The Plimsouls / Live! Beg, Borrow & Steal (Alive Records)

The Plimsouls never received the acclaim accorded the big three of the early 1980's LA punk/rock scene (X, Blasters and Los Lobos). Not punk enough and maybe not rootsy enough, led by the talented Peter Case, they played bar band rock and roll with a debt to the British Invasion. Ironically, of those four LA bands, the Plimsouls may be the one casual music listeners of a certain age (with questionable taste in films) know by song, if not by name, based on the unlikely placement of "A Million Miles Away" on the Valley Girl soundtrack.
The band only released two discs (each with a version of "A Million Miles Away") before disbanding and launching Peter Case's solo career. With the studio discs currently out of print, Live! Beg, Borrow & Steal recorded at the Whisky A Go Go on October 31, 1981 is a welcome addition to their discography and a rocking rollicking document of an underappreciated band. Case's raw passionate vocals recall Peter Holsapple of the dB's as he sings and shouts his way through the best of the Plimsouls' catalog and a slew of covers including "Come On Now" (Kinks),"New Orleans" (Gary U.S. Bonds) and "Dizzy Miss Lizzy" (Larry Williams, covered by the Beatles). The high energy encores prove that they were more rock and roll than new wave and they weren't too cool to show their roots. The Plimsouls were LA's answer to eighties Southern jangle pop and they deserve to be remembered for more than writing one true power pop classic (as if that isn't enough).

Highly recommended. For fans of the Flamin' Groovies' "Shake Some Action", Alex Chilton's "Hey! Little Child" and Holsapple era dB's.

Here's a taste thanks to Alive Records: A free download of "Zero Hour"!