Mitch News
Got A Scoop,An Old Article For The Archives...
E-Me...MapslegendS@Hotmail.com
Updates For The Year 2000 A.D. On The
An Article On A 1995 SXSW Show Taken From Audities Online
Mitch Easter and Chris Stamey took the stage for a roughly thrown together (but thoroughly wonderful) set at Waterloo Brew Club. Alternating between guitar and bass, they played two new songs of Mitch's and then, in honor of it being Saint Patrick's day, performed "Condition Red" from the original Sneakers EP.An amazing guitarist and bassist, Mitch is definitely in the same league as Entwistle when he straps on the Fender Jazz Bass. James Maestro (ex-Bongos) played acoustic guitar, and John Howie did some truly superior pounding on the skins while making faces that would scare an asylum inmate. At the end of their set Stamey spotted Peter Holsapple in the audience and pulled him on stage to play "Angels". This near dB's reunion had the audience going nuts.
Francis JH Park's Mo Better Shots Of Mitch @ SXSW
Copyright ©1996,2000 IDYLTIME and Audities
From a 1998 Online Athens Article :
R.E.M.
And Its Producers
Mitch Easter - Produced "Chronic Town," the band's
first EP (extended play) record, in 1981 at his Drive In Studio
in Winston Salem, N.C. In "Talk About the Passion: R.E.M.,
an Oral History" by Denise Sullivan, Easter recalls "'Wolves,
Lower' on 'Chronic Town' has some funny noises on it because we
did some of the vocals outside. There were a lot of bugs out
there."
Easter and Don Dixon - The duo teamed up for both "Murmur,"
(1983) R.E.M.'s first full-length album, and its follow-up,
"Reckoning" (1984). In the midst of early '80s
synthesized pop, Easter and Dixon were producing something that
sounded very different. In "Talk About the Passion"
Easter says he was fascinated with the process of making records
and listened closely to see if he "could hear some clue on a
record like the sound of footsteps or a voice from an engineer.
Whenever we just by chance got little moments like that on our
tape, if we put it on the album, it would make it so much more of
an experience for the listener."
After "Reckoning," the producers and the band parted
ways and Easter says, "No one ever believes me when I say
this, but R.E.M. going on to use other producers was just fine
with me. It was the thing to do. Either way it would have been
fine with me. By the time we had done the two albums, it made
sense for them to move on."
Joe Boyd - R.E.M. packed off to London to make "Fables of
the Reconstruction" (1985) with Boyd. but described as
having a distinct Southern-ness. In "Passion," Boyd
says, "I was pleased with the tracks involving extra
musicians where I felt I made a genuine contribution, but the
band tracks didn't sound as good as I wanted them to."
Rolling Stone magazine's Anthony DeCurtis called Boyd's
contribution to the album an "ominous murkiness."
Don Gehman - Of Gehman's contribution to "Lifes Rich Pageant"
(1986) DeCurtis wrote, "Gehman has crafted a sound that
subordinates musical details and coloring to the main
instrumental thrust of each song. The most basic conventions of
rock recording - clear, crisp, loud drums, for example - with R.E.M.
had perversely avoided before are observed."
Scott Litt and R.E.M. - Litt's union with R.E.M. has paralleled
the band's commercial success. The albums moved forward with a
cleaner and more adventurous sounds, leaving the warbled vocals
far behind. "Document" (1987), produced the band's
first Top 10 single, "The One I Love;" "Green"
(1988), was R.E.M.'s first album for Warner Bros. Records and saw
the band's public profile rise. "Out of Time" (1991)
was R.E.M.'s first album to hit No. 1 on Billboard magazine's
album charts and "Automatic for the People" (1992) and
"Monster" (1994), continued to reaffirm R.E.M.'s status
as one of the biggest bands in rock 'n' roll. "New
Adventures in Hi-Fi" (1996), didn't meet sales expectations
in the United States. But it did top the charts around the world,
and the band members and many fans consider it an artistic
success. "New Adventures" was R.E.M.'s last effort with
Litt. In an interview last summer, bassist Mike Mills explained
that the band and Litt's work together had, "sort of run its
course. He's got his record company to work with now. Once you
start a record company, you have to devote a lot of your time to
it."Litt owns Los Angeles-based Outpost Records
©opyright
1998 Athens Newspapers Inc.
From a 9/99 Spin Online interview with Pavement's Steve Malkmus on the recording of 1997's Brighten The Corners and whatever the new one's called that they did w/Radiohead's producer Nigel Goodrich....
How did it compare with your experience being in North Carolina with Mitch Easter and falling in love with the bowling alley lady versus being in London?
Well, it was a bit different. It was a bit longer really. Mitch was just more laid back, less pressure to do their shit. This time I was a little more particular making people in the band--mainly Steve, the drummer--making him do things again. It was more like we really have to do this instead of let just sit around make some songs and see what comes out of it. It was more goal oriented, like, "These are the songs we're doing--they have to be good for whatever they are." Before I just used to say, "Lets just do 20 songs and see which ones are good afterwards." This time it was, "That' s not good enough; let' s do this one again."
Last time with Mitch Easter, Scott Kannenberg had that one song with the jangeley Let's Active Rickenbacker.
"He wasn't even there doing it; it was really this guy Bryce who mixed it and had more to do with it. It was just Mitch's studio. Obviously his studio and his attitude and his toys that he has there would have an influence, but he wasn't there to produce it--he's not like getting points. He's just making sure that we don't knock over a microphone and also talking to us and having fun. He wasn't there in that position where it's like, "What can I do to contribute to this?" It was more like, "What can I do to make sure these guys are comfortable?The last record was just a little bit flat at parts; the versions weren't incredible or anything--Do you know what I mean?"
No, I thought it was a great record.
"No I think it's good too, but I just wanted to go even farther this time."
11/23/99
Warner Brothers Records releases the Friends Again "soundtrack"which includes a version of Smashmouth covering "Every Word Means No"off Afoot.That's all I'm saying about that.
Robert
Plant Testifies 
This Is A Few Times Now That I've Heard Robert Plant Rave And Drool Over Mitch.He Did It Whilst Hosting A Segement Of MTV Back In 88,It's Documented On The 12" Promo Sleeve Of "Every Dog Has His Day",And I Quote...
"Robert Plant Recently Appeared As A Guest VJ On MTV,And Among The Videos He Required For His Show Was A Sampler Showcasing Mitch Easter And His Band,Let's Active,Listen And Find Out Why!"
That Was In 88,This Show Took Place In 99...HE'S STILL RAVING!
Taken From A Web Article I Found In Doing A Google Search...
Robert
Plant Show
Venue: Stourbridge Town Hall, Stourbridge, West Midlands, 8th
December,99
Robert then tells us about Wolverly 'the largest village in
Britain' which is soon to get a cathederal and he expresses
disbelief at the amount of traffic driving around (presumably to
see unmentioned christmas decorations), then, explaining how the
locals of Wolverly didn't need drugs, he introduces Waiting for
my Man. Now, I Iove this Velvet Underground song and I love
Plant's voice but I'm afraid the two should have never have mixed
outside his shower. The band put in a good effort (drawing my
attention to how good the drummer is) but this song needs someone
far more wasted and croaky than Robert.. well... Lou Reed really.
Next up is a new song (?) to the set. Robert explains about Mitch
Easter and how he produced some of the early REM records, his
band was called Let's Active (the only reference I can find to
them is in the American All Music Guide where it describes their
last record as alomost completely ignored... the whole band
cetainly is by London's major record shops). He says the song is
from 1988 and is called er... Something (I'm buggered if I know
whether he just forget the name or that was what the track was
really called). Considering both Robert and Kevyn are reading the
music it comes over well, sounding a little REMish.TBL Comment -
we think it *was* a REM song - confirmations please!
12/17/99
Who Says Rock Guys Don't Get Involed?
Taken From The News & Record (Greensboro, NC),Greensboro Edition
BY DANIEL M. NONTE; Staff Writer
KERNERSVILLE LOOP DRAWS COMMENT AT LOCAL WORKSHOP; ATTENDEES AT A WORKSHOP TUESDAY NIGHT FRET ABOUT THE PROPOSED ROUTE OFTHE KERNERSVILLE LOOP.
DATELINE: KERNERSVILLE
He sprays gravel in the morning when he peels out of his driveway onto busy U.S. 150. In the evening, other drivers honk and gesture at him for slowing down to turn into his driveway.But he doesn't think the proposed four-lane loop around Kernersville will alleviate the area's congestion. He also isn't thrilled that the road's proposed route would send even more traffic thundering past his 120-year-old home."If it's going to be a proper bypass, it should be farther out,''Easter said after looking at plans that were on display Tuesday night at the Kernersville Town Hall.
Scores of residents dropped by to look at the plans, which detailed a roughly 2-mile section of the proposed bypass northeast of town, and to volunteer their opinions. Most were worried that the proposed road would run across their property or further congest roads near their homes. City officials hope to tap state coffers to help build the loop, but Floyd relief could limit the state's generosity for road projects.Always a crossroads, Kernersville has become a trucking hub and a bedroom community for commuters who work in Greensboro, Winston-Salem and High Point. The city's population - 9,400 in 1980 - is expected to climb to 17,000 by 2002, an 80-percent increase. The segment of the loop on display Tuesday would run between U.S. 421 and Piney Grove Road with a median dividing the four lanes.
A study several years ago pegged the cost of that section at $ 7 million. But an updated price tag will probably be about $ 11 million,according to engineer Paul Koch. Koch works for DSAtlantic Corp, a Raleigh engineering company hired by Kernersville to study that first phase of the project. The company will submit a final report in early January. According to town planners, the loop offers the best opportunity to reduce congestion in downtown Kernersville. The community's network of roads tends to funnel traffic through downtown, said Russell Radford, Kernersville's street engineer.
On Tuesday night, however, those who attended the meeting were more concerned about the road's location than whether it would be funded. Easter would prefer the road to be moved to the north, farther from the town and away from his house. But that could put the road right through Norma Edwards' tobacco fields. ''I cannot pay my taxes without my tobacco,'' said Edwards who has lived off Smith Edwards Road since 1947. Kay Lawson worried about increased traffic near her house. ''We can't get out of our driveway as it is,'' Lawson said, ''so this is going to really kill us.''
© News & Record, December 17, 1999
Taken From The Chapel Hill News
Village Voices Wednesday, December 22, 1999
Welcome to Comboland
FRANK HEATH
"Everything I do, Buddha does with love, and that's what I compare it to." -- Rick Rock "Buddha Buddha" Raleigh radio station WRDU has an on-line poll to determine "best song of the 20th century" (wrdu.citysearch.com). Aerosmith's song "Sweet Emotion" is one of your five choices for "best song." Now I like Aerosmith OK, but I can guarantee "Sweet Emotion" is not the best song of all time. In non-violent protest, I'm writing this column about North Carolina music, which, by the way, received zero nominations in WRDU's poll. I never saw Arrogance, although I heard the band from my bedroom window in 1977, miles from where they were playing downtown after Carolina lost to Marquette in basketball. Arrogance kept rock and roll alive during a decade when very few bands were playing good original music in the area. The group broke up eventually, but not without making its mark, because Arrogance leader Don Dixon teamed with Winston-Salem's Mitch Easter to co-produce REM's 1983 landmark album "Murmur," a record that influenced a lot of North Carolinians to pick up guitars. Meanwhile, Easter's band Let's Active, along with another Triad combo called the dB's, were making waves nationally. Both Dixon and Easter would have successful recording careers, and each of them also became prolific (and first-rate) producers, helping propagate the "North Carolina Sound." The die was cast and during 1984 -85 the dam broke. A band called the Pressure Boys, its warped ska a result of repeated watchings of Madness and Wall of Voodoo videos, crawled up from the basements of Chapel Hill to blitz the area with over-the-top live shows and poster rampages. Chapel Hill groups Rick Rock and One Plus Two contributed nifty pop offerings. Raleigh's Connells -- reminiscent of REM and Britain's Smiths -- took the Triangle by storm, growing into the first local mega-group (the group headlined the opening night at Walnut Creek Amphitheatre). Corrosion of Conformity jolted the national "hardcore" scene, and Charlotte's Fetchin Bones was the world's first "New Wave Trailer Trash" band. Hege V and Gerald Duncan's Accelerators could have invented "alternative country." The Bad Checks, UV Prom, Snatches of Pink, Teasing the Korean, Southern Culture on the Skids and "rockabilly" upstarts Flat Duo Jets arose and contributed to the mayhem.
By 1987 a new wave of great pop bands that included Dillon Fence, Satellite Boyfriend, the Veldt, the Popes and Light in August had formed. The breakup of Pressure Boys in '88 spawned funk-meisters Johnny Quest and the Sex Police. A band called Majosha became popular, then broke up; its drummer, Ben Folds, relocated to Nashville to start a songwriting career. During the early '90s, Metal Flake Mother and June each released a brilliant record and graced us for too short a time with their presence. Noisier, tougher, out-of-town bands like Soundgarden, Dinosaur Jr., the Pixies, Sonic Youth, Nirvana's and Mudhoney toured through the Triangle during the late '80s and early '90s, and a harder "alternative" sound began to be heard locally. Slush Puppies released its own singles and played to sparse but intense crowds of young listeners early in 1988; the group's Mac McCaughan would go on to form Chunk -- later renamed Superchunk. By the early 1990s Superchunk, then Polvo and Archers of Loaf began making incredible music, and Chapel Hill became the capital of something -- as documented in Interview and Spin magazines. Riding along were Pipe, Small, Motocaster, Geezer Lake, Shiny Beast, Picasso Trigger, Capsize 7, Willard and Zen Frisbee. Cat's Cradle sound guy-turned-producer Caleb Southern, Raleigh studio owner Jerry Kee and videographer Norwood Cheek captured the spirit with their recordings of these bands and many others. That era ended symbolically in 1998, the year both Polvo and the Archers hung up their instruments. By then two Chapel Hill artists -- Big Band Practitioners Squirrel Nut Zippers and "Pianoman" Ben Folds Five -- had gotten on MTV.Today, area music is more diverse than ever. Mr. Folds and the Zippers are the Triangle's best-known artists ever. Southern Culture and Superchunk continue to amaze audiences; and Whiskeytown, Backsliders and the $2 Pistols have made North Carolina ground zero for the "alternative country" movement. Two talented hip-hop groups, Sankofa and Tyfu, have risen to popularity. Vets Lud, Ashley Stove and Shark Quest are coming into their own. And the recent release of the Chicken Wire Gang's superb version of Rick Rock's "Buddha Buddha" shows we still remember our roots.But none of this would have made sense without a million small individual contributions that added up . . . like the fact that dedicated writers from the Independent and the Spectator (and the Daily Tar Heel and the local dailies) contributed weekly commentary on all of this; and that there have always been plenty of low-budget 'zines like Trash, Stay Free, 'Sup, Preparation X and the Dixie Voice to fill in the gaps; and that labels like Merge, Mammoth, Jettison, Moist (RIP) and countless others have released local music; and that college stations WXYC and WXDU have steadfastly supported live music throughout it all; and that cool places like The Cave, The Skylight Exchange and Henry's Bistro have always offered their stages -- and that insanely talented musicians like Jim Smith, Taz Halloween, and Robert Griffin have performed nightly on those stages; and that people like Randy Bullock, Bill Burton, Shawn Rogers, Elizabeth Boisson, John Santa and Bo Osborne (and hundreds of others) have put in their time and much more. So, to the fact that we made it through these last 25 years, and just in case ...A list: Let's Active, "Room with a View"; Arrogance, "Secrets"; Rick Rock "Buddha Buddha"; Connells, "Hats Off"; Snatches of Pink, "Goin' Down"; Satellite Boyfriend, "Alicia in the Black Dress"; The Veldt, "Willow Tree"; Popes, "Not Beautiful"; ScOtS, "Clyde's Lament"; Mayflies USA, "Down w/ Peter Green"; Superchunk, "Cast Iron"; Archers of Loaf, "South Carolina"; Lud, "Shenandoah"; Metal Flake Mother, "Sutpen"; Ben Folds Five, "Philosophy"; Fetchin Bones, "Spinning"; Zen Frisbee, "Return to Point Break." Thanks to all.
Really.
A Clipping From The N.C.News Observer,3/31/2000
Easter
rebellion
By now, you're surely familiar with the parlor game "Six
Degrees of Kevin Bacon." Around these parts, you could play
a similar game called "Six Degrees of Mitch Easter" --
which would be appropriately timed, since Easter falls April 23.
While Easter isn't performing in the Triangle, he has a
connection to seemingly every upcoming club show in the guitar-pop
genre.
First is tonight's release show for the compilation "Pop
Till You Drop" (S'More Records). Regional compilation albums
occupy a special place in North Carolina's musical history, going
back to 1980s-vintage collections like "Mondo Montage"
(on which Easter's former band Let's Active appeared) and "Welcome
to Comboland." Like those earlier records, "Pop Till
You Drop" gives the impression that chiming guitar hooks are
issuing forth from every garage in North Carolina. Easter shows
up on the album with "Sudden Crown Drop," his first new
recording in many moons. Christening the album's release are
Mayflies USA, Superdrag and Rodeo Boy, performing tonight at
Cat's Cradle.
Easter is still best-known for co-producing R.E.M.'s first two
albums with Don Dixon, who is back with his first new album in
five years, "The Invisible Man" (Gadfly Records).
"The Invisible Man" grapples with mortality issues and
does so with uncommon tunefulness. Dixon will no doubt offer up a
healthy dose of songs from the new album April 9, when he plays a
hurricane relief benefit show at Rocky Mount's Nash Community
College with his singing spouse, Marti Jones.
One of Easter's many production clients is the California band
Loud Family, who enjoyed the fruits of Easter's studio craft on
their first several albums. Loud Family leader Scott Miller
handled production himself on the group's latest effort, "Attractive
Nuisance" (Alias Records), and it's another highly tasteful
set of bent pop songs from one of the more productive branches of
the Big Star family tree. Loud Family brings it live to Go! on
the 19th, with Parklife opening.
Back in the present tense, Easter produced ex-Mercury Dime
keyboardist Cliff Retallick's upcoming solo album, "Beautiful
Autism," and it's a long jump away from Retallick's former
band -- both stylistically, and in terms of quality. Ornate and
even a little funky, "Beautiful Autism" might be the
most rhythmic record Easter has ever produced. Retallick plays at
Henry's Bistro on the 10th, and at Skylight Exchange on the 16th
with Jeffrey Dean Foster.
4/20/2000 - Mitch Siting At Loud Family Show In N.C.
As reported to The Loud Family subscription list by Larry Tucker...this post is in the list's archives...Mitch,Shalini and Angie all showed up at the show at the Club Go in Raliegh...CLICK THIS
A week or so later Larry was chatting with Shalini...CLICK THIS
5/13/2000
I just found out about Mitch being analyzed by Dennis Diken in Eric Olsen's Encyclopedia Of Record Producers .This book is a comprehensive resource on 500 of the most influential producers in history.Dennis,drummer for The Smithereens tackles ten entries,one of which is Mitch.I'm picking this up this week,when I get it,the essay goes up!
