paul collins: man, or powerman?

Paul Collins is just a regular guy who now plays shows for about the same amount of people I play shows for, which is to say, not a whole lot. But to 'people in the know' (as the kids say) he's actually "Paul Fucking Collins", drummer for the Nerves and the man behind power pop kings the Beat (who are also known as the Paul Collins Beat to avoid confusion with the ska band the Beat, who are also known as the English Beat to avoid confusion with the Paul Collins Beat. Ba boom!)

Thank you, parantheticals, now go eat a Snickers. You deserve it.

So the Nerves ended up being a very important power pop band even though they only toured once (but at least played with the Ramones...sorry to cut your break short, parantheticals). They put out only one ep that basically no one bought, except is now insanely expensive on eBay. But there's one song on that EP that everyone in the world has heard without even really knowing it, because a blonde uber-babe from New York ended up covering it a few years later and it was a big hit.





See what I mean? Killer stuff. That's Paul Collins in the middle, by the way. Now this stuff was all re-released by the amazing Alive Records label recently on a limited edition vinyl that looks like this:



After the Nerves self combustid, Paul Collins formed the Beat and in '79 put out one of the best power pop albums of all time, a self titled on COLUMBIA RECORDS! One of the first major label power pop records. It looked like this:



It had the coolest song ever written about the reason songs are written and they ended up playing it on American Bandstand!



Unfortunately for Paul, the Knack's "Get The Knack" came out that same year and completely overshadowed everything non-Knack. Bummer, Paul!

What I'm trying to say is, Paul Collins is a king amongst power pop men. All his records are pure classics, and if you're getting into power-pop they are a good place to start. A true songwriting genious with a workhorse attitude, Paul Collins new album "the King of Power Pop" was just released on Alive Naturalsound Records and it's really, really good, I'm not going to lie. I just ordered myself one, and I encourage you to do the same!