(Translated from my original Italian text by ChatGPT and Piero Scaruffi)

28th Day were a San Francisco trio associated with the roots-rock revival movement. 28th Day (Enigma, 1985) showcases a gritty and melodic folk-rock, X-style vocal harmonies, powerful Native American pow-wow rhythms, and power-pop guitar riffs. Above all, the compositions are consistently top-quality: 25 Pills opens in a Byrds-like style, while Where The Bears Sing introduces heavier sounds, and if Pages Turn represents a synthesis of these styles, Lost, a driving, martial melodic jug tune, goes even further. Both sides are capped by the psychedelic ragas of I'm Only Asking and Burnsite. Stones Of Judgement remains a classic of singer and bassist Barbara Manning. Guitarist Cole Marquis and drummer Michael Cloward filled out the sound with mysterious chimes and rhythms charged with ancestral echoes, not unlike what Jeffrey Lee Pierce and Terry Graham did in the Gun Club, though here applied to a much more folk-oriented material. The Complete Recordings (Innerstate, 2003) collects all the material recorded by the band.

Manning resurfaced with World Of Pooh, a collaboration with singer-guitarist Brandan Kearny and drummer Jay Paget. By the time their album The Land Of Thirst (Nuf Sed, 1989) was released, the group had already disbanded, but tracks like Scissors, Somewhere Soon, I'm On The Wrong Side, and the subsequent single Someone Wants You Dead cemented their legendary status.

Manning was then playing with the Table Spoons.

Meanwhile, she managed to release under her own name the album Lately I Keep Scissors (Heyday, 1988), featuring songs she had written for 28th Day’s second album. Each track employed different accompanists (Manning herself playing guitar, bass, and cello), resulting in a distinct arrangement for each piece—from the sublime, classical-inspired dance of Talk All Night (for two guitars and a tambourine) to the driving country of Scissors (with Melanie Clarin of the Catheads on drums). The more conventional songs, like Somewhere Soon and especially Never Park, recall the pop litanies of Yo La Tengo. But Manning also ventures into hard-rock riffs, as in Every Pretty Girl (a manifesto of the “riot girls”) and Something You've Got, still imbued with charming folk melodies.

Manning possesses a melodious voice and considerable compositional talent, but the real strength of the album lies in her harmonic architectures: humble, spare, yet highly effective and emotionally touching. From the claustrophobic atmosphere of Breathe Lies (for guitar, bass, and cello) to the minimalist crescendo of Mark E. Smith & Brix (for guitar and coin noises), culminating in the sinister hallucination of Make It Go Away, where the drums maintain an irregular rhythm, the guitars detune with a dreamlike effect, and Manning whispers incomprehensible lyrics, each piece achieves maximum impact with minimal means.

What unites all the tracks is a central theme: existential sadness, rarely expressed as anger, a concentration of barely suppressed suicidal impulses, rivalling Mark Eitzel. The album strikes as an intensely personal—and honestly, profoundly personal—work, as well as musically original.

For several years Manning remained silent. The quiet was broken only by the single Haze Is Free (Forced Exposure, 1991), one of her masterpieces.

Manning, still entangled in record-label issues, only managed years later to release One Perfect Green Blanket (Heyday, 1991), an album largely revisiting older material. Aside from the harsh, cold invective of Straw Man, the work is even more folk and understated than her previous albums, now cradled in the fairytale-like melody of Green, now sinking into the blues of Lock Yer Room, retaining in Someone Wants You Dead (the old single) a unique ability to build dramatic atmospheres with minimal means, and in Sympathy Wreath a taste for arrangements that are at once simple and creative (Kim Osterwalder’s cello used like a ukulele). Shortly afterward came the single 8s (Majora), another of her pop gems.

Manning then formed the S.F. Seals, which soon became simply her backing band. Nowhere (Matador, 1994) is a subtle work, yet still rich in lyrical ideas, as when in Winter Song Manning recites, “I signed my name in the darkest part of your heart,” or when in Missing she compares her heart to a balloon that might float away. There are only five original tracks, but they are literally fairytale-like. Back Again has a chorus reminiscent of the Altered Images.

Confirming that Manning’s preferred format is the song rather than the album, on Sings With The Original Artists (Feel Good All Over, 1995) there is only one of her songs, Optimism Is Its Own Reward, but it is another little gem.

For Truth Walks In Sleepy Shadows (Matador, 1995) the SF Seals had become a chamber ensemble, complete with calliope and vibraphone. Accompanied by local veterans, including drummer Melanie Clarin (of the Catheads and Donner Party), Manning vents her anger in Locked Out and Ipecac, and performs power-pop in Pulp. But, as usual, the masterpiece of the period appears on an unusual record: Wasps' Nests (London, 1996) by the 6ths, with the track San Diego Zoo.

Her activities are rounded out by sonic experiments conducted under the pseudonym Glands Of External Secretion, collected on Northern Exposure Will Be Right Back (Starlight Furniture, 1995).

By now the standard-bearer of West Coast female singer-songwriting, Manning maintained her proud underground independence.