As you might know, we have one of the coolest local record stores in the country here in Charlotte. That store is Noble Records and its down is Dillon Smith. Dillon started selling what you would call “exclusives” every month which are albums that are released by a label and the store gets an exclusive version for their store…usually a cool color variant. Dillon later decided he wanted to do his own label and release his own archival releases and the first one up is this sweet gem from a band called Underground Fire. The original album came out in 1972 and there were only 1,500 copies in print. It is a sought after release for many collectors.
What is cool about this band is that they were a local band out of Monroe, North Carolin which is only 20 minutes from where I live and it is where Dillon grew up. He worked with the band and was able to come to agreement for a release. And what a great job they did with this release. The quality of the album jacket, the cool insert with a great interview from two of the original band members and the sound itself are all top notch quality. There are several color variants you can get including the standard black for you purists. You can buy at noblerecords.com. I purchased the most exclusive of the bunch which was the red/white pinwheel as there were only 200 copies of it released (and he is sold out of this variant).
A little about the band. The band consisted of Randy Jenkins (vocals), Mike Spurlock (Bass/vocal), Roger Helms (lead guitar), Errol English (rhythm guitar) and Danny Taylor (Drums). They came together in 1971 and scrapped up enough money to get a day in the studio. They played a lot of local venues and even played in a Battle of the Bands. They played a lot of covers from Alice Cooper, Grand Funk and The Stones so they needed original songs and they spent the week or so prior to the studio writing and fine tuning the songs. Oh yeah, these guys were in high school at the time.
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