The Mr. T Experience - The Miracle of Shame 12" - Pink Vinyl

Sounds Rad (2024, Reissue)

Until this 12" reissue came out at the end of last year, I don't think I've listened to this five song Mr. T Experience EP aside from one time right when it came out back in the year 2000.  I didn't like it then, so I didn't listen to it again and it just ended up in my CD rack with the rest.  Now it's back with its first ever release on vinyl.  I commend Sounds Rad for finally getting this out there, but I do feel there are other Mr. T Experience reissues that I would have preferred be tackled first.

As much as Alcatraz was a departure from Revenge Is Sweet and So Are You, The Miracle Of Shame is so different from the rest of the MTX catalog up to that point that 25 years later, I still don't really know what to make of it.  For the kind of music that it is, it's well done and Frank's lyrics are as sharp as ever.  But it's very unlike most of what came before it.

There's the breezy, jangle of "Spy vs Spy" and "Leave The Thinking To The Smart People."  Things go a little more power pop on "Mr. Ramones."  The distortion kicks in more fully on "Stephanies Of The World Unite," but it's got a vaguely psychedelic vibe and a wacky fuzzed out outro.  The EP wraps up with the acoustic "Don’t Know Where Dan Treacy Lives."  All of these are good songs, but they're not really what I personally want from the Mr. T Experience.  It's a curveball in their discography that my peabrain still isn't able to process correctly, as it wants something faster and louder.

That said, the reissue is lovingly done as usual, with the five songs occupying the A side of the 12" and an etching of the cover art on the B side.  I'll also always support more CD only albums getting the vinyl treatment.  I picked it up because I will pick up all of these reissues.  I like Mr. T Experience more than enough to give up the money and shelf space required to have this record in the collection to keep it complete.

The Mr. T Experience - The Miracle of Shame:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_kZA6E82qSeWJNFlIRFIM2XL4uM-Pygez4

Dr. Frank - Show Business Is My Life LP - 180g Vinyl (/200)

Sounds Rad (2024, Reissue)

It's taken me way too long to write about the Sounds Rad reissue of this Dr. Frank record.  It came out last year and is (sort of?) part of the Sounds Rad Mr. T Experience reissue campaign.  I'm eagerly waiting for the next entry in that series.  It's been a little quiet lately, but I keep hoping the next one announced will be Making Things With Light.  Maybe my favorite Mr. T Experience record, but definitely the one I would really like to hear a remastered and spruced up version of.

But today, we have the Dr. Frank solo record from 1999.  I remember after Love As Dead had come out there were already rumors and scuttlebutt about a Dr. Frank solo record.  Based on the recent string of acoustic songs on Mr. T Experience records, I had assumed that a solo record would be more of that with just Frank and a guitar.

What we got instead was a record of predominantly full band rock songs that to be honest, mostly don't really sound all that different from the Mr. T Experience records of the era.  I was really disappointed by this at the time and truthfully, I didn't really listen to the record all that often.  As the years went by, I didn't remember much from it aside from the "Knock Knock" song, which was admittedly fun.

When the reissue was announced, I was again kind of disappointed that it was 'taking' a spot from a Mr. T Experience album that could have been released instead.  But, I didn't have this on vinyl and figured it was time to give the album a shot again.  Especially as all of the Sounds Rad reissues have been excellent, and the die cut vinyl sleeve on this one was particularly cool looking.  And I'm glad I did, it's better than I remember it being and listening to it without a preconceived notion of what I thought it should be let me appreciate the record more for what it is.

In a lot of ways, I think it's an even stronger record than Revenge Is Sweet And So Are You, another one that I didn't appreciate as much at the time, but ended up enjoying more when I went back to it many years later.  It's more varied in sound and kind of has a ramshackle mix tape sort of vibe to it as opposed to the glossiness of Revenge.  And there are a handful of acoustic songs on here too, so it's not like that section was completely ignored or anything.

In hindsight, I should have given this album more of a chance 25 years ago, but I had less patience back then and was always looking for that next amazing thing.  A lot of times, I never found it and ignored some pretty good stuff that was sitting right under my nose.

Dr. Frank - Show Business Is My Life:
https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_mFjGDEION3dzNaLpeg99Nt7EV_suLDB9k

The Mr. T Experience - Road to Ruin LP - Yellow Vinyl (/300)

 

Sounds Rad (2023, Reissue)

I'm a much bigger fan of The Mr. T Experience than I am of the Ramones.  I know the Ramones' hits and they range from 'fine' to 'pretty great,' but they aren't a band that I ever connected with and I think part of that is just because of my age.  They were an older band and I was more focused on what was going on around me during my formative years than I was about what was going on in the past.  And on top of that, they weren't old enough for my parents to care about them, so I didn't hear them growing up like I did The Beatles, Electric Light Orchestra, Tom Petty and that sort of thing.  The Ramones were just in that sweet spot where they were somewhat invisible to me.

The Mr. T Experience, on the other hand, was front and center in my life, particularly in 1998 when I was twenty-one and the original version of this album was released.  Clearview Records was doing a gimmick where they were having bands cover entire Ramones albums and when Road To Ruin was up, The Mr. T Experience stepped to the plate.  I have the original version of this from when it first came out.  It had a felt cover and was on split color vinyl.  I remember being psyched that I had gotten my hands on the limited, fancy-pants version, though I don't actually remember listening to it very much.

Now that I have this newly re-released and revitalized version, I'm still not sure it's going to be an album that I revisit with a ton of frequency.  It is better than I remember it being and I think a lot of that is because of how they spruced up the way everything sounds.  It's much fuller where it needs to be and brighter in the other spots.  MTX does a perfectly serviceable job on these songs, though I can't pretend to be super familiar with several of the originals.  "I Wanna Be Sedated" is still a lot of fun, no matter what band is playing it.

It's a little perplexing to me why this album was prioritized so high on the list in the Sounds Rad reissue series.  It certainly should be reissued, of course, but if you were to ask me, there are other albums I would have put in line before it.  Regardless, it's important to own and I'm happy to still be getting the 'dibs' versions of these albums.  I am eagerly awaiting the earlier Mr. T Experience albums, in particular, and am hopeful that Making Things With Light is coming very soon.

The Mr. T Experience - Road to Ruin:
https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_nbhaCiozW08Qk06GzudRNQd8bQ0Hg6xP8

The Mr. T Experience - Revenge is Sweet and So Are You LP - White Vinyl (/300)

Sounds Rad (2022, Reissue)

1995's Love Is Dead was a pretty important record for me.  While it wasn't my first exposure to The Mr. T Experience, it was the first new record of theirs to come out after I had gotten into them in 1994.  Love Is Dead hit me like a ton of bricks.  It had built on the sound of their more recent releases and had really set itself as THEE album of this era of MTX.  A couple of years later when Revenge is Sweet and So Are You came out, I was primed and ready for the next chapter in that greatness.

What I got was a record that has always sort of perplexed me.  I like it, as it's hard not to.  It has an very similar sound and vibe to Love Is Dead, but something about it never quite hit me the same way back in 97.  I listened to it a lot.  Examining the lyrics, trying to pick out the chord changes...but for some reason it just didn't hit me with the same sort of impact.  Was it too similar?  Was it something else?  I never figured it out back then and after a few months, the album just sort of faded into the rearview for me.

Eventually I revisited it many years later and had a much warmer reception to it than I had previously.  I still can't pinpoint exactly what happened in 1997.  The best I can come up with is a combination of the record not quite hitting whatever my bizarre expectations were based on how obsessed I had been with their prior record and maybe just being in a somewhat different place musically in 1997 than I had been in 1995.  Looking at it today, it's a fun record to listen to and I appreciate it way more now.

The Sounds Rad reissue is top notch, as they've all been.  The record sounds better now than it ever has.  Slightly less compressed sounding and capturing a bit more of the energy of the recordings that the original did.  The artwork is a lovely gatefold and you can really tell the care that went into all of the packaging.  But it's the way this thing sounds that truly makes it worth purchasing again.  These Sounds Rad pressings are absolutely the definitive versions of The Mr. T Experience catalog and I keep waiting with baited breath that Making Things With Light gets announced very, very soon.

The Mr. T Experience - Shards Vol. III LP - Sea Glass Vinyl (/300)

Sounds Rad (2021)

This is the final volume of the Mr. T. Experience Shards project, wherein they compiled all of the weirdo non-album songs from the various singles, compilations and bonus tracks strewn across the land over the course of a few decades.  This particular volume mainly focuses on singles and B sides.  It's twelve tracks long, but for whatever reason I feel like it should be longer in my head.

I think that's primarily because even though I have a bunch of Mr T. Experience 7"s, I keep forgetting that there were a good amount of album tracks on those, not to mention about thirty seven appearances of the song "Together Tonight."  The tracks that are here are pretty great for the most part, with lots of fun cover songs and the tremendous tracks from the Alternative Is Hear To Stay single.

One of the things about these MTX singles is how difficult it was for me to track them down in a pre-internet world.  Now granted, it's not like I'm saying the internet didn't exist in 1995, but it sure didn't have the robust record hunting features that it boasts these days.  I spent a lot of time coming through record stores and trying to come up with interesting trades to other folks to obtain them.  I think in some ways that hunt makes me appreciate those 7"s a bit more than this LP.  While the songs undoubtedly sound better on the comp, there's something special about the memories forged by tracking down those singles, even if I can't really remember the specifics of any of those memories.

The Mr. T Experience - Shards Vol. III:
https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_mYKYzUXNSpF_pHvpQlFXZ9XGWhY5H2ddg

The Mr. T Experience - Alternative is Here to Stay 7" - Black w/ Red Swirl Vinyl

Sounds Rad (2020)

In case you missed it, The Mr. T Experience and Sounds Rad have been reissuing albums over the past few years.  Rumor has it that this will continue for the foreseeable future until every album has been reissued.  This is a project that I have been following pretty closely and even though I have original pressings of most of these releases, I'm keen to see what's next.  

Something I didn't see coming was a reissue of the Alternative is Here to Stay 7".  I had figured (and hoped) that the Mr. T Experience singles would eventually be compiled onto an LP to go along with the two volumes of Shards compilations that have already been released.  I think that might still be a plan of theirs, but I guess we might see more of the individual 7"s as well. 

You'd be hard pressed to start with a better one than this.  I believe that this was the first 'new' MTX record that came out after I discovered them back in the 90s.  I likely only had a few of their records to my name at the time, but this one knocked my socks off.  Anyone with a partial pulse in 1995 could tell you how much we heard the word 'alternative' on an hourly basis.  To see it sent up as a 60s inspired pop punk ditty extolling its virtues, well that was next level funny to me.

The B side is "New Girlfriend."  One of those classic Dr. Frank relationship songs casting a wry eye at things.  It's fast, it's catchy and there's some talking about breasts.  Just the sort of thing that made me chuckle when I was eighteen years old.  And it still makes me chuckle today, to be honest, as it's not done in a mean spirited or cruel way.  It's just a fun, well written and silly song and that's more than you can say for a lot of things these days.

The CD version from back in 1995 also had a third song called "You Today" (and an 'alternative' version fo "Alternative is Here to Stay" that I honestly have zero memory of).  "You Today" isn't on either of the Shards LPs.  Surely this means they'll still have to do a singles comp, right?  Right?

The Mr. T Experience - "Alternative is Here to Stay":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fHP5BgVvWmo&ab_channel=Dr.Frank

The Mr. T Experience - ...And The Women Who Love Them LP - Silver Vinyl

Sounds Rad (2020, Reissue)

When I wrote about the red vinyl version of the first Mr. T Experience album a few weeks ago, I said that one of the reasons I liked having it in my collection as it was a building block for a band that would become one of my all time favorites.  Everybody's Entitled to their Own Opinion was an album I tracked down after I had been listening to the band for a bit.  The most recent Mr. T Experience record that was available when I heard them for the first time was this EP, ...And The Women Who Love Them.

The first time I heard the Mr. T Experience was on the 1995 Slice of Lemon compilation.  They did a cover of the Schoolhouse Rock song "Adjectives" and that's what made me go look for more of their music.  I wonder how many people discovered them from that compilation.  I'm guessing it probably wasn't many.

I am not totally positive ATWWLT was the very first Mr. T Experience album I bought.  I picked up this one, Our Bodies Ourselves and Making Things With Light all around the same time.  They are the three MTX records I've known the longest and in a lot of ways they will always be fighting each other for the top spot of being my favorite (Along with Love As Dead, which would come out the following year in 1996).

What I can say for sure is that I just loved this EP.  "Tapin' Up My Heart" was immediately a song that jumped out at me and I went crazy for the blown out guitar fuzz lead, start/stop verse and of course the incredibly well constructed lyrics.  The rest of the CD's six other tracks were equally great tackling relationship highs and lows with a sharp wit and even sharper hooks.  Then there was the secret hidden song.

The 7" version of the release had "Tapin' Up My Heart" and "My Stupid Life" from the CD, but it also had an unlisted acoustic song which I now know is called "How'd The Date End?"  When I used to put this song on mix tapes, I titled it myself as being called "Love Connection."  In the early 2000s, Lookout put out the ...And The Women Who Love Them - Special Addition CD.  When they did, they included "How'd The Date End?" but it was a different recording that had a few extra lines.  I hated it.  I felt like it was lacking the urgency of the version from my 7" and I didn't think the extra lyrics were worth sacrificing that energy.  Oomph goes a long way with me and the original version had the Oomph I was looking for.  I got a lot angrier about stupid things twenty years ago than I do now.

With this new vinyl version, the seven songs from the CD are present along with the original version of "How'd The Date End?"  All eight songs in one place and even better yet all finally on vinyl.  To say this record sounds great is the understatement of the year.  None of these songs have ever sounded as good as they do on this record.  I can't believe the fullness of everything that is just not present on my old CD version.

Also, I think I lucked out with my copy.  I put in dibs for the record as soon as it was an option from Sounds Rad, but the people who bought the MTX Forever compilation had first dibs on the dibs.  I didn't buy that comp because I already have those songs.  I'm on board for reissues of full albums that sound better, but I didn't need a Mr. T Experience best-of that wasn't a list of the songs I actually thought were the best.  So, by the time I got to place dibs, I was number seven on the overflow list.  Sadly no spot ever opened up and I was relegated to the second pressing that wasn't on 180g vinyl.  But let me tell you, the version they sent me is pretty damn heavy.  I don't have a scale that weighs in grams, but I think that maybe they had some leftover 180g versions and I still managed to get one even though I missed out.  Regardless which version I have, it sounds incredible.

I have no idea how this write up got so long.  In summary, all that you really need to know is that this is pretty much a perfect slice of mid 90s pop punk, presented as an incredible sounding version and finally compiling all of the tracks from the recording in one place.  You would be a fool not to have this in your collection.

The Mr. T Experience - ...And The Women Who Love Them (YouTube Music full album playlistL
https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_lw4lASdWJVaKOg60udq5uTkSWO4LcHg_8

The Mr. T Experience - Shards Volume Two LP - Red Vinyl (/200)

Sounds Rad (2018)

This is the second of two LPs of Mr. T Experience songs that had no real home on any albums or EPs.  It will also be another instance where I write about this band and aside from this sentence will exclusively refer to them as The Mr. T Experience and not MTX.  For reasons I cannot explain, but will attempt to describe, the use of the three letter abbreviation as the defacto band name has always kind of bugged me.

When I worked in the music 'biz,'  I worked at the company that did the college radio promotion for Yesterday Rules when that album came out.  Lookout insisted on using the abbreviation for the promo materials and on the CD itself and how the album was listed in the trade charts.  When I asked them why they were burying a band name with almost twenty years of history at that time - who were also, by the way one of my very favorite bands - I was given some sort of non-committal answer about it being hipper and for 'the kids' and to definitely not mention it to Dr. Frank when he came to our office to say hi.  I didn't mention it.  I've always wondered what would have happened if I did as it was the only thing on my mind the entire time he was in our office.  Oh well.

Back to the matter at hand, this is a compilation of a lot of random Mr. T Experience songs from a lot of different eras of the bands existence.  Some are great and I've always loved like "Hello Kitty Menendez" and "T Shirt Commercial," both from influential compilation albums I had as a youngster.  Others are somewhat newer to me like "We Are The Future People Of Tomorrow" and "Crash."  These are also from compilations, but I didn't have those when they originally came out, so I don't have the preexisting connection and nostalgia.

Lastly, it also includes one of my very favorite songs, "How'd The Date End?"  But, it's not the same version as the one that's on the Tapin' Up My Heart 7".  This one has an extra part with more lyrics that wasn't on the 7" version, but I just don't like it as much.  That 7" version has a certain roughness and energy to it that has always connected with me and I have loved it just the way it is for the last twenty-four years.  Part of me thinks that it is kind of humorous that all these years and rereleases later, it is still sort of the hidden gem you can only get on that specific 7", but then the other part of me wonders how many people have never heard the version of the song I like the best.  I also wonder why on earth I would possibly care?  I still have the 7" and the song, why does it matter what anyone else hears?  I do not have answers to quandaries like this.

I can say that it is nice to have all of these songs compiled into one nice and easy LP.  I will also echo a point I made from the last Shards review and that is I really hope that somewhere along the line, an actual singles compilation with every 7" and EP song gets released. That's what I would most like to see next in the Mr. T Experience reissue project anyway.

Once again I can not find a version of this album to listen to online to point you towards aside from a Spotify listing.  If that's your thing, you can give it a whirl here: https://open.spotify.com/album/2bJPJUnzxI2QTNH8JNHbGY

The Mr. T Experience - Shards Volume One LP - Blue Vinyl (/200)

Sounds Rad (2018)

There was definitely a period in the mid 90s where I would have told you without hesitation that the Mr. T Experience was one of the best bands on the planet.  The way they combined essential pop punk hooks with lyrics that were way too smart for me to completely process put them head and shoulders above so many other bands of the era that were mining the same influences.  While I can't say I followed them every step of the way after a certain point, they went on a multi album spree for a while that is an essential part of my record collection.

Shards compiles a bunch of 'lost songs' from a large swath of time that the Mr. T Experience was active.  Most have been released on compilations, singles or hastily added tracks to the CD versions of some of their albums.  For many, this is their first appearance on vinyl.  There are some that have been long time favorites of mine such as the Shonen Knife cover "Flying Jelly Attack," "Semi-OK" and one of several iterations of "God Bless America." 

There also a few that I've never heard including an interesting version of "Sackcloth and Ashes" that is just Dr. Frank and bucket load of tremolo.  I dig the way the song is stripped bare and allows the vocal melody to really shine through.  

The entire album is surprisingly consistent in sound and song quality considering the different sources of each of these songs.  I enjoy finally having these songs in one handy place on vinyl.  There's a volume two out there digitally, I can only assume it'll make its way to vinyl at some point as well.  After that, I hope they get around to doing a proper singles compilation of all of those tracks that aren't on studio albums.  Again, would be nice to have those all in one place for a quick spin on the turntable.

The Mr. T Experience - Shards Volume One (I couldn't find this on Bandcamp or anywhere other than Spotify, which I never use.  Maybe it's useful to you though):

https://open.spotify.com/album/3CoqEEJ84rGUaIe6dZ9hmw