'No Other' Tour brings Gene Clark's masterpiece to Union Transfer

In 1974, Gene Clark, the founding member of the Byrds who cowrote "Eight Miles High," released his solo album No Other. Decried as indulgent and overproduced, the album met with disdain and was a critical and commercial failure. But in the ensuing four decades, the album, reissued on CD in 2004, has come to be regarded as an overlooked classic.

Among those who hold No Other in high esteem are Alex Scally and Victoria Legrand of the Baltimore dream-pop band Beach House. The duo are the force behind the "Gene Clark -  No Other" Tour, which will play the first of just four dates scheduled nationally at Union Transfer on Wednesday. Scally and Legrand will be part of an 11-piece band that includes Fairport Convention founder Iain Matthews as well as members of Fleet Foxes, the Walkmen, and Grizzly Bear,

"Victoria received the album as a gift from her father in 2003 or -4, when we were starting Beach House and sharing the music we liked," Scally said, talking on the phone last week from Baltimore. "I remember being just blown away by it. The songs have this incredible energy and depth. The lyrics are great and at times just unbelievable. Like in 'Some Misunderstanding,' where he sings: 'Now I see my vision, my eyes are seeing twice/ Once for every expectation, and once for what I realize.' It's like country lyrics that are really simple, but at the same time have this deep, profound energy.

"And then of course there's this crazy production, which really grabs your attention. I just assumed when I heard it that this is just one of those classic records like [Neil Young's] After the Gold Rush that I somehow missed. But then I realized that nobody knew about this record. It was hidden for some reason."

When Beach House were on the road last year in support of their superb 2012 album Bloom, they discussed performing the music of Clark, who died in 1991. They'd do it as a way of escaping the cycle of self-promotion. "We had been playing our own set for so long, and the idea came up of going on a mini tour and not have it be our own music. Kind of a way of going on tour and not having it be me, me, me, me, me. Like, 'Let's go out there and really have fun playing music.' "

Legrand and Scally are fans of Clark's other early-'70s solo albums, but they knew No Other was the one. "I love White Light. I love Roadmaster," Scally says. "But this is just an exceptional record. There's something strange about it. If we had done White Light, it would have sounded like a country band you'd see in Austin or Nashville. This band is going to sound crazy live, like something you never, ever hear."

Most of Beach House's indie friends either enthusiastically leaped at the chance, or - having never heard No Other - listened first, then quickly signed up. It was harder to bring in older acts, Scally says, though the 67-year-old Matthews, who has covered many Clark songs, immediately came on board.

"It still is this record that nobody knows, except those people you would expect to: Gene Clark fans, '70s music enthusiasts, record store people. That's what really gets me going about this record. The music industry has always been like this. There are always great records that come out that for some reason get overlooked. . . . So part of me enjoys the idea that this could be a little revenge for the fact that he wrote all these beautiful songs, and nobody cared."