Now that Berkeley locals The Mr T Experience had christened it’s name in Lookout vinyl, the band went about work on their debut album for the label, two years after the release their second album for Rough Trade Records – ‘Night Shift At The Thrill Factory’. The band pieced together a 13 track LP release culled from a couple of different sessions – the 1989 recordings that took place from which the ‘So Long Sucker’ EP was released, and a new set of tracks recorded post EP in June 1990.
The new full length release was titled ‘Making Things With Light’ – featuring a cool retro looking pic of the band created on a ‘Lite Brite’ toy, popluar in the 1970’s and 80’s – and also had the honour of being the first Lookout release ever to be put forth on CD. Even though the label had half joked in the past that they would never release a CD, once the format was out the sales spoke for themselves, and justified the continuation of pressing the punk unfriendly discs. The compact disc versions soon outsold the vinyl releases, bringing into play the concept of reissuing the older output of succesful vinyl only releases such as Operation Ivy and the then fledgling Green Day, who was already selling over 30,000 copies in their first year of release.
One inconvenience for the buyers still unwilling to take the plunge to CD from Vinyl was the inclusion of extra tracks for the release of ‘Making Things With Light’ – eight various session live tracks partnered with another 1989 recording of a cover of Shonen Knife’s ‘Flying Jelly Attack’.
Aaron Rubin (The Mr T Experience) : “It was kind of controversial because at that time, CDs were still kind of suspect in the punk rock world. I think it's a pretty cool record, although obviously leaves much to be desired in terms of recording quality. It has a good spirit, though, and Frank's songs are good.”
The album is rough around the edges, but none more that the bands previous output, and works cohesively even though pulled from a number of recording sessions. Some of the bands catchiest works are contained in the earliest incarnations, and ‘Making Things With Light’ is no exception, with great compositions from Dr Franks magical meanderings like ‘What Went Wrong’, ‘I Don’t Get It’ and ‘Parasite’.
Still in the early days of the label, with the bands essentially handling everything still well and truly rooted in the DIY stance of so many bands of the time, Mr T Experience found themselves out on a tour in support of the album, pushing their wares with little promotion provided but their own name and mailing operations.
Aaron Rubin (The Mr T Experience) : “There was no such thing as promo in those days for bands like us. This is before Lookout was a real label. They just pressed the records, we sent out a few promo copies to college radio stations and that was it. I remember we did a joint mailing with Mel from Shredder. He had just released some Shredder compilation, and we did a joint mailing with him to save on postage costs. “
As a double hit, the Mr T Experiences debut from 1986 also saw another release with Lookout’s first foray into reissuing material – a move that would become more frequent in the future. LK 39 became the new catlog number for the ‘Everybody’s Entitled To Their Own Opinion’ four years after it’s original Disorder Records release.
I cannot wait until you get to the release of "Our bodies ourselves",that is my favorite Lookout! release and pretty much got me through high school.
Posted by: Chad | 11/03/2013 at 01:54 AM