Originally published in American Music Press (October 1992)
By Devorah Ostrov
Interviewing Young Fresh Fellows vocalist/guitarist Scott McCaughey was an entertaining way to run up my phone bill! We were supposed to discuss the band's new Frontier Records release, It's Low Beat Time, which we did.
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The Young Fresh Fellows (L-R): Kurt Bloch, Scott McCaughey,
Tad Hutchison & Jim Sangster (photographer unknown)
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But we also talked about YFF's psych-fest version of Sony Bono's "I Just Sit There," which they recorded for last year's tribute album Bonograph. "Sonny's wife [not Cher!] called up the label and ordered 20 copies," gushes Scott. "They wanted to give them to people for Christmas presents."
Other topics of conversation included his thoughts about the group's 1987 hit single "Amy Grant" ("It's the stupidest song ever"), audience requests ("We've been known to try and play songs we don't know if somebody asks us nicely"), the Dictators (the Fellows are "super into" the Dictators), ex-Flamin' Groovies vocalist/Phantom Movers leader Roy Loney ("He's so rocking!"), and the vinyl vs. CD argument (of course, he prefers vinyl).
Seattle-based for more than a decade, Scott and former Fellows guitarist Chuck Carroll originally hailed from the Bay Area. The move north was made with the intention of starting a BAM-type music 'zine for the Northwest. But as Scott explains, "In the three months since Chuck had checked out the scene, The Rocket had started and filled the void."
The pair stayed because they liked the city's atmosphere, and they even fell in with The Rocket's staff. In fact, Scott still writes a column on alternative music for the magazine.
Forming an idiosyncratic pop group of their own wasn't part of the agenda; it just sort of happened. "We just recorded a record," offers Scott ambivalently about the launch of a respected career which now spans almost nine years.
When I push him for more information, he adds, "Chuck and I had recorded a lot of junk on a four-track. We'd always sent tapes to our friends, and after we moved to Seattle we thought, they're gonna be expecting a cassette come Christmas, and wouldn't it be really funny if we sent them an album. Like, they'd be totally blown away!"
In 1983, with Chuck's cousin Tad Hutchison on drums and Scott (credited as "Sled") temporarily on bass, the Fellows recorded their whimsical debut, The Fabulous Sounds of the Pacific Northwest, on the exceptionally obscure PopLlama label.
"They'd never really put out any records," notes Scott of PopLlama. "They'd sort of put out a couple of cassettes. But when we came up with the idea to do this record, Conrad [Uno, label owner and producer] said, 'I'll record it and we'll put it out on my little label' — which didn't really exist."
Scott picks up the story a few months later: "When the record came out, much to our amazement, people heard it and liked it. We started getting letters from radio stations around the country that had it at #1! We thought, Wow! This is really weird. We weren't taking it at all seriously."
Before their second PopLlama release (1985's Topsy Turvy), Jim Sangster took over as the group's bassist, and Scott switched to guitar. "I'm too retarded to play bass and sing at the same time," he states. A couple of years later, the Fellows moved to the bigger indie label Frontier Records where they've since issued a string of eagerly received quirky LPs, including 1988's Totally Lost — after which Fastbacks' guitarist Kurt Bloch replaced Chuck Carroll.
With Low Beat Time, the band Rolling Stone once described as "the Lovin' Spoonful at Buzzcocks' speed" still isn't taking it seriously. The 16 mostly snappy tunes (with the usual bits of oddness YFF is known for) shift and collide dramatically in style and mood, with tracks that careen from bopping beats to garage-punk wallops to organ-driven romps.
"Tad wanted this whole record to be a super-happy, up-beat dance kind of thing," observes Scott. "But we couldn't all agree to do the whole record that way, so we just haphazardly recorded a bunch of stuff."
He might be using the word "haphazardly" in a literal sense, as five studios in three different cities were employed in making the album. According to Scott, the plan was to "just go back to the basement, take a month, and get really out there." But their regular studio was booked by someone else and the guys were impatient to get going. "We wanted to get a record out this year," he comments, "for no particular reason. But Frontier thought it would be a good idea."
Two of the studios they used required a cross-country trip to Memphis.
One was Easley Recording, where Alex Chilton can often be found. If you listen closely, you can sometimes hear Chilton's hollow-body Gretsch on It's Low Beat Time.
"We didn't know it was his until we'd used it on a bunch of songs," swears Scott.
The other was Royal Studios, where they worked with the great Willie Mitchell. The producer of soul superstars like Al Green and Ann Peebles oversaw the album's title track as well as the Fellows' cover of the Young Rascals' "Love Is a Beautiful Thing."
Scott confirms that everything turned out to be "really cool" with Mitchell, although he admits to having some initial jitters. "Here's this sixty-year-old black guy who's been recording really talented soul singers for the last thirty years, and here's four jaded punk rock losers from Seattle, coming in and stomping around. We didn't know if it would work out at all."
YFF's punky treatment of the customarily earnest trad-folk tune "Green Green" took shape at Easley. It's a highlight of the album and features legendary bluesman Rufus "Walking the Dog" Thomas on guest vocals. How did this unlikely but perfect collaboration come about?
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| It's Low Beat Time (Frontier Records 1992) |
The pair stayed because they liked the city's atmosphere, and they even fell in with The Rocket's staff. In fact, Scott still writes a column on alternative music for the magazine.
Forming an idiosyncratic pop group of their own wasn't part of the agenda; it just sort of happened. "We just recorded a record," offers Scott ambivalently about the launch of a respected career which now spans almost nine years.
When I push him for more information, he adds, "Chuck and I had recorded a lot of junk on a four-track. We'd always sent tapes to our friends, and after we moved to Seattle we thought, they're gonna be expecting a cassette come Christmas, and wouldn't it be really funny if we sent them an album. Like, they'd be totally blown away!"
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Flyer for the Replacements & Young
Fresh Fellows at the Gift Center in SF - 1992
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"They'd never really put out any records," notes Scott of PopLlama. "They'd sort of put out a couple of cassettes. But when we came up with the idea to do this record, Conrad [Uno, label owner and producer] said, 'I'll record it and we'll put it out on my little label' — which didn't really exist."
Scott picks up the story a few months later: "When the record came out, much to our amazement, people heard it and liked it. We started getting letters from radio stations around the country that had it at #1! We thought, Wow! This is really weird. We weren't taking it at all seriously."
Before their second PopLlama release (1985's Topsy Turvy), Jim Sangster took over as the group's bassist, and Scott switched to guitar. "I'm too retarded to play bass and sing at the same time," he states. A couple of years later, the Fellows moved to the bigger indie label Frontier Records where they've since issued a string of eagerly received quirky LPs, including 1988's Totally Lost — after which Fastbacks' guitarist Kurt Bloch replaced Chuck Carroll.
With Low Beat Time, the band Rolling Stone once described as "the Lovin' Spoonful at Buzzcocks' speed" still isn't taking it seriously. The 16 mostly snappy tunes (with the usual bits of oddness YFF is known for) shift and collide dramatically in style and mood, with tracks that careen from bopping beats to garage-punk wallops to organ-driven romps.
 |
The Young Fresh Fellows in their snazzy Electric Bird Digest outfits
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He might be using the word "haphazardly" in a literal sense, as five studios in three different cities were employed in making the album. According to Scott, the plan was to "just go back to the basement, take a month, and get really out there." But their regular studio was booked by someone else and the guys were impatient to get going. "We wanted to get a record out this year," he comments, "for no particular reason. But Frontier thought it would be a good idea."
 |
| PopLlama publicity photo featuring guitarist Chuck Carroll |
One was Easley Recording, where Alex Chilton can often be found. If you listen closely, you can sometimes hear Chilton's hollow-body Gretsch on It's Low Beat Time.
"We didn't know it was his until we'd used it on a bunch of songs," swears Scott.
The other was Royal Studios, where they worked with the great Willie Mitchell. The producer of soul superstars like Al Green and Ann Peebles oversaw the album's title track as well as the Fellows' cover of the Young Rascals' "Love Is a Beautiful Thing."
Scott confirms that everything turned out to be "really cool" with Mitchell, although he admits to having some initial jitters. "Here's this sixty-year-old black guy who's been recording really talented soul singers for the last thirty years, and here's four jaded punk rock losers from Seattle, coming in and stomping around. We didn't know if it would work out at all."
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The Young Fresh Fellows on the cover
of Seattle's The Rocket - June 1984
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"We knew he was in Memphis," says Scott, "and we tracked him down. He said, 'Sure, I'll come over.' He'd never heard the song before, but he instantly got into it. He's like 75-years-old and still super-psyched about music." Apparently, it was Thomas' idea to do the song's intro as a solo, and he added some improvised scat vocals as well. "It was great!" enthuses Scott.
Back on home turf, the band hooked up with Kearney Barton, engineer of 1965's proto-punk classic Here Are the Sonics, which Scott rates as one of the ten best rock 'n' roll records ever made (YFF cover "High Time" on the tribute album Here Ain't the Sonics).
Barton got them the authentically primitive garage sound they wanted for two tracks — "99 Girls" and "She Won't Budge" — both of which stand out for being so overtly lo-fi. However, at one point, Scott was slightly worried they'd gone too far. "I was wondering if people would think there was something wrong with their CD when it got to those songs," he chuckles. "We tried to make those two songs sound like the Sonics as much as possible. We didn't overdub anything. Kearney would record the songs every time we played, but he wouldn't erase anything. So, we just picked the versions we liked the best."
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Fabulous Peter Bagge-designed poster for
recent YFF shows in Seattle and Portland
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So, it seems like they've had a jolly good time. But wasn't all that traveling and studio expense a bit of a strain on Frontier's finances?
"Yeah, I was kind of wondering how that would go over," muses Scott. "We definitely spent more money on this record than we have on any other one, but they were like 'Okay.'"
In case you haven't caught one of their shows yet, the Fellows are just as weird and eclectic live as they are on record, and twice as much fun! "You could see us two or three nights in a row and not hear any of the same songs," remarks Scott. "Or you might hear 'Amy Grant' all three nights."
On occasion, their setlists include "76 Trombones" and "The Girl from Ipanema." And their performances are frequently compared to the crash-and-burn days of the Replacements. Actually, the only words I could decipher in the liner notes to a Spanish YFF release were "Sonics" and "Replacements."
Scott's happy with the comparison. "I think we're a lot more punk rock than people realize, people who have only heard one of our records. We totally charge live! We love to play super-loud and super-fast. Our shows are pretty much free-for-alls!"
