American Indie Rock Prototypes, Sneakers, Get Reissued

Press release
Source: conqueroo / Cary Baker

The late ‘70s was an exciting time for America’s underground scene — Television had released “Little Johnny Jewel” and Patti Smith, “Piss Factory.” Then along came a band from Winston-Salem with a self-titled four-song EP that only sold 3,500 copies but launched a movement that still thrives today. Sneakers released only two EPs in the late ‘70s and that was it--then they broke up. Three of its members — Chris Stamey, Mitch Easter and Will Rigby — later played in such bands as The dB’s and Let’s Active.

Sneakers’ two EPs  — The Sneakers (1976) and In The Red (1979) — along with additional 1992 recordings by Stamey and Easter comprise the 20 tracks heard on Nonsequitur of Silence, a compilation of the band’s recordings that will be issued on Collectors’ Choice Music on January 30, 2007. Chris Stamey curated the project with liner notes by music writer Scott Schinder. Indie music publicist Cary Baker was reissue producer and “instigator.”

The album contains a never-before-heard song, “Love That Girl,” the recently rediscovered prototype of “Love’s Like a Cuban Crisis.” The Sneakers classic “Decline and Fall” is given a “Fidelitorium mix” with new drum tracks added by Mitch Easter. And the first EP is culled from restored original mixes, far superior to those heard on the band’s earlier Racket anthology. All remixes were done from the original analog by Easter. It was lovingly remastered by Brent Lambert at the Kitchen Mastering in Carrboro, NC.

Sneakers are widely regarded as the first great Southern band of the post-punk American indie movement. — a movement that would go on to sire such bands as R.E.M., the B-52s, Pylon and more. The North Carolina group also provided a launching pad for its two key members — Chris Stamey, who would later found The dB’s with hometown friend Peter Holsapple, and Mitch Easter, who would record several albums as leader of Let’s Active.

As annotator Schinder writes, “Beyond its historic significance, the music that Sneakers made during its brief existence stands out as some of the most distinctive and original rock ’n’ roll of its era. The band’s recorded output, technically raw yet remarkably imaginative and accomplished, displays the early stirrings of the sonic invention, melodic craft and lyrical ingenuity that would distinguish the band members’ better-known subsequent work, as well as a streak of playfully twisted humor.”

Stamey and Easter were childhood friends who started woodshedding in the studio around 1972 in their native Winston-Salem. In ’74, they both moved to Chapel Hill to attend University of North Carolina where they were joined by three other Winston-Salemites, drummer Will Rigby (who’d played alongside Stamey, Easter and Holsapple in Little Diesel) and bassist Robert Keely.

Stamey took a class in New York and got to see Television at CBGB and brought back stories of the indie movement, then in its infancy. When the band did record its first EP, they enlisted engineering and production assistance from Don Dixon, with whom Stamey had served an informal apprenticeship, and with whom Easter would later co-produce R.E.M.’s early recordings. The 7” EP was released on Stamey’s Carniverous label with a $1.98 list price to rave reviews in publications like Trouser Press, New York Rocker and Bomp!

Its sequel, the big 12” In The Red, was released in 1979 on the renamed Car Records. Recorded mostly by Stamey and Easter themselves, it represented an advancement in the duo’s experimental home recording escapades. But by the time it was released, Sneakers had for all intents split up, Stamey transferring to NYU and playing bass with Alex Chilton before forming The dB’s with Rigby, Holsapple and yet another Winston-Salem native, Gene Holder. Easter stayed in North Carolina where he launched the now- legendary Drive-In Studio. He later signed to I.R.S. Records as leader of Let’s Active.

That would ordinarily be the end of a short-lived but legendary band, but there was an unlikely sequel. In 1992, Stamey and Easter assembled Racket, a Sneakers compilation released on Eastside Digital. The project contained remixed versions of the first two EPs along with new recordings including “S’il Vous Plait,” “Story of a Girl,” “No Wonder” and “Some Kind of Fool.” The dB’s’ Gene Holder played bass.

Nonsequitur of Silence contains the two EPs plus the 1992 recordings, plus three bonus tracks: “B&G Pies Commercial,” “Decline and Fall (Fidelitorium Mix)” and the original demo of “Love That Girl.”

About Collectors' Choice Music

Collectors’ Choice Music is the world’s leading source for reissues, with a mail-order catalog, a website, a record label and a distributor all dedicated to bringing consumers music of the past, music that is increasingly underrepresented at retail. The company’s mail order catalog circulates about 5 million copies a year, while the website (www.collectorschoicemusic.com) is the only full-service website dedicated to oldies. The Collectors’ Choice Music label consists of over 600 titles licensed from all the major labels and across all genres. Artists on the label include Sammy Davis Jr., the Electric Prunes, Stonewall Jackson, the Kingston Trio, the Four Freshmen, Dean Martin, Bobby Darin, the dB’s and the Incredible String Band. And, finally, these releases are taken to retail via the company’s Hep Cat distribution arm and via Navarre Corporation.

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