Thrift Store Music: Method Actors

Thursday, June 4, 2020

Method Actors - Dancing Underneath

Name: Method Actors
Album: Dancing Underneath
Year: 1981
Style: No Wave New Wave
Similar Bands: Pixies, Talking Heads, Lou Reed / Velvet Underground, Violent Femmes, Adam Ant, Half Japanese, Devo, Television
"One-Word" Review: Playfully Funky Minimal New Wave
Based Out Of: Athens Georgia
Label: DB Recs

Cover, Record

Back, Record

Dancing Underneath (1981)

Dancing Underneath 4:45
Privilege 2:00
No Condition 4:00 /
E-Y-E 5:40
My Time 1:45

Album Rating (1-10): 9.0

Members & Other Bands:

Vic Varney - Guitar, Vox (Tone Tones, Go Van Go)
David Gamble - Drums, Vox (Tone Tones, Boat Of, Beauty Contest, Jack Heard, Peach of Immortality)

Unknown-ness: I've never heard of this band. By the look of the artwork and font, it looks very low budget. Perhaps the abstract art will lead to jazzy tunes. Or perhaps it's experimental. But it looks very independent, and not much info on the band itself anywhere on the packaging.

Album Review: So the songs have a very Talking Heads / Pixies / Lou Reed quality to them, with Violent Femmes instrumentation. The lead track in particular is odd in the fact that it sounds like a Gang of Four song played by a jangley band like REM. The urgency is there, but the playfulness in the vocals, similar to Adam Ant at times, makes it very non threatening, and still quite good. This collection of 5 tracks can all be found on 2010's full length compilation titled This Is Still It. The band is comprised of just the two, but later after Gamble left, the remainder filled out the line up with sax and full time guitar as they were winding down as a band. Vic Varney also managed fellow Athens alums Pylon, and you can hear similarities in what they were both up to.

Stand Out Track: Dancing Underneath, My Time

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