{"id":28448,"date":"2024-11-20T05:30:56","date_gmt":"2024-11-20T10:30:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=28448"},"modified":"2025-04-14T07:51:33","modified_gmt":"2025-04-14T11:51:33","slug":"edge-of-the-world-lets-active-at-40-part-1-of-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2024\/11\/20\/edge-of-the-world-lets-active-at-40-part-1-of-3\/","title":{"rendered":"Edge of the World: Let\u2019s Active at 40 (Part 1 of 3)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"NOTE: This feature was originally commissioned by a print magazine in 2022, never to appear. After three years on that merry-go-round I’ve decided instead to publish it here on Musoscribe. Sincere thanks to Mitch Easter for having the patience of a saint. \u2013 bk<\/strong><\/p>\n

In the early 1980s, popular music was undergoing a sea change. To be sure, corporate mega-rock didn\u2019t go away. But in the wake of punk and new wave, a new kind of music started to appear. Select cities in the American South \u2013 Athens, Atlanta, Chapel Hill and Winston-Salem among them \u2013 gave rise to alternative music scenes. From an early age, Mitch Easter had been at the center of the scene in Winston-Salem. And Let\u2019s Active, the band he put together in 1981, would be an exemplar of the new sound and style.<\/p>\n

Back in the early 1970s, American high schools had designated smoking areas; students could congregate there between classes for their nicotine fix. And it was in the \u201csmoking pit\u201d at a Winston-Salem junior high school where Mitch Easter first met Faye Hunter. \u201cShe never smoked,\u201d Easter recalls, \u201cbut she hung out there. Her friends \u2013 and a lot of the \u2018rock musicians\u2019 \u2013 were in that pit.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hunter was a grade ahead of Easter. \u201cAt that age, that was like being ten years older,\u201d Easter says. So they had been traveling in different circles. But some mutual friends with an appreciation for music insisted that Mitch and Faye should meet, so they did. \u201cAnd she was great,\u201d Easter days. \u201cI really liked her.\u201d Hunter came from a family that was engaged and immersed in what Easter describes as \u201c\u2019the scene,\u2019 such as it was back then.\u201d Faye and Mitch were into the same kinds of music, too. \u201cShe had that classic good setup of an older sibling with the cool records,\u201d Easter says.<\/p>\n

Their friendship came first; playing together in Let\u2019s Active happened much later. During his high school years, Easter played with Sacred Irony and the Imperturbable Teutonic Griffin; semi-reunions of those fabled bands \u2013 both of which were minor legends back in Winston-Salem \u2013 took place in May 2018 at a gala event hosted by the Ramkat. That performance was captured on Yesterday\u2019s Tomorrow: Celebrating the Winston-Salem Sound<\/i>, released by Omnivore Recordings in 2021.<\/p>\n

Easter was in yet another band during his high school years. Rittenhouse Square also featured his friends and classmates Peter Holsapple and Chris Stamey, both later of The dBs. After Easter graduated and went to University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, he stayed busy with music. Like Holsapple and Stamey, he eventually made his way to New York City in hope of establishing a recording studio there.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Peter Holsapple recalls that there was a plan that he, Easter, Stamey and (future dB\u2019s bassist and guitarist) Gene Holder would form a collective in which they would back whichever among them scored a gig. But those plans didn\u2019t materialize. At that point in New York City, Holsapple points out, \u201cthere were a lot of studios. So Mitch moved his [recording gear] back to his parents\u2019 garage in Kernersville.\u201d<\/p>\n

Easter continued creating one-man-band recordings of his own music, but eventually decided to put a band together. Hunter quickly taught herself how to play bass.<\/p>\n

Drummer Sara Romweber already had a good bit of experience playing in bands. Jefferson Holt was managing R.E.M., and both he and fellow musician and producer Don Dixon were convinced that Easter and Hunter should be introduced to Romweber. \u201cBoth of them said, \u2018I think there\u2019s this person who should be in your band,\u2019\u201d Easter recalls.<\/p>\n

They met at The Station, a bar and music venue in Carrboro, N.C. \u201cShe was really nice,\u201d Easter says, \u201cBut she was hesitant because she didn\u2019t know us.\u201d Eight or more years younger than Easter, Romweber was still in high school when they met. \u201cWe had to keep bugging her,\u201d Easter says with a laugh. \u201cBut eventually we talked her into it. She did join, and it was essential.\u201d And he emphasizes how important Hunter and Romweber were to the musical character of Let\u2019s Active. \u201cThey were very distinctive players, and they just made us a little different,\u201d he says. \u201cThey really made that thing be a thing<\/i>.\u201d<\/p>\n

Easter makes the point that unlike most of his previous bands, Let\u2019s Active was a fresh start. \u201cThis band did not evolve out of my previous band,\u201d he says. And while Let\u2019s Active was a vehicle for his songs, Easter says that those songs wouldn’t have gone anywhere without Hunter and Romweber. \u201cI had always tried to write songs,\u201d he explains. \u201cI was always well aware that these songs I was writing were, on a formalistic level, songs<\/i>, but they weren’t really catchy!\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"With Mitch Easter serving as producer, R.E.M. had recorded their debut single, \u201cRadio Free Europe\u201d at his Drive-In Studio in Winston Salem in early 1981. In the first week of October of that year, they would return to record their debut EP, Chronic Town<\/i>, eventually released on I.R.S. Records. It was during those sessions that the band and Holt suggested that Easter\u2019s new band open for R.E.M. at an upcoming gig.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey knew that I\u2019d started my little band,\u201d Easter says. \u201cAnd they said, \u2018Well, if you want to play with us in three weeks, we\u2019ve got a show in Atlanta.\u2019 We really didn\u2019t have it together, but we got<\/i> it together and did that show.\u201d<\/p>\n

That first Let\u2019s Active gig \u2013 at Atlanta\u2019s legendary 688 opening for friends R.E.M. \u2013 included an early composition requiring an electric sitar, which Easter just happened to have handy. He notes that R.E.M. guitarist Peter Buck was known for getting up onstage with whatever other band was on the bill. \u201cI have this great recording of us doing this song which nobody<\/i> could just jump up and play,\u201d he laughs. \u201cIt has a million chords in it, but Peter was just going for it on the sitar. And it\u2019s hilarious!\u201d<\/p>\n

Working with Sara and Faye sparked something in Easter. \u201cI had had these demos where I did everything,\u201d he says. \u201cAnd those were some of the first songs we played.\u201d But by the time the trio went into his Drive-In Studio to record the six songs that would be released as Let\u2019s Active\u2019s debut EP Afoot<\/i>, the trio was playing all new material. \u201cI don\u2019t think anything on that EP was written before the band was formed,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Click to continue to Part Two<\/a>\u2026<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

NOTE: This feature was originally commissioned by a print magazine in 2022, never to appear. After three years on that merry-go-round I’ve decided instead to publish it here on Musoscribe. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":28464,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[41,50,62],"tags":[4574,1492],"class_list":["post-28448","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interview","category-new-wave","category-rawk","tag-lets-active","tag-mitch-easter","cat-41-id","cat-50-id","cat-62-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28448","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=28448"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28448\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29267,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28448\/revisions\/29267"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28464"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28448"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28448"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28448"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}