Almost eight months past due, we finally got a solid review on Pitchfork for NUM027 Eccentric Soul: Smart’s Palace. We also got a thoughtful review from them last week on NUM028 Wayfaring Strangers: Lonesome Heroes. Both images link to the reviews for your reading pleasure.
Filed under: Smart's Palace
Wichita’s Public Radio affiliate ran a piece yesterday where they interviewed the Smart Brother’s about their club, the music, and their stage antics that we covered in our Smart’s Palace release earlier this year. You can listen to the interview here.
New Years Eve 1966, Smart’s Palace. The Smart Bros. Band take the stage fronted by Baby Neal and tear into two hours of soul, funk, and acrobatics. Using only his teeth, Leroy “Iron Jaw” Smart picks a guy up by his belt buckle and spins him around. They tear through “Lorraine,” “I’m Not Ashamed,” “I’ve Got A Funny Feeling, and “Barefoot Philly.” There are ribs in the next room over, with Mama Smart behind the grill. You paid $2, with 50 cents going to a charity that may or may not be real.
Except you weren’t there. You didn’t live in Wichita, and you were more than likely not even born. Now, for the first time ever, you can relive all the magic of Smart’s Palace through this limited edition T-Shirt. Supplies are limited, so order now or forever regret it.
Filed under: Smart's Palace | Tags: Dave Grelle, John Henry, Kevin Bowers, Michael Erker, Theron & Darrell
Yesterday, National Public Radio featured Theron & Darrell’s “I Was Made To Love Her” as their “Song of The Day.” As the venerable Oliver Wang intones, “Once heard, it sticks in your ear to the point where it’s hard not to sing along every time the hook returns.” From your lips to god’s ears, O-Dub.
While the complete story can be read, and listened to here, the most fascinating bit is found in the comments section:
There’s quite a few good reasons why this was forgotten. I won’t name them out of respect for the dead. However I will say this: There is music that is alive today, and is starving for the shot at exposure that columns like this might give. Perhaps I could make a few suggestions, if I didn’t feel they would fall upon deaf ears. Kevin Bowers, Dave Grelle, Michael Erker, John Henry, all seem stuck on the edge of Oblivion, and if the dead were not endlessly raised from the earth by haphazard, overzealous, misplaced anthropology, there might just be room on this mighty focal point of the vast internets. Life is A Boat, open up the sails, see where the winds take you.
As a group of haphazardous, overzealous, and dead-raising anthropologists, we take issue with the above. But we sure look forward to discovering Kevin Bowers, Dave Grelle, Michael Erker, and John Henry, after they’ve gone over oblivion’s edge in thirty years.
Filed under: Pisces, Smart's Palace | Tags: Pisces, Smart's Palace, Use Your Illusion
For those who still get excited about Tuesday new releases, we’ve got two reasons for you to stop by your local record emporium today (if Best Buy is your spot, we apologize). Perhaps you’re just getting home now from a long night camped out in front of your shop in eager anticipation. I can remember begging my mom to let me stay out to buy Use Your Illusion I & 2 on cassette at midnight from the Tower on Bascom Avenue in Campbell, California. It was a no go. If any 14 year olds are reading this and missed out, I sympathize.
We’ll be the first to admit that we’re not so good at getting two formats out on the same day. Try as we may, the process of manufacturing vinyl still takes double the time of what it does to make a CD. Jackets alone are six weeks, not to mention inner sleeves, lacquers, bum test pressings, and a litany of other problems that crop up along the way. That said, we hope that the wait hasn’t been too long for you Smart’s Palace enthusiasts. That extra month and half gave us the time to get a really high quality product made, proving to be one of our nicest LPs to date. Witness the heavy wax, two inner sleeves jammed with notes and photos, and the thickest jacket to ever come off the Stoughton line. Retail price is $22, but you can buy it from us for two bucks less (and take an additional 15% off if you’re a Numero subscriber!).
The other is the CD version of #029: Pisces: A Lovely Sight. Pisces were primarily a studio band operating out of Rockford, Illinois in the late 60s that churned out seriously damaged pop. This Numero-created “album” is the best of their unreleased material and three 45s for the Vincent label. Sometimes fronted by the lovely and mysterious Linda Bruner, the landlocked group took their cues from the Beatles and Jefferson Airplane, but somehow ended up sounding more like the Velvet Underground’s meth’d out Midwest cousin. Give a listen to the needle drop below:
Like it? Alright, get your shoes tied, grab your wallet, and get to the shop. In your boxer shorts? Lazy? A little of both? Buy it from us by clicking here.
The Smart’s Palace 2LPs have arrived and damn they are looking slick! You can get your copies here.
Filed under: Revival, Smart's Palace | Tags: Downriver Revival, Smart's Palace
We’re so totally immersed in three upcoming projects that we almost forgot that we’ve got two releases hitting the streets today. You can find the new Eccentric Soul: Smart’s Palace and the LP/DVD of Local Customs: Downriver Revival at your nearest record store for your listening and viewing pleasure.
Our forthcoming disc Eccentric Soul: Smart’s Palace has been discussed ad nauseam around these parts lately, but when Dante discovered this Chocolate Snow interpretative dance piece…we just had to post. Seriously kids, you can always tell your parents no.
Filed under: Smart's Palace
This photo on the cover of 027 Eccentric Soul: Smart’s Palace almost didn’t get scooped up into our scanning blitz. Dick Smart had it in a frame off to the side and it was only spotted by Judd out of the corner of his eye. What you’re seeing is the Smart Brothers Band with Leroy Smart doing his thing. From the liners:
The Smart Brothers Band stage show may’ve been the most over-the-top act ever seen in Wichita outside of three rings. Their major assets were the antics of John and Leroy Smart, who constantly pushed the envelope of performance. John kept his stunts within the realm of acrobatics: back-flipping at the climactic end of a song, balancing the saxophone on his neck while flipping his torso horizontally, playing multiple horns at once, playing with his hands behind his back, playing with the horn under his leg or upside down, and jumping from table to table to the back of the club while soloing. Sometimes he’d imitate the drum sound by popping the reed of his sax, dueling drummer Charles Rucker in concocting complex polyrhythms. Leroy “Iron Jaw” Smart’s moves were even more unbelievable. He’d warm up with some handstands and back-flips, then jump off the stage into the splits, pick up a table or chair by his teeth and toss it aside. He’d bring an audience member up on stage with his teeth at the belt buckle, spinning the helpless guy around before setting him gently down. The rest of the band had its moments, taking turns at soloing, dancing, and doing their own junior acrobatics, but the main attractions were John and Iron Jaw.
Filed under: Smart's Palace
We’ve been working on Eccentric Soul: Smart’s Palace fairly steadily since our return from Wichita, and something was bound to slip through the cracks. So it came as no surprise when Dante dropped serious knowledge on us Friday about the above, a test-press–only issue of the third Chocolate Snow single. The record wasn’t even in his collection, but rather in Josh Davis’s, who kindly transferred it and sent us this label scan on Friday evening.
When I spoke with Dante yesterday, he informed me that Josh had turned up the single before the two had ever met, and the true identity of the cryptic test was revealed only after Chocolate Snow’s “A Day In The Life” turned up in Dante’s Wichita travels and was put on a mix. Turns out “Inflation” is a vocal version of “A Day In The Life.” Vocal might be a bit of a stretch, actually—it’s just CC Neal rapping about hard times and not being able to find work. There’s some killer effects and a weird solo in the middle too. After one listen we just knew we had to include it on Smart’s Palace. The flip, “It’s Like Heaven,” is a more modern sound, but equally as tasty. Neither are mastered, so keep an open ear fidelity-wise.
