Although Michael Quercio, The Three O’Clock’s singer, came up with the term Paisley Underground to refer to the Los Angeles music scene that included bands such as Rain Parade, The Bangles, The Dream Syndicate and Green On Red, his band’s story is not nearly as well known as that of their contemporaries. Formed in 1981 as The Salvation Army, their first recordings bore a clear psych-pop/garage influence and overtones of their home city’s punk legacy. After changing their name due to legal reasons, the band released the Baroque Howdown EP in 1982, where they started to shift towards a more polished pop sound, without abandoning their Nuggets origins. Sixteen Tambourines, from 1983, was the culmination of that evolution, helped by Earl Mankey’s production. The LP is a work of perfect pop music that draws from 60s beat, power pop, psychedelia, bubblegum, baroque pop… It contains a splendid version of the Bee Gees’ ‘In My Own Time’, which is however matched and even surpassed by the band’s own compositions. There would be other albums after they left Frontier and signed with IRS and Prince’s Paisley Park Records, but Sixteen Tambourines is the shimmering LP that should have given The Three O’Clock the same success level as friends The Bangles, and deserves to be rediscovered by anyone who loves pop music.