New La's album on the way? Have you heard Shack?

That La's debut is one of my all-time faves. What a perfect record to spin when you want to get your mind awake and just feel good. Twelve first rate pop songs in a row without a single track that is even close to not good. Produced (in the end) by Steve Lillywhite and released in 1990 after many delays due to lead man Lee Mavers perfectionism. Many bands have since covered songs from it, but it's the real deal.

So I heard recently that the La's are touring now. Played a few dates in the UK and saw them posted on the concert lineup at a big upcoming Japanese music festival. Hopefully that means some new songs coming out too! The lineup mentioned was Lee Mavers (vox, guitar), John Power (bass, backing vocals), Jay Lewis of band Cracatilla (guitar) and Nick Miniski (drums), but Miniski was replaced by Mavers' schoolfriend Jasper by the time The La's played their fourth reunion date.

But judging by all the mentions this great album gets around here, I'm sure many of you know all that good stuff already. But do you know Shack? The Head brothers? I've always loved their HMS Fable album that came out in the late 90s, but never saw anything else available here in the US. So I'm listening to it again for the umpteenth time a few weeks ago and decided that I absolutely needed a copy of their 1995 Waterpistol. So I tried to score one cheap on ebay but it got too high. Undeterred, I did score a real nice deal on the Animals That Swim 2004 retrospective called Faded Glamour (another highly inventive and lyrical pop band that sadly never got much notice), but kept looking for the Shack CD. And found a source in Canada for a good price, so ordered it along with the latest from that Aussie pop band the Lucksmiths (a story for another day). I've been listening to Waterpistol pretty much exclusively ever since and it just has that same classic sound as The La's. Almost like a companion piece at times. It was originally completed in 1991, not long after that classic La's debut, but then the masters were lost in a studio fire. And the producer even lost his DAT copy in a rental car, not knowing that a fire had destroyed the masters. The DAT was later recovered but still set dormant until the German Marina label finally released it in 1995. And what a lost classic it is! I've only spent a couple weeks with it now, but can tell it's gonna be a favorite long into the future. Very nice ....

 

The La's debut is perfection. I can't believe how badly they butchered the 'remastered' cd version though..it sounds absolutely *****!! You gotta go with the vinyl all the way

 

Wow, that's strange since I thought the 2001 Polydor UK remaster was pretty nice. Bought it for a super low price from a Canadian source when it came out, even though the original was only about 10 years old - but there were also 5 bonus tracks which clinched the deal. A golden opportunity to hear one of my all-time faves, remastered and expanded, for less than the price you would pay for most used albums. And the sound quality is somewhat improved over my original without any real negatives that I can hear. The vocals are clearer and there is more airiness around all the sounds, which helps relieve some of the congestion of sounds in the middle on the original. More relaxed presentation. Not an audiophile recording by any means, and the results will of course depend on your system and listening preferences, but worth it on my system and to my ears, and fortunately they only needed to add compression to a couple of the songs to jack up the volume since most of it was originally mastered at a very low level. It was one of those albums where they mastered it as a "whole" album, so a couple songs had peaks that hit max and many didn't come close, but the average was set right. So when they remastered it and wanted to make it louder (seems to be obligatory these days), all that was needed was to add a little compression to a couple songs and then bring the whole thing up a few dB. Sure, I would've preferred if it was just remastered through better equipment and leave the level where it was, but that's like wishing for a lottery win. Guess that's not how you hear it, eh? It has a certain honest quality missing from many modern recordings, perhaps because it was done in analog (I'm pretty sure), and I'm a sucker for most things analog. But yeah, vinyl would be the way to go. Pretty rare, though. Wonder if the vinyl really made it all analog? When did you get it?

 

We recorded some tracks for Go-Discs in '87/88. The La's were staying up the road near Hammersmith while they were in London. I knew John Powers from sight in Liverpool, he was in my sisters class at school..had seen Lee around in L'pool. Some hairy stories were coming out about what Lee was getting up to in London....selling the furniture, phones etc from the rented house that had been organised for them, needed money for drugs, skag? Anyway GoDiscs got a bit leery of us, being another scouse band, and declined the chance to sign us .
I got the album when it came out. Lee hated it 'cos it sounded so 'clean'. They had been passing 'round demos for a while, really full-on versions of some of those songs..a sort of Who/Small Faces feel, distorted guitars and big drums. Thats how he wanted it. My guess is that although the album was cobbled together from material recorded later Lee and John had some say in the sound of it, mastering-wise. By the time it came for it to be re-issued 'remastered' they (the record company) basically cleaned any of the original eq decisions up. They gutted it, believe me. Its actually not that rare. As well as the UK vinyl it was issued in Holland, Germany and I think a couple of other european countries. I see it occasionally down here, probably released in Australia/Nz too. It was all analogue, though Lilywhite was most likely using early digital reverb and effects.
I think Mike Badger has released some of the early demos...one thing I remember when the album first came out was that Eric Clapton went on record saying he thought they were something special, they'd brought back excitement to the UK music scene. I'm amazed they are touring..he's a bit of a troubled soul Lee, I wonder if they'll record..will they still have it?

 

I've raved about the La's here before. Shacks "Here's Tom" LP and the Magical World of the Strands LP are two of the best LP's in the last 10 years IMHO.

I saw the LA's at the Marquee in 88 or 89 - and Shack recently (supported by the Stands!), they were great live, especially at capturing the Strands sound. The set was a mixture of Michael Heads work.

Never been that impressed with HMS Fable though.

Tim

 

I heard that Shack album where they back Arthur Lee. Horrible sound, but inspired performance.

 

Big Shack fan here - saw them in Liverpool a couple of years ago fantastic stuff.
All their LP's are great especially the ones tim mentions, even their earliest Zilch (rereleased on CD in Japan this year.) is pretty good despite cheesy production..

 

I was at that gig. I don't remember the live sound being quite as bad as it appears on that CD release. Great concert though and the first time I ever got to see Arthur Lee live.

 

I must have missed the previous thread about the La's reforming. I just got one of their Glastonbury warm-up shows and, while I loved hearing them play these classic songs, I was really disappointed by the drummer. Turns out it's an old friend of Lee's, and he's not even a drummer! I was disappointed by the reformed La's, if this recording is an indication of their current sound.

That said, I love their record and I do hope they come to the US for some shows, then record a new album. I'd love to hear some more songs from Mavers, and I have to see him perform live because I missed out on the first tour (I was broke that week).

 

The only Shack album I've heard is HMS Fable, but I highly recommend it. As for the La's, I really like There She Goes, but I must give the CD another listen. Anyone who likes this kind of jangly guitar pop might also be interested in The Wayward Genius of Martin Newell CD.

 

I think HMS Fable is the weakest LP, the Strands and Here's Tom are simply masterpieces
Tim

 

Better than Waterpistol? Wow, guess I really need to hear those because Waterpistol is incredible. HMS Fable does have some weak moments, but has some great ones too. Quite a band!

 

Dunno if Tom is better than Waterpistol, but Strands is at least as good if you like the mellower side, and it is sonically very nice too!

 

A few years down the road, and much time spent in the magical world of the Strands, and you're right, it really is a beautiful record, and very much out of time. Just sounds good any time, any time of year, any time of day, like right now. Nearly perfect. It uses HDCD encoding with peak extension enabled too, I assume there weren't too many other versions, if any. Not really a great recording, obviously done on a limited budget, but sounds OK and has a certain honesty about it. Does anyone here have the vinyl? Probably goes for some nice change nowadays.

Anyway, I know this has become somewhat of a forum favorite, and a very well-deserved one. Love to hear any stories (personal or otherwise) associated with this record.