Monday, September 30, 2013
The Fools were Mike Gerard, Richie Bartlett, Stacy Pedrick, Chris Pedrick, and Doug Forman. The first album stands as a concise and well recorded musical statement by an important Boston group. Produced by Pete Solley, the band escaped the curse of New England groups suffering inferior recordings in major studios."Night Out" begins the album with a burst of three minute pop followed by "Fine With Me," "Don't Tell Me," and the title track, "Sold Out" -- all well-crafted pop songs with Beatles guitar lines and enough jangle to qualify them for underground pop rockers, somewhere between the radio friendliness of the Raspberries with the seriousness Badfinger brought to their work. For some strange reason, EMI-America put the song that established them in their hometown, a parody of the Talking Heads' "Psycho Killer," entitled "Psycho Chicken," as a 45 rpm inside the album jacket, but not included on the 12" vinyl. Years later, "Sold Out" stands as a very respectable and very important debut album. Pete Solley's pedestrian production on the 1980 release "Sold Out" is almost indiscernible when compared to Vini Poncia's presentation of the band a year later for the "Heavy Mental" album. They deserved national recognition and could have entertained the masses had EMI kept working their discs beyond the second release, "Heavy Mental".
320 Vinyl Rip
