kind of stuff that was later dubbed "post-punk" or else rama-lama cartoon punk thrash. The sounds of The Distractions' instruments weren't punk at all, and in many ways I felt this made them more punk than many of the other records appearing at the time.
Time Goes By So Slow was a piece of 24-carat genius, with an intricate arrangement and a performance that sounded as though it was so breathless it might collapse at any moment until they reached the amazing middle section, with that wonderful jazzy chord at the end of each little sequence. Nobody's Perfect's opener, Waiting For Lorraine, features picked guitars of a kind that echoed later on in the playing of Johnny Marr, and a little four-chord riff that is just so Smiths-esque (the album was written three years before The Smiths even formed).
"Steve Perrin wrote melancholy tunes with flaky, angular guitar parts [like] the bitter whirlpool guitar of Waiting For Lorraine." - David Quantick.
"Steve Perrin and Adrian Wright's sensational guitar partnership is constant drama, wound so tight you can't see a join. Either one is prepared at any time to spin off into breathless cosmic space." - Paul Morley.
"Time Goes By So Slow sounds like 60s psych." - Stephen Morris.
"On Time Goes By So Slow, oh how the guitars drop out, leaving the song wallowing in lonely synths and the saddest drum beat you're ever heard." - Ian Pointer, Snappish Productions.
"On Time Goes By So Slow the spiky guitars and hollow synth tones presage hundreds of UK indie bands to follow" - John Hagelston, Damn Fine Day.
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Time Goes By So Slow was a piece of 24-carat genius, with an intricate arrangement and a performance that sounded as though it was so breathless it might collapse at any moment until they reached the amazing middle section, with that wonderful jazzy chord at the end of each little sequence. Nobody's Perfect's opener, Waiting For Lorraine, features picked guitars of a kind that echoed later on in the playing of Johnny Marr, and a little four-chord riff that is just so Smiths-esque (the album was written three years before The Smiths even formed).
"Steve Perrin wrote melancholy tunes with flaky, angular guitar parts [like] the bitter whirlpool guitar of Waiting For Lorraine." - David Quantick.
"Steve Perrin and Adrian Wright's sensational guitar partnership is constant drama, wound so tight you can't see a join. Either one is prepared at any time to spin off into breathless cosmic space." - Paul Morley.
"Time Goes By So Slow sounds like 60s psych." - Stephen Morris.
"On Time Goes By So Slow, oh how the guitars drop out, leaving the song wallowing in lonely synths and the saddest drum beat you're ever heard." - Ian Pointer, Snappish Productions.
"On Time Goes By So Slow the spiky guitars and hollow synth tones presage hundreds of UK indie bands to follow" - John Hagelston, Damn Fine Day.
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Great site- love the 1995 demos. The Distractions are still played regularly in my house and still sound fresh and new.
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