That Old Mid-West Feeling

The people at Stiff Records woke up one morning, hung over from another night of punky debauchery, tasted the thick London air and decided that Jane Aire should release a record. Born and raised in Akron, Ohio, she seemed an unlikely choice for a small UK inependant. But I'm still really glad they did it:

mp3: Yankee Wheels

Piano driven at a time when guitars were king, slow and slightly plodding when fast bar chords were the norm, with a chorus that stutters magnificently and then shifts into a really poorly played shuffle, it's simply one of the best things they ever released. Jane put out another single and an album but this is really the only thing she did that I care about: great pop singing.

Some info on Jane.



Back in Cleveland things were noticeably grimmer. But that was just the ticket for Hearthan records who always put out great, dark things like the 1st Pere Ubu 7". They released this Pressler-Morgan single (they were part of the family after all) in 1979 and it's a different, more arty fabulous to Jane Aire's but it's fabulous none-the-less:

mp3: The Hand Piece
mp3: You're Gonna Watch Me

Read what I said about this quite a while ago...

Read the guff from Terminal Drive.

Read her reminiscences of Cleveland.