Donewaiting 9: Bill Fox

MP3: Bill Fox – I Only Did it Cuz I Felt So Lonely
MP3: The Mice – Little Rage

I think we’ve spent plenty of time talking about Bill Fox’s two solo albums and most recent record, One Thought Revealed, so let’s take a second to revisit Fox’s beginnings with Cleveland power-pop band The Mice. Fox started the band with his drummer brother, Tommy Fox, eventually bringing bassist Ken Hall on board. The For Almost Ever EP came out in 1985, and it made a believer out of many, including Bob Pollard, who shares Fox’s love of tasty hooks and faux English accents. “Not Proud of the USA” is like a Cleveland kid’s version of the Sex Pistols.

A full-length, Scooter, followed in ’86, adding some jangle to the fuzz and further perfecting that mix of power and pop. (Superchunk later covered the track “Bye Bye Kitty Cat.”) You can now download both releases as one, For Almost Ever Scooter, courtesy Scat Records. A final album, Canterbury Bells, was never released, but you can probably find it if you dig around the Internets a bit.

Above is an mp3 of one of my favorite Mice tracks off Scooter, “Little Rage” (which Fox has been known to play solo from time to time), along with an mp3 of “I Only Did it Cuz I Felt So Lonely,” a Mice-evoking song off Fox’s recently released limited-run Before I Went to Harvard cassette.

Thomas Jefferson Slave Apartments, Bill Fox, P. Blackk, Zero Star, Sundown and DJ Detox will play Friday, Feb. 3, at Ace of Cups. Note: That’s a lot of bands, so this will start earlier than most shows. Be sure to get there by 10pm to see Bill Fox.

One response to “Donewaiting 9: Bill Fox

  1. Good article on Fox – thanks.