Album Notes

The somewhat sardonic title of this recording pretty much tells the story. It’s hard to call this a “greatest hits” album. For one thing, the band never sold more than 30,000 records. And, only three of the songs on this record were ever released commercially or received any airplay. It would be better to classify this as an anthology, a thumbnail sketch of the strange history of the Clams.
The album covers just about every recording session of the Clam’s early career, from the band’s initial founding up until they returned to the studio after a long hiatus about a dozen years later. It ends just before the reformation of the group as a performing act and the recording of “My True Story” (which they finally released last year). I presume that will be covered in “Part two”.
By choosing just a song from this session, or one from that record; the band manages to weave a history through music. You can hear them grow from an Asbury Park rhythm and blues band to a power pop/proto punk band. They actually gain some polish as they became a “major label” recording band. Their disastrous fall from grace doesn’t show in the music as they continued to grow as songwriters even while disappearing from the radar of popular music.
For any of you rock and roll archivists; there are three songs here produced by punk rock “Godfather”, Hilly Kristal; (two co-produced with grammy award winning producer Glen Kolotkin). There are also two tracks produced by legendary saxophonist Eddie Manion.
If you’ve never heard any of the music of the big fat pet clams from outer space, this is a good place to start. It tells the story quite simply and flows directly into “My True Story”. And yes, there really is a band called big fat pet clams from outer space.