Lawrence.com

Everyone's got at least one thing in his or her life that could use a serious redo, but in most circumstances physics or the irreversible march of time renders that dream impossible. One can't take back a bad relationship or a bad decision-but in the case of the Pedaljets, the members have gotten their chance at a big do-over for their second album, which in large part led to their breakup in 1990.

The Pedaljets came into their own back in the '80s, touring as an independent band among the likes of Hüsker Dü and the Replacements. The band garnered critical acclaim with the 1988 release of "Today Today," but circumstances surrounding the release of their self-titled second album and the weariness from overtouring resulted in an untimely breakup. Yet, knocking on 17 years later, the band has been granted second life thanks to the producing efforts of ex-Shiner member Paul Malinowski and the interest of local tastemakers and Oxblood Records entrepreneurs Robert Moore (of Sonic Spectrum) and Megan Hamilton, who chose to release the record.

The Pedaljets (and Malinowski, briefly) sat down with lawrence.com recently at Midwestern Musical Company in midtown KC to discuss old times (including a fabulous true-life story about Prince) and the re-recording of their fated second album.

No-fi version of the podcast

lawrence.com: You originally hooked up in the early '80s in Lawrence. What was the scene like at the time?

Mike Allmayer: There was a scene that existed before us: the band that was the inspiration for everybody was the Embarrassment. They were the heroes for all the Lawrence bands. They were on the cover of the New York Rocker, which was the coolest fanzine at the time. They played incredible rock music-bands like Get Smart came out of that: and the Micronotz: when Get Smart moved up to Chicago they left us all of their booking contacts. I think they got it from (Bill) Rich, the guy that ran Fresh Sounds: from what I recall we looked at this book and said 'Hey you know, all these clubs in America. This sounds fun.'

How did you go from starting that to landing an opening spot for Hüsker Dü on your first tour?

Allmayer: We opened up for them at Liberty Hall. They crashed at our place, the Pedaljet house, and drank gin and tonics into the late hours.

Rob Morrow: :and smoked cigarettes.

What was that first tour like?

Morrow: That was fun: that was so long ago.

Allmayer: They basically told us, 'Why don't you come out on this tour? You're not going to make a hell of a lot of money... enough for gas and to get to the next floor to sleep on.'

Morrow: And we had that book... We sent out cassette tapes-we booked the whole tour on cassette tapes: [they] were like the MySpace of the time.

I know you've told this story a few times already, but it bears repeating. What happened at the Minneapolis show with Prince?

Allmayer: To preface it, you have to keep in mind that this was the height of "Purple Rain." Prince was the height of music at the time, except for Michael Jackson, which now doesn't count. We were a punk rock band, but everyone was blown away by Prince.

Morrow: How can you not be blown away by "Purple Rain"?

Matt Kesler: That was the last gig of this tour. We were playing next door to where they filmed [the movie]. Our sound guy comes up and says 'Prince is here and he wants to jam on your gear, man.'

Allmayer: Remember how Steve would lie?

Kesler: So we start playing a song, and there's that drummer and he's got an ascot, with a couple of girls on each arm, then there's the wrestler guy. In the meantime they shut the doors so whoever was in there: he comes up onstage, he told everyone what to do, told the bass player what to do, gives the drummer a beat and just turns around and goes nuts.

Morrow: He used the lead guitar player, Scott Mize's guitar, which is a great Fender:when they opened it back up there was a perfumed white lace glove in there.

Phil Wade: Man, that stunk. He had to put it in a plastic bag.

Allmayer: He wore women's perfume, that was his whole thing. I always joked that I could smell him before I saw him:. Bob's (Mould, from Hüsker Dü) comment to that was like, 'If he ever picked up my guitar I'd go and pound him over the head with it.'

Describe what happened with your second album.

Allmayer: We were still working with Communion [Records], and I remember we were doing these demos and trying to put the thing together. The demos sounded great.

Wade: It partly was a heavy-handed producer who had a particular idea of what it was going to sound like, but also I think we were just road weary. We had been playing the songs a certain way and by the time we got into the studio we were all wanting to do something different...back in those days you couldn't edit anything or even really listen to stuff back. Where we recorded wasn't a good listening environment and we couldn't really tell what it sounded like. We got kicked out of that studio and were stuck with the tape.

Allmayer: We didn't have a chance to put any fine touches on it...

Morrow: The demo is better than the record.

Allmayer: We kind of eventually turned on each other and broke up. So, Matt and I had been talking for years about remixing it. I found out Rob had moved back to town. We sent [the tapes] down to West End and Mike Miller who said 'We gotta cook these out to even have a shot at it.' We weren't sure how we were going to mix it, and Paul [Malinowski] was down there and said, 'Why don't you let me do it?' We went down there like 'If this really sucks, we don't wanna do it.' We just wanted to see if there was something there. Paul pulled it up-as soon as I heard the bass and drums, I knew it was there.

Paul Malinowski: We literally had to bake the analog tapes-when analog tape is old you can't use it.

Morrow: Actually put it in a kitchen oven and bake it. We'd never heard of that before, so when we heard Mike Miller is going to take it home and put it in his oven, we were like 'What?! This is so f*ckin' typical. These guys are nuts.' But [when we heard it], it was a beautiful day.