We're Not Who You Think We Are
Album: Black Vinyl Shoes
Year: 1978
. . .
While these days, it’s much more common to record music in your living room, bedroom, basement, any damn place but an actual recording studio, back in the late 1970s, it was much more rare.
Which is part of the reason why Black Vinyl Shoes — the first album by Zion, Illinois’ Shoes — made such a stir.
[Read more…] about Certain Songs #2201: Shoes – “Boys Don’t Lie”
Album: Black Vinyl Shoes
Year: 1978
. . .
We’ll dig into this more tomorrow, but the thing about Black Vinyl Shoes, of course, was that it turned its potential weakness — the fact that was was recorded in a living room (by elves, Robert Christgau joked in his A- review) — into its strengths: the whole record was filled with atmosphere and hooks.
And no song had more atmosphere or hooks that Gary Klebe’s “Not Me,” which burst into life from what sounded like an abrupt tape splice with Klebe’s deep, jangling 12-string acoustic guitar and what sounds like a cowbell on every single beat, which made up for the fact that the only things you could hear of Skip Meyer’s drums was the kick and snare.