A music-obsessed, retired San Francisco lawyer, and author of the rock & roll memoir Jittery White Guy Music (available on Amazon)... picking a random album or song in his collection every day or so and sharing a few thoughts.
Another one of the defining moments in mid-80s college radio jangle pop! Missisiipi's Windbreakers (they added a prefatory "The" after the first album) didn't get a ton of attention at the time, but they had a handful of great albums. "New Red Shoes" (not the first song here about red shoes), off 1985's debut long-player Terminal, sounds like everything you like in a song by the dB's or Mitch Easter--a gentle mid-tempo tune full of treble-happy guitars and pretty piano touches, with a buoyantly effervescent hum-along chorus.
If you can track it down, I can't recommend their compilation Time Machine strongly enough! (Co-founder/singer/songwriter Bobby Sutliff later went on to a respectable career as a power pop solo artist, but sadly passed away a few years back.)Live 1987:
I hear you. And maybe that's what kept them out of the spotlight among other better known Southern jangle pop bands (like the Connells, Reivers, Guadalcanal Diary, etc.) in the mid-80s college radio scene--I didn't come across them until years later. I'm ok with the vocals, though, like the comparable Love Tractor, the music is better.
This is the first one in a while that is miss for me, the tune and playing are fine but the vocals (not the lyrics) sound way out of key
ReplyDeleteI hear you. And maybe that's what kept them out of the spotlight among other better known Southern jangle pop bands (like the Connells, Reivers, Guadalcanal Diary, etc.) in the mid-80s college radio scene--I didn't come across them until years later. I'm ok with the vocals, though, like the comparable Love Tractor, the music is better.
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