Indie-Rock Icons The dB’s Oversee a Quite Welcome and Long-Overdue First-Time U.S. Vinyl Release of Their Highly Influential 1981 Debut LP, Stands For deciBels
After the global onslaught of post-punk new-wave artists in the late 1970s like Elvis Costello, Blondie, Television, The B-52s, and Talking Heads, a barrage of U.S. groups like R.E.M., The Bongos, The Feelies, Let’s Active, Pylon, Mission of Burma, and Love Tractor started shaping the next waves (if you will) as the decade turned to the 1980s. On the leading edge of that gradually growing sonic tornado were the acclaimed hybrid North Carolina/New York power-pop indie rockers, The dB’s.
While it is important to at least understand and appreciate this group from a historical perspective — which we’ll get to a bit later on in this review — right now, we are gleefully celebrating the first-time U.S. vinyl release of their January 1981 debut LP, Stands for deciBels. This domestically bred LP comes courtesy Propeller Sound Recordings, and its official release date is next Friday, June 14. The label was gracious enough to send us here at AP our respective review copies early, so we wanted to let you know why this LP is so important in regard to much of the music we listen to and love on vinyl to this day.
In the official press release, founding member Chris Stamey outlines some of the band’s roots and the recording DNA within Stands for deciBels: “This was primarily a band-produced and -arranged record, recorded old-school analog in fits and starts at the dawn of what became ‘indie,’ at Blue Rock Studios, with producer Alan Betrock as an éminence grise to intermittently steady the ship. And after we’d filled up all 16 of the tracks on all the songs with a cornucopia of ideas, we lucked out: aces Scott Litt (at Power Station, NYC), Don Dixon (at Drive-In, NC), and Martin Rushent (at Genetic, UK) joined to help mix.”
For more granular details on the creation of this new 2024 edition of Stands for deciBels, we were able to get firsthand insight directly from Propeller Sound Recordings’ Co-Founder/General Manager Jay Coyle. Regarding the sources used to make the new editions, Coyle confirmed that, alas, the original master tapes are, at present, “missing.” Instead, they had to use the digital files from the 1989 I.R.S. Records CD reissue to create all versions of this new edition (LP. CD, streaming). Now, before you start shaking your analog-lovin’ head, please read on, as the Stands for deciBels etymology gets pretty interesting — and it helps explain why the new LP edition is ultimately worth your time and money.
Stands for deciBels was remastered “with very clear and careful direction” — and ultimate approval — from the band by Bob Weston at Chicago Mastering Services, who also cut the lacquers used for the vinyl disc manufacturing/pressing. The stampers were created from Weston’s lacquers at Gotta Groove in Ohio, which were then sent to Third Man Pressing in Detroit, where the vinyl discs were physically manufactured.
Digging a bit further, we were able to secure some additional clarification on a detail hinted at on the hype sticker that’s on the cover of the new vinyl edition of Stands for deciBels — and it’s one that appears underneath the album title, stating that this is the “2024 Remastered Edition.” Indeed, this implied language reveals that brand new mastering work was indeed applied to those existing 1989 I.R.S. digital files to create the new 2024 master used in creating the 2024 vinyl edition. Got that? It’s significant, so hang on to that detail for a moment.
The only “standard” version of the new Stands for deciBels LP that’s being issued is the version we were sent for review, the one that’s called “Black & White Split” color vinyl. Additionally, an admittedly super-nifty-looking pink splatter vinyl edition was being sold as a web exclusive from the official Propeller site — but, we’re sorry to report that, as of this posting, it is already sold out. Anyway, the SRP for the single-pocket B&W color LP is $25, and the album comprises the original cover art, including what seems to be the original inner sleeve, and they even recreated the unique look of the original Albion Records labels on both sides. Albion is the UK label that initially issued the LP in 1981. (You can order your copy of the new LP directly from Propeller here.)
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