MOG

How often does a band come along, put out an amazing, resonant, timeless debut album (one that even spawns a memorable single which is covered and used over and over in commercials a decade later), and then, for all intents and purposes, disappear?

Not too often.

Then, we have The La’s.

Not Alison Goldfrapp’s “Ooh La La”; or Ronnie Lane singing the Faces’ “Ooh La La.”; or that Christmastime “Fa La La La La La La La La…” (Although any time I hear that stuff, I wanna boot up The La’s.)

One of my all-time favorites, The La’s were a British rock quartet (striated with traces of folk and psychedelia) fronted by singer-songwriter-guitarist Lee Mavers. Coming together in Liverpool, England during the mid-1980s, they sounded as if the Who and the Byrds had teamed up to perform sea chanteys, but took peyote and decided to kick out the jams instead.

They recorded one eponymous album, partially (and elegantly) produced by Steve Lillywhite of U2 fame. (It was, reportedly, a struggle all the way, as Mavers was never truly satisfied with the results.) It was released in 1990. They charted in the U.K. with the ear-seducing single “There She Goes” – a love song that was a marvel of chiming 12-string guitars and glorious harmonies and an insistent sing-along chorus wherein the object of the vocalist’s affection could just as easily be narcotics as a woman.

The La's first album.

Although it made barely a ripple in terms of sales, “There She Goes” received some airplay on American alt-rock stations. It sounded great coming out of any size speaker: car radio, boom-box, or giant audiophile set-up in the living room. It inspired a pair of high-profile cover versions – one by English shoegazers the Boo Radleys (used on the soundtrack to the tepid Mike Myers comedy “So I Married an Axe Murderer”). The other was by Texas-spawned Christian pop-rock band Sixpence None the Richer, whose take is all too familiar from its odd use as the theme song in a long running series of TV ads for birth-control pills. (Gotta love the idea that the Christians do this song with drug connotations, and it becomes the jingle for a female contraceptive.)

Anyhow, The La’s toured the U.S. in 1991 to support their album. I saw them at Slim’s in San Francisco. It was a very good show, but Mavers was not much of a showman. Let’s say that he was somewhere between introverted and sullen.

And that was it. No follow-up album of new material, although a couple of compilations of demos and B-sides, and a BBC session were released over the past few years. When bassist John Power left the group in 1992 and founded the marginally-successful Britpop band Cast, The La’s dissolved – and Mavers went underground amid rumors of mental illness and drug abuse.

There were some loose, mid-‘90s pick-up shows by Mavers and some of his mates in support of other bands. Then, Mavers was gone from the scene for years. I heard that he was living quietly in Liverpool, where he would perform solo in cafes, but otherwise, keep to himself.

Surprisingly, he reemerged in 2005 with Power and a revised line-up to play a few festival dates and some shows in Japan. No reports of fresh tunes, though.

I’m sure that those of us in the MOG-iverse can come up with cases where an untimely death or some sort of religious epiphany scotches a promising career in music. This is a little more mysterious.

Despite word that Mavers is working on a second album of original La’s songs, I won’t hold my breath. I remain grateful for what’s already available. That first album earns the ultimate accolade – it loses none of its charm no matter how many times I hear it.