Noget om Shoes

“Much ink has been spilled debating the meaning of the band's name. John absolutely insists that he was unaware of a CBS News interview from February 10, 1964, in which John Lennon, dismissing a similar question about their moniker, quipped, "It means Beatles, doesn't it? But that's just a name, you know, like 'shoe'." Paul McCartney immediately chimed in, "The Shoes, you see? We could have been called the Shoes for all you know." But if the band's name was intended to be an intentional evocation of that moment, there would certainly have been a "The," which there isn't. Asked why, John says, "I guess Shoes just sounded right... like 'look at those cool shoes' or 'where are my shoes?' ... it was like Sparks or Wings or Faces or even Big Star... The first time we heard the 'the' was from a writer...we winced and corrected him. 'No, no…it's just Shoes.' ... 'The Shoes' just rubbed us wrong.”

- fra ‘Boys Don’t Lie: A History of Shoes’ af Mary E. Donnelly og Moira McCormick. 2013.

Rundt omkring på nettet forsøger ildsjæle at tale Shoes debutplade, ’Black Vinyl Shoes’, fra 1977, op til at have samme powerpop kvaliteter som Big Stars 3rd, så langt vil jeg ikke strække mig. Albummet blev indspillet i en dagligstue i Zion i Illinois, bandets hjemby. Det udkom i 1000 eksemplarer på Shoes eget pladeselskab Black Vinyl Records og blev solgt i lokale pladeforretninger og via en postordreaftale med magasinet Bomp! Om jeg tager fejl med hensyn til pladens kvaliteter, kan I selv vurdere herunder. PVC Records fandt i øvrigt pladen så fremragende, at de genudgav den i november 1978.

Her er hele debutalbummet:

En originaludgave af ’Black Vinyl Shoes’, står vist i omkring 1200 - 1300 kr. i dag.