posted 1/24/2008 11:00:17 AM

Black Vinyl SHOES

by Jeff Murphy

In the summer of 1976, after over 3 years of home recording, SHOES was in a bit of a jam. We had recorded more than 3 albums worth of material and we still hadn’t achieved our goal of signing to a major label. To top it all off, our then drummer, Barry Shumaker had informed us that he was leaving the band and moving out of the small, one bedroom flat that he and I shared amidst the array of amps, instruments, PA and recording gear. Barry was a great guy and drummer but, with the prodding of his girlfriend, he was persuaded that he was wasting his time in the band and needed to move on to bigger and better things. (He became manager of the local Musicland Record store and eventually moved up in the managerial ladder, until the chain closed years later.) No hard feelings. We understood. But we were on a mission.

John, Gary and I all shared a single passion to keep writing and recording our songs. We were completely focused on our goal and spent almost every waking hour that we weren’t at our regular jobs, working on our songs. With each song we learned more about recording on the TEAC 3340S, 4-channel tape machine. We learned more about how to play, sing and write the type of music that we loved, yet seemed to be disappearing from the radio in those days of Saturday Night Fever and disco.

We set out to find a new drummer and started to interview local drummers in a rather modest, word of mouth way. After weeks of frustration and disappointment, Gary mentioned that his sister had been dating a drummer that played in a local cover band named Big Foot (no kidding!). His name was Skip Meyer. So we invited Skip to come over to our studio/HQ, which we referred to as La Cabane, and try-out for the band. His style was simple and straight forward, just what we were looking for. His personality was easy going and amiable and his appearance, despite the then-trendy fu-manchu moustache, fit right in. We hit it off immediately and within a few weeks we launched right into the start of a new recording, Black Vinyl Shoes.

The first track that we started recording for the album was called Capital Gain. It was an unusual song for a drummer in that the tempo started out slowly and then built up to a more manic pace as the song progressed. No click track here. We were still experimenting with the best way to record drums and because of the limited fidelity of the equipment, it mandated that the drums be recorded first, before there were any vocals or bass. It must have been a strange experience for Skip to go from playing cover songs at the local Holiday Inn to playing drums for a song that wasn’t completely written when we started it. But he made his way through it. Our equipment was very limited so we tried to make the best of what we had. This included plugging our guitars directly into the recording console (a Peavey 1200S) with various distortion boxes and gadgets, which produced a strange, buzzy type of distortion. Coupled with our reserved vocal approach it made for an unusual combination. As we progressed with the song, we determined that the volume of the snare drum was too low, so we recorded a 2nd snare drum and mixed it in. It wasn’t perfect but we were off and running on the album and over the next 7 months we continued our dogged pursuit.

The last song we recorded was John’s song, Boys Don’t Lie. With each song we had gotten a little better at arranging and pre-mixing the instruments during the recording process and by this time we had gotten pretty good at it. The song seemed notably punchier and we decided to use it as the album opener. The final album contained 15 songs in total and each writer had 5 songs included. We intentionally staggered the songs so that no one had 2 songs in a row. This was the first time that we made the conscious effort to maintain an equal representation for each songwriter.

On a hot Saturday in May of 1977 we borrowed a 2-channel tape machine and mixed the songs into their final version and sequence. Not yet having learned the art of tape editing, we would carefully park the tape at the precise spot that we wanted the next song to start and we would then start the tape machines together to record the mix of the next song. Often times, there would be a click or pop on the final mix, due to the refrigerator turning on or the tape machine leaving a thump from starting to record. This would force us to rewind the 2 machines and re-record the song until there were no electronic hiccups. It was very tedious and time consuming.

Once the recording was complete, we worked on getting a master disc cut and getting it pressed at a local record plant in Chicago. John did an original painting on sepia paper for the cover and we included a photo-collage poster, a t-shirt iron-on and a round, Black Vinyl Shoes sticker in the package. We pressed up 1,000 copies of the disc and began sending promo copies to anyone that we thought might be interested in hearing it. I believe we gave away over 300 copies to press and radio folks, but it was well worth it. The press started to write about the LP and before the end of the year, we had attracted the attention of rock impresario Greg Shaw from BOMP! Records and we were in a professional, 24-track recording studio working on the Tomorrow Night/Okay single for his label. We licensed the master tapes for Black Vinyl Shoes to Passport Records out of New York and they re-issued the album, with different cover art, in the fall of 1978. By early 1979 we had signed our major-label record deal with Elektra Records and were headed off to England to record our first major-label album. Black Vinyl Shoes had given us a new career.

Black Vinyl Shoes remains a major milestone for us. Despite the fact that we had recorded and released more than 3 albums of material prior to its inception, we still consider BVS as the start of our musical careers. It remains a critical turning point in our lives and it’s difficult for us to hear it without remembering those days being holed-up in our little studio, toiling away at what we truly loved to do.

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