Review: The Eyes' 'My Degeneration'

The Eyes are often lumped in with the freaky British mod groups like The Who, The Creation, and Small Faces, and their best-known tracks do sort of crib the riff from "I Can't Explain" and Townshend's pickup-flicking from "Anyway, Anyhow, Anywhere". But with their sneering R&B vibe, The Eyes owe as much to the The Pretty Things. Tracks like the "I Can't Explain"-cribbing "I'm Rowed Out", the "Anyway, Anyhow"-cribbing "When the Night Falls", the "My Generation"-cribbing "My Degeneration", and "The Immediate Pleasure", which just might not crib anything at all, have the echoey, mysteriously seedy vibe of the Pretties during their "Can't Stand the Pain"/"£.S.D." heyday. The Eyes certainly sounded much tougher than their uniforms of stripey shirts affixed with pics of their own faces in eye-shaped fields might have suggested. I guess they would have to.

In the sixties, The Eyes' output amounted to a mere four singles, but aside from unrepresentatively cheerful covers of The Beatles' "Good Day Sunshine" and The Everly Brothers' "Man with Money" (tackled to better effect by The Who for the BBC), both released as A-sides against the band's wishes, the sides were all pretty killer, so they've proven to be fairly popular with compilers. Key tracks have graced such key various artists comps as Rhino's British Invasion: The History of British Rock series and Nuggets II, and Eddie Piller's British Mod Sounds of the 1960s. 

There have also been a few collections dedicated exclusively to The Eyes. The latest is Guerssen's My Degeneration, which comes closest to mirroring Acme's Arrival of the Eyes LP from 1996, although it replaces an alternate version of "Man with Money" with a really good version of "Route 66" cut when The Eyes were slapdashedly recording an LP of Stones covers (again against their personal artistic ambitions) while masquerading as "The Pupils." Those guys really had an ocular fixation.

Guerssen's release proves its worth with all-mono sound on startlingly quiet vinyl. The music sounds very clean for the singles and less so for the demo selections that make up the majority of Side B, but considering that these were mostly taken from acetates, they sound way cleaner and more dynamic than they have any right to. My Degeneration also sports a high-quality sleeve and an 8-page booklet full of photos and as in-depth a bio of The Eyes as you'll likely ever read. There's also a download card if you feel the need to groove along with My Degeneration the next time you're on your way to the optometrist.