The Shroud of Touring: The Bongos’ Lost Live Album is a Secret No More
The 1985 concert recording expands the power pop heroes’ legacy
You might have feared you’d heard the last of The Bongos. But the kings of the ‘80s Hoboken scene don’t give up the ghost so easily.
More than a decade after their lost 1985/86 Phantom Train sessions were finally released, admirers of the power-pop cult heroes get some more heavenly manna with the arrival of The Shroud of Touring. Recorded live in ‘85, it’s been gathering dust somewhere for decades, much like Phantom Train did. But now those who never saw the boys back in the day can find out what they were missing, and those who did can relive the fun and fervor of a vintage Bongos show.
An hour-long explosion of youthful energy, The Shroud of Touring captures a New Jersey set from the tour that supported The Bongos’ 1985 Beat Hotel album. The frothy hooks, elliptical imagery, and ineffable mystique of the band are bursting out left, right, and center.
The tunes from the first Bongos album, Drums Along the Hudson, are the ones where the primal rock ‘n’ roll power is at its most unfettered. The sheer physical force of “In the Congo” definitively underlines the “power” in power pop. And the muscular groove of “Telephoto Lens” driven by Frank Giannini’s cannon-blast drums is the ideal contrast for some of the artier textures the song’s guitars explore.
But even when The Bongos are slamming out a roof-raising update of T. Rex’s glam-rock milestone “Mambo Sun,” there’s something more than just forward momentum at work, as Richard Barone’s trademark fuzz guitar tones sketch out a secret world hiding just behind the tune’s in-your-face attack.
That air of dark mystery is echoed again and again in bandleader Barone’s tunes. It comes partly from the surreal, seemingly Marc Bolan-indebted lyrical imagery and partly from Barone’s knack for packing some of his most potent hooks into moody, minor-key melodies on tunes like “Zebra Club” and “Numbers with Wings.” Rob Norris’s nimbly mathematical bass lines on the latter—even more driving than on the studio version—underscore both The Bongos’ gift for artful arrangements and their ability to amplify them onstage.
The luxurious melodies of Beat Hotel tunes like that album’s title track and “Brave New World” take things to another level, but the band brings an extra urgency to them here. Part of that additional punch can be credited to Talking Heads percussionist Steve Scales, who was added to The Bongos’ touring lineup to expand their live sound.
Scales’ solo stirs up plenty of excitement leading into “Totem Pole,” a cathartic collision of garage rock and new wave co-written by Bongos guitarist James Mastro. And all hands are on deck contributing to the relentless, sensual pounding of “Barbarella,” a highlight of the Numbers with Wings EP and one of the band’s most electrifying tunes.
The Bongos retired from active duty in the late ‘80s, but they never completely disappeared from view. Barone, Mastro, Norris and Giannini have sporadically reunited for the occasional performance over the years. And the release of The Shroud of Touring has engendered a short run of East Coast dates where the band has shown they can still kick up some sparks.
But their long-delayed live album offers a glimpse into what it was like to hear these tunes live for the first time when they were fresh from the oven. And it’s a view to remember.
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