Even as the first sounds of new wave and punk rock were being heard in New York City in the mid-'70s, the first stirrings of indie-rock and guitar pop were occurring in the unlikely locale of Chapel Hill, North Carolina, where Chris Stamey, Will Rigby and Mitch Easter were recording arguably the first low-fi records ever in their band The Sneakers. Though heard by few, the reverberations from these recordings spread everywhere from New York - where Stamey and Rigby were to form the dB's - to Athens, Georgia, where a band named R.E.M. hooked up with Easter to record their first two albums - to just about every college radio station in the land during the '80s. Now, Stamey and Easter have gone back into the studio to produce the definitive look at this seminal power pop band, consisting of tracks from their 1976, Don Dixon-produced EP The Sneakers, their 1978 LP in the Red and their 1992 'reunion' record, Racket, plus three unreleased bonus tracks, all (except the debut EP) re-mastered and/or remixed for superior sound. Notes by Scott Schinder!
1) Ruby
2) Condition Red
3) Driving
4) Nonsequitur (Of Silence)
5) Love's Like a Cuban Crisis
6) On the Brink
7) Story of a Girl
8) What I Dig
9) Stuck on You
10) No Wonder
11) Some Kinda Fool
12) Decline and Fall
13) The Perfect Stranger
14) Be My Ambulance
15) I Will Underastand
16) S'il Vous Plait
17) Quelle Folie
18) Mark Peril Theme
19) B;G Pies Commercial
20) Decline and Fall (Fidelitorium Remix)
21) Love That Girl (Original Demo)