Mitch Easter: The return of a college radio legend.
SEPTEMBER 2006: Mitch Easter has the right to feel a little self-important. After all, he's the NC-based producer behind REM's mammoth debut, "Murmur".
But there's no trace of arrogance when speaking with Mitch Easter. He exclaims, "I am happy to talk about anything I did which somebody liked! What I dread are the questions asking me what 'hot new bands' are on the horizon. I have no idea about that!"
As far as 'hot bands' go, any reader unfamiliar with Mitch's 80s project LETS ACTIVE would be well served to check them out. At a time when guitar stores overflowed with leather straps, loud colors, and diabolically-shaped solid bodies, LET'S ACTIVE dared to defy the stereotypes of "southern rock".
"I'm not real dogmatic about music," Mitch explains. "I don't think there's any point in doing music that's just 'against' some other kind, but there's no doubt about it that by the end of the 70s, something had to give! Coming out of the 60s and into the 70s, there was so much indifferent, bar-band beer-drinkin' blues that the sound of it just put me to sleep."
Of course, in typical Mitch Easter fashion, he's quick to offer a positive viewpoint. " At first, 'southern rock' just sounded like more of that to me, with redneck-tinged vocals, which heaven knows I'd heard enough of already, living here. But there are great songs from those bands," Mitch continues. "I always liked 'Midnight Rider' by THE ALLMAN BROTHERS, 'Saturday Night Special' by SKYNYRD, etc. but overall, it wasn't my scene. There was something sort of colorful about English records that I liked, so my 'roots', such as they were, came more from bands like THE WHO and THE MOVE and garage psychedelia. For me, the main thing about the punk scene and post-punk scene was that it was all about making a break with the whole range of boring, slick radio rock. I was every bit as grumpy about, say, PABLO CRUISE as I was about THE MARSHALL TUCKER BAND. I remember thinking in 1975 that 'it's over', because the radio was so abysmal! Actually, there were two fantastic songs on the radio that year- 'Love Is the Drug' by ROXY MUSIC, and 'I'm on Fire' by DWIGHT TWILLEY...but I was still worried."
Such feelings became the springboard for jangle-rock bands like LET'S ACTIVE, PYLON, REM, and THE B-52s. "A lot of people felt like I did," Mitch explains. "Basically we just got real happy when we heard those funny new kind of records by DEVO, PERE UBU, NICK LOWE, etc."
LETS ACTIVE's first EP and full-length (1983's "Afoot" and 1984's "Cypress") are steadfast examples of the sparkling, dare-to-jangle creations that became indigenous to the region. The band's infectious melodies set against Easter's crystalline layers of guitar in tracks like "Blue Line" and "Ornamental", creating a sound that some fans of traditional blues 'n boogie may have found jarring. "Well, there wasn't any kind of grudge match going on," Mitch replies in deference to the early live shows. "Obviously, there were some places we just wouldn't make sense playing in, and we mostly didn't. I can recall having people yell 'Hey punker!' at us when we played some stupid club in Winston-Salem NC, which I thought was puzzling. It was also interesting when we played at Baity's in Winston-Salem with R.E.M., in maybe '83. They had broken through, so it was great night. 6 months earlier, we probably would've had Bud Light cans thrown at us. That's showbiz! Anyway, by '83 or so there were pretty many clubs which had sprung up everywhere for the new bands, and some of the old ones were having those weirdo 'New Wave Nights' or whatever."
Evidently, the band's good nature and sense of humor kept things light most of the time. "We did 'Tush' because a friend of ours, Rob Ladd, loved that song and wanted to sing it," Mitch remembers. "So we did it a few times when he was around. Of course, it was funny, with our little fluffy selves doing this sort of ultimate 'Yeeha!' kind of song. But of course we always knew Billy Gibbons is a sly genius, so this was a joke as well as true appreciation for that song! This was also my joke, sort of, on the formalistic new wave fans who wanted people in bands like ours to act as though we liked or could play only one thing!"
In contrast to hallowed punk discs like "Never Mind the Bollocks" and PATTI SMITH's "Horses", (which were in reality very expensive, painstakingly 'produced' records), the early LETS ACTIVE material was bashed out quickly in a raw 'n ready whirlwind. "I like all that stuff, it's just that it's pretty off-the-cuff, and certainly not slick," Mitch recalls. "Nevertheless, thanks to those funny years, an odd band like ours made sense to enough people that we were able to exist for awhile. As soon as I started playing guitar, that's all I wanted to do, so I am extremely grateful to the cosmos that I was able to be a sort of professional rock musician for awhile there. Of course there were difficult moments, but overall I think the 'original' LETS ACTIVE time from 81-85, was pretty great. It was the first time I got to play all over the country, be on TV, make records you could actually buy in the stores, etc. What could be better? I always liked playing live and still really do. It was great playing 5-6 nights a week- you get so much better. The missing element nowadays is that interest in going to see bands in clubs- we'd drive hundreds of miles to see somebody, and now that only happens with bigger bands."
As the late 80s crept around, the face of LETS ACTIVE began to change. Bass player Faye Hunter and drummer Sara Romweber eventually left the band - developments that had an obvious impact on the three-piece band. Easter continued to mastermind the band's recording output and arrange tours with replacement musicians. Curiously, 1986's "Big Plans For Everybody" and 1989's "Every Dog Has His Day" both received better reviews than any of the early records. "Ah, I just think that more people had heard of us by then," Mitch says. We were more 'part of the club', and were therefore taken slightly more seriously. I think 'In Little Ways' is a good song, really 80s, but it has some good melodic moments and an interesting structure. I also still like 'Every Dog Has His Day', which I think is put together well. I guess I'm thinking of how both of those worked well onstage. Of course what those songs were about was widely misunderstood! I like the ones that other people liked, you know? So 'Badger' has become an odd 'hit' from the 'Big Plans' record, lots of people ask for that one now."
By the time the 1990s rolled around, Mitch's musical output was put on hold as he quietly assumed the role of producer for some up-and-coming alternative bands like THE LOUD FAMILY and DISH. Notably, Easter's 90s activities included producing and touring with Rhode Island power pop prodigies, VELVET CRUSH. " I liked those guys a lot and got to be friends with them," he recalls. "'Teenage Symphonies to God' was a good record. Over the course of the session, the record got plusher than it was originally envisioned, with a bunch of extra people being brought in- me on guitar, Stephen Duffy on backing vocals, Greg Liesz on steel guitar, Mike Denneen on Chamberlin, etc. and this turned out to be a good thing! I did play with them for a few weeks on tour because as the record turned out, they needed a sort of 'lead' player in the band."
Fast forward to 2007, Mitch Easter (the musician) has returned with a brand new disc entitled "Dynamico". The album features 14 tracks of top-notch guitar-driven power pop. The riffs are ballsy, and some of the melodies are impossible to resist. In fact, tracks like "Time Warping" and "The Phantoms of Ephemera" are so brilliant, it makes one wonder why he waited so long to come out of his shell. "I just had some time last summer when I could start putting something together," Mitch explains. "Naturally, I expected to do this decades ago, but other things would be in the way, year after year. I don't think the world has been holding its breath for this, but I have appreciated the random messages I've gotten over the years from people who liked something I did. I always write songs when I can, so I have accumulated a fair number of them. So I just wanted to make a record and see what might happen with it."
Will the longtime Athens GA indie fans embrace the "Dynamico" record? "I don't know," Easter replies. "It's probably not all that different from our old stuff. I just write songs and bang them into some kind of arrangement. I've always done what felt natural at the time, it just has to hit me right on some kind of 'art' level, and that's it."
"Later on I may or may not feel the same way," he says. "Reviews seem to consider this record more "rock" than Let's Active, and when I read that I think 'really?' So, maybe it is."
When asked about concrete tour plans, it appears that there has been significant activity already. "For a good while now we've been going out on little jaunts of a week or so, like we'll go to NYC or California, or the midwest, etc. There's not enough business to go out for 6-9 weeks like we did in the 80s. And we don't have a booking agent, so it's very hard to do anything. Still, we are playing out as much as we can pull off. Lots of micro-tours."
So besides the recent flurry of activity, how does Mitch Easter pass the time in 2007? Producing local bands? "I never did all that many local bands," he says. They're sort of from all over, although there are often some NC ones in there, too. For example, the next session in here is a band from Spain called INSANITY WAVE, and THE BIRDS OF AVALON, a band from Raleigh that I worked with, have recently released their new disk. I'm still in the studio business and the only thing that's changed is that I do a fair bit of mixing these days for other producers. Sessions are actually quite exhausting, so I'd rather just do a few of 'my' sessions a year, and spend the rest of the time mixing and playing. Actually, at this point, I really intend to keep the focus more on doing my own stuff, or on sessions with my friends or something that's really likely to be fun! I realize that 'the money' is in trying to produce a new 'hot' act, but I don't really care. I only ever got into recording as an extension of playing music, and now I want to get back to that!"
MITCH EASTER's latest album "Dynamico" is available through his website www.mitcheaster.com. LETS ACTIVE photo above by Erik Auerbach.
**The web version of this article can be found at www.peacedogman.com/bmlme**
