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Let's Active was a jangle pop band based in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. The principal songwriter and sole continuous member was Mitch Easter, who kept the band active through most of the 1980s. Although critically praised, Let's Active had limited commercial success and are mostly known because of Easter's connections with R.E.M. as the producer of their early albums. The name of the group is taken from a t-shirt sold in Japan bearing the inadvertently nonsensical English phrase (a popular fashion at the time).
Let's Active formed in 1981 and soon signed with I.R.S. Records. The original ...read more
Let's Active was a jangle pop band based in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. The principal songwriter and sole continuous member was Mitch Easter, who kept the band active through most of the 1980s. Although critically praised, Let's Active had limited commercial success and are mostly known because of Easter's connections with R.E.M. as the producer of their early albums. The name of the group is taken from a t-shirt sold in Japan bearing the inadvertently nonsensical English phrase (a popular fashion at the time).
Let's Active formed in 1981 and soon signed with I.R.S. Records. The original trio, comprising Easter (vocals/guitar), Faye Hunter (bass), and Sara Romweber (drums), recorded the EP Afoot (1983) and the full-length Cypress (1984). Romweber quit the band during a U.K. tour in 1984, and Hunter and Easter (a couple) split up shortly thereafter. However, the band name was kept alive by Easter, who played as Let's Active with Hunter and members of The Windbreakers until a new permanent line-up could be established.
The band's second full-length album, Big Plans For Everybody (1986), was largely a solo outing by Easter, who played most of the instruments himself and handled the mixing and production. On board for a few tracks, however, were bassist/vocalist Hunter, drummers Eric Marshall and Rob Ladd, and multi-instrumentalist Angie Carlson, who would later become Mrs. Easter.
By the time of Let's Active's third and final album, Every Dog Has His Day (1988), the band's sound had evolved into harder-edged power pop. The album was produced by John Leckie and Easter, and credited a line-up of Easter, Carlson, Marshall and new member Jon Heames (credited as "John Heames"), a bassist. Despite the credits, though, the album was largely played by Easter and Marshall, with significant contributions by Carlson. The subsequent tour featured a cohesive lineup of Easter, Carlson, Marshall, and Heames.
The band has been inactive since a final performance in early 1990 — around the same time Easter and Carlson broke up. Carlson went on to form the band Grover, who released one album with Easter producing some of the tracks. Easter, meanwhile, concentrated on his production career, and rarely performed or recorded his own music throughout the 1990s, although he did join Velvet Crush as a touring guitarist for a time in the mid-1990s. In 2000, he re-teamed with Eric Marshall and his new wife, vocalist Shalini Chaterjee, to form the trio Shalini. The three briefly played under the name The Fiendish Minstrels, which featured Easter's lead vocals, as well as a selection of Let's Active tunes in their repertoire. Easter currently records and performs under his own name. His first solo album, Dynamico, was released in 2007.
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