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In 1981, The dB’s debut album, Stands for deciBels, was released by UK label Albion Records. The original lineup of the band has regrouped for dates to celebrate the first U.S. vinyl pressing on Propeller Sound Recordings.
The quartet became a band in New York City in 1978. They are among the select few that can lay claim that previously, as teenagers in North Carolina they heard Big Star records played on the radio. If power pop would be the default description of the dB’s, the group (Peter Holsapple, Chris Stamey, Will Rigby and Gene Holder) would evolve beyond any tidy genre.
Leading up to the Sunday, Oct. 13 show at Shank Hall, we chatted with drummer Will Rigby. Terry Alan Hackbarth opens the show.
Rigby met Holsapple in third grade in 1964, Stamey went to the same grade school and Rigby knew who Holder was back then. “There wasn’t that many people playing rock music so the ones that were, certainly knew of each other,” he says. Today he says the dynamic of the reunited original lineup is pretty much the same.
deciBels and Repercussion
Stands for DeciBels by The dBs
With Stands for deciBels recorded in 1980, the band was unable to secure a U.S. deal, so it was released a year later on British label Albion Records. In summer 1981 the band would record the follow up LP Repercussion.
“We were sort of based out of London for a lot of 1981. We did a tour there, recorded a single and in the summer recorded our second album. We spent quite a bit of time in London that year,” he says. Rigby, Holsapple and soundman Mitch Easter would also collaborate with Soft Boys guitarist Kimberly Rew on sessions that Holder produced. Record heads will recall the Soft Boys had released the LP “A Can of Bees.” Albion seized the moment released a promo cassette sealed in a can known as A Can of dBs.
Rigby recalls we were fairly unknown everywhere “with the exception of Sweden where our first album went Top 20” which led to gigs in Stockholm and Amsterdam. Around that time, they also recorded songs that would appear on a live album Start Swimming, along four other NYC bands, recorded at London’s Rainbow Theater.
Technology and Time
Finally available on vinyl as a domestic release, the debut album is also available on streaming services—a format that did not exist then. “CDs didn’t exist when it came out. It was all vinyl and cassettes,” Rigby notes.
In 1985 Rigby’s solo debut album Sidekick Phenomenon (discogs.com/release/402994-Will-Rigby-Sidekick-Phenomenon) was released by Yo La Tengo. It is a miniature homemade masterpiece. “Those were the very first home demos I made. I didn’t make those recordings thinking I was making a record. Georgia and Ira asked if they could put it out.” Not until 2002 would he release Paradoxaholic, an album that echoes NRBQ and Slim Dunlap. Rigby would also go on to play with Steve Earle and Matthew Sweet.
After several lineup changes the dB’s called it a day in 1988, Rigby fondly recalls a 1984 tour opening for REM “They were on their way up and we were without record label support. The college rock radio scene at the time was heating up and our record (Like This discogs.com/master/36562-The-dBs-Like-This) was neck and neck with REM’s album Reckoning.”
Hindsight
Rigby moved to NYC in 1978. What advice would he give himself knowing what he knows now? “Buy real estate. It was still run down and cheap when I moved there, it was before real estate went insane. I regret not buying our apartment when it was offered to me in ’89.”
“Do box sets count?” Rigby asked when proposed with the idea of stranding on a desert isle with only one work of art to keep him company. On the day of our interview Rigby picked the Neil Young archives box set.
“Historically I’m a huge Dylan fan,” he says, “I have dozens of books and almost everything he ever recorded. It might be Blonde On Blonde, Bringing It All Back Home, Highway 61 Revisited, John Wesley Harding…” he trails off with a laugh, “it’s hard to decide.”
Get Stands for DeciBels 2024 remaster at Amazon here.
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