While I was listening to this album today, I thought of it as a splicing of Dexys Midnight Runners meets Talking Heads. The first time I heard of The Woodentops was one Friday in Cambridge, when Leanne said she was going up to Manchester and was going to see The Woodentops. She was visibly excited at the prospect, and she made it sound very glamorous and hip. Manchester. Woodentops. Wow. I'd heard of one, but not the other. I made a note to remember them from that point on.
I think the second time I heard of The Woodentops was when their leading bloke (was his name Rolo? I know I could look him up on the web in seconds, but I like to be fallible sometimes, too — couldn't resist, and found that my fallibility failed) was being interviewed somewhere and he said something quite interesting about Laurie Anderson's use of unusual sounds as percussion. Enough to impress me, anyway.
I always like this album, though I never felt the urge to buy another by The Woodentops, or find out more about them. It feels somehow sufficient unto itself. I remember I used to put it on before going out to the pub or to a party at the weekend: put on Wooden Foot Cops on the Highway, have a couple of shots of tequila, and jump around the flat a bit, to get the adrenalin going in the hope that then I might not spend the whole party sheltering by the cooker cradling a can of bitter and a scrounged cigarette.
It has an infectious energy to it, this album; a real drive. That's the Dexys bit. And it also has some angular Belew-esque guitar noises with oblique lyrics. That's the Talking Heads part.
 MusicBrainz entry for this album
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