The Mice were an absolutely incredible power pop band from the Cleveland area, putting out their first self-released single, "Can You Walk On The Water Baby?", in 1984. Soon afterward, the Fox brothers, Bill and Tommy, along with bassist Ken Hall, had their first proper relase with 1985's flawless For Almost Ever EP. The EP featured an excellent selection of songs, starting with "Downtown", a documentation of the frustration that mounts from living in middle American suburbia ("Day after day there's nothing happening/she stares out the window waiting for the world to spin"). The anthemic "Not Proud Of The USA" (I dare you to find a song that starts out with a greater hook!) further depicts songwriter Bill Fox's developing political alienation between himself and those around him ("When I was a boy I was told to believe that America was all there was, just because").
After the release of For Almost Ever the band quickly got back to writing new songs, soon releasing 1986's Scooter LP. The LP did show a growth and development in their sound, as many of the band's rougher punk edges had been smoothed away by vocal harmonies, catchy hooks and acoustic overdubs (see "Little Rage", "Bye Bye Kitty Cat", and especially "Ancient Mystery" for such examples). The songs' lyrics remained focused on Bill Fox's brilliant coming-of-age storytelling, allowing listeners to easily identify with many, if not all of, Bill's anecdotal life lessons.
After a brief midwest tour, Bill Fox decided to leave the band, effectively ending the band itself. The band, however, had already begun to record tracks for what would have been their second full length LP, which was to be titled Canterbury Bells. In 2004, Scat Records decided to reissue the band's first two professional records on a CD compilation (entitled, appropriately, For Almost Ever Scooter). The compilation was also supposed to inclue the tracks from Canterbury Bells as well as some live tracks, but the band decided to not include the extra material at the last minute.
I have been frantically attempting to track down this unreleased material for quite some time. It was only last week that Bill at I Rock Cleveland was kind enough to send me the 10 unreleased tracks from Canterbury Bells! "Music Here" has become my favorite of the tracks included in this album that (very unfortunately) never was.
Please check out the Scat Records website to purchase the For Almost Ever Scooter CD. Enjoy!
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14 comments:
this is awesome brian...did you know that J church has a cover of Not Proud...thats weird i think
I was not aware of that! I'd love to hear their version though.
I was really excited to find this and then the download link wasn't working because of bandwidth issues! I was going to mention the J Church cover, which put me on to the Mice, but someone beat me to it.
its not working anymore? i'll use a different method to upload it. my apologies!
It worked eventually, the server just seems to limit downloads from non-paying clients, and made me wait a while.
Hi! Wow, it's incredible!!!!!!!!!!!!
But the link is dead! Please can you reupload this? Please,please,please!!!
I'm a french Mice fan and i would never believe this tape can be found...
Hi, I'm wondering if you can repost this mice stuff, it says that it has been deleted. I've been looking for it for years. It was seeing Superchunk cover Bye Bye Kitty Cat live that turned me on to the Mice (I think you can download that cover from the Superchunk website). I emailed the I Rock Cleveland guy a couple times but he never got back to me. thanks
Thank you so much - I had no idea this stuff existed. "Phone In My Car" confirms once and for all my long-held belief that Bill Fox is a modern-day prophet.
You may mean well, but this material is unfinished (unmixed, many parts unrecorded), and if Bill gets wind of this being online it pretty much guarantees that it will never see a legit release, not to mention that it would not surprise me one bit if he pulled the plug on the upcoming reissues as well. PLEASE REMOVE / DELETE IMMEDIATELY !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I was looking for some Dead Moon that I was playing today and also found some The Mice that I was also playing today, your Blog sir, has been book marked.
on of my face bands.. perfect gritty power pop. awesome to hear the Canterbury Tales.. I think it stands up to the other stuff.
I understand the super across the way's viewpoint, but it would be amazing to hear the work in progress at this point, and it would only make me more eager to compare with the real thing when it's finished and out on vinyl someday!!!
Is there any way you could re-upload the zip? I've heard the album from a youtube video but I think there's a pretty big loss of quality that way and I want to hear what the originals sounded like. Thank you kindly!
I'm the guy who posted the Youtube video. Didn't really want to post a DL link as that would be further violating Bill Fox and the band's wishes...
But I must say it needs to be heard. If you want to hear it contact me at grumbletink@gmail.com and I'll send you the .zip
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