Michael Fremer

You gotta thank Sundazed for digging out and reissuing raw, vital stuff like this and not charging audiophile prices. For one thing, they wouldn’t be able to sell it for $30.00 and it wouldn’t be worth lavishing such care on it anyway. But that doesn’t mean stuff like this is any less worthy.

Whenever a record shows up I like to look at the lead out groove area to see who did the lacquer cutting. Sometimes there’s nothing to be found and that’s annoying, but with this double set I thought I was hallucinating because in plain view was “TML-M” a stamp not seen on a slab of new vinyl in decades. TML is the acronym for “The Mastering Lab” and the “M” means the main lathe at Doug Sax’s place.

The first Costello album backed by The Attractions released in March, 1978 on Radar in the UK and Columbia in America (with differing song lineups) cemented the singer’s leadership in the “angry young man” wing of the late ‘70’s “New Wave” musical explosion. More than expressing anger, the album was a full-blown misogynist outburst that contains some really nasty stuff starting with the opener “No Action,” which is filled some deliciously ugly obsessive/compulsive sentiments.

The 37 year old bassist Christian McBride apparently assembled the powerhouse quintet "Inside Straight" at the behest of Village Vanguard owner Lorraine Gordon, who told him he was welcome to play the legendary club anytime, but not with the “rock’n’roll” band he was playing with at the time.