Human Switchboard - Fly-In ep (1977/2019, Fat Possum)

What better way to commemorate another Record Store Day in the books than with a visit to a preceding RSD release?  Perhaps the only reason I never got around to featuring Cleveland's long departed Human Switchboard was because their catalog more or less became available via the handy Who's Landing in My Hangar? Anthology collection in 2011. Oddly enough as seemingly thorough as that album (and it's attendant bonus downloads, if I recall) was that wouldn't be the final H/S reissue in the pipeline.

Naturally, you took note of this records original 1977 copywrite date, and although this coed trio (eventually a quartet) called one of punk's early Meccas their hometown, they hardly bore any overlap with, say Pere Ubu or the Dead Boys, or for that matter other class of '77 mainstays like the Ramones and Talking Heads.  The four song Fly-In ep finds the band slotting in more appropriately with the likes of Question Mark and the Mysterians due in part to a mildly churning undercurrents of organ.  You won't find much in the way of jarring power chords here, rather a comparatively meager, and dare I say tentative lo-fi garage-pop aptitude overflowing with charm and integrity.  Fly-In's concluding number "San Francisco Nights" oozes an aplomb thoroughly steeped in the vein of the Velvet Underground, yet it's derivative nature is it's very selling point.  The 2019 Record Store Day reissue of this was adorned with wonderful packaging, a rather thick, 40-some-odd page black & white zine chockablock with articles, record reviews, gig flyers/posters and such, all pertaining to the band in question.  I didn't have the time or patience to scan the vast majority of the text, but I did sneak in roughly a page of concise liner notes.

01. Fly-In

02. Distemper

03. Shake It, Boys

04. San Francisco Nights

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