Shoes - Elektrafied: The Elektra Albums 1979-1982 (2020)

This new set from Shoes slots neatly alongside 2018’s Black Vinyl Shoes set (reviewed here), which documented their earlier adventures. So we pick up things in the first months of 1979, where we find the band demoing some new tracks after becoming increasingly frustrated that things weren’t happening for them fast. Soon that was to change as the slow-burning success of Black Vinyl Shoes finally alerted large record companies to their potential.

Elektra Records reacted quickest, beating a last ditch attempt by Capitol to sign the band in spring of the same year. BVS was by this stage almost two years old, but the current environment seemed to be purpose made for them. Soon the Knack would rocket up the charts in the US with My Sharona and briefly power pop would became a phrase heard in American households. The Shoes line-up of Gary Klebe, Jeff and John Murphy and Skip Meyer were an entirely different proposition of course, but there were some surface similarities which showed a thirst for something new at least existed in the States.

Elektra for their part wanted the band to be put with a producer that would bring out the best in them. A host of well-known names including Craig Leon and Martin Rushent (now that I would have like to have heard) were considered, before the band opted for Mike Stone. Not to be confused with the Clay Records boss of the same name, this Mike Stone had worked with the Beatles as an engineer and more extensively with Queen in the same role. They flew to the Manor studio in the UK to record just after PIL had finished the Metal Box LP there. It would be fair to say that Shoes didn’t quite find a like mind in Stone, who was underwhelmed that the band didn’t read music and didn’t want to listen to their demos as a guide. He ran a tight ship too, not welcoming the swapping of instruments the band occasionally conducted.

Nevertheless recording in the plush surroundings and being clued-up to ideas like splicing bits into mixes to extend things were good experience for the band members. Present Tense, the LP that eventually emerged in October 1979 and makes up the first part of disc one here, does capture Shoes well. All round it’s very strong, with a host of killer melodies and no-nonsense musicianship which hasn’t had all of the appealing rough edges smoothed out by studio trickery. Tomorrow Night, their standard-bearing first single, is nicely recut and Too Late powers elegantly out of the blocks. It’s difficult to see how either didn’t meet with some chart success (Too Late did just about nudge into the US Top 75), though the quick order they were released as singles probably didn’t help.