The dB's release their joyous debut Stands For Decibels

The dB's : Bad Reputation

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On January 16, 1981 The dB's released their debut album Stands For Decibels . Despite being favorites of the New York club scene and rock press, the band, made up of four power popsters with North Carolina roots, signed up with the U.K. label Albion. Stands for Decibels and its follow-up Repercussion were originally released only in Britain.

The songs are divided between songwriters Chris Stamey and Peter Holsapple. Among the many standout tracks on the debut is Holsapple's "Bad Reputation".

Stands For Decibels finished #26 on the Village Voice's Pazz and Jop Critic's 1981 poll, run by Robert Christgau who gave the album a grade of A-, writing :

This is pop at its tensest--the precise harmonies, broken rhythms, and Byrdsy zoom effects are drawn so tight they make the expertly rendered romantic ups and downs of the songs sound intense and earned.

Trouser Press's Dave Schulps  heard "echoes of psychedelia from the likes of the Move, Tomorrow, the Nazz, Moby Grape and Beau Brummels" and wrapped up his review by writing:

Without singling out any of the 11 concise masterpieces here, it should suffice to say anyone that was touched by the music of a decade and a half ago should hear this record. Anyone wondering if that music is valid today will find it alive and kicking in the form of the dB's.

In his memoir A Spy in the House of Loud, Chris Stamey is less kind about his band's debut. He writes there are moments of pride but that the band was in the midst of "an overly fussy fussy period production for which I have the lion's share of blame."

The only track on Stands for Decibels that I now return to with unqualified pleasure is Peter Holsapple's wistful ballad "Moving In Your Sleep".

 

The single that vaulted The dB's to power-pop glory

The dB's: Black and White

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On January 24, 1980 The dB's released their single "Black and White" b/w "Soul Kiss" on New York's Shake Records. The disc earned NME's "Single of the Week" title with editors praising: "This is the sort of single that could make people want to grow up and form a group". 

Originally from Winston-Salem, NC, home of Mitch Easter's Drive-In Studio, The dB's had already become pop favorites in their new hometown of New York City. Holsapple's "Black and White" is a multi-faceted, jangly power pop masterpiece

The B side is Chris Stamey's take on the kind of 60's psychedelia found on the Nuggets compilation. Stamey was earning a philosophy degree from NYU at the time. In his entertaining and very smart memoir, A Spy in the House of Loud, Stamey explains the lyrics:

“Soul Kiss” was a kind of reverse sexual innuendo—I knew that the term was used for French kissing, but after having spent many collegiate hours debating Aquinas, Socrates, Plato, et al., I was thinking more of a connection that was soul to soul, essence to essence. I can’t claim that this is clearly presented in the lyrics, but that’s the skinny. 

London's Albion Records liked what they heard and signed the dB's to a UK recording contract that would lead to the critically acclaimed 1981 debut album Stands for deciBels. A few tracks were recorded at Power Station in NY down the hall from where Bruce Springsteen was making The River. Half the tracks were recorded with Easter at his studio in Winston-Salem. 

I played a lot of dB's on my college radio station and met the Stamey-less dB's during their Like This tour. Always been a fan and always will be.

Going Over The Cutting Edge (1986)

Over  Mardi Gras weekend of 1986, MTV's "The Cutting Edge" came to New Orleans to videotape various musical acts for their Mardi Gras special which aired March 30th. Producers from IRS Records called college radio station WTUL to find someone who would work for free on the production crew. Since I was writing a fanzine ( The Now Zounds) to promote my band's tune "Jefferson Avenue", I agreed to help out. And that's how I wound up buddy-buddying with the modern hipsters of the musical world.



We videotaped Alex Chilton playing his acoustic guitar in a cemetery. After performing "Lost My Job" twice, a Bach piece and two Box Tops tunes including the 1967 smash "The Letter" and "Neon Rainbow", Chilton obliged The Cutting Edge with a rare interview. After a health food lunch consisting of vegeburgers, I chatted with Alex over a glass of carrot juice.

ME: Have you heard any cover versions of your songs that you've liked?
ALEX: No, to tell the truth I haven't. But I haven't heard the Bangles song yet ("September Gurls")
ME: What new bands and new records do you like?
ALEX: I don't know. When I want to hear some music I play my guitar. I did some stuff with the Replacements.
ME: Were you surprised when "The Letter" became a hit?
ALEX: No. I think everyone thinks their song's gonna be a big hit.
ME: Yeah, I think "Jefferson Avenue" will be a smash hit, don't you?
ALEX: This carrot juice sucks.



It had been a long time since Mitch and I had gotten together and Let's Active had a completely new line-up. "I choose the members of my band by making sure they're all shorter than I am " joked the four and a half tall producer/performer. I told Mitch that while Cypress was the most overproduced band without Todd Rundgren's name on it, I enjoyed the live show and their cover of the MC5's "Shakin Street". Easter gave me his card which I tore up immediately.



I was getting sauced with dB's guitarist and vocalist Peter Holsapple:

ME: The dB's: one of the three hardest working bands in America.
PETER: We're definitely the hardest working band without a label. I was thinking we should end our shows with our roadies coming out and packing us up in crates.
ME: Any labels looking at you? IRS for instance?
PETER: Yeah but the whole band has to agree with the label choice. I'd like to sign with IRS.
ME: Did you ever read Spy In The House of Love by Anais Nin?
PETER: No but I meant to. I had it rolled up in my back pocket for a while but I never got to it. We had a dance for the song ( "Spy In The House of Love") but Ready For The World stole it.

I reintroduced myself to Fleshtone/ Cutting Edge host Peter Zaremba and we recalled our on-the- air argument two years ago. Although no fists were thrown, I could never convince Peter that the vocalist gave a shout out to The Osmonds in the Fleshtones classic "American Beat '84".

    At Jim Russell's Records, I recommended Dyke and the Blazers "We Got More Soul" to an apparently unfamiliar Zaremba. Then I bough Cornelius Bros and Sister Rose's "Treat Her Like A Lady". Z was psyched. "We do a mean version of that song," he said. "We're definitely gonna do that song Sunday night man".
   And they did.

"The Cutting Edge" had a major impact on a lot of musical tastes by introducing all kinds of artists to audiences who otherwise would have only heard what was playing on the radio. Sadly, at the time, none of these artist were getting radio play outside college stations like the mighty 'TUL

Six Degrees of Separation: Tommy Keene to The Bangles

For this version of Six Degrees of Separation we're celebrating the jangly pop that made 80's college radio rule.

 1. 

[Buy Tommy's Retrospective]

From the back of the 9:30 Club, where we CMJ marathoners had gathered, the singer taking the stage looked suspiciously like Alan Thicke who was not the most popular late night talk show host in New Orleans at the time. ( I think that had something to do with the local CBS affiliate's decision to replace David Letterman with Thicke) And now we are really off topic. Start again: power popster Tommy Keene made waves with his 1984 Dolphin Records EP Places That Are Gone, produced by Don Dixon.

2. 

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Though Dixon made a name for himself by producing or engineering albums by R.E.M. ( Murmer, Reckoning) The Smithereens (Especially For You, Green Thoughts) and Let's Active ( Cypress), he also recorded one of 1985's greatest ear worms, "Praying Mantis". That was the same year he produced an album by the woman who would become his wife, Marti Jones.

3.

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The former singer of Color Me Gone's debut album was packed with interpretations of songs by Elvis Costello ( "Element Within Her") and The DB's ("Lonely Is (As Lonely Does)", "Neverland") as well as some very decent songs she'd written herself. Still married to Dixon today, she's also an accomplished painter.

4. 

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Despite losing co-founder Chris Stamey, The dB's solid 1984 album Like This was one of the most played at my college radio station where we could choose between "Lonely Is ( As Lonely Does)", "Not Cool", a re-issued "Amplifier", "Love Is For Lovers" and the one Bearsville Records was pushing hardest "Spy In The House Of Love". The credit goes to the other founder, Peter Holsapple, who could later be seen on stage backing R.E.M and Hootie and the Blowfish before he joined the Continental Drifters.

 

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Here covering Richard Thompson's Sunnyvista cut "You're Gonna Need Somebody", The Continental Drifters were a kind of an alt-pop super group starring Holsapple, his wife Susan Cowsill, The Dream Syndicate's Mike Walton, and Vicki Peterson of The Bangles ( among others). 

6. 

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Vicki Peterson may not have had the most playful eyes in the band but she could write and sing great pop songs like "Restless". The 1984 debut album is great fun. A definite college radio staple all the way until January 27, 1986 when The Bangles dropped a little Prince-penned single called "Manic Monday". That's when we college radio hipsters had to move on.

Six Degrees of Separation: Dave And Ansell Collins to The dB's

1. With their UK #1 single " Double Barrel", Dave and Ansell Collins brings reggae to the masses in 1971. This is the first record a 14 year old drummer named Sly Dunbar ever plays on.




2. The following year Sly teams up with bassist Robbie Shakespeare. Sly And Robbie become one of the most sought after rhythm sections in the world. They play with, or produce, Bob Dylan, The Rolling Stones and reggae greats like Peter Tosh and Black Uhuru. In 1981 they back up Grace Jones on her club hit "Pull Up To The Bumper", the single from her album Nightclubbing.




3. The title track  is a cover of the 1977 Iggy Pop/David Bowie tune which appears on Iggy's album The Idiot.





4. In 1994 Trent Reznor samples the kick drum sound from "Nightclubbing" for his disturbing hit "Closer". The video is directed by Mark Romanek who has won 19 MTV Music Video Awards.

5.The following year Romanek directs the video for R.E.M.'s "Strange Currencies" which, for some reason, can't be found on YouTube. This is the third single from Monster, produced by Scott Litt ( who produced the Katrina and the Waves hit "Walking On Sunshine" as well as the final Replacements album All Fall Down).





6. Litt made his debut as a producer on The dB's 1982 album Repercussion, which is best known for the cut "Amplifier". So we're going to dig a little deeper into this terrific album and post "We Were Happy There".