As a music fan who finally found his proper path during his senior year of high school, thanks to a rapid-fire discovery of the Sex Pistols, R.E.M., the Smiths, and the Cure within a very short window of time, I know for a fact that my first introduction to this guy was seeing his name mentioned in the liner notes of Dead Letter Office.
In fact, having gone back to refresh my memory, I can tell quite specifically that it was in Peter Buck’s write-up about the first of the Velvet Underground covers on that odds-and-sods collection:
THERE SHE GOES AGAIN:
One of several Velvet Underground songs that we’ve recorded. It was recorded live to two track with Mitch Easter playing acoustic guitar into the same mic as myself. I remember that I had to step forward to play the solo, just like Bill Monroe.
Outtake from Murmur.
It would be a little bit longer before I realized that in addition to being a producer of some note, Mitch Easter was also one of the members of the band Let’s Active, who you may - or, hell, you may not - know for their semi-hit “Every Word Means No.”
In addition to co-producing R.E.M.’s Murmur and Reckoning with Don Dixon (not to mention co-producing the Chronic Town EP with the band), Mitch has also worked as either producer or engineer for - among others - Marshall Crenshaw, Game Theory, Suzanne Vega, the Connells, Love Tractor, Velvet Crush, Stephen Duffy, the dBs, and a couple of my hometown boys: Waxing Poetics and The Mockers.
Oh, and let’s not forget that he finally released his debut solo album in 2007: Dynamico.
Despite the fact that Mitch and I have been Facebook friends for several years now, I’ve never actually interviewed him, so this seemed like the perfect time to remedy that situation. Fortunately, he was agreeable to a chat as well, so if all goes well, we should be doing so this very week.
Long story short, if you’ve got questions for Mitch Easter, now’s the time to send ‘em my way!
Wonderful guest! I probably first saw Mitch Easter's name on a Pylon single I grabbed in the '80s because it had that cool-looking Thrush Pipes cigar-smoking woodpecker logo on the sleeve. So I'd love to hear about working with Pylon early on, and also about his friendship with Chris Stamey of the dBs (which I'm sure you already have plans to mention).
Also, is there such a thing as a song that's *too* catchy? Because some of those Let's Active songs could be illegal in certain states.