Shoes

Certain Songs #2202: Shoes – “Tomorrow Night”

October 14, 2021 by Jim Connelly

Album: Present Tense
Year: 1979

. . .

This is, of course, the first Shoes song I ever heard — no doubt on KKDJ — and I instantly fell for it. I mean, how could I not, given that I was going through a massive period of power pop discovery at the time; digging records by The Paul Collins Beat, 20/20, SVT, Headboys etc etc.

But at the time, “Tomorrow Night” was the absolute pinnacle — the greatest power-pop song I’d ever heard — and even though I now (barely) prefer things like “A Million Miles Away,” “She Bangs The Drums,” “September Gurls“, “The Shiny Unfeeling” or even the Shoes own “Not Me,” all of those songs were still in my future, whereas in the spring of 1980, “Tomorrow Night” was right there in front of me.

Certain Songs #2201: Shoes – “Boys Don’t Lie”

October 13, 2021 by Jim Connelly

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.

Certain Songs #2200: Shoes – “Not Me”

October 12, 2021 by Jim Connelly

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.