Fox, Bill

Fox, Bill

Shelter From The Smoke

Scat

Scat Records offers up a definitive edition of Bill Fox's debut solo disc, Shelter from the Smoke, back in print after more than half a decade. Originally self-released in 1997 and reissued the following year by SpinArt, both previous versions featured different tracklists. This edition includes all songs from both versions, as well as the two tracks from a scarce 1996 Scat 7-inch. This reissue also marks the first time the album has been pressed on vinyl. Fox began his musical journey in early 1980s Cleveland with The Mice, who fused punk energy with British-Invasion-style songwriting and harmonies. He infamously dissolved the group on the eve of a European tour, then dropped out of the scene altogether, with an unfinished Mice LP in the can. In the early '90s, he began a series of home recordings which revealed a growing preference for acoustically based music, and formed the basis for Shelter from the Smoke as well as the follow-up Transit Byzantium (scheduled for a similar reissue treatment next year). Shelter also includes four electric tracks recorded with Fox's short-lived band The Radio Flyers. After a 1998 tour, Fox once again dropped out of music. Now he is performing again. For how long, nobody knows. Fox is one of those rare musicians who really does not enjoy the limelight, even declining an interview with Joe Hagan of The Believer, who went so far as to fly to Cleveland in hopes of meeting him. That and his refusal to "be on the...

Fox, Bill

Transit Byzantium

Scat

These newly remastered editions of Bill Fox’s second album are the first since its 1998 release, including the first-ever vinyl pressing. Listeners will hear a wider soundstage, more detail, and improved listenability. Recorded on 4-track cassette, the fidelity belies the sophistication and nuance of the songwriting, This adept remaster by John Golden Sr helps bring definition to the intimate, at-home feel of the album. It sparkles. Very similar in feel and quality to Fox’s debut album, much of Transit Byzantium draws from the same group of recordings. It has the same feel of musical inevitability, that the songs exist beyond time itself, their eventual manifestation guaranteed by Apollo. He could’ve given them to the Everly Brothers, or the Byrds, or the Who, but instead they were channeled through an everyman from Cleveland with an aversion to the limelight. And while a traditional folk influence colors several songs, even those possess the indelible stamp of Fox’s charismatic voice and personality. Although nearly entirely acoustic and with minimal percussion, these eighteen songs cycle through a remarkable variety of textures and moods. While much has quite rightly been written about the god-tier songwriting here (“Song of a Drunken Nightingale,” “My Baby Crying,” “I’ll Give It Away” for starters), it should also be noted that this is a guitar player’s record, though more in terms of conception than flash. Lines of harmony and counterpoint wander between parts, sublime in their invention though sometimes crudely documented.