Record Store Day 2013: Tommy Keene - Back To Zero Now

12XU Austin will re-issue one of the greatest slabs of 7" vinyl ever released in honor of Record Store Day 2013. Tommy Keene's "Back To Zero Now" b/w "Mr. Roland" originally appeared as a bonus 7" with later pressings of his first LP, Strange Alliance, on Avenue Records. This limited edition RSD release will feature a picture sleeve for the first time ever.

The label will also reissue Tommy's impossible to find Strange Alliance album in May with two songs not originally featured on the LP, "Nothing Is Gray" and "Stuck On A Ship," making it a necessary purchase even for those of us lucky enough to already own a copy of the original 1982 LP.

Serious kudos are due 12XU Austin for reissuing this crucial music.

Tommy Keene

There are many enduring mysteries from the 1980s. Why did people like Ronald Reagan? What did he know about Iran Contra and when? Was The Safety Dance a real dance like The Twist or The Mashed Potato or a metaphor for nuclear war? Who let Bruce Willis record an album?

But perhaps the greatest mystery of all is why Tommy Keene--a man who wrote some of the catchiest pop songs imaginable--failed to break through to a mass audience while acts like Mr. Mister were able to rule the charts.

I was lucky to be exposed to Tommy Keene through a local "progressive rock" radio station, WHFS in Annapolis, MD. Tommy Keene was a D.C. area fixture, and WHFS played his music alongside Elvis Costello, Marshall Crenshaw, Nick Lowe, and others.

Back in 1993 Alias Records did the world the favor of compiling some of Keene's pre-Geffen material and some unreleased material on The Real Underground CD. "Nothing Happened Yesterday" was originally released on the excellent Places That Are Gone EP, while the wonderful cover of the Who's "Tattoo" first appeared on the CD. Keene's latest release is a collaboration with Guided By Voices' Bob Pollard.