Veldt, Happy Eggs, "Let Us Be Heard"

I haven't had time to write about Comboland Radio but I have made a few additions to the playlist.

The Veldt - I finally got copies of their 3 Cd's and have cuts from all in rotation. This is one of the many bands that I was unfamiliar with but really enjoyed listening too once I got the Cd's. "All Music" compares their sound to England's Dream Pop bands. Whatever. They sound good. Check them out. All of the Cd's are out of print but not too hard to find. Amazon is a good source.

The Happy Eggs - You WILL have a difficult time finding anything by one of Jamie Hoover's earliest bands. I do have a copy of the first Happy Eggs 12 inch 45 RPM single. Jamie' "You Can't Avoid Love" created an ear-worm I couldn't get rid of for a week! Both sides are cool and quite a bit different from a later Eggs EP (which I am STILL trying to find).

The dB's - The first single credited to the dB's was on Car Records, CRR 7. The A side isn't the dB's at all. It's Chris and Richard Lloyd performing Lloyd's "(I Thought) You Wanted To Know". The B side is the dB's, minus Peter Holsapple, "If And When". The later is available on "Ride The Wild Tom Tom" but to my knowledge the A side is only available on this 45. Both are now playing on Comboland Radio. I have some other solo stuff from Chris on the way.

"Let Us Be Heard" - The Radio Station at 93.1 on the dial in Winston-Salem has been many different formats through the years. It was the FM sister station of WAIR 1340-AM, a Top 40 station that competed with, but probably never beat WTOB in the ratings of the day. In the 60's and much of the 70's FM stations were barely listened to and the red-headed stepchild of nearly every radio operation that had one. By the late 70's the FM would become Z-93. The format was Top 40 for a few years before changing to Album Rock around '84 or '85. In 1986 the radio station solicited tapes from local bands, picked the best from over 400 entries (according the the liners notes) and released an LP, "Let Us Be Heard". The Bands included:
The Alka-Phonics
The Allisons
Brice Street
Bryan Smith and the Boogie Blues Band
The Carter Brothers
Dayroom Monitors
Express
Hege V
Split Decision
Voce'

Brice Street had released 2 LP's on Dolphin Records before this compilation. Hege V's debut LP would be released the following year. The Allisions tune had been included on the Comboland Tapes Godfrey Cheshire was shopping around but was not included on the "Welcome To Comboland" LP. The Alka-Phonics and the Dayroom Monitors are band I remember from that time but the other artists I know nothing about. The LP's liner notes give very little info on the bands themselves. Any info would be appreciated.

The LP is absolutely worth seeking out... but good luck!! The Allisons tune "The Love You Give", and the Hege V song "Keep On Killin' Me" are killer tunes. Most of the other tunes are solid as well.

The copy I obtained is still in the shrink wrap but opened and played. The original owner evidently really wanted to protect the cover but as for the LP the inner sleeve was gone and the LP was not in the best of shape. The Split Decision song has a bad scuffed area in the middle of the track. Lots of pops and clicks but it seems that it was played on decent equipment. With the exception of the scuffy track it cleaned up pretty well with iZotope RX. Listen for tracks on Comboland Radio.

I have decided to feature to feature the items in this article in a heavier rotation for a few weeks. I hope you enjoy them!