Dizzyby Throwing Muses

Dizzy is the sole single form 1989's Hunkpapa record. NME named it the 33rd best record of 1989. throwingmuses.com

Throwing Muses' Hunkpapa was released on this day in 1989.

Our thoughts are with the loved ones of Gary Smith, producer for Pixies, Throwing Muses, Tanya Donelly, Blake Babies, The Connells, Juliana Hatfield, Scrawl, 10,000 Maniacs, and Billy Bragg. He passed away from cancer on January 16, 2023. Smith was an American businessman, record producer, and artist's manager, known for his work recording albums by alternative rock musicians since the mid-1980s at Fort Apache Studios. Smith, who was sole owner of the studio, first became a partner co-owning the studio business in the late 1980s, moving it from Cambridge, Massachusetts, to Bellows Falls, Vermont, in 2002. A Rhode Island native, Smith gave supportive early guidance to Newport, Rhode Island's Throwing Muses group, advising them to move to Boston's burgeoning alternative music scene in 1986. That year he saw a new band called the Pixies opening for Throwing Muses at The Rat in Boston and convinced them to let him produce their first demos, known as The Purple Tape, in spring 1987 at an early incarnation of Fort Apache's studio digs, then a "ramshackle" building in a dangerous neighborhood. Since joining Fort Apache in the mid-1980s, Smith produced dozens of influential recordings, including the Pixies' Come On Pilgrim EP on the 4AD and Rough Trade Records labels. tinyurl.com

#1989 Stepsisters Kristin Hersh and Tanya Donelly formed Throwing Muses in 1980, when both were 14. A few years later, the group signed with the upstart British label 4AD and released two albums that earned critical acclaim but sold poorly. In America, the group got a deal with the Warner Bros. imprint Sire Records, which was hot for a hit and demanded a single from their next album, Hunkpapa. Hersh, the primary songwriter in the group, complied, delivering "Dizzy." Hersh, hears music in ways the typical listener doesn't. A head injury when she was 16 left her hearing sounds nobody else could hear. She also developed a dissociative personality to channel them. Music, to Hersh, could be tormenting, exhausting, and very intense. With "Dizzy," she was just giving the record company what they wanted on the sonic palate of popular taste. bit.ly Happy 1989! Thank you for powering KEXP for 50 years! kexp.org

A Rhode Island native, Gary Smith gave supportive early guidance to Newport, Rhode Island's Throwing Muses group, advising them to move to Boston's burgeoning alternative music scene in 1986. RIP Gary Smith