Listening to Beyond Today: Live at the Farm – San Francisco 1986, the thought occurs Translator was so far ahead of its time, the band now transcends all the glib labels of musical category concocted in the interim since they first flourished in the Eighties
This foursome was one of the few bonafide rock and roll bands of that synthesizer-driven decade. And befitting their San Francisco headquarters, the tinges of psychedelia in their sound were unmistakable, elements that further distinguished the quartet from their contemporaries, even such ostensible peers as the Plimsouls.
So, notwithstanding echoes of Talking Heads that fly from the halting rhythms generated by bassist Larry Dekker and drummer Dave Scheff on “Necessary Spinning,” those fleeting points of comparison are no greater than those of “Beyond Today,” where Steve Barton and Robert Darlington’s vocals ever-so-slightly evoke vintage Jefferson Airplane.
At the time it occurred, Beyond Today: Live at the Farm – San Francisco 1986 was conceived as Translator’s final live performance. It is no little surprise then that so many songs in the performance radiate a deeply felt self-referential significance. But those autobiographical overtones in the lyrics also mirror the surging instrumental passion in the collective musicianship as well as the raucous reciprocal response of the audience at the intimate venue.
Economical renditions of songs like “Gravity” stand out in great relief against those instances where the band stretches out as they do on a little over nine minutes of “New Song.” And, as captured so vividly there in veritable waves of distortion, during “Standing In Line,” and “Drum Solo”/Puzzles”/”Favorite Drug,” the foursome reveled in the noise it could make, albeit not at the expense of the tuneful likes of “O Lazarus.”
Truth be told, Translator’s bond has proven remarkably staunch. The group has reunited more than once since their ostensible split decades ago and even released a new studio album in 2017, Carriage of Days. Along those same lines, the quartet recorded two new songs in ’23 and ’24 that are included here, taken from studio sessions supervised by former producer Ed Stasium (of Ramones fame).
Positioned at the end of these fourteen tracks total of Beyond Today (here available for the first time in physical form from Liberation Hall), the pair supply contrast to the cacophony of the concert culls, functioning very much like a subdued encore. “These Days To Come” is the definition of crisp, vocally and instrumentally, reaffirmation of the potency in a lineup of two guitars, bass, drums and vocals.
Meanwhile “With Your Dreams,” draws equally adroitly (but without any undue affectation) on bedrock roots of the Sixties, even as it also proffers more collective introspection. The stage raveup on Chuck Berry’s “Roll Over Beethoven” with which it’s juxtaposed, thus sounds all the more exhilarating, not to mention cathartic.
Like Live at the Farm – San Francisco 1986 at large, this implicit homage to the Beatles reaffirms Translator’s is the sort of chemistry that never becomes dated.
