Joe King took the helm for LK 154 – the double vinyl album compilation release ‘More Bounce To The Ounce’. The giant 39 track release featured a fine array of bands from the mid-late 90’s punk scene including present and future Lookout/Panic Button artists. The majority of the double album was recorded in The Queers hometown of Portsmouth NH at Fishtraks recording studio. Almost all the bands were on tour coming through to play at Portsmouth venue ‘The Elvis Room’. Fishtraks had been the original studio The Queers had used for early recordings and hadn’t built a great relationship, with the result of the studio not even allowing the band to mix their finished tracks. Over time however, the band had gained a good following and a solid partnership with the studio once it fell under new ownership. Also in line to engineer the recording sessions was resident studio hand Jim Tierney, who would become closely allied with Joe King.
Jim Tierney : “’More Bounce To The Ounce’ is in my unbiased opinion, one of the greatest comps ever. Working with Joe Queer I got to record 13 of the bands on the record over the course of a year or so. At that time Portsmouth was a bit of a punk rock destination as it was where Joe lived and it was home to the Elvis Room and Fishtraks was just a couple of blocks down the street from the club so we were able to record bands during the day and then put on a show the same night. We didn't realize just how good we had it. I've been working with Joe since we recorded the demos for ‘Love Songs For The Retarded’ back in around 1989. Joe and I started doing some work together with bands such as Cletus and the Lillingtons. I met Larry Livermore while working on the Cletus EP and I guess he approved of my engineering skills as he gave us the go ahead for putting the comp together. A bunch of the recordings were either put out as part of full length albums or as a seven inch EP's. It's hard for me to pick a favorite but I must say that "Future People Of Tomorrow" by MTX keeps popping into my head even after all these years. Joe has introduced me to too many people to count and we continue to work together today either up here at The Electric Cave or down in Atlanta where he lives these days.We're both proud of that comp and I definately think it stands the test of time.”
Joe King (The Queers) : “For the other bands it was really fun. MTX was really a fun session as we were really good pals and still are. Frank wrote the ‘Future People of Tomorrow’ in my kitchen in Portsmouth. I lived right downtown in a former bed and breakfast hotel, so I always had bands staying with me. Fun times. Some of the bands like The Muffs couldn't get to the studio so they gave us the Elvis Costello song which was really fucking great. We worshipped the ground they walked on. Jim added one local band called Spirit Varnish which was a mistake. They weren't pop punk and not in our genre at all so it really stuck out and not in a good way. No knock on them-just different style that didn't gel with the rest of the album. But other than that it was all bands we knew and liked. Originally the idea was to release two volumes. That's why almost all the bands did 2 songs. Chris at Lookout said let's put them all on one release so that's what we did. Energy was really high at the time with the whole Lookout scene and our pals' bands.”
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