Tag Archives: Air Mail

Robert Johnson: Close Personal Friend

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Long lost 1979 power-pop gem

Despite this superb 1979 debut, the Memphis-based Robert Johnson never caught on as a power-pop artist. After sitting in the vaults un-reissued for nearly 30 years, the CD edition is even harder to find in the U.S. than copies of the original vinyl LP; odd, since it’s still available from UK sites at a reasonable price. The reissue comes in a mini-LP cover with a mini-inner sleeve (which itself sports a microscopic reproduction of the lyrics) and adds eight bonus tracks drawn from 1980’s Memphis Demos. Johnson’s southern roots shine through in the album’s soulful bass lines, and the twin guitars bring to mind the tandem of Lloyd Cole and Robert Quine from Matthew Sweet’s Girlfriend. As much as Johnson looks like Moon Martin on the cover shot, and despite the Elvis Costello pose, he’s a gutsier singer than the former, a less angry young man than the latter, and a better guitarist than both. At times he sings like Phil Seymour or Joe Walsh, but more urgent, and with hard charging guitar playing. The demo tracks are a great addition, a bit rougher than the album finals and adding songs that didn’t make the cut, including a cover of Roy Orbison’s (by way of the Everly Brothers’) “Claudette” and Elvis Presley’s “Burning Love.” [©2010 hyperbolium dot com]

The Heats: Have an Idea

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Stellar power pop album, mediocre re-mastering

The Heats may be the best power pop band that most power pop fans have never heard. They peaked between the 1970s wave of AM radio pop and its 1980s underground echo, playing Seattle clubs and gaining regional college radio attention. Their lone LP, 1980’s Have an Idea, was produced by Heart’s Howard Leese and released on their managers’ Albatross label to local fanfare but no national attention. It sold 15,000 copies and failed to garner the band a major label deal. The thirteen original songs, including a remake of the catchy single “I Don’t Like Your Face,” are filled with the influences of the Beatles, Big Star, Tom Petty, and Dwight Twilley, and the singing of guitarists Steve Pearson and Don Short borrows some fine harmonies from the Everly Brothers.

This Japanese reissue of the original album was produced from sources that are inferior to the original vinyl pressing (and thus to the original master tapes). The high end is missing, shaving off the keening edges of the voices, guitars, drums, and cymbals, and sounding as if this was played through a radio. Much of this material was reissued in better fidelity on 1998’s Smoke, but this is the first CD to include the original album track “Questions Questions” and the correct album takes/edits of “Ordinary Girls,” “I Don’t Like Your Face” and “She Don’t Mind.” The four bonus songs, “Let’s All Smoke,” “Rivals,” “Count on Me,” and “In Your Town,” are great additions to the original album tracks.

Hats off to Air Mail for having the taste to reissue this album, for digging up superb bonus material (particularly the Flamin’ Groovies’-styled “Count on Me”), and for including the original front and back covers; it’s a shame they couldn’t come up with a better audio source. That said, it’s a mark of just how good this album is that even in lesser fidelity, the music’s chiming charms still shine. At import prices, most listeners will be better off with the near-complete Smoke, but fans will either need to track down an original vinyl copy, or make do with the listenable-but-less-than-ideal sound offered here. [©2010 hyperbolium dot com]

Shoes: Tongue Twister

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Power pop band’s second album for Elektra

Having taught themselves to record in a home studio, Zion, Illinois’ Shoes produced three full albums on their own, including the “debut” Black Vinyl Shoes that led to their signing with Elektra. Their first outing for the major label, 1979’s Present Tense took them to the UK to co-produce with engineer Mike Stone. The results traded some of the band’s urgency and living room winsomeness for the polish and manicure a real studio allows. The singing, playing, melodies and lyrics, including a remake of “Tomorrow Night,” were terrific, but the fuller studio sound, which had been artfully compressed on their earlier 4-track recordings, gave away some of the band’s mystery.

For their second album with Elektra the band worked with Richard Dashut, who seemed to understand what differentiated Shoes from their peers. He kept the articulation of their previous outing, but dialed back the tendency to lay more studio sound into the final productions than a 4-track would have allowed; the guitars and drums are kept from being too big or stepping too far forward. The absence of keyboards (the buzzing solo of “The Things You Do” was actually played on a processed guitar), keeps this album from falling into the dated sound of the band’s peers’ contemporaneous efforts. The songs are just as hook-filled as those in the earlier catalog, and the vocals and harmonies are memorable.

Air Mail’s reissue augments the album’s original dozen cuts with four bonuses, “Jet Set,” “Laugh it Off,” “Imagination du Jour,” and “A Voice Inside Me.” The mini-LP cardboard jacket reproduces the original album covers, front and back, and the Japanese-language insert is supplemented by a mini-inner sleeve that includes a microscopic reproduction of the original lyric sheet. This is the sort of deluxe reissue that Shoes’ music deserves, making it a more precious collectors’ item than the original two-fer, though not offering up the demo dimension of 2007’s Double Exposure. Air Mail Records has also reissued mini-LP CD versions of Shoes’ two other Elektra releases, Present Tense and Boomerang, but with all three having become collectors’ items of their own, your pocket book is better off nabbing the albums in MP3 form [1 2]. [©2010 hyperbolium dot com]