Tracy Cole

Tracy Cole - My Special Love Song (1975)

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Lois - Staring at the Sun (1992)

I saw Lois playing a tiny solo gig, organised by Stephen Pastel at the record department of John Smith’s bookstore, Byre’s Road, Glasgow in about 1992.   She was part of the K records family,  based in Olympia, Washington State run by Calvin Johnson of Beat Happening.  In common with Pastel and Johnson,  Lois Maffeo had an approach where child-like simplicity, natural vocals and rudimentary musicianship, informed by punk, were part of the ethos.  In the early eighties, after moving from Arizona, Lois hosted a girl punk radio show.  A few years later she learnt the requisite three chords and started writing and performing.  Staring at the Sun comes from her excellent debut album,  Butterfly Kiss,  and the song is typical of the record’s spartan but sassy quality, with warm vocals and strummed guitars able to convey a range of heartfelt emotions. 

My Special Love Song by Tracy Cole, sounds very much like the sort of song that could have found a home on the K record label had it been 15 years later.  Cole was in her mid-teens when she recorded her only album,  On Top of The Mountain.  The second track from that record, My Special Love Song, is disarmingly simple - primitive strummed guitar, untutored vocal and an unembellished lyric, so pure and compelling  it would melt anyone’s heart.   Maybe the nearest comparison is Daniel Johnston’s True Love Will Find You in the End.  Cole has a different perspective but they share the same exposed honesty and authenticity.

Have no doubt, the whole album is an absolutely extraordinary, undiscovered classic.  It has never been reissued in any format and discogs has no record of it ever being resold on the second hand market.  The record is full of great songs sung at a slow place with a punk like attitude.  In true indie,  DIY style, the artwork for the sleeve was stuck on plain covers  by Tracy using Scotch tape and each copy individually signed with different messages from her.

It was recorded in Bullhead City Arizona, a town on the banks of the Colorado river.  Isolated by the encircling mountainous Mojave, the desert landscape provided the setting for Cole’s songs, -  the carefree teenage adventures of Fun Buggy, the alien landings of Silver Spacecraft or the spiritual appreciation of climbing to the Top of the Mountain.  This is genuine and literal outsider music.  It came from out of nowhere and sounded like nothing else that was around in 1975.  It is difficult to even gauge any strong musical influences, only the final track, the beautiful My Home to Be comes close to being a traditional folk lullaby.  The uniqueness of the solo recording and sense of place is conveyed by minimalistic simple guitar and voice,  embellished by unexpected use of spoken word, field recordings, double tracked guitars and electronica.

Stephen Pastel has now run Monorail records in Glasgow for the last 20 years. The shop is a mecca for independent music fans, supporting both new releases and reissues, often found nowhere else   It, as you would imagine, has an excellent selection of K records.  It would be wonderful if one day  On Top of The Mountain could be rereleased.  If so, it would sit on the shelves there,  completely at home at last.