{"id":28450,"date":"2024-11-22T05:30:51","date_gmt":"2024-11-22T10:30:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=28450"},"modified":"2024-10-25T13:42:52","modified_gmt":"2024-10-25T17:42:52","slug":"edge-of-the-world-lets-active-at-40-part-3-of-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2024\/11\/22\/edge-of-the-world-lets-active-at-40-part-3-of-3\/","title":{"rendered":"Edge of the World: Let\u2019s Active at 40 (Part 3 of 3)"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

Easter initially liked what he knew of the I.R.S. business model. \u201cI liked it from a practical standpoint,\u201d he says. \u201cBut I had a very cavalier attitude about it.\u201d He says that friends advised him to shop deals from other labels before signing on the dotted line. \u201cI was like, \u2018No, they\u2019re going to forget about us in the next 24 hours,\u2019 so we just went for it.\u201d Looking back four decades on, Easter derisively characterizes Let\u2019s Active\u2019s contract as \u201ca \u2018blues deal.\u2019 Ours wasn\u2019t too<\/i> bad, but\u2026 it was not the most beneficial to us.\u201d Today the rights for Let\u2019s Active\u2019s music are tied up in the monolithic conglomerate with a well-suited name, Universal.<\/p>\n

As things progressed, Let\u2019s Active witnessed the same sorts of music business machinery that every other band contends with. Easter had half-expected (or at least imagined) record company executive offices to be populated with serious music fans. What he found, of course, was something else. \u201cThere was a degree of \u2018suburban vibe\u2019 that permeated things.\u201d he says. \u201cAnd that surprised me. People working in the business and pulling the levers of power would’ve been the dorks at my high school in Winston-Salem,\u201d he observes.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

He says that he found that reality somewhat depressing. Displaying remarkable self-knowledge, he observes that when a band is signed to a label, \u201cyou need them to love you. And the only thing that\u2019s going to make<\/i> them love you is selling a whole lot of records, which we never did. So the romance cooled quickly.\u201d<\/p>\n

The original trio held together into 1984. During a tour in support of 1984\u2019s Cypress<\/i>, Let\u2019s Active\u2019s first full-length LP, drummer Sara Romweber quit the band. (She would go on to play with Snatches of Pink, and then with her brother in the Dex Romweber Duo.) And later that same year when the personal relationship between Easter and Hunter ended, the bassist left the group as well. Playing nearly everything himself, Easter recorded a superb second Let\u2019s Active album, Big Plans for Everybody<\/i>, but some of the winsome charm of the founding trio was gone. And he says that by the time of Let\u2019s Active\u2019s third and final LP, 1988\u2019s Every Dog Has His Day<\/i>, the label execs \u201cwere completely sick of us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Robert Plant was on record as being a major fan of Let\u2019s Active. In fact he offered the group the opening slot on his tour. \u201cBut our management company turned him down,\u201d Easter says, ruefully. \u201cWe didn\u2019t even know about it until after<\/i> they had turned him down.\u201d<\/p>\n

In retrospect, Let\u2019s Active had the goods to succeed on their own merits, with or without the help of well-placed famous friends. Between Mitch Easter\u2019s songs and production skills and the chemistry \u2013 personal and musical \u2013 among its three members, the original band earned every critical plaudit it received, even if that praise didn\u2019t translate into world-beating record sales figures.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Longtime friend Don Dixon praised Easter during remarks at a November 2021 event commemorating the 40th anniversary of the original Let\u2019s Active trio. \u201cMitch has a combination of patience, dedication, and brilliance that is remarkable,\u201d he said. \u201cThe sad thing about those traits is that they\u2019re negatives if you want to be a rock star. But they\u2019re great if you want to be a good producer and a good human.\u201d<\/p>\n

DD Thornton Kenny spoke at the same event. A groundbreaking radio deejay in the \u201880s, Thornton was an early and vocal champion of Let\u2019s Active; Easter had been sending her tapes long before the band got started. \u201cIn October \u201883 I finally got the EP Afoot<\/i>, and I was very excited about having it,\u201d she said. \u201cI had waited a long time, and it\u2019s easier to play vinyl than reel-to-reel tapes.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the \u201880s, Rob Ladd was the drummer in popular ska-rock band Pressure Boys. He was (and remains) an ardent fan of Let\u2019s Active, and of Romweber in particular. \u201cThe first time I saw her play was a lightbulb moment,\u201d he said at the 2021 event. \u201cBut the lightbulb was so bright that it seared my soul. What she was doing was nothing less than magical mastery.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ladd credits Romweber as a major influence. \u201cI copied almost everything Sara did for a while before I realized that I would have to be myself if I was going to be any good,\u201d he said. Ladd emphasized that his measure of what was good was simple: \u201cWould Sara like this?\u201d His admiration for Romweber reached an even higher level when she joined with Easter and Hunter. \u201cSuddenly, my cool friend was in the world’s coolest band.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"Post-Let\u2019s Active, Easter would continue with musical endeavors, but his work has tended to be more behind the scenes than onstage. An in-demand producer, he launched The Fidelitorium in 2000 as a bigger, better successor to his original Drive- In Studio. His extensive production, engineering and remix credits include work for Game Theory, Velvet Crush, Pavement, Gin Blossoms and countless others.<\/p>\n

As of this writing, Mitch Easter remains busy. In recognition of his contributions to music, Easter was inducted into the North Carolina Music Hall of Fame in 2019. In addition to writing and recording solo material, Easter\u2019s recent mixing projects include sessions for Doug Edmunds (formerly of Gladhands), Western Australian Hall of Fame inductee Dom Mariani, and fellow North Carolina music luminary (and longtime friend) Jeffrey Dean Foster.<\/p>\n

Hunter died in 2013, and with Romweber\u2019s passing in 2019, Mitch Easter is the sole surviving member of the original Let\u2019s Active. But Easter \u2013 who organized the 2021 tribute to the trio event with wife Tammy and an all-star cast of friends \u2013 is proud of the music and friendships. \u201cIt didn’t last long enough,\u201d he says. \u201cBut it was great while it did.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Continued from Part Two… Easter initially liked what he knew of the I.R.S. business model. \u201cI liked it from a practical standpoint,\u201d he says. \u201cBut I had a very cavalier […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":28457,"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-28450","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\/28450","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=28450"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28450\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28472,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28450\/revisions\/28472"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28457"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28450"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28450"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28450"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}