MINT COLORED VINYL
In the 90s, Jad Fair had five favorite bands and songwriters: Daniel Johnston, The Pastels, Sonic Youth, Teenage Fanclub, and Yo La Tengo. That's a pretty cool list, but what's special about it is that over the course of about twelve years, Fair made music with all of them in some form or another. Jad Fair has been productive for half a century, long before the internet could create a simultaneous and seemingly endless archive of everything someone has done with their favorites. He's been involved in at least several hundred tracks, many of which were released on small labels that no longer exist and are now out of print. In fact, one of these collaborations Fair did in the 90s—Strange But True with Yo La Tengo—is hard to find, even though it was released in the US on October 20, 1998, by Matador Records. Now, for the first time, the album is being reissued on vinyl by Joyful Noise and Bar/None. When Fair played a gig with Yo La Tengo at a party in the mid-90s, they were all friends, fans, and collaborators who had worked on or released records together. So when Fair suggested they go into the studio together, the trio was immediately on board. The result, "Strange But True," is as wonderfully diverse and wild as a vast meadow of native grasses. This collaborative album showcases the incredible range of the artists and transports us back to a time when indie rock could be as strange and rebellious as its creators wanted it to be.