{"id":25415,"date":"2023-06-28T05:30:21","date_gmt":"2023-06-28T09:30:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=25415"},"modified":"2023-06-28T07:58:17","modified_gmt":"2023-06-28T11:58:17","slug":"dawn-of-the-smithereens-part-3-of-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2023\/06\/28\/dawn-of-the-smithereens-part-3-of-3\/","title":{"rendered":"Dawn of the Smithereens (Part 3 of 3)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Continued from Part Two<\/a>…<\/i><\/p>\n

\"\"\u201cEven though we were still climbing and clawing our way towards some measure of recognition and success, just having the opportunity to set up shop in that room really upped our ante,\u201d Diken says. \u201cIt made us feel like, \u2018We’re on the right path.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

College radio programmers agreed; released in 1983 on a tiny and short-lived NYC label called Little Ricky, Beauty and Sadness<\/i> gained airplay on non-commercial FM stations broadcasting from campuses across the U.S. Babjak says that the college radio airplay helped establish a foundation for the band, one upon the Smithereens would build in the years to come. \u201cWe would visit all the stations,\u201d he says. \u201cAnd I think we played every college in the United States, or close to it.\u201d<\/p>\n

As The Smithereens sharpened their live act even more, the songs kept coming. So the band made plans to return to the studio. \u201cWe would sneak into The Record Plant after midnight,\u201d Babjak recalls. \u201cAnd Jim Ball let us go in there and record.\u201d In a single day in April 1985, the Smithereens cut five of six new original songs including \u201cBlood and Roses\u201d and \u201cBehind the Wall of Sleep.\u201d In a nod to one of the group\u2019s influences, the latter shares a title with a song off Black Sabbath\u2019s self-titled 1970 debut LP; DiNizio\u2019s lyrics, on the other hand, were inspired more by British pop culture of the mid-sixties.<\/p>\n

When the demo sessions were complete, the band made plans to shop the recordings to every label they could think of. \u201cWe were sending out cassettes with no bio, no photo,\u201d Babjak recalls. The reasoning was simple: they knew the music was good, but believed that labels might not sign The Smithereens because in the age of MTV, they didn\u2019t look the part. \u201cWe didn\u2019t have long hair and makeup,\u201d Babjak explains, rolling his eyes.<\/p>\n

Those demo tapes \u201calso got rejected<\/i> by every company,\u201d Babjak says with a laugh. \u201cExcept for Enigma Records. A guy named Scott Vanderbilt was their A&R person, and he was [also] a college DJ.\u201d Vanderbilt recognized The Smithereens\u2019 name from the Beauty and Sadness<\/i> EP of a couple years before. Babjak says that the Enigma executive played the tape and thought, \u201cHey! This is good stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n

Enigma signed the Smithereens, and booking another week in the studio with R.E.M. producer Don Dixon, the band cut six more songs. After a bit of fixing of the earlier tracks, Especially for You<\/i> was complete. The Smithereens\u2019 debut album was released in July 1986. The record featured two U.S. hit singles: \u201cBehind the Wall of Sleep\u201d made it to #23, and the powerful and moody \u201cBlood and Roses\u201d (with a commanding and memorable signature bass line from Mesaros) soared to #14. A critical and commercial smash, Especially for You<\/i> would eventually earn Platinum status (one million copies sold in the U.S. alone).<\/p>\n

Further successes followed, with the Smithereens becoming a popular fixture on the touring circuit as well as \u2013 perhaps less predictably\u2013 on MTV. Highlights from subsequent albums would include the US Mainstream Rock hit single \u201cOnly a Memory\u201d (from 1988\u2019s Green Thoughts<\/i>) and a vocal duet with Go-Go\u2019s singer Belinda Carlisle (\u201cBlue Period\u201d from the band\u2019s 1989 LP 11)<\/i>. Another single from 11<\/i>, \u201cA Girl Like You\u201d crossed over to the Top 40 chart in the U.S.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Capitol Records began distributing Enigma releases shortly after the release of Especially for You<\/i>, and by \u201889 had fully absorbed the smaller label. After the Smithereens\u2019 fourth album, 1991\u2019s Blow Up<\/i> failed to sell in numbers impressing the Capitol brass, the band was dropped. The group would be signed by RCA in 1994, and their career would continue there and on subsequent labels with more impressive (if less frequent) album releases; their pointedly-titled 2011<\/i> ranks among the band\u2019s most well-regarded albums.<\/p>\n

But in that period between the end of the Capitol deal and the RCA signing, The Smithereens still had a wealth of solid material ready to go. In early 1993 the foursome entered Crystal Sound Studio in New York City. Armed with a fistful of songs \u2013 most of which were group-composed \u2013 they recorded a dozen tracks. As Mike Mesaros writes in the liner note essay for The Lost Album<\/i>, \u201cWe [were] jazzed about this project, because for the first time, we [were] producing ourselves. And mum\u2019s the word to the outside world.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mesaros\u2019 essay reflects on the band\u2019s collective mindset, undaunted by the lack of a deal. \u201cAt this point we were really listening to each other, and this was key in our individual styles meshing so well. A real band.\u201d And he follows that observation with one that perfectly sums up the musical and lyrical character of New Jersey\u2019s Smithereens: \u201cWe could be mean, sweet, joyful or brooding. As need be.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Continued from Part Two… \u201cEven though we were still climbing and clawing our way towards some measure of recognition and success, just having the opportunity to set up shop in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":25422,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[41,49,62],"tags":[1986],"class_list":["post-25415","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interview","category-new-release","category-rawk","tag-smithereens","cat-41-id","cat-49-id","cat-62-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25415","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25415"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25415\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25535,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25415\/revisions\/25535"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25422"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25415"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25415"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25415"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}