If i talk to someone about music i always,say "Mitch Easter".If they respond " Omg..YES!!" then i know they KNOW what great music is. Talk about an "innovator"... not to mention one hell of a guitar player!! I treasure this music.
I'm always playing Dynamico in my shop (think I like it even better than the Lets Active stuff!). I've yet to have a customer complain, that's good enough for me, haha 😅
This song came about during my musical awakening in 1984. Back then, I resented that this music was largely ignored by the mainstream music industry. Today, I am glad that this was a private treasure....
@@JohnHolloHbsolutely love these guys…& gal! ✌️😎 Such great songs, and Mitch? What more can you say about a straight up genius! In addition to a great body of work from LA, he also produced R.E.M.’s first two records. A big thank you to the uploader of all their stuff. 👍 And oh yeah…I guess that makes three of us. 😉
Those first two Let’s Active records have been a constant in my musical life since seeing the video for Every Word Means No on The Cutting Edge program in 1984! ❤️🔊🎶🔥😁 RIP Faye and Sara. 😢
IMO, Mitch made REM. I have an early bootleg cassette of REM playing the 40 Watt and they sound quite conventional, nothing like the mood, mystique, and aura of Murmur. Mitch, I believe, helped craft REM’s sound and many other southern-based alternative bands of the 1980’s. Good job, Mitch! In those days, acquiring good music was an endeavor. Sources were limited; fidelity was often low. One of my favorite mixed tapes was a 3rd generation cassette, a dub of another cassette recorded from various LPs. A low-end Maxell, eventually one side bled through, so that REM’s Voice of Harold was intermittently invaded by 10k Maniacs My Mother The War playing backwards. Surprisingly, a cool mix. Ah shucks, those were the days, huh fellas?!?
That's kind of a stretch, I would say. All bands are helped by their producers. That's why they hire them. That said, the boys made a good choice when they tapped Mitch Easter for Chronic Town and the first two LPs.
@@steverok67 Exactly. REM had great instincts and an innate sense of what they wanted to sound like, and what they DIDN'T want to sound like. Those early demos the record company made them record with Stephen Hague sound AWFUL. History would be totally different, had they not stood up for themselves and insisted on Easter and Dixon at the board.
That's an extremely simplistic view, and assumes they'd never have progressed on their own. Listen to Pink Floyd's 1965 stuff, or Bowie's pre-Space Oddity recordings. They're dreadful too.
I loved these guys. I was interning at I.R.S. in the 80's and between them, R.E.M. Wall of Voodoo and the English Beat, it was a great way to get through school...
It's really weird looking back at these videos that have your dad before you were even born, haha. (He was the drummer for Lets Active for a while.) But oh, man he looks so much younger.. I can't get over it.
Wow! That's one cool dad. But I feel you here. I don't know any of these people personally, and it's still bizarre seeing them so young. And with such ... haircuts.
I saw Lets Active on a double bill with The Church. Rivera nightclub on a cold Chicago night. Let’s active was just great ! And signing autographs after their set. Good memories indeed
I was living in Atlanta years ago and got to see Lets Active at a small club...Mitch was sooo cool..great performance..I remember when they did 'Waters Part' and I had heard it on my brother's cassette before...I was blown away.
Totally agree. Mitch's songs, particularly this one, have a slightly dark or mysterious current running just underneath the surface that I really like.
I had the fortune to have close to an hour convo with Mitch in a small bar run by musicians in Greensboro. I knew the band from when I was young in Florida. Didn’t know they were from US, much less NC. Mitch was super nice and was impressed that the first CD I bought was their double CD of this and Afoot. He said they only printed about 500. 😊
Looking back on it all.... these guys exemplified smart pop music.. I bought all their stuff and it was easy to listen to. It was well constructed.... and carries on even today
Loved to see Let's Active locally when I was a kid (with The Graphic, even!). It was a time of $5 tickets to see REM at Reynolds High & the West End in Winston along with Rainbow Cafe, Rezniks, NC School of the Arts, and Winston Square being amazingly cool. People can rip on the South all they want but in the day W-S was the place to be whether you were goth, punk, jock, gay, straight, conservative, liberal, love(d) the original Krispy Kreme, what-have-you. Mitch is a total musical hero.
Winston-Salem has always been a great place. Whether it was just to visit, or, to live. And, the music scene was insane during my college years in the early '80s. We made more than one drive from the coast (Jacksonville) to the Triad just for the music.
I hate when people treat the South like it's all the same. I always heard about great music in W-S and Athens. There is a fabulous tradition of music, art, and writing in the South. I'm from Cleveland, so I know what it's like to be from a place that is underestimated and often misunderstood.
bought the vinyl when it was released and along with Murmur, is one of my all-time favorite lps. All of Let's Active catalogue are first-rate but Cypress is something special. It truly creates sounds that you can touch. I always think of it as the 80's answer to how Forever Changes by Love was to the 60's. The chord changes, harmonies and lyrics create colors and visuals like no other lp of its time. Sound sculpture
Bill Keon Love the reference to Forever Changes. Arthur Lee and Love were my favorites! I got to see Arthur and Johnny Echols play with the Baby Lemonade version of Love back in '05. Phenomenal concert!
Like, how many sections / parts are in this song ? Intro, Verse, pre chorus, chorus, ??? And they all flow in and out of each other. The construction, adventure of this song is just like it says, "It's great! It's strange!"
I grew up in NC and saw Let’s Active many times. Great music then and still sounds great, just like The Producers, The States, Waxing Poetics and Robbin Thompson.
Mitch your channel has only 147k views but your music (and that great Maggie cover), and tracks you produced, filled my dance floor from 1982 to 1992. Thanks so much. Hope to meet you one day.
LET*S ACTIVE HAILED FROM WINSTON SALEM,N.C. BEING FROM DURHAM,N.C.OF COURSE I SUPPORTED ARTIST FROM N.C. HAD THIS ALBUM,AFOOT,BIG PLANS FOR EVERYBODY, ALL WHILE BEING STATIONED AT FT.CAMPBELL,K.Y. IN 1984-1987
I remember driving to class one day listening to ITR (RIT) heard this and oseesed all day to hear it again. Saw them at Scorgies monts later. Great song, wish kids today could hear it and enjoy!
Mark Gerhart I DJ'd at WITR for about 10 years (Tues nit, 6-8) and loved this band. We had THE best music collection to choose from, so many great musical talents that didn't get the AirPlay they deserved on commercial stations. Scorgies was an excellent venue, so glad that they helped bring alternative music to Rochester.
the band that time forgot... when you looked at early REM records and saw who produced them ...then you found Lets Active.... i have the vinyls and must play them....
yea, I was there, at the township, other bands, red hot chilli peppers, 10,000 maniacs, and some, call REM, college radio ruled in the New. such feel from simplicity, slinging in the drop, where we actually started having fun,
Minneapolis. First Avenue. 1984-5. In store appearance promoting Cypress at Let It Be Records. Do I have that right? Another great song- Every Word Means No.
I like how he's wearing 8-bit sunglasses at 1:36. Haven't heard this song in almost 40 years, good lord. This is comparable to someone saying, at the time this song was released, that they hadn't heard Glenn Miller since he'd last been on stage.
My dear friend Charlie McIntyre who recently past away gave me a home made compilation cassette with "Waters Part" back in the 80’s I was very much was hooked on Cypress & Afoot from then on. Sara who’s Dexters sister (Flat Duo Jets) ..another music legend. Being a sound engineer & electronics designer for studio equipment….don’t remember how it happened, I had conversation w/ Mitch Easter about studio gear and his 3M tape machine that got ruined in a flood. And yes Mitch gave R.E.M. there sound, Like George Martin for you know who.
Never heard of them before,maybe i've listened in the past songs of them,without knowing something more. Very interesting sound! Gets you back in time!
I think it is actually the band that invented jangle-pop as a term ... Unfortunately here in Greece very few like these bands... Try also listening to Game Theory...
Think of going by me in my social anywhere No use getting unwound, do you know enough to tell? The country's getting wilder, a way the moon and tide comfort us Tie it altogether, it's the work of alchemists And no-one's confused at first _________ it's bad, or worse __________ Was I lost? Within, without, and until, I'm there I learn we're finding out, we're finding out The waters part and our eyes see together It's strange, it's strange how We worry about it together We're removed if we think we are You're the only one who means it Please ____________________________________ But this is South America talking If the seed's good _________ You've heard what we're saying, well I have crushed my nightmare Everybody does his part in the big machine _____________________________________ Was I lost Within, without, and until, I'm there I learn we're finding out, we're finding out The waters part and our eyes see together It's strange, it's strange, well Think of going by me in my social anywhere No use getting unwound, do you know enough to tell? I'm center of the curb {?) ____________ __________ don't tell me What I lost Within, without, and until, I'm there I learn we're finding out, to find it out The waters part and our eyes see together It's strange, it's strange, well ** this is a tuff nut to crack due to the way Easter sings the words on some verses :-) Too bad Romweber had quit before this was filmed - she's on the album, of course.
+7777Scion pretty damn amazing translation. I'm stoked that I now have many missing pieces. Half the songs was like Michael Stipe singing it until I saw your post. Awesome. Here are some of my attempts to fill some of the gaps. At least that's the way I've always sung it to myself. Threw in some words which may make more sense in the context of the sentence as I heard them.To tie it altogether, is the work of alchemists. If your seeds good, you're in demand. If it's there it's been bad or worse. The waters part when our eyes see together. You've heard what we're saying, well that's my nightmare. You're the only one who means it - Please honor feelings. Everybody does his part in the big machine nobody fits, which one now - Was I lost. It's great, it's strange, when. I'm center of the curve, it's magnetic of which pulse learned(?). I'm stumped on this last lyric
I concur with what another person said about Mitch Easter being instrumental in giving R.E.M.’s early recordings an identity. When I listen to Cypress by Let’s Active it’s like listening to say Brian Eno and connecting the dots from his treatments on his own solo work to say U2. It’s not a slight on R.E.M. but without Easter’s production, I don’t think I’d like those recordings as much as I do.
G&L L-2000 bass, natural, 1980-1 version (Fender headstock) (USA) Jerry Jones Longhorn Bass, aquaburst, ser. no. 046706 recent (USA) Fender pink paisley Stratocaster, 2004 (Japan) Fender rosewood- body Telecaster, rosewood fretboard, 2003 (Mexico) Fender Electric XII, Olympic White w/tortoise pickguard, 1966 (USA) Kay 6-string acoustic, 1962, rebuilt by Scott Baxendale, red sunburst (USA) Guild S-60, black, 1979 (USA) Be on the lookout for these.
This was the song I always associated with Let's Active which is probably why never looked much further. Too bad, because they put out some great jangle pop I would have dug.
OK, I'll take a stab. I think this song's idea is the expression of being "behind the curve" and trying to catch up. "Big curve going by me", he's trying to catch up to whats going on, "waters part when our eyes see together", he sees the situation clearly for the first time, and in the end he becomes part of the curve itself and rides it on out like a surfer. Just a guess.
