Muck and The Mires

When Fictional Recordings become Reality

Story by Matt Robinson; Photo by Derek Kouyoumijan

What band starts a career with a “best of” package?
Boston’s Muck and The Mires.

Comprised of “lost” sessions from an unknown (and, in fact, fictional) 1960s band, the oddly-titled disc was the creation of multi-instrumentalist and songwriter Evan “Muck” Shore (The Queers, Voodoo Dolls).

“I didn’t take it very seriously at the time,” Shore laughs. “I made a bunch of demos that my friends thought were good, but it was a joke.”

As he was in other bands at the time, Shore had not taken much time with the new project but had come up with a somewhat complete back-story for it.

“I tried to make a record that sounded like it was from 1963,” he explains. “When it was time to release it, I made up a story to go with the recordings.”

When Canadian Punk label AMP Records got wind of the story, they agreed to release the album.

“I sent the recordings to a few labels,” Shore says. “I didn’t work too hard on it, but I thought it would be cool if someone put it out because it took me a long time to record.”

And though Shore originally stuck to his “lost” recordings story for a while, as interest in the album grew, he eventually stepped out from behind the curtain to reveal that the band was real and was, well, him.

“As momentum grew,” he explains, “we told them it was a new band and that we were looking for a deal.”

With the deal inked, All Mucked Up (The Best of Muck and the Mires) became a subtle smash and was soon licensed by Germany’s Soundflat Recordings, who opted to re-release the album on vinyl.

With fans clamoring for a look at their mysterious new favorite band, Shore put out a call for talented classic rock-minded musicians like himself. The band and their stripped-down multi-player sound quickly took shape and the first official Muck tour began in 2002.

“I was in a band called The Nines with my wife Linda,” Shore says, “and since the made-up name of the drummer was Jesse, it left me open to use a man or a woman.”

The dynamic duo soon grew to a quartet with the help of some other musical friends, and the band was officially born

With sales soaring in Germany and buzz snowballing into Belgium and Holland, the band gained fame quickly in Europe.

Meanwhile, back in Boston, word was spreading about the new band with an old sound. By their third show, Muck and The Mires were opening for legends like Mike Smith, leader of the legendary Dave Clark 5, and have since shared stages with The Bay City Rollers, Badfinger, and surf-legend Dick Dale.

“We developed a following in Boston pretty quickly,” Shore says of his Boston Music Award-nominated band. “Then we headed to New York and then to target areas we wanted to hit.”

Doing a week here and a week there, the band toured the nation without mounting an official tour.

“It was very grassroots,” Shore says. “We did it a piece at a time.”

Fortunately, the band soon found a domestic champion in the form of Little Steven Van Zandt who, along with MTV’s Kurt Loder, picked the band as the best garage rock band in the nation. As part of their victory package, the band was profiled on MTV and got to play on Randall’s Island in New York alongside The New York Dolls, Iggy and the Stooges and the late Bo Diddley.

Riding the wave to their first West Coast tour, the band flew past Boston and back to Europe, where they toured Germany, Spain, Holland, France and Austria.

“We had already been exposed to Europe,” Shore says, “so it was good to go back. Most of our success there has been through the records and through constant touring over there.”

This grassroots philosophy was evident on their third album, 1-2-3-4, which was also pressed in vinyl by AMP but also garnered the attention of a domestic label Dionysus Records of Burbank, CA. the album also received a four-star review in Uncut, opening the door to a British invasion for the Brit-rock inspired band. Their first UK show sold out and the band has returned to England many times since, even playing at Liverpool’s legendary Cavern Club.

“That was an unfulfilled dream that we all had,” Shore says, smiling. “It was one of the best trips ever!”

Another famous old-school rock man the band met in Europe was producer Kim Williams. Fortunately, Williams had the foresight to work with the band.

“We met him at Las Vegas Rockaround in 2004 and our paths kept crossing,” Shore recalls.

When they heard Williams mention on his radio show that he would be at the Primitive Festival in Rotterdam and then traveling to the UK, the similarly booked Mires contacted him and asked him to produce their new album.

“He said ‘yes,’” Shore says proudly. “So we cancelled some shows and booked tickets to Scotland where Kim had his studio.”

Unfortunately, a storm knocked in the studio roof two weeks before they were set to record.

After two months of rehearsing, the band went to CA to meet Kim.

“He tore up the list of songs, handed me a guitar, and asked me to play my 12 best songs.”

The band then spent the next few days rearranging and rebuilding the album they thought they had already written.

“We made a completely different record than we would have made anywhere else,” Shore says. “Kim wanted to capture us ‘old-school’ and live and that’s what we ended up doing.”

The result is their latest release, Hypnotic.

“‘The 10’ has already sold out in England,” Shore says. “We see the album being released in the U.S. and then doing our first U.S. tour in March to coincide with SXSW.”

When asked how it feels to have found so much success from a project that started as a joke, Shore is quick to reply.

“It’s exceeded our expectations,” he says, “but I think the reason we had success is that we always had fun with it. It is a fun band and people want to be a part of it.”

www.muckandthemires.com