I Just Bought a Let's Active Record. Will I hate it?

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So at lunch I went down to my (usually very very lame) local record store and rifled through their three very small used LP bins, hoping to find a certain David Crosby album. To my surprise, it appears someone dumped off a host of mid-'80s jangle/paisley/pop/rock records including the entire Let's Active catalog, the Bongos, Del Fuegos, the Silos, R.E.M, Hoodoo Gurus, etc. They were all marked $1.99 except the R.E.M. records. Now, I've never been much for R.E.M. but I like the dBs and the Feelies. Since I only had a couple bucks on me, I bought Cypress by Let's Active. I'm thinking of going back and getting some more of these. S/D any of these bands/albums?

― mcd (mcd), Thursday, 4 August 2005 17:03 (twenty years ago)

Every Dog Has It's Day and one other by Let's Active. can't remember but it's either right before or right after EDHID.

― biz, Thursday, 4 August 2005 17:05 (twenty years ago)

Do you mean Big Plans for Everybody? Also had Afoot.

Also, was Mitch Easter in the Sneakers? Or am I confusing him with someone else?

― mcd (mcd), Thursday, 4 August 2005 17:07 (twenty years ago)

if they have the Chronic Town ep by REM, def. pick it up. I like a few other things from them over the years, but that first EP stands out, Wolves, Lower is great great great.

― Dan Selzer (Dan Selzer), Thursday, 4 August 2005 17:07 (twenty years ago)

Pick up 'Big Plans for Everybody' you can get a lot of miles out of that one.

― Draw Tipsy, ya hack. (dave225.3), Thursday, 4 August 2005 17:10 (twenty years ago)

If you like The dBs, you should like Let's Active just fine. I prefer "Afoot" (their first EP) over their LPs. "Drums Along The Hudson" by The Bongos is a personal fave, but I don't know how well it has held up musically if you weren't a fan back in the day. Concurrence on "Chronic Town" -- and "Murmur," too.

― Daniel Peterson (polkaholic), Thursday, 4 August 2005 17:18 (twenty years ago)

The let's active stuff is OK here and there, but the actual *sound* of those records is everything I don't like about wannabe-major 80's college rock pressed onto wax...those poor drums!

― Zack Richardson (teenagequiet), Thursday, 4 August 2005 17:20 (twenty years ago)

S: Cypress, Afoot, Big Plans for Everybody*
D: Every Dog Has Its Day

*I was just listening to Big Plans for Everybody this morning. I really like it, but it is very much of its time and sounds like it. Lots of heavily reverbed jangle, slithery bass, synth washes and electric piano sprinkled on top. The sound is like the Southern Jangle version of Simple Minds'Sparkle in the Rain period. The songs are ok, but if you don't like that style of production, it probly won't work for you. I pretty much have it just for Badger and Still Dark Out.

Cypress is better.

Going back to Afoot seems to me like the jangle-pop blueprint--Room with a View and Every Word Means No epitomize it.

I can't think of anything to recommend EDHID.

― Hunter (Hunter), Thursday, 4 August 2005 17:31 (twenty years ago)

I prefer "Afoot" (their first EP) over their LPs.

Yeah, I don't think they ever improved on "Every Word Means No" and "Room With a View." Big Plans and Cypress are both fine, and Every Dog has a few nice tracks even tho I can't actually remember them.

― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Thursday, 4 August 2005 22:34 (twenty years ago)

You won't hate Cypress, only because you'll forget it immediately upon listening. Same with the Silos.

― dr. phil (josh langhoff), Thursday, 4 August 2005 23:08 (twenty years ago)

Every Dog has a few nice tracks

absolutely. "horizon" and "mr. fool" are both great songs.

― shine headlights on me (electricsound), Thursday, 4 August 2005 23:14 (twenty years ago)

I just want to add that if they have the Hoodoo Gurus record with "Come Anytime" and "What's my Scene?" on it, you should definitely buy it. Oh, actually, those are on two different records, MAGNUM CUM LOUDER and BLOW YOUR COOL! Well, at $1.99 each I'd take both.

― Guayaquil, Friday, 5 August 2005 05:13 (twenty years ago)

Listened to Cypress last night, liked it. It is sort of a less overtly goofy B52's. The songs are solid.

― mcd (mcd), Friday, 5 August 2005 13:32 (twenty years ago)

the first two songs are killer. well, the first one is killer then kinda wears you down on repeated listens as mitch's guitar overdubs become more obvious and sort of intrusive and ridiculous. YES YOU'RE GREAT AT THE JANGLE! LEAVE IT BE A LITTLE! the second song holds up though. kinda trails off for me as a whole after that.

― andrew m. (andrewmorgan), Friday, 5 August 2005 14:57 (twenty years ago)

speaking of cypress, btw

― andrew m. (andrewmorgan), Friday, 5 August 2005 14:57 (twenty years ago)

"It is sort of a less overtly goofy B52's."

you would be right if you weren't so very very wrong. where do you get the B-52s from? Let's Active sound nothing like the B-52s.

― scott seward (scott seward), Friday, 5 August 2005 15:02 (twenty years ago)

Really? Did to me.

― mcd (mcd), Friday, 5 August 2005 15:13 (twenty years ago)

Though I'm not really sure what makes me say it. I think it was the vocals. I'll have to listen to it again.

― mcd (mcd), Friday, 5 August 2005 15:24 (twenty years ago)

I looooves me some B-52's, overtly goofy or otherwise, and I never would have made that connection either. Let's Active lacks Farfisa organ and female vocals.

Who, from that era, DOES sound like the B's? To me: Plastics, Sugarcubes, sometimes Joe 'King' Carrasco. Recommend something I don't own!

― Daniel Peterson (polkaholic), Friday, 5 August 2005 15:25 (twenty years ago)

hi-nrg/dance producer Bobby O (Divine, the Flirts) did a bunch of tracks in a fast rock-dance B-52s style, like I'm Just A Gigolo by Barbi and the Kens or I think Roni Griffith's Mondo Man(have to check on that).

Also, the Vanity 6 LP has some Prince does B-52s stuff on it.

― Dan Selzer (Dan Selzer), Friday, 5 August 2005 15:54 (twenty years ago)

i couldnt handle mitch easter's voice when i got cypress, which is a little weird, since i love chris stamey's somewhat similar-in-a-similar-context voice. maybe ill pull it out and give it another chance...

― petesmith (plsmith), Friday, 5 August 2005 16:13 (twenty years ago)

I heard Cypress for the first time in a long time recently and the songs seemed to drone on a bit. I think I like the earlier EP better, too - not that I've heard that in a long time either (though obviously "Every Word Means No" is a classic).

Easter was indeed in the Sneakers. There was a CD comp of them that I wanted to hear, but it's out of print and seems to go for a lot used. There are a couple of tracks on the original volumes of the hyped2death Homework series that seem cool.

― Tim Ellison (Tim Ellison), Friday, 5 August 2005 16:19 (twenty years ago)

For a while that out of print CD was super cheap, like it had just gone out and somebody was selling the remaining stock, me and a bunch of friends picked them up for a few bucks each. The track Ruby I think is the one on Homework, the one that goes "Talk is Cheap..." I loved that song when I was religiously listening to Homework's 1 and 2, but I never got into the Sneakers CD. I seem to remember thinking the version on Homework sounded better. I don't know if it was a different version, or if the Sneakers CD was remastered from tape and/or done poorly while Chuck did his from vinyl or something.

― Dan Selzer (Dan Selzer), Friday, 5 August 2005 16:26 (twenty years ago)

Went back and bought two more Let's Active records, Afoot and Big Plans for Everybody and the Bongos Drums Along the Hudson. Thanks for the tips on this thread.

― mcd (mcd), Friday, 5 August 2005 17:13 (twenty years ago)

There are a couple of tracks on the original volumes of the hyped2death Homework series that seem cool.

Yup, this is where I heard the Sneakers, yet I couldn't remember if that was a Mitch Easter thing or not. I just confuse the Sneakers with Don Flemming's band Velvet Monkeys for some silly reason. Never seen the Sneakers comp though, I didn't know it existed.

― mcd (mcd), Friday, 5 August 2005 18:09 (twenty years ago)

How does the Wygals record compare to this stuff? I've been looking for that forever.

― mcd (mcd), Friday, 5 August 2005 19:42 (twenty years ago)

How does the Wygals record compare to this stuff? I've been looking for that forever.

Not bad actually. It reminds me more of the 2nd & 3rd Til Tuesday albums.

― Elvis Telecom (Chris Barrus), Friday, 5 August 2005 22:13 (twenty years ago)

I used to have that Wygals record. It was pretty good.

The other day I thought of Let's Active's album Big Plans For Everybody for no particular reason. Well, to be honest it wasn't so much the music itself I remembered, but standing at the bus stop in high school listening to it on my walkman. Let's see, I've still got that on vinyl somewhere, I'm sure of it. Great record.

― The Spiderwebbed Wilderness (Bimble...), Saturday, 6 August 2005 04:27 (twenty years ago)

No love for the Silos? I'd get Cuba, About Her Steps, and the Tennessee Fire EP if those are there.

― nickn (nickn), Saturday, 6 August 2005 05:32 (twenty years ago)

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