Reissue: Young Fresh Fellows

I've been waiting for a remix of this album for... oh, I dunno, nearly 40 years? And it's finally here! Just what I needed to pull myself out of a bit of a slump.

I've written up the Young Fresh Fellows' wonderful 1984 debut Fabulous Sounds Of The Pacific Northwest before--a fun, low-key and lo-fi party record that conjures late 60s garage bands but with an 80s college radio sensibility, ranging from rollicking retro rock to jangly power pop. The one drawback, alas, was the utter lack of any discernible bass in the original recording.

Now, I'm more of a treble guy anyway--hell, back in high school my best friend Jeff and I put together a band for the talent show and couldn't find a bass player, so we called ourselves "No Basis" (get it?) and soldiered on. (We were very, very bad.) Still, a little bit of low-end doesn't hurt. So, finally, here it is, a remix with restored bass. And a whole lot more punch overall.

It's not quite the sonic revelation of last year's remix of the Replacements' Tim, which was absolutely stunning and is the record I've listened to more over the past year than any other (if not all others combined). I mean, the Fellows weren't exactly aiming for Dark Side Of The Moon with their production, and it's still a raggedy lo-fi record. But it sure sounds a lot better when you're cranking it in the car with the windows down on a sunny day, as it was meant to be played. 

[For the remix, they also deleted the between-song announcements cribbed from an old tourism promotion--which is probably for the best, and I'd deleted them from the personal mix I made myself, though they were part of the original's charm.]

And as a bonus, the reissue appends a 1984 Christmas cassette (yay, I can upgrade my old bootleg!), the guys goofing off in the studio, playing a mix of originals and covers with between-song chatter, kinda like the Beach Boys Party! but with (presumably) a lot more eggnog.

Buy it from Omnivore Recordings!

YFF Theme Song (new mix):

A Humble Guy (new mix):