The dB's

More than four decades after they left their hometown of Winston-Salem, NC to make music in New York City, the dB’s’ revered body of work still commands the loyalty of a fiercely dedicated fan base. Although the dB’s only released four studio albums during their original lifespan, their expansive alt-pop artistry has also been heard on various archival collections that document musical phases and evolutions beyond those heard on the band’s official releases.

The latest, and possibly most startling, of these compilations, is I Thought You Wanted to Know: 1978–1981. Including 23 tracks of remastered early singles, demos, and live recordings; the set will be released as a CD and as a two-LP vinyl set, on the new Propeller Sound Recordings label.

I Thought You Wanted to Know: 1978–1981 compiles rare and obscure material from The dB’s formative early days, shortly after the band’s classic original lineup—singer-songwriter-guitarists Peter Holsapple and Chris Stamey, bassist Gene Holder, and drummer Will Rigby—convened in the Big Apple and began developing the audaciously original pop-rock sensibility that would blossom on the band’s landmark first two albums, Stands for deciBels and Repercussion, released in 1981 and 1982 respectively.

I Thought You Wanted to Know: 1978–1981’s treasure trove of rarities includes such legendary dB’s obscurities as the title track (a collaboration with Television guitarist Richard Lloyd), “If and When,” “We Should Be in Bed”, “Ash,” “You Got It Wrong,” “Death Garage,” and “She’s Green I’m Blue.” Also featured are early versions of such future dB’s classics as “Bad Reputation,” “Black and White,” “Dynamite,” and “The Fight,” as well as the band’s distinctive covers of such vintage pop numbers as “Time Has Come Today,” “Let’s Live for Today,” “Tomorrow Never Knows,” and “My Back Pages.”

“What we have here are home and field recordings of The dB’s,” comments Holsapple, whose illuminating liner notes provide a vivid account of the band’s life and music during this chapter of its history. “Most of these tracks predate the release of Stands for deciBels by two to three years, and were the basis of the signing of the band to Albion Records UK in 1980.”

Although a handful of I Thought You Wanted to Know’s studio tracks previously surfaced on Rhino Records’ 1993 collection Ride the Wild Tom-Tom, many more are being released to the public for the first time—and all are appearing on LP for the first time ever.

“Had this early batch of tunes been released when recorded, it would have presented a different picture of the band from what the world got with Stands for deciBels,” Holsapple asserts, noting that when he originally joined the band, “Chris was the main singer and songwriter, I was the organ player, and tempos were mostly on the speedy side.

“I think that I Thought You Wanted to Know shows an important phase of the band, the stuff we were playing when we first got together in New York that we honed our sound on,” Holsapple says, adding, “It was a great time to be young North Carolina transplants in a band in Manhattan, eyes wide open and charged with electric energy!”

For I Thought You Wanted to Know, dB’s founder Stamey, who’s emerged in the years since as a respected producer and resourceful engineer, managed to lend new sonic presence to the archival tracks, many of them primitively recorded on obsolete gear.

“The live recordings,” according to Holsapple, “were found after months of Chris sifting through a trove of ancient cassettes, and we are glad to be able to include these key songs from those early years.”

The future members of the dB’s began playing together, in various combinations, in their teens in their hometown of Winston-Salem, in such early combos as Little Diesel, Rittenhouse Square, and the now-legendary Sneakers, which issued a pair of homespun EPs that were among the first American indie-rock releases to gain national attention. In 1977, Stamey moved to New York, where he became Alex Chilton’s bassist and launched a short-lived yet history-making indie label, Car Records, which released solo singles by Holsapple and by Chilton’s former Big Star partner Chris Bell.

The dB’s officially formed in the summer of 1978, when Holder and Rigby moved north to join Stamey. The group debuted with the Car single “(I Thought) You Wanted to Know”/“If and When.” Holsapple came on board that October. Although he initially joined as keyboardist, it wasn’t long before the band’s original repertoire was divided evenly between Stamey and Holsapple compositions. The foursome soon emerged as local heroes in their adopted hometown, becoming the unofficial house band for the downtown music weekly New York Rocker, whose founder, the late Alan Betrock, became a mentor to the band, releasing the dB’s single “Black and White”/“Soul Kiss” on his Shake label in late 1979.

The dB’s signed with the British label Albion and released 1981’s Stands for deciBels and 1982’s Repercussion, which became instant favorites among the fans, critics, and college-radio programmers fortunate enough to hear them. But the fact that the albums were available only as high-priced, sparsely distributed imports kept the band from reaching a wide audience in those pre-Internet days. Although Stamey went solo in 1982, the dB’s, with Holsapple at the helm, released two more underexposed yet much-loved albums, 1984’s Like This and 1987’s The Sound of Music, before disbanding.

Stamey launched a prolific solo career. Holsapple also recorded solo, became a member of the New Orleans-based roots-pop supergroup the Continental Drifters, and moonlighted as sideman with R.E.M. and Hootie and the Blowfish. Stamey and Holsapple briefly reunited in 1991 for the well-received duo album Mavericks (followed by 2009’s Here and Now and 2021’s Our Back Pages). Holder unveiled his guitar skills as a member of the Wygals and served a stint as bassist with Yo La Tengo, while keeping busy as producer and engineer on projects by the likes of Yo La Tengo, Luna, and Steve Wynn. Rigby demonstrated his vocal and songwriting skills on a pair of solo albums, while serving as stage and studio drummer with Steve Earle, Laura Cantrell, and Matthew Sweet.

The classic dB’s lineup reconvened for 2012’s rapturously received reunion album Falling Off the Sky, recorded at Stamey’s Chapel Hill studio Modern Recording. The album showed the reunited dB’s to still be a potent creative force, with the musicians’ songwriting, performing, and arranging skills as sharp and inventive as ever.

I Thought You Wanted to Know: 1978-1981 is the first in a projected series of dB’s releases on Propeller Sound Recordings, a new label founded by Jefferson Holt, longtime friend and confidant to the dB’s, and partner Jay Coyle. Coyle has spent the last decade helping artists direct their own releases by creating their own label structures. With Propeller, these two industry veterans have linked up to create a new label focused on serving artist communities in a new fan-focused approach to the indie label landscape.

According to Holsapple, “We’re hoping to present the entire catalog of the band to the modern listening public in improved editions that will feature lots of extras, and in formats like vinyl. It’s important to us to make sure that The dB’s’ recorded body of work gets an aesthetically appealing treatment that reflects its validity decades after it was originally released. We made these records to be played and played, so hopefully folks will need replacement copies by now!”