THE TELL-TALE HEARTS
The Tell-Tale Hearts caught the attention of Greg Shaw, and he arranged studio time for them at Bomp! Records/Voxx Records, resulting in their first album, The Tell-Tale Hearts (1984). The liner notes continue: “We battled tooth and nail against technology to try to capture the raw bite of our live show. Recorded mostly with minimal overdubs, the results were generally satisfactory, until Greg decided to do a remix while we were away on tour. The result was an album where the music was robbed of all its muscle and vitality – something we’ve never let Greg forget since.”
Due to their dissatisfaction with the way the album The Tell-Tale Hearts sounded, the Tell-Tale Hearts recorded 6 songs in early 1985 at a San Diego studio for an EP sarcastically called The “Now” Sound of the Tell-Tale Hearts that also came out on Voxx Records.
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The retrospective album that I own by the Tell-Tale Hearts, High Tide (Big Noses & Pizza Faces) came out in 1994 on Voxx Records, collecting 6 songs from The Tell-Tale Hearts (after being remixed to recapture their original sound); 5 from The “Now” Sound of the Tell-Tale Hearts; the 1986 single mentioned above, “Promise” b/w “Too Many Lovers”; 5 demos dating from early 1984; and 3 live performances. Nine of the songs are previously unreleased. Among the demos is a particularly welcome version of “Crackin’ Up”; “Crackin’ Up” by the Wig is listed on the cover of both the Pebbles, Volume 1 LP and the Pebbles, Volume 1 CD but is not actually included on the album.
(September 2017)
