Need More Pop
“Or What” by Erik Voeks (new track)
I feel a bit guilty.
Erik Voeks has just given me his last copy of Sandbox — an album he released in 1993 on Rockville, the same St. Louis label that kick-started Uncle Tupelo’s career. With the album long out of print, Voeks and his wife, Coleen, frequently comb eBay and Amazon for cheap copies.
“People ask me, ‘Are you really buying your own CD?'” Voeks says. “Unfortunately, yes.”
The guilty feeling subsides when I pop Sandbox in the stereo. The cruel irony of Voeks having to buy his own record is somehow perfect in light of the monstrously good tunes therein. If one were compiling a list of overlooked ’90s nuggets, Sandbox would be right there. Released the same year as Nirvana’s In Utero (yes, folks, it really has been 15 years), Voeks’ only LP is pure bliss for the Matthew Sweet set. Its brainy hooks and colorful chord changes recall Robyn Hitchcock and The dB’s. Its lush harmonies speak to an affinity for Big Star and Teenage Fanclub.
You can pick up Sandbox on iTunes, but you won’t get a picture of Voeks in a snazzy art-school shirt. Nor will you get liner notes divulging that the album was produced by power-pop guru Adam Schmitt and that Wilco expatriate Jay Bennett (then of Titanic Love Affair) stopped by to lay down a ripping guitar solo.
“My Dentist” by Erik Voeks, from Sandbox (1993, Rockville Records)
For a music collector like Voeks, downloading just doesn’t quite cut it.
“The experience of playing a record is something you can’t download,” Voeks says. “You can’t get up in 20 minutes and download the second half.”
Voeks has more than just a passing interest in the subject — it’s his livelihood. As the co-owner of Needmore Discs in Shawnee, Voeks is banking on the continued viability of selling used CDs and vinyl. With the recent closings of Recycled Sounds and Music Exchange, Needmore is suddenly the wily ol’ Julio Franco of Kansas City’s brick-and-mortar music stores.
“It’s obvious the business is changing,” Voeks says. “Downloading does take a toll, but because of it, records are having a resurgence. We keep losing more CDs and getting more records as the market sees fit.”
Needmore’s strongest asset is Voeks’ far-reaching music knowledge, culled from 18 years working in record stores (the only job he’s had since immigrating here from his native Australia). On this particular evening, Voeks is on the phone doling out recommendations to a regular named Greg who likes dark instrumental music in the vein of Godspeed You Black Emperor. His pick: Broken Social Scene’s Feel Good Lost.
“Not all of their albums are instrumental, but that one is, and I think you’d like it,” Voeks offers. “You should get on your computer and look them up — oh, wait, you don’t have a computer.”
Technophobe music shoppers such as Greg are reassuring sunbeams poking through the music industry’s dark cloud of uncertainty. For the time being, at least, there are enough of them to keep Needmore on its feet.
“I really don’t fear for the life of the store,” Voeks says. “We have great regulars who support us. Sometimes I wonder whether they’re buying stuff to listen to or just to keep us in business.”
Few of Voeks’ customers are aware of his songwriting prowess. That may have something to do with the fact that he didn’t perform a single show for the first eight years he lived in Kansas City (1996-2004). Pressed for an explanation, Voeks jokingly blames “beer and television” and a fake coma before admitting that he was probably just too mired in messy relationships.
He returned to music in 2005 with a band called the Octopus Frontier, in which he split songwriting duties with Troy Van Horn of Federation of Horsepower.
“It was a tale of two bands,” Voeks says. “It was obvious when we did my stuff, obvious when we did his stuff. It didn’t seem to jell.”
Voeks hit on a more intuitive formula with guitarist Michael Stover, who helped assemble a backing band jokingly dubbed the L.A. Sessions Legends of Kansas City. With the same members as Stover’s organ trio, Wylde Chipmunk and the Cuddly-Poos, the rhythm section of Mike Myers (drums) and Jason Beers (bass) laid the foundation for Voeks’ return to the stage last August.
The unit plays the bulk of Sandbox and a wealth of new material, some of which will surface on Voeks’ MySpace page for a week and then disappear.
“Some of them aren’t very good, but I stick them up there anyway,” Voeks says. “I get lazy when I record at home. There’ll be flat notes, but I get impatient and move on to the next instrument. But as a device to teach the band songs, they work.”
If Voeks followed the lead of one of his favorite songwriters — Robert Pollard of Guided By Voices — he’d have albums and albums worth of half-baked material. As it is, his fans will have to content themselves with Sandbox and the occasional live performance.
Hell, at least we can pay him for that.
