Today, Seattle indie rock icons The Young Fresh Fellows announce the special 40th-anniversary reissue of their classic debut album: "The Fabulous Sounds Of The Pacific Northwest," coming out on June 28 via Omnivore Recordings.
Career Journey of The Young Fresh Fellows
The band itself was conceptually formed by Scott McCaughey and Chuch Carroll in Seattle, Washington in 1981, with Chuck's mad-drumming cousin, Tad Hutchinson, later joining in. By 1983, the group finally began working on what would become a smashing debut effort.
Their friend, Conrad Uno, then gratuitously volunteered to produce and record the trio in his garage, Egg Studios. Uno's then-fledgling label PopLlama Products took it upon themselves to push out the record to the world, not just within a small circle.
Thanks to the album's eventual and magical success, the small label would go on to become a mainstay in the still-floundering Seattle music scene and the home of bands like Fastbacks, The Posies, Dharma Bums, and The President Of The United States Of America.
The Young Fresh Fellow's inaugural record was inspired by a 1960s single from the Pacific Northwest Bell Telephone Company, which was created to promote tourism in the region.
The album's cover is a direct homage to this particular release, with further references done sonically through the "narrator" sound bites from the original. However, these brief excerpts are now omitted in the reissue, either as positive or negative (depending on how you look at it).
Either way, it still retains the bouncy, punky, jangly, and weirdly self-referential elements of the collection, something that launched The Young Fresh Fellows into being the "darling" of college radio around the time of the record's release.
This rise to acclaim forged an enthusiastic following and even urged their contemporaries' admiration to overflow for them.
Hence, this is why the reputation of "The Fabulous Sounds Of The Pacific Northwest" is an undying favorite for the likes of Paul Westerberg, Ira Robbins, NRBQ, Rolling Stone, and Peter Buck.
About 'The Fabulous Sounds Of The Pacific Northwest' Reissue
Now, for its 40th Anniversary, YFF co-founder and songwriter/vocalist Scott McCaughey (R.E.M., The Minus 5, The Baseball Project) has remixed the album to (re)introduce it to the world.
The idea is simple. Compress four decades of music-making experience into one mix without overtaking the original's sense of naiveté and wonder, both of which served as "rocket propulsion" to the album's success.
The original album's 15 tracks are slated to be pressed on limited-edition, opaque Turquoise vinyl. Now a double CD and includes digital programs, the record includes a bonus disc -- "Merry Croutons Mr. Gulp Gulp, a rare party-in-the-studio 1984 cassette release with only about 200 copies made.
Amid the reissue announcement, The Young Fresh Fellows is also slated to be back on the road this year, with members comprising the longtime lineup of Scott, Jim Sangster, and Kurt Bloch, alongside newcomer John Perrin of NRBQ.
The band will be making their way across the country, from their hometown of Seattle though to Wilco's Solid Sound festival in Massachusetts, gracing the stages and turntables of the US with "The Fabulous Sounds Of The Pacific Northwest."
You can watch the album reissue trailer right below and pre-order the same by clicking here.
