Can't Stand The Pain: A Quick Review Of The Ultimate Georgia Satellites Box-Set From Cherry Red Records

If ever there was a band who were unfairly relegated to being one-hit wonders it's the Georgia Satellites. I mean, sure "Keep Your Hands To Yourself" was a big damn song in 1987, but, really, Dan Baird and his pals could do so much more than that. The closest heir to Creedence as we're likey to ever see, Georgia Satellites cranked out a trio of albums on Elektra that still rock. Collected now, along with a bunch of bonus cuts on Ultimate Georgia Satellites from Cherry Red Records, the output of this outfit is due for a reconsideration.

The first Elektra record, Georgia Satellites was the most played American record in my collection in 1987, alongside Warehouse: Songs and Stories and the first Throwing Muses from the year earlier. If that seems like odd company, it was. Still, there was something nobly straightforward about the roots rock of Baird and the boys. "Keep Your Hands to Yourself" was twang-y fun, but "Battleship Chains" and "Can't Stand the Pain" rode big hooks to glory. The production is clean, and it still sounds almost too clear, but when played next to something like The Long Ryders, the first major album from Georgia Satellites stands on its own, and has nothing wasted on it. A roaring cover of "Every Picture Tells a Story" links this group up with the Faces, but, clearly, the Satellites were a good deal louder. Bonus cuts here on Disc 1 are a few live numbers, including a surprising Velvet Underground cover, and a few remixes.

Open All Night in 1988 seemed a more varied offering, one which pleased those already fans more than it earned the band new ones. "Sheila" and the title cut were not too dissimilar from what was on the first record, but the ferocious Beatles cover here, "Don't Pass Me By", wasn't quite the obviously playful single that was going to match the charm of "Keep Your Hands to Yourself" from two years earlier. Still, I liked the album then and appreciated the variety of what the band was trying to do, even if the whole enterprise didn't quite punch in the same consistent way that Georgia Satellites had. Bonus selections here include that famous cover of "Hippy Hippy Shake" from a crappy Tom Cruise film, and a live run at CCR ("Almost Saturday Night") that made literal the connection between this band and their most obvious forefathers.

In the Land of Salvation and Sin is a record I admired more than enjoyed in 1989. I get it: the band was trying to escape the stylistic pigeonholing that had occured, but stuff like "Shake that Thing" sounded far too much like Little Feat for my liking. A cover of "Games People Play" by Joe South is okay as things go, but "Slaughterhouse" is one of the rare cuts here that hits as much as the things on the first album in 1987. If released on its own, outside the shadow of the first Elektra record, this one would have been viewed favorably. But for so many of us who loved Georgia Satellites, In the Land of Salvation and Sin wasn't quite what we wanted to hear.

Ultimate Georgia Satellites collects all three Elektra albums from Georgia Satellites and a host of bonus cuts and rarities. With liner notes featuring words from Dan Baird, this is indeed the definitive overview of this criminally underrated American act from the big Eighties.

Ultimate Georgia Satellites is out now via Cherry Red Records.

[Photo: Cherry Red Records]