Album Notes

Robert Christgau's rave in the Voice...
Six out of eight songs on this half-hour-plus "EP" get to the heart of smart teen disillusion, which is as much as I ever expect of the L.A.-spawned nuevo-Nuggets approach. The Standells cover sounds like Dylan and states Blow-Up's credo, which in the great smart-teen tradition comes perilously close to making a fashion statement about not conforming to style. A MINUS

LA Herald-Examiner - June 23, 1984 by Mikal Gilmore
Blow-Up, Easy Knowledge (Polar Records) — Back in the mid-70s, in that restive, uncertain time between the eventful (if at-odds) insights of David Bowie and Bruce Springsteen. and the explosiveness of the Ramones and Sex Pistols, this was the sort of music that worked as a sustaining touchstone for many rock 'n' roll diehards: raw, basic, fervid (and fun) fare, illuminated by a temper borrowed essentially from Highway 61 Revisited, and a sad-eyed aggressiveness learned from December's Children and the first Velvet Underground album. Now, in the mid-'80s, after punk's insurgency has turned into another version of upward-bound, commercial savvy, this same manner of youthful, garage-derived sensibility seems, if anything, even more illuminating and promising.

The trouble is, I can't really tell you much about this local five-piece, except that songwriter and lead vocalist Jody Taylor Worth sings and composes much like Elliott Murphy and David Johansen in their come-and-go primes (also a bit like Jim Carroll in a prime he's never had), and is the son of film producer Marvin Worth ("Unfaithfully Yours" and "Lenny"). who once also managed Lenny Bruce. That last bit of info doesn't really bear upon the music, though it might help account for the uncommon innate intelligence and verve that permeate Worth's songwriting. In any event, this is one of the most thoroughly enjoyable and encouraging LPs I've heard all year. I play it just about as much as I play the Bruce Springsteen and Lou Reed albums, and for much the same reason: It strives for transcendence in the face of mundane fortune, and it finds much to celebrate and affirm in that quest. If I were a record biz cat I'd sign these kids in a flash. They're pretty amazing.

This new-to-digital version of the Easy Knowledge EP also contains four additional tracks that pre-dated the original record. "Local Hero," "Souvenir," and the cover of Mary Wells' "You Beat Me to the Punch" were included on a very hard to find flexi-disc, while the version of "Beat the Devil" is a previously unreleased version of a song originally recorded for the movie "Up the Academy."

The band members were: Jody Taylor Worth (vocals), Pat DiPuccio (guitars/harmonica/vocals), Christian Super (keyboards), Ed Cirino (drums), and Michael Rummans (bass). Devin Payne was the producer.