Before the power-pop movement kicked into high-gear with the success of 1979’s Get The Knack and Cheap Trick’s Live at Budokan—pioneering Chicago-based group, Pezband, had already blazed a three-year trail of hard-edged, hook-laden and harmony-drenched pop-rock on three critically-acclaimed albums and two ferocious live EPs.
Unfortunately, Pezband was caught in-between the power-pop boom of the early ’70s—when Badfinger and The Raspberries were churning out hit singles—and the resurgence in the very-late ’70s, when The Knack and Cheap Trick had singles success. Had Pezband debuted a few years earlier or later, they certainly would have found a larger audience.
Further, the group’s choice of record company [the long-defunct New Jersey-based Passport Records] probably hurt their chances—as the label lacked the promotional resources to break the band (or any of their acts for that matter).
Though Pezband’s “Baby It’s Cold Outside,” and “Stop! Wait a Minute,” are staples of every “best-of power-pop” compilation—it took Japanese label Air Mail Recordings to release the long out-of print catalog of 50 Pezband tracks on three CDs in 2005. In the United States, pop-savvy Not Lame Records is the catalog’s online distributor. |
