The first time yours truly encountered Butch Vig and Doug Erikson was way back in the days of black-and-white internet (1985) when their band, Spooner, played FitzGerald's American Music Festival. They'd driven from their base of Madison, WI to open for CBS Records act the Elvis Brothers and, as far as opening acts went, they were completely forgettable in a memorable sorta way.
The band's songs were fair-to-good, but the band's visual presence left much to be desired. Erikson hasn't aged much in the 30+ years since that fateful night, which is to say that he looked fifty even back then and had the demeanor of someone who was used to being called a ne'er-do-well.
Mind you, these were merely the first impressions of a kid with rock dreams of his own who hadn't yet left his own rust belt burg for the thrills of the big city, but that doesn't make them any less accurate.
Weeks later, after moving to Chicago to attend college, I happened upon a copy of Spooner's Every Corner Dance whilst browsing the racks at the university's radio station where I now hosted a weekly show.
Having access to thousands of albums was like dying and going to liner notes heaven and enabled me to put names to faces, at which point a pivotal "holy shit" moment occurred:
The name "Butch Vig" popped out at me and I suddenly realized that the flannel-and-jeans-clad drummer for Spooner was also the producer of dark punk bands Tar Babies and Killdozer albums that I just so happened to be playing on my show.
It was the sort of "Eureka!" moment that helped make a lot of other things fall into place while raising even more questions, like "How was the drummer in a Wisconsin-based heartland rock band one of Chicago punk's 'go-to' producers, a la Iain Burgess?
In late '86, I just happened to spot an album by a band called Fire Town in the New Arrival racks at Wax Trax! and was mildly stunned to see that Doug and Butch were members and that the LP was issued on the same Boat Records label that had put out Spooner's albums.
So, considering I'd somehow been able to resist buying a Spooner record over the past year, why did I suddenly buy Fire Town's debut platter sight-unseen?
In hindsight, the angular Vox guitar on the cover might have been enough to do it back then, thus hinting at some sort of '60s revivalist musical journey, I imagined, but nothing could have prepared me for what I heard.
Thankfully, my fears that this would turn out to be more second-rate self-released bar band bullshit were soon lit aflame and I found myself sucked into this album's world and became determined to share it with as many fuckers as I could.
I must not have been alone in that sentiment because, much to my surprise, the album was re-released by Atlantic Records with no major label tinkering. Granted, they didn't promote the album for shit, which is a shame because there are at least three tunes that deserve to be '80s alt rock staples.
"Carry The Torch", Secret Heart" and the glorious R.E.M. approximation on "Favorite Song" were each worthy of their own close-up.
Part of the album's appeal was the feeling that this was a one-off studio project that just so happened to catch a brief crack of lightning in a bottle. While seeing Atlantic pluck this album from certain obscurity, it is unbearably sad to see the album return to said obscurity, even after two of its members went on to global success with Garbage.