25. THE LEGAL MATTERS: "Don't Look Back"
There was no freakin' way we were gonna do This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio, Volume 4 without Keith Klingensmith.
We've already detailed Keith's involvement in TIRnRR # 4 tracks by The Slapbacks and Popdudes, his curatorship of Futureman Records (the digital home of many fine pop releases, including the three previous TIRnRR compilations), his unassailable status as one of this show's longest-standing friends, and even how he got me a copy of The Spongetones' Where-Ever-Land CD.
My first contact with Keith was in the '90s, via some online pop music connection--probably AOL, I guess. At the time, I was among several pop fans who participated in a weekly Monday night power pop chat group. I don't remember whether or not I specifically met Keith through that chat; I suspect it was more a matter (if not quite a Legal Matter) of Keith noticing a comment I made somewhere, bemoaning the fact that I couldn't find the Spongetones CD mentioned above. Keith to the rescue! Some time later, Keith also provided me with a copy of Here To Observe, the truly hard-to-find debut LP by Springfield, Missouri's phenomenal pop combo Fools Face (Keith wisely kept a copy of the group's incredible third album Public Places for himself), and I'm pretty sure my copy of Artful Dodger's classic debut album came from our Keef.
I, of course, have sent Keith nothing.
Well, maybe not quite nothing, though perhaps close to it. But we did exchange mix cassettes. That's how Keith heard the Gary Frenay song "Make Something Happen," which Keith covers with The Slapbacks on this very TIRnRR compilation. And when the fab Swedish label Sound Asleep Records released Seagirl And 5 Other Dogs, the 1996 debut mini-album from Keith's group The Phenomenal Cats, I gave it the rave review it deserved in the pages of Goldmine.
Through Keith, I also met the other Phenomenal Cat, Chris Richards. There's a wealth of cool music for ya. I mean, The Phenomenal Cats' cover of The Left Banke's "I've Got Something On My Mind" made me appreciate a simply sublime pop song I'd somehow managed to mostly ignore up to that point. The combined and separate threads of Chris 'n' Keith wove through solo tracks by each, plus Hippodrome, The Pantookas, Chris Richards & the Subtractions, Keith Klingensmith & the TM Collective, and The Legal Matters, the latter a trio with Keith, Chris, and Andy Reed. The Legal Matters' eponymous debut was one of 2014's best albums, and their 2016 follow-up Conrad rightly became the toast of the pop world.
We needed Keith Klingensmith on TIRnRR # 4. It bordered on criminal malfeasance that he wasn't on any of our first three compilations but, y'know, time and freakin' tide. And we also specifically wanted The Legal Matters; their participation would immediately enhance the CD's commercial prospects, of course, but we wanted 'em for reasons well beyond the mere pursuit of filthy lucre. If TIRnRR wasn't the first radio show to play The Legal Matters, I betcha we were pretty damned close. This match was preordained.
But we were faced with a familiar predicament: The Legal Matters didn't have an exclusive track available. Keith had some ideas. There's a great track on Conrad, "Short Term Memory," which included a word we can't play on the radio. The lads had given us a radio edit of "Short Term Memory," allowing us to program it to our rampagin' hearts' content. The edit was fine for airplay--the word is blanked out to avoid the wrath of the FCC--but not quite appropriate for use on a compilation CD. We discussed the prospect of a fresh studio edit, but time was fleeting. We were not giving up on getting The Legal Matters, but the solution wasn't yet clear.
Previous entries in this track-by-track annotation have detailed how, in the midst of all this, Keith and his Slapbacks also came through with that five-star cover of The Flashcubes' "Make Something Happen," as well as Keith's participation in Popdudes' stellar "She Is Funny (In That Way)." Even without The Legal Matters, we had Keith on the set, twice. We're greedy; we still wanted The Legal Matters, too.
Keith had earlier given us the option of selecting a track from The Legal Matters' Trapper Keeper, an all-covers EP that was only available as a digital download. I had backburnered that idea, but soon realized that their heavenly cover of Teenage Fanclub's "Don't Look Back" had thoroughly permeated my consciousness. I initially thought the track was too slow for our needs; the technical term for that line of thinking is "stupid." Like I said in the entry for Irene Peña: switching her track from the uptempo "Not From Around Here" to the luxurious groove of "Must've Been Good" altered the course of this compilation. With that happy change, "Don't Look Back" not only made perfect sense, TIRnRR # 4 wouldn't make sense without it. At long last, we had our Legal Matters track.
Keith Klingensmith is an integral part of This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio's story. Our online comradeship predates the show, and has continued unabated throughout the passing pair of decades (and then some). He's been one of our biggest supporters, helping to spread the good word of TIRnRR, sending fans and artists alike our way, contributing to our quixotic cause, and keeping previous TIRnRR compilations available as downloads via Futureman Records. Keith solicited a spoken track from Dana & Carl for use in The New Sell Out, his multi-artist tribute to The Who Sell Out. He's had our back. Now, finally, we have him on a TIRnRR compilation.
I sent him a copy of the CD, too. I figure it was the least I could do.
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