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Straitjacket Fits - Melt

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Promotional photo for Dunedin, New Zealand band Straitjacket Fits (photographer: Stuart Page), issued by U.S. record label Rough Trade circa 1988.

This is but one of many band press photos I acquired via in the early nineties back when labels mailed these things everywhere, specifically:

To the record store where I worked

To the radio station where I DJ’ed

To me, care of my fanzine

Since this photo would have coincided with their lone U.S. indie release in 1988 on Rough Trade—before they got snapped up by major label Arista Records—I likely nabbed it from one of the many piles we had at the record store. Because I didn’t discover Straitjacket Fits until the following year, when I bough the In Love With These Times compilation CD at my local Newbury Comics.

Straitjacket Fits were on my mind, as they were the surprise in the recently announced lineup for Flying Nun’s 40th anniversary concert happening in Auckland, New Zealand next month. That also led me to unearth a live recording of I’d made in July 1991 when I saw Straitjacket Fits for the first time, at T.T. the Bear’s in Cambridge. It’s on my list of recordings to clean up and post to my YouTube channel of nineties gigs I’d taped. But I did play “She Speeds” from that recording on my radio show last night. I was fortunate enough to see them before Andrew Brough—who passed away early last year—left the band.

#Straitjacket Fits #StraitjacketFits #Flying Nun #FlyingNun #Rough Trade #RoughTrade #Rough Trade US #press #photo #press photo #press kit #1988

Postcard for The Bats’ 1993 album, Silverbeet, and U.S. tour with Straitjacket Fits and JPS Experience.

The Bats had spent November of 1992 in the Boston area recording what would be their Silverbeet album. They also played some shows in the U.S. around that time, including this one at T.T. the Bear’s I recorded after interviewing frontman Robert Scott for my zine.

So news of a return U.S. visit? Hurrah! And with fellow Flying Nun label-mates Straitjacket Fits and JPS Experience? Double hurrah! While I’d been lucky enough to catch Straitjacket Fits when they swung through town the summer of 1991, JPS Experience hadn’t ever played in the U.S. This triple-threat bill was dubbed the “Noisyland” tour, which perhaps didn’t quite fit the amped-up folk-pop of The Bats, but was more than suitable for the Fits and even JPS Experience at that time. All three bands played to a very respectable crowd in the newly-opened Middle East Downstairs room. I was of course in Kiwi pop heaven.

Note that this postcard is postmarked from Carrboro, NC, also listed as the U.S. address for Flying Nun. Yes, the label had a small U.S. office there for a time in the nineties, though I don’t believe it lasted long enough to see the new millennium.