1212 June 10, 1997

Third solo album by Barbara Manning; however, it is anything but solo. It features the strong musical support of Joey Burns and John Convertino, the psychic rhythm section of Giant Sand, and smoother groovers of Tucsonšs Calexico. 55 minutes in length, 1212šs highlight is Barbarašs proudest songwriting moment yet, the 19 minute ŗArsonist Story,˛ which treks the life of a teenage firebug. True to Barbarašs fandom to music, there are several creative arrangements of challenging songs by the Deviants, Tom Lehrer, Richard Thompson, Amon Duul and Bevis Frond, plus a few new Barbara sons to wow the socks off of any SF Seals fan.

Truth Walks in Sleepy Shadows September 12, 1995

Barbara Manning and her ace all-star band return with their most exciting and challenging album since, well, since the last one. Manning, one of the three or four greatest songwriters on earth, knows more about rock, love, baseball and life than anyone should have a right to combine, but hey, this is America, we can combine whatever we want and still drive to Mexico if the weather’s nice. Truth Walks In Sleepy Shadows has 11 songs and includes three fine covers of the Pretty Things ("SF Sorrow"), Faust ("Flashback Caruso"), and, from the Church of Anthrax record by John Cale and Terry Riley, ("Soul of Patrick Lee"). The originals are distinctive and diverse. Barbara Manning might be best known for her songs about break-ups, but her new fierce heartbreak song, "Pulp," leaves no question as to who is empowered to get through hard emotional times, THE SF SEALS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Truth Walks in Sleepy Shadows is the third Matador release of the SF Seals. In addition to Manning, this Seals album features the singing and playing of Melanie Clarin (ex-Cat Heads, Donner Party), Brently Pusser (Three Day Stubble) and Margaret Murray (U.S. Saucer).

Nowhere November 19, 1996

The SF Seals were a team. Of that, everyone is certain. That the Seals continue to exist as a team is a fact that seems to bugger the space-time reception follicles of every baseball fan between here and eternity. But I am standing before you to say that it is true.

Just exactly how this came to be is lost in the fogs of swirling Bay Area myth -- just let it be said that the idea for this team was hatched before Denny McLain had bought his first gateway drug, and while Joe DiMaggio’s trousers were still moist with the physical taint of Marilyn. It has been hinted that several colorful bongs and a full set of Robert Scott’s Electric Blood cassettes were somehow involved in the germination of the Seals concept, but that’s something which I am unable to confirm or deny.

This new version of the Seals, this new, better version of the Seals, revolves around a core membership of four persons. Two of them were involved from the absolute get-go, the other two have joined more recently. The pseudo-oldsters in the crowd are the hard-charging pit bull of Bay Area songwriters, Barbara Manning, and that singing, dancing, drumming accordion legend Melanie Clarin. This pair has been swinging in tandem since 1986, when they collaborated on Barbara’s classic solo LP, Lately I Keep Scissors. For the Seals’ newest recording project, Nowhere, they have corralled the berserk talents of guitarist Brently Pusser -- a 13-year veteran of Nerd Rock Pioneers 3 Day Stubble, and Iowa-born bassist Margaret Murray, whose presence in U.S. Saucer has already made boatloads of humans cry for the sheer joy of it.

On their exquisite new album, these four Seals are aided and abetted by a virtual who’s who of Bay Area scene-stoppers, each of whom seems absolutely committed to the Seals’ goal of blowing the doors right off their implicit genre-hinges. Amongst the pug-ugly aestheticians present here are producer/renaissance man Greg Freeman on bass; J.C. Hopkins of Flophouse on organ; Seymour "Scatman" Glass (whom many call the "Deep Throat" of the recent Salinger paternity scandals) on "personal instrument"; Jay Paget of Thinking Fellers/World Of Pooh acting as space technician, and other players to be named at a later date. The intense level of post-linearity in the racket these rascals are able to raise is something not heard in the Golden State since Red Crayola exploded following their prophetic appearance at the 1967 Berkeley Folk Fest.

Nowhere was recorded in a mere 10 days, but is certain to provide a full lifetime of listening pleasure & experience for those with enough starch to stick their heads right down into it.

The album’s title is a key. "Nowhere/Now Here" is a haunted couplet, redolent with the ghosts of Abbott & Costello (their classic "Who’s on first" routine and Gertrude Stein ("There’s no there there"..."to know to know where to love her so"). Look for the confluence of these elements and the petals of Nowhere will unfold before your brain like a beautiful night bloom viewed by candlelight.

"Back Again" opens the album with a pseudo-anthem, the irony of which will probably be lost on dullards. It collides into a wall of metal bamboo. "Don’t Underestimate Me" is a cover of a beautiful thug-folk-psych obscurity. Originally recorded in Feb. 1966 by Long Island songwriter Faine Jade, this tune is a monster of suppressed snarl. It dissolves into the chatter of haunted airports. "8’s" is pluperfect Seals, offering a song filled with vague premonitions of future-beauty-lost, set against a backdrop which combines obvious smoothery with subliminal hints of collapsing souls. It spins off into a guitar distention worthy of Randy Holden.

"Janine’s Dream" is a Holy Modal Rounders song, sung gorgeously by Melanie and possessed of phony surface noise, and the psychedelic backwoods polka-hunch that the lyrics demand. It is subsumed in a glaring sheet of ritualized harmonica motion.

"Still?" is another balancing act, attempting and succeeding to walk across the pit of noise & despair on a thin strand of love & hope.

"Day 12" bares the naked torture of Karen Carpenter’s existence without falling prey to the ironic winkery that has marred other syntactically similar operations.

"Winter Song" is an expensive bottle of red wine in front of a roaring fireplace with the scent of sex slowly erasing the bitter aftertaste in the back of your throat. And when you blow your stack you see a bunch of little birdies enwreathing your loved one’s head.

"Baby Blue" -- who the fuck wrote this? Can’t remember. But it’s the song that Gram Parsons’ ghost wishes Emmylou had sung with the Modern Lovers at his wake. Now the wrong has been righted. Rest peacefully, friend.

"Demons On The Corner" emerges from the snork of subterranean whatsis to demonstrate that form can only truly be understood once it is destroyed. John Fahey’s lost collaboration with Red Crayola can’t have sounded dissimilar. File under "Folk," asshole.

"Missing" surges and quivers like an iceberg hit by a supertanker. Scrape some sweat from the coat of an amphetamine gazelle and sell it in amulets. When it achieves the proper temperature you will know. Now scoot.

Baseball Trilogy October 12, 1993

Barbara Manning on Matador! A dream come true! Baseball Trilogy has three songs about baseball legends: "Joltin’ Joe DiMaggio," "The Ballad of Denny McLain," and "Dock Ellis." I asked Gerard who these people were, I mean, we don’t have baseball in Sweden, we have pin the tail on the smorgasbord and ice hockey and hide-and-seek Sven, he just looked at me and asked if I wanted to be a real American or what. "Joltin’ Joe DiMaggio" is something as goofy (in the best sense of the word) as punk rock dixieland, I don’t know, Raymond Scott and X Ray Spex juggling mandolins in the lobby of a Louisiana bed ’n’ breakfast. The SF Seals are the goddamn tops. Kick butt over pretty much all other acts on our (and your) label. That’s right.