Black Vinyl Shoes

Album Review

Most bands start out trying to bang their songs together in someone's living room, but Shoes certainly made more of that experience than most people. Jeff Murphy, Gary Klebe, and John Murphy were three pop obsessives from Zion, IL, who bought a four-track, found a drummer (Skip Meyer), and started putting songs on tape in Murphy's living room with all the care their primitive circumstances would allow. While the results were intended to be used only as a demo, Black Vinyl Shoes eventually attracted the attention of PVC Records, who gave the homemade set a nationwide release; the album's positive press eventually earned the band a major-label deal. Like their contemporaries and kindred spirits the Scruffs, Shoes were one of the few interesting pop bands to emerge in the mid- to late '70s who were very obviously not new wave; Shoes were pop classicists in the manner of the Beatles and the Raspberries, and if their low-tech recording setup dictated a leaner and more basic approach than the Fab Four, the thick guitar lines, smooth backing harmonies, and trickier-than-they-sound melodic structures made it clear their back-to-basic style was a nod to past rock glories as much as a call to jangly arms. But Shoes also had their own set of quirks to bring to the table (again like the Scruffs, Shoes had an unusual perspective on the male/female relationship), and there's an understated, off-kilter wit to songs like "Tragedy," "Do You Wanna Get Lucky?," and "Capital Gains" that's as delicious as the band's rich, satisfying songcraft. Black Vinyl Shoes is an album whose somewhat primitive production actually works in its favor; with 15 tunes to record and only four tracks on hand, Shoes made a record that was about melodies, hooks, and harmonies, and the result was an album that helped kick start the '80s pop revival — and still sounds fine almost a quarter of a century later.