The dB's - Classic or Dud

I dunno, I think it's a surprisinly good album, certainly superior to The Sound Of Music. Stamey's songs are particularly good. I think it has quite a bit more edge than their solo careers have had of late. The only time it descends into cheese is 'She Won't Drive In The Rain Anymore' which suggests someone's been hanging out with too many Blowfish.

only great track on the new dB's is "Send Me Something Real." the old Television-Richard Lloyd heave-ho on guitars. the rest, some good, a few rather pallid. their subject is the same old middle-aged angst and I don't think they do it very interestingly, for the most part.

when what you're playing is a sort of 60s-inflected melodic rock you've sort of agreed to table concerns about "vitality" or "spark" in favor of just showing your wares

I don't see that there's any reason whatsoever why this has to be so.

Well, I'm 45 and the lyrics on the new one speak to me, the sound is warm and invigorating and I'm drawn in. How much does ones distance from an albums themes factor into it's enjoyment?

I'd be totally willing to overlook the clunky lyrics if I was being drawn in by anything else, but it just felt so, almost, clinical, to me. But thats not really the word I want to use either, I'm really struggling to explain why I don't really enjoy this album. It has something to do with this smirking ex-coworker of mine that would totally have found this to be the most clever thing ever and would take great pride in pointing out to me how "smart" they are. Admittedly, a lot of this is my projection, but I'm not enticed by anything here, beyond a could of great hooks that are too good to fuck up.

I'm old enough to have bought the first 2 dB's albums on vinyl when they came out--1981--via mail order. So the middle-aged angst aspect of it is about someone my age. I think they are honest about it and I think they've earned the right to examine their plight, such as it is. I do love "Send Me Something" and enjoy the rest of the album, but it lacks the spark of the old dB's--even Like This had more bounce to it. I actually think Holsapple has gained as a singer, altho his yelping voice is still strangely callow. I saw Stamey and Holsapple a while back and thought they were great, and their last duo album was pretty good, and addressed the middle-aged angst thing pretty well. I respect these guys a lot, but their new record reminds me why I think rock 'n' roll is music that young people should do, if not necessarily music for young people...

Well, yeah, in my mind it's a step down from "Like This" and "Sound Of Music" (which I adore) but taken on it's own merits, it's a very satisfying listen. I guess I'm just a sucker for the Stamey/Holsapple team because I think their two collaboration albums are great too whereas their solo work is very missable.

Will Rigby's song with "when I replied to your reply to my reply to your reply to my reply to your letter" is one of my favorites.

Experience is limited to the debut...but it still sounds amazing to me!

http://devonrecordclub.com/2015/03/22/the-dbs-stands-for-decimals-round-79-toms-selection/

From another thread, The dB's Stands For Decibels/Repercussion--what's the cream of the crop?:

So this band-approved rarities site has posted a free .zip of Repercussiontracks performed live and otherwise; mp3s or wavs, your choice: http://dbs-repercussion.blogspot.com/

― dow, Wednesday, February 25, 2015 6:07 PM (3 weeks ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Wowza, thx.

― EPMD Conference 2015 (James Redd and the Blecchs), Wednesday, February 25, 2015 10:09 PM (3 weeks ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

"Band-approved rarities site"? Well, that's kind of unofficially the case, I suppose. There are members of The dB's that cooperate with me, and others that hold their noses at the mention of the blog (I won't name specific names here...)!

In any event, I'm glad to have folks here know about the blog. Poke around. There's a ton of rare dB's, Let's Active, and related groups.

Cheers,

Rob-in-Brevard
http://dbs-repercussion.blogspot.com/

― Robinbrevard, Saturday, February 28, 2015 6:42 AM (3 weeks ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

https://yeproc.11spot.com/media/catalog/product/cache/12/image/9df78eab33525d08d6e5fb8d27136e95/c/h/chris_stamey_-_euphoria_sm_2.jpg

from Yeproc:

"It’s called Euphoria because, to me, euphoria lives inside an electric guitar--that's the place I find freedom, passion, exhilaration: in the spaces between the notes, in the distance between the frets. I found this record inside the same dilapidated old Silvertone lipstick guitar that I'd written my first records on." - Chris Stamey

With Euphoria, Chris Stamey returns to the guitar-driven rock band dynamic to deliver 10 stellar songs rooted in his trademark sound: Strong hooks, expansive production, solid musicianship, wonderful harmonies and unexpected twists. Where his last album, Lovesick Blues, was built on slower tempo acoustic chamber pop, Euphoria, hums with upbeat songs, centered around the electric guitar. Focus tracks include, “Invisible,” “Where Does the Time Go,” and “Universe-sized Arms” a track Ryan Adams wrote and sent to Chris to record. Guests on the album include Norman Blake (Teenage Fanclub), Pat Sansone (Wilco, The Autumn Defense), and long-time friend and collaborator Mitch Easter (Let’s Active)

01. Universe-sized Arms

02. Where Does the Time Go?

03. Invisible

04. Make Up Your Mind

05. Euphoria

06. Awake in the World

07. Dear Valentine

08. When the Fever Breaks

09. You Are Beautiful

10. Rocketship

Bonus Tracks (on CD and Digital Download included in LP package)

Draggin' The Line (Bonus Track)

Euphoria Cont'd (Bonus Track)

Where Does the time Go (Groovy Radio Mix) (Bonus Track)
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"It’s called Euphoria because, to me, euphoria lives inside an electric guitar--that's the place I find freedom, passion, exhilaration: in the spaces between the notes, in the distance between the frets. I found this record inside the same dilapidated old Silvertone lipstick guitar that I'd written my first records on." - Chris Stamey

With Euphoria, Chris Stamey returns to the guitar-driven rock band dynamic to deliver 10 stellar songs rooted in his trademark sound: Strong hooks, expansive production, solid musicianship, wonderful harmonies and unexpected twists. Where his last album, Lovesick Blues, was built on slower tempo acoustic chamber pop, Euphoria, hums with upbeat songs, centered around the electric guitar. Focus tracks include, “Invisible,” “Where Does the Time Go,” and “Universe-sized Arms” a track Ryan Adams wrote and sent to Chris to record. Guests on the album include Norman Blake (Teenage Fanclub), Pat Sansone (Wilco, The Autumn Defense), and long-time friend and collaborator Mitch Easter (Let’s Active)

Also blurbs from No Dep and Blurt.

Sorry, didn't mean to include all that after the track list!

i find it so confusing that there are two musical norman blakes. the one from teenage fanclub, and this guy:

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/71j7RSNwFxL._SY355_.jpg

Listening to Stands for Decibels on youtube this morning, for the first time in forever. (My LP is pressed slightly off center so I never play it, and I've never replaced it.) I had forgotten how weird and arty it is for a "power pop" record. I've also never listened on headphones, the production is wonderfully creative.

Stamey is doing some touring now. I heard good reports on his gig near me, that I unfortunately missed.

The '06 expanded version of this dB's & friends Xmas album lit a Yule log under my seasonal sulk. & now with even more stocking stuffers:

http://d31hzlhk6di2h5.cloudfront.net/20150817/66/91/3e/88/7fda30ed4e6c92b8f80b6122_280x280.jpeg

(expanded Sneakers should be hot too, judging by the old Collector's Choice comp)

THE dB’S & FRIENDS’ CHRISTMAS TIME AGAIN!,
DUE OUT OCTOBER 16 ON OMNIVORE RECORDINGS,
FEATURES PIVOTAL INDIE POP BAND
WITH FRIENDS OLD AND NEW
Expanded Christmas volume features tracks from the dB’s, Chris Stamey, Alex Chilton, Marshall Crenshaw, Whiskeytown, Yo La Tengo & Jeff Tweedy, Don Dixon, Robyn Hitchcock, Big Star’s Third (featuring Mike Mills),
Thad Cockrell & Roman Candle,
and new faces Skylar Gudasz and Brett Harris.

Omnivore Recordings to reissue Sneakers original EP
(Chris Stamey, Mitch Easter, Will Rigby) on CD/digital September 25
RALEIGH, N.C. — In 1976, when American indie-rock was truly an underground phenomenon, a band called Sneakers emerged from Winston-Salem, N.C. with an EP of discordantly hooky songs with sly lyrics. Three of its members — Chris Stamey, Mitch Easter and Will Rigby — would help lay the groundwork for later bands like R.E.M. and Wilco.
Stamey and Rigby went on to form the dB’s with Peter Holsapple and Gene Holder, recording two iconic import albums, Stands for deciBels and RePercussion. Stamey left the band for two albums, while Holsapple kept the dB’s alive with Like This and The Sound of Music. (The core quartet later reunited for 2012’s acclaimed Falling Off the Sky.) The band’s Christmas album is an indie-rock perennial, and Omnivore presents a significantly updated version, Christmas Time Again!, just in time for the holidays, on October 16, 2015.
Meanwhile, the Sneakers clear vinyl 10 " EP that sold out on Record Store Day/Black Friday, re-emerges on CD/digital with two additional tracks on September 25.

The dB’s & Friends: Christmas Time Again!
The Christmas Time EP’s appearance in 1986 was a joyous occasion; it was first reissued in an expanded version in 1993 and again in 2006, and has endured ever since.
The dB’s & Friends’ Christmas Time Again! enters its third decade of holiday fun with an incredible mix of what’s been previously cherished and adds new tidings of comfort and joy.
Classic tracks by Stamey, The dB’s, Whiskeytown (with Ryan Adams), Marshall Crenshaw and Alex Chilton are joined by new performances from Yo La Tengo & Jeff Tweedy, Brett Harris, Robyn Hitchcock, and Big Star’s Third (featuring Mike Mills of R.E.M. taking lead vocals on Big Star’s “Jesus Christ”), among many others.
This is the now the ultimate collection of Yuletide fare from an unprecedented amount of alt-rock superstars. It’s not just Christmas time, it’s Christmas Time Again!
The dB’s: Christmas Time Again!
1. Christmas Time — The dB’s

2. Holiday Spirit — The dB’s
3. (It’s Going to Be a) Lonely Christmas — Marshall Crenshaw
4. The Sounds of Christmas — Skylar Gudasz
 #
5. Christmas Time Is Here — Thad Cockrell & Roman Candle
6. Home for the Holidays — The dB’s
7. Houses on the Hill — Whiskeytown
8. Christmas Is the Only Time — Wes Lachot
9. It’s Christmas — Lydia Kavanagh #
10. Eight Day Weekend (LIVE) — Yo La Tengo & Jeff Tweedy #
11. I Saw Three Ships (LIVE) — Don Dixon
12. The Only Law That Santa Claus Understood — Ted Lyons
13. In the Bleak Midwinter — Birds & Arrows #
14. The Christmas Song — Alex Chilton
15. Santa’s Moonlight Sleighride — Ted Lyons
16. Jesus Christ (LIVE) — Big Star’s Third (featuring Mike Mills) #
17. Christmas Light — Keegan DeWitt & The Sparrows
18. You’re What I Want (for Christmas) — Chris Stamey & Cathy Harrington
19. Feliz Navidad — The dB’s
20. The Day Before Boxing Day — Robyn Hitchcock #
21. It’s a Wonderful Life — Chris Stamey
22. Remember (Christmas) — Brett Harris #
# New tracks since 2006 edition
Sneakers EP:
Chris Stamey and Mitch Easter, icons of indie pop, first began to explore recording techniques in Winston-Salem, NC, during their youth. In 1976, Stamey and his band, Sneakers (including drummer Rigby, with appearances from Easter), put out an eponymous EP on Stamey’s own Carnivorous Records (later to morph into Car Records and release Chris Bell’s “I Am the Cosmos”). The sessions were engineered by Don Dixon, who would eventually produce bands such as R.E.M. (with Easter) and the Smithereens. Stamey and Rigby would go on to form the dB’s and Easter would reappear in Let’s Active. The Sneakers EP — one of just a handful of self-released records that created the template for the modern indie avalanche — remains vital in not only independent-record history, but for pop music in general.
Omnivore Recordings will reissue this seminal 7" EP on CD/digital expanding on the sold-out, clear vinyl Record Store Day/Black Friday 10" release of last year. This new, definitive edition will add two more bonus tracks, keeping those added last year, including the cover of the Grass Roots’ “Let’s Live for Today.”
Fans of the ’80s indie scene will be beyond happy to add this historic piece to their collection, and to experience the birth of the music they love. Whether to run to the record store or just to dance, everyone needs Sneakers.
Sneakers
1. Ruby

2. Condition Red
3. Driving

4. Love’s Like a Cuban Crisis
5. On the Brink 

6. Let’s Live for Today
7. Story of a Girl
8. Nonsequitur

9. S’il Vous Plaît
10. Be My Ambulance
11. Some Kinda Fool #
# new bonus tracks

http://d31hzlhk6di2h5.cloudfront.net/20150817/00/91/c0/61/0fef8f6eb397bdbc3ed41eee_280x280.jpg

I'm confused, didn't the Sneakers material get reissued in remixed and updated form at some point? Is this reissue the original recordings?

"Story Of A Girl" is absolutely gorgeous.

Here's the one I have (21 tracks, but no "Live For Today," for inst)
http://www.discogs.com/Sneakers-Nonsequitur-Of-Silence/release/3592547

from Yeproc:

http://www.yeproc.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/ChrisStamey_square-350x350.jpg

Chris Stamey Announces Upcoming Live Performances
.........................................................

Chris Stamey will be performing several shows in the Southeast in late August and September. For two of the shows he will be performing with a string trio, opening for the recently reunited Television. Also, his group Sneakers (featuring Mitch Easter, Robert Keely and Will Rigby) will make a special appearance at the Hopscotch Festival in Raleigh on September 8.

In addition, Chris will be premiering Occasional Shivers: A reimagining of the language of the Great American Songbook, on September 23 in the Kenan Music Building at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Singers include Skylar Gudasz, Django Haskins (The Old Ceremony), Kirsten Lambert, Millie McGuire, Mark Wells, Presyce Baez and more.

Here’s the full list of dates:

Aug. 27, Be Loud! Sophie Benefit Concert
Sept. 6, Washington, DC, 9:30 Club, w/ Television
Sept. 8, Raleigh, NC, Hopscotch Music Festival, with Sneakers (w/ Mitch Easter, Robert Keely, Will Rigby)
Sept. 10, Athens, Georgia, Georgia Theater, w/ Television
Sept. 23, Chapel Hill, NC, Chris Stamey Presents: Occasional Shivers

Sounds interesting. I've seen Stamey three times--once in the '80s around the time of It's a Wonderful Life, very good 'n intense as she squeezed out those guitar solos, and then more recently with Holsapple doing their duo stuff, and then with a small group in Nashville. It took me a while, but now I really like the last dB's, Falling Off the Sky--never was quite the songwriter Holsapple is, but his stuff cut Holsapple's warm-handshake humanism with something equally searching, if a bit cooler.

good lord the original 'Something Came Over Me' from the Instant Excitement ep that Willfully Obscure posted.
stunning.

That EP is tacked onto the CD version of "It's A Wonderful Life" and, yeah, it's phenomenal.

I posted a fantastic Chris Stamey anthology on the sadly misspelled solo Stamey thread:
Summer Sun-Crhis Stamey solo

ah! I would love a copy if it's something you've burned.
I would add I Feel Good (Today)!

this request feels very late 90's, but i'm just going to embrace it: does anyone know where i can find tab/chords for "Neverland"? i love it so much, but never bothered looking up the video til recently.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hfpli2VQtZU

apparently that footage was "lost" until 2008! i love how straightforwardly it captures them. there are some sort of goofy moments, but it also captures them accurately playing along to the song and being into it at all the right moments. they look like people who are really enjoying what they know to be a good thing, it's wonderful to watch. but yeah if anyone has a tab hmu

no joke, my biggest hope for the future is that maybe some day things will be so infinitely abundant and generous that every single new song has a performance captured so naturally, and that it appears as the little "preview" video in your mac finder window for the song.

i guess my more realistic assessment of the future is that not many songs deserve to be held up to our eyes for so long

Here's a top ten.

Cool list. I'd add one more, though maybe I'm biased by the fact that it lives up to the story behind it, which is certainly not always the case. Here's what I said in Nashville Scene ballot comments on 2012 releases:

The dB's--"She Won't Drive In The Rain Anymore": Very good contemporary country jangle-ballad, one of the highlights on a very good reunion album (aren't many of those). The true story, as told by Holsapple to http://dbs-repercussion.blogspot.com:
"It's about my wife evacuating New Orleans during Katrina. I was on the road with Hootie [and the Blowfish]; my wife had taken my daughter and my baby son and my daughter's best friend on a train to Birmingham to buy a vehicle up there. She knew the hurricane was coming, and she did all the things you're supposed to do. We didn't think too much about it — we certainly didn't realize it was going to be a 100-year storm. But when she got to Birmingham to get the car, it was very evident there was no turning back, so she drove literally across the storm path to get to her grandmother's in Little Rock."
Peter goes on to explain the reunion theme in the lyrics. He says his wife "took a day to re-group and then started driving back and she dropped my daughter's best friend off with her mom in Memphis. And then [my wife took] Miranda, my daughter with Susan Cowsill, to where Susan and her husband were living at the time. Then she made a beeline to where Hootie was playing next, which was Baltimore. She got there 15 minutes before we went on. It had been this incredible, tortuous time, unable to get in touch with anybody. Meanwhile, I'm in this sort of suspended state of touring because I need the money, and I can't really stop. Where am I gonna go, what am I gonna do? When I saw her, it was the first time in weeks, she and my son pulled up and I was overjoyed just to get to see her. We didn't really talk very much because we didn't really know what to say; it was all just so overwhelming."
Turns out Holsapple wrote it w Kristian Bush of Sugarland, so maybe they'll do it too (or does Sugarland work that way).

the two best pp acts had the two best drummers, Jody Stephens and Will Rigby. Yeah, and Bill Berry was crucial right off, on "Radio Free Europe" and all the best R.E.M. tracks. Rigby did a good album of his own, and was fine w Steve Earle & The Dukes too.

Your list is 75% Holsapple songs, mine would probably be 75% Stamey. Funny that "She's Not Worried" was one of your three Stamey songs, as I think he ruins the (pretty difficult) melody with a whiny, out-of-tune vocal; he'd become a much better singer soon. I agree with your three picks from Like This; I haven't heard the two subsequent LPs but recommend Fireworks and some of Mavericks.
I truly love "From A Window to a Screen" and "Ups and Downs" as two of the best-crafted songs of the 80s, but I'm enough of a fan that I read Stamey's excellent book.

I'll have to give Like This another listen. I've always been more of a Stamey fan too -- I feel like his songs really took advantage of the amazing rhythm section (thinking "Cycles Per Second," "In Spain," etc.) in a way that Holsapple's generally didn't -- but a Holsapple/Rigby/Holder album that came out not too long after Repercussion really deserves another chance from me.

Looooove "From a Window to a Screen." My Stamey preference also has a lot to do with his vocals, which immediately reminded me of Scott Miller. Both of their voices just sound really *cool* to me.

Related:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8bBuPwfST4

My top tunes would be all be from the first 2 LPs: Black & White, She's Not Worried, Bad Reputation, Moving in Your Sleep, Happenstance, From A Window to a Screen, Ups & Downs, Neverland, Amplifier, and I Feel Good. Bought Like This when it came out and I never really got into it.

I saw the Loud Family on that tour, although the cover the night I saw them was "The Story in Your Eyes" by The Moody Blues. I agree that I like both their voices (especially after their earliest records) and never understood why Miller, in particular, was regarded as having an uncommercial or unlikeable singing voice.

The Stamey book goes into a lot of musical detail that I'd never pick up on my own. For instance, the piano countermelody in the second verse of "From a Window" is taken from Charles Ives, referring to the line "Ives was on the stereo".

Ah, was never sure what that "Ives" lyrics was about! Jealous that you got to see the Loud Family on that tour. I wasn't aware of them until the following year.

Apparently, Holsapple & Stamey released an album of re-recorded acoustic versions of dB's classics last year called "Our Back Pages". Looks like it's digital only at the moment.

amazing rhythm section Yeah, Holder's really good too, and he produced Aquamaine and Fields for the Individuals, both later on a CD w bonus tracks, reissued by BarNone, which Individuals' leader Glenn Morrow took over after the band broke up---he was also managing editor of New York Rocker, led Rage To Live and, much more recently, Cry For Help, neither of which I've heard, but the Individuals were real good, "power pop" or "proto jangle" or whatever you wanna call it--they were frequently cited along w dB's and Bongos as The Hoboken 3 or Pop 3---and def rec to dB's etc fans---maybe not up to dB's consistency of songwriting, but some of their known live combo power comes through in the studio, and I always listen for Janet Wygal's vocal boosts.

Janet Wygal and her brother Doug went on to form The Wygals, and Janet Wygal later formed the group Splendora, which provided the theme music for MTV's show Daria. After The Wygals split up, Doug played on albums by Wanda Jackson, Laura Cantrell, Amy Rigby, Wreckless Eric and others. Yes, thanks wiki. Splendidly named Jon Light Klages was also an Individual, don't know what he did later.

No mention of this yet? I guess most of this stuff was already on Ride the Wild Tom-Tom, but I've never heard that so a lot of it's new to me. A good bit of it is Stamey songs that sound kind of like the least interesting Stamey song on Stands for Decibels (i.e. "I'm in Love"), but, you know, that's still pretty good! "You Got It Wrong" has been stuck in my head all morning.

It seems "I Thought You Wanted To Know" and "If And When" are not the original versions on Ork Records?

I think they are but "I Thought You Wanted to Know" has been slightly remixed, at least.

Mark Caro did some podcast interviews with Peter Holsapple and Chris Stamey. Holsapple's is two hours and broken up into two separate podcasts:

https://www.caropop.com/caropopcast/episode/299b4741/peter-holsapple-pt-1
https://www.caropop.com/caropopcast/episode/26268249/peter-holsapple-pt-2

https://www.caropop.com/caropopcast/episode/39fa4bc8/chris-stamey

Found this too, a guest column from 2008 dissecting how Like This flopped (a great album IMHO) - wish the NY Times would bring back this series.

https://archive.nytimes.com/opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/11/18/anatomy-of-a-flop/

^good read, thanks for the link

Yes, great stuff, thanks!

Holsapple wrote a similar article which was published in some sort of music anthology, more of a post-mortem of his entire career. He included the anecdote about dancing in the control room, thinking he had written a hit record, but also mentioned such issues as their first two albums not being distributed in the States.
Unfortunately, I gave the song another listen just now, and i was interesting to pick up on the details he wrote about, but I really can't see the song, whoever was singing it, as better than "quite good".

Great piece! Glad he got Butler in there too.

Put these on wrong thread, wrong board, even:
Wow, so Bearsville folded in 1984, same year Like This was "released," two years before Albert died. I remember reading that Dylan supposedly called Sally G. soon after and yelled about what Albert still owed him. She was on the cover of Bringing It All Back Home and in Don't Look Back and saw about the catalog until 2010, according to wiki; as of the wiki posting, Ehino is or was the distributor.

― dow, Friday, July 15, 2022 4:20 PM (eighteen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Rhino! Think I'll see what Bearsville product is readily available.

― dow, Friday, July 15, 2022 4:22 PM (seventeen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Sorry, she was running it *from* 2010!

Bearsville Records was founded in 1970 by Albert Grossman. Artists included Todd Rundgren, Elizabeth Barraclough, Foghat, Halfnelson/Sparks, Bobby Charles, Randy VanWarmer, Paul Butterfield's Better Days, Lazarus, Jesse Winchester, and NRBQ. The label closed in 1984, two years before Grossman's death. Sally Grossman, Albert Grossman’s widow, was running Bearsville Records from 2010 until her death in March 2021, at the age of 81.[1]
Bearsville's initial distributor was Ampex Records. From 1972 until its folding, the label was distributed by Warner Bros. Records in most countries. In the UK it was distributed by Warner until 1979, and then Island until 1981; its last few British releases were licensed to independent labels Avatar and Lamborghini. Rhino Records currently distributes the Bearsville catalog.

Many of the artists on the roster recorded at Grossman's Bearsville Studios.

also Notable Artists, discography etc---warning says roster unverified, but I've seen some of the records, have a few:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bearsville_Records

I've always been interested in the circumstances behind his departure from R.E.M. - it's evidently difficult for him to discuss, but I noticed he didn't state exactly how his request for a credit on 'Low' saw him leave the band.

I’ve always favored the first 2 dB’s albums over Like This. Pretty sure I bought them as a two-for sometime in the mid 80s.

xp it's possible it was an awkward situation where even he wasn't clear on every single detail of how it went down. Think about Lindsey Buckingham's recent departure from Fleetwood Mac - it was clearly one person's demand, but it's not like the others were all that communicative with Buckingham when it went down, even with their long history together. The best was a private "sorry it happened that way, I didn't want this to happen and wish I could do something" from Christine who was probably on the best terms with him. It happens in every profession, unfortunately, but at least Holsapple was able to restore his friendships with Mills and Buck (and maybe the other two) down the road, and not so late that there was barely any time to experience that renewed friendship again.

Re: the dB's albums, I love the debut the most, but I love the second and third albums too - I don't want to knock any of them to elevate the others. I'll have to revisit the fourth and fifth albums some day, I didn't think they were as good as the previous three, but I could find more to like about them now.