Green On Red – Keith Can’t Read and Gravity Talks

I usually just pick one song out, but I couldn’t decide which one. So I thought, hmmm, my blog, my rules today, so we are going to have a two-for-one Saturday! I’ve read where someone said about this band…it’s alt country meets the Replacements. In some songs, that is true. Some of their songs sound epic, and they were reaching for something big…and many times pulled it off.

I have to give WordPress credit for knowing about this band. I missed them in real time, or I would have been buying their records. I found out about them through a fellow blogger and have been listening to them ever since. This is what I wanted the mainstream to be in the 80s and why I listened to more alternative and heartland rockers. Green On Red had a quality that I talked about in earlier posts. You can hear a car wreck coming, but they pull it between the lines just in time!

They had everything I like in a band. A raw sound that was in no way polished. They were always one of those bands that critics loved but radio mostly ignored. They came out of the Paisley Underground scene in the early 1980s, but unlike some of their peers, they were harder into country-rock and the Stones-style rock. They were made up of Dan Stuart (vocals/guitar), Jack Waterson (bass), Van Christian (drums, later of Naked Prey), and Chris Cacavas (organ). It’s basically a marriage of classic rock, punk, psychedelia, country, and garage rock.

Keith Can’t Read never became a hit, but that was the story of Green on Red. They influenced a lot of bands that came later in alt-country and Americana, yet they stayed underground. Dan Stuart had a way of writing about losers, addicts, drifters, and broken friendships without turning it into self-pity. He is a very underrated songwriter. The song was on the album Here Comes The Snakes released in 1989.

Gravity Talks was the title track of the 1983 debut album by Green on Red, and it captured the band right at the point where garage rock, psychedelia, country, and desert atmosphere all collided together. The song never became widely known, but it became one of those tracks roots-rock fans have praised for years. That whole album had a reputation as a lost classic. Critics later described it as reckless, ragged, and impossible to neatly categorize. I love the organ in this one and Dan’s voice. His voice is instantly recognizable.

Keith Can’t Read

Get outta the street right now
Your in the way
The red light has turned to green
I ain’t got all day

There ain’t no pictures in this book
Just dirty pages take a look

If you think your woman is good to you
Think about when you’re away from her
What you put her through

There ain’t no pictures in this book
Just dirty pages take a look

Get off of your knees right now
Your looking up my nose
Girl that ain’t gonna cut no ice
Heaven knows

Gravity Talks

Suppose you really knew
What’s it all about
And someone you thought you knew
He asked you out

I’m not easy I know
Gravity talks

Suppose you really thought
You had it in the bag
And an old man he walked up
And he took it all

I’m not easy I know
Gravity gravity talks

Suppose you really knew
What’s it all about
And someone you thought you knew
He asked you out

I’m not easy I know
Gravity gravity talks

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Author: Badfinger (Max)

Power Pop fan, Baseball, Beatles, Alternative music, old movies, and tv show fan. Also anything to do with pop culture in the 60s and 70s... I'm also a songwriter, bass and guitar player. Not the slightest bit interested in politics at all.

21 thoughts on “Green On Red – Keith Can’t Read and Gravity Talks”

  1. Pingback: Green On Red – Keith Can’t Read and Gravity Talks – MobsterTiger

  3. I love that you went back to Paisley Underground, Green On Red, and what we then called “desert rock” -different to what this term describes now. In case you don’t already know about them, I urge you to check my favorite band of the era, Thin White Rope.

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      2. I saw a playlist on YouTube and went with it. Disney Girl, Some Velvet Morning, Wire Animals, and YES Red Sun…I’m going to go over more. Would you mind if I linked you? I always give credit if someone brings up some artist. I love finding new/old music.

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  5. Hearing this cuts makes me remember how much I liked these guys. Like hearing from an old friend. Another great American band that not a lot of Americans know about. I even have their albums on vinyl and cassette.

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  6. That organ drives ‘Gravity’ in a close to frenzied way. I’ve heard of them but only through (maybe Dave?) or this website. You give a great description of the band Max- they are loose as a caboose, runaway but not ramshackle.

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      1. nope, all credit to Max – I think I have mentioned them in passing in articles about other LA bands of the era but never featured them; first time I ever knew more about them than the name and city was a Max post

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  7. The name Green on Red rang a bell right away, though I couldn’t remember why. After searching my blog I know – Chuck Prophet who I’ve covered a few times. Prophet joined them in the mid ’80s and played on a bunch of their albums, including “Here Come the Snakes,” the one with “Keith Can’t Read” – nice Stones vibe. I also like the other song you highlighted.

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    1. I have posted them a few time…listen to Sixteen Ways…that is one of their more known songs…but Christian…the guy has a voice…a different kind of voice I love.
      Oh yes!!!! Chuck Prophet!!! Thanks for reminding me…yes he was in this band.

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  8. The interesting thing about the Paisley underground is how different all those bands seemed to be – this is nothing like MAzzy Star and barely in the same category as the Bangles but there you go… all friends and playing the same city’s same bars. Of the two, I like ‘Gravity Talks’ better, as you mention I like that organ in there. Hmm… think I’m not sure that I quite like the guy’s voice though. Just my 2 cents, I’m sure many people really did.

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