Charles and I were digesting our Bandito last night on his porch, and we started talking about music, as we often do. I lamented that the two-albums-on-one-CD release by The Producers that had come out in late 2000 went out of print nearly immediately, and was fetching over $100 on Amazon and eBay.
Well, that was the right thing to idly complain about, because he just happened to have it sitting in his rack. So now I’m joyously swimming in some of the best pop music ever recorded! Woohoo!
Atlanta-based The Producers are usually classified as power pop, and that’s a fitting label–but there’s something more to their music than that. They remind me of Buddy Holly in that their songs are so simply structured (yet infectious), and of early rock in general because their songs are usually pretty short. There’s almost nothing to them; touch them, and they vanish. But, if a riff is good enough, and you’re talented enough to flesh it out properly with the right balance of precision and rawness, it’s all you need to carry a song strongly. They prove it over and over again.
If you don’t remember them, check out these YouTube videos (and go quickly before there’s another predatory lawyer pass, and never mind that you can’t buy this stuff anywhere and watching it on YouTube isn’t taking any money out of anyone’s pocket with that being the case; not that I am bitter):
“What’s He Got?”
“Certain Kinda Girl”
“She Sheila”
Great stuff. My boys come running whenever I’ve got any Producers cranked, even if it’s a song they’ve never heard before. There’s something that excellent and that pure about this music.
Charles and I are going to try to catch a date this year. We’ve got golden opportunities next weekend–in Nashville Friday, and home in Atlanta on Saturday–but he’s already tied up both days. Oh, well. It’s something fun to keep a lookout for.
Thanks to theproducers.org for the image.
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What’s he got that I don’t got – he’s got youuuuuuu. that’s what he’s got that’s what he’s got
HEY!
I saw them in concert in N.O. and Jaxmiss no less than 10 times.
Running to find my vinyl.
My turn to be jealous. Sometimes I think that from a pop culture perspective, I was born 5 to 7 years too late. I would have loved to see The Producers in their prime. I also would have loved to see Kiss when they were on top of the world the first time around.
It’s funny–I actually own You Make the Heat on vinyl, though I can’t quite remember how that came to happen. I do know I got it well after I owned a turntable.
You’d think that the owner of the rights to those first two Producers albums would see what that CD, released less than seven years ago, is bringing, and seize the opportunity to make an easy few thousand.
Not only did I get to see them, I got to see them on 2 back to school riverboat cruises (once when I a freshman, and once when I was doing orientation for freshment). That’s when the freshmen get cut loose in the french quarter for the first time.