Various Artists - Eccentric Soul: The Shoestring Label (Various Artists)

Various Artists - Eccentric Soul: The Shoestring Label (Various Artists)Operating in a basement studio at the confluence of the Mississippi and Missouri rivers, pipeline man Howard Neal and his appropriately named Shoestring label was Alton, Illinois' answer to a question no one asked. Pressed in minuscule numbers and barely outside the 62002 zip code, the singles by The James Family, Jimmie Green, Pete & Cheez, and Carletta Sue are prime examples of cosmic midwestern disco in search of a break. This heavy weight 10 song

and the chart-topping title track “Bad”

Any more time spent only weakened the original weight of the moment

The album's hit singles

Satie-influenced post-punk

The genre is always more expansive than what radio stations program

'Sliding Gliding Worlds'

they were with ZEKE before and got back in

the record is dense

in July 2009 the album debuted at #35 on The Billboard 200 even surpassing first-week sales of the band's previous outing

"Over the past couple years we got to know ourselves so much better as a band

Executive produced by a literal hit maker in Hitmaka

colorful love letter to suburban life