The Plimsouls' Ultra Rare Debut EP scores critical raves

The Plimsouls : Zero Hour

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On February 8, 1980 Beat Records released Zero Hour, the debut five-song EP by The Plimsouls, an LA-based power-pop band featuring Peter Case of The Nerves. Recorded for about $300, the EP's title cut got heavy airplay on KROQ-FM where the record's producer, Danny Holloway,  worked as a DJ.It can also be heard at the end of the teen movie Last American Virgin.

Tim Sommer of Trouser Press called Zero Hour "...some of the most inspired power-pop I've heard all year". The EP has since become a rare collector's item. Some of the songs would be recorded again when the band got signed by Richard Perry's label, Planet. Their 1983 album Everywhere At Once featured their best-known song "A Million Miles Away", a US#82 hit, thanks in part to another teen movie, Valley Girl.

The songs were anthems. Of the band's lyrics NPR's Ken Tucker wrote:

Peter Case and The Plimsouls avoided the use of the first person in their lyrics and rarely begged for love in the manner of so many romantic pop-rockers. They sang about reaching bliss through persistence, aiming for a kind of earthly nirvana -- or, as they called it, the zero hour.

By the way:

A plimsoul, often spelled "plimsoll", is a soft shoe worn for gymnastics. Jeff Back recorded "Rock My Plimsoul" on 1968's Truth, recorded with Rod Stewart on vocals.