Listen: Sexy Boy / Air AirSexy.mp3

Listen: Kelly Watch The Stars / Air AirKelly.mp3

Listen: Radio #1 / Air AirRadio.mp3

Marc Lessner at Soul Trader in London was a most dependable source when it came to the latest, greatest dance and club releases back in the late 90′s. It was Marc who insisted I pay attention to Air, and gave me their first UK EP, LE SOLEIL EST PRESCE MOI. Despite a French aversion resulting from a few bad trips to Paris, I found Air irresistable. ‘Modular’ on Mo Wax followed and then came ‘Sexy Boy’, with an intro riff shockingly similar to New Math’s ‘They Walk Among You’, which was played down the phone to me by Howard quite early. But it was indeed the song’s similarity to Pink Floyd’s ‘Julia Dream’ that really grabbed my interest. All these years later, and I still don’t think I’ve even heard one mention of Pink Floyd when it comes to Air. Oh, and I do cherish my promo only UK single pictured above, one of many gems from the hands of Lessner. He always had my back when it came to promos bless him.

I excitedly went to see an early, maybe first, New York show at Town Hall soon after ‘Sexy Boy’ became an underground hit. It was very, very disappointing. I was shocked at how dull the whole event was. It put me off ever buying a ticket again, but not from loving the recordings.

Conveniently, despite their club royalty status, many of the singles were issued on UK 7″ vinyl. Both ‘Kelly Watch The Stars’ and ‘Radio #1′ were radio and chart hits in the UK, unlike here in the US. Once again, our programmers chose to grind their tired sounding stations to a cultural halt – I heard today that Boston’s WBCN bit the dust – put themselves right out of business with their stubborn musical policies. Good riddance.

Seems to me the excellent Animal Collective have quite good tastes – the influence Air have had on their records is worn very visibly on their sleeves. All good.

Listen: Screamin’ You Head / Hi-Techs HiTechsScreaminYouHead.mp3

It’s always good fun to be releasing local records out of the scene you create. This is what we all did during the late 70′s, not only in Rochester, but every town was on fire with this stuff then. Dick Storms who owned one of the local record stores, The Record Archive, started a label to release stuff for us all. And one of best were The Hi-Techs. Paul had played drums in the early New Math, and on the ‘Die Trying’ single. Things seemed to take and last forever then, but looking back, it all moved pretty quickly. Paul left and started The Hi-Techs with his wife Peggi, they eventually morphed into Personal Effects and later still (as well as presently) into The Margaret Explosion. This was their second single as The Hi-Techs, a double sided little masterpiece. Roger & I played this a lot on our show. It still sounds fantastic.