Early Easter eggs

After many years of no Mitch Easter releases, there have been two so far this year: a Sneakers reissue, Nonsequitur Of Silence, and a brand new solo album, Dynamico.

The Sneakers reissue has been out for a couple of weeks now, and features both of their original eps (Sneakers and In The Red) plus nine bonus tracks, mostly from the long out-of-print 1992 Racket cd. Sneakers, for the uninitiated, were the late-70s band that included two future dB's, Chris Stamey and Will Rigby, as well as Easter. The first ep (engineered by Don Dixon) was mostly Stamey with a backing band, and the second was a Stamey/Easter collaboration. The Racket bonus tracks were recorded by Chris and Mitch in the early 90s on vintage 70s equipment. dB's or Let's Active fans who haven't heard the Sneakers or don't have Racket should definitely grab this disc.

I have Racket, so I haven't picked up the new Sneakers reissue, mostly because I've been too busy digging Mitch Easter's new solo album Dynamico. This is his first album of new material in nearly 19 years (Imagine if Scott Miller stopped making music after Game Theory's Two Steps From The Middle Ages, didn't form the Loud Family, and hadn't done anything until now. 19 years is a long time), it sounds like the logical followup to the last Let's Active album, Every Dog Has Its Day, with the same crunchy guitars and twisted hooks that made Mitch famous twenty plus years ago. The album isn't officially out until March 14th, but it's available from right here, right now. And like Jesus said (Jesus Jones), there is no other place I want to be!

I've had the album for about a week, and in classic Let's Active fashion it took awhile to sink it, but now I can't get enough. All 14 tracks are great, but early picks to click include both songs available for download ("Sudden Crown Drop" and "Time Warping". links below) and "Dusky Lair" (speaking of Scott Miller, am I tripping or does that intro sound like "Rise of the Chokehold Princess"?). After all this time, it's great to have Mitch Easter back!

And next month, he's coming to San Francisco. Mitch Easter will be at the Rickshaw Stop on March 29th with Magic Bullets and the Bye Bye Blackbirds. And all ages are welcome so bring the kids. There's a link on his web site where you can email song requests, where I've requested my favorite Let's Active song, "Waters Part", but I think that's usually part of the setlist. Here's the video of "Waters Part"from youtube.

The last time I saw Let's Active live at the Berkeley Square, I'd just seen an magazine intervew with Robert Plant where he raved about Every Dog, calling Let's Active "the new Moby Grape". Mitch must have taken that interview to heart, because at that show, they encored with Moby Grape's "Hey Grandma" followed by the Move's "I Can Hear The Grass Grow". That was the last show on their Spring 1989 tour and may have been the last Let's Active show ever.

Mitch Easter mp3s (from Dynamico)
Sudden Crown Drop (125records.com)
Time Warping (mitcheaster.com)

Sneakers mp3s (from Nonsequitur Of Silence)
Ruby (recidivism.org)