Beggars Arkive to reissue 3 Buffalo Tom albums
Beggars Arkive announce
Buffalo Tom
Birdbrain, Let Me Come Over & Big Red Letter Day reissues
LP REISSUES OUT 8 NOV
PRE-ORDER: https://buffalotom.ffm.to/2024reissues
Beggars Arkive have announced three Buffalo Tom albums are to be put back in print on standard black vinyl. Birdbrain (1990), Let Me Come Over (1992) and Big Red Letter Day (1993) will be available everywhere on 8 November.
The LPs are available now for pre-order: https://buffalotom.ffm.to/2024reissues
Buffalo Tom (Bill Janovitz, Chris Colbourn and Tom Maginnis) formed at the University
of Massachusetts at Amherst in 1984 – a breeding ground of post punk guitar bands like Dinosaur Jr. and Pixies. The three longstanding bandmates recognise the achievement of their longevity as a creative unit. Initially offering a raw, propulsive sound that emphasized Janovitz’s imposing guitar squall, Buffalo Tom’s early approach gave way to a more melodic, yet no less distinctive, style. They have released ten studio albums and their most recent, Jump Rope, was released earlier this year.
Birdbrain is the band’s second album produced with help from J Mascis. Songs from
Birdbrain have become live favorites including the epic title track and “Enemy”.
Bill Janovitz spoke about their songwriting process on this record and said:
“I think the interesting stuff about Birdbrain is that the songwriting was changing. I had written everything on the first record. “Birdbrain” is kind of a melancholy track but most of it, like “Fortune Teller, “Skeleton Key,” “Enemy,” “Directive,” those are very angry songs in a lot of ways. It was way more punk rock feeling to me but we moved in that direction and I don’t know why. But Chris was starting to write. Chris sings and wrote “Baby” and the way we wrote—we didn’t write in the same room together—but we brought these ideas to each other and kicked them around.”
In 1992 the band recorded their third album Let Me Come Over with a varied group of
songs they had been developing at home and on the road – mixing their live power trio
sound with some more acoustic based guitar ballads. The album’s single “Taillights
Fade” would become their signature song. On its first two albums, Buffalo Tom
constructed towering guitar-scapes and mastered a naturalistic version of quiet-to-loud
dynamics. So, for its third, we found Buffalo Tom shedding a bit, but not all of the skin it had worn and emerging with its charms more front and centre. Let Me Come Over is the sound of the trio exiting the insular underground for the wide world of “alternative” rock– but more or less bringing its best moves along with it, too.
Big Red Letter Day was released in 1993. Their fourth album found them doing what
they do very well indeed, but with more body and gloss to the production. The album
was recorded in LA by The Robb Brothers and features numerous crowd favourites, in
particular: “Sodajerk”, “I’m Allowed”, “Treehouse” and “Late At Night.” The band was brought to new levels of fame when “Late At Night” was heavily featured in a pivotal scene of the short-lived mid-90s cult TV show “My So Called Life” which starred Claire Danes and Jared Leto. The song was not only in the episode, but the band was also shown performing it. Rolling Stone, in a feature of the band called it a “collection of inspired, straightforward power pop” and Spin said “the passion feels genuine and the music sublime.”
Beggars Arkive is the catalogue and archive department for past and present Beggars Group labels and artists. Beggars labels include 4AD, Matador, Rough Trade, XL Recordings and Young, they also handle legacy labels including Beggars Banquet, too pure, Wiiija, Situation Two and more. Beggars began in 1977 and has over 40 years of catalogue to work with. The utmost care is given to sound quality, artwork and occasionally some very fancy packaging.
Over the last ten years, Beggars Arkive have reissued albums by Bauhaus, Gary Numan, The Cult, The Fall, Pixies, Cocteau Twins, The Mortal Coil, Freeez, Buffalo Tom, The Charlatans and many, many more. Beggars Arkive releases are done in full cooperation with the artists, oftentimes with them leading the charge. The Arkive itself is also a physical archive space, containing a wealth of Beggars Group musical and visual history. The Arkive as a label are continually working on maintaining, growing and cataloguing the archive, now a great source of materials and a perfect space for research.