Although they made their mark on popular culture with the MTV favorites “I Know What Boys Like” and “Christmas Wrapping,” The Waitresses were no new-wave flash in the pan.
While nearly every 1980s collection features a song from The Waitresses, their recorded tenure has been incomplete in the digital realm for decades. In fact, none of the band’s original releases has been released in full on CD domestically.
Omnivore Recordings is righting that wrong on Sept. 24 with Just Desserts: The Complete Waitresses. Co-produced by Bill Levenson and the group’s Chris Butler, this is the first collection of the band’s Polydor Records output, a 2-CD set filled with delicious offerings.
Cleveland and Akron were home to many emerging bands in the late ’70s, among them DEVO, Pere Ubu, the Dead Boys, the Rubber City Rebels, Rachel Sweet, and Dadaist band Tin Huey, launched by guitarist/songwriter Butler.
The Waitresses emerged during Tin Huey’s ascent, and eventually became his focus. Butler relocated to New York to bring his music to the attention of A&R reps with the demo of “I know What Boys Like.”
When he ended up making a deal with Island/PolyGram-affiliated Ze Records for a band that didn’t yet exist as such, Butler went about recruiting band members. The focal point of the group was singer Patty Donahue, an Ohio friend who’d sung on Butler’s demo of “I Know What Boys Like.” The song reached #62 on Billboard’s Hot 100. Sadly, Donahue died in 1996, but not before a trio of acclaimed releases with the band.
Just Desserts: The Complete Waitresses contains those recordings beginning with their 1982 debut, Wasn’t Tomorrow Wonderful?, which featured “I Know What Boys Like” plus the follow-up “No Guilt.” Next was I Could Rule the World If I Could Only Get the Parts, which contains the theme to TV’s Square Pegs (starring a young Sarah Jessica Parker), as well as the holiday staple “Christmas Wrapping.” As a bonus “gift,” that single’s long out-of-print B-side, “Hangover 1/1/83,” also makes its CD debut.
Disc Two delivers 1983’s Bruiseology, co-produced by Butler and Hugh Padgham (Genesis, Human League, XTC). “Make the Weather” was the single, and no collection is complete without that album’s closer — “They’re All Out of Liquor, Let’s Find Another Party.” Also included: a previously unissued version of the title cut and two remixes of Disc One’s “Bread & Butter.”
Track Listing:
Disc One
From Wasn’t Tomorrow Wonderful?
1. No Guilt
2. Wise Up
3. Quit
4. It’s My Car
5. Wasn’t Tomorrow Wonderful?
6. I Know What Boys Like
7. Heat Night
8. Redland
9. Pussy Strut
10. Go On
11. Jimmy Tomorrow
From I Could Rule the World, If I Could Only Get the Parts
12. Christmas Wrapping
13. Bread and Butter
14. Square Pegs (Theme Song From the Embassy Television Series Square Pegs)
15. The Smartest Person I Know
16. I Could Rule the World If I Could Only Get the Parts
17. Hangover 1/1/83*
Disc Two
From Bruiseology
1. A Girl’s Gotta Do
2. Make the Weather
3. Everything’s Wrong If My Hair Is Wrong
4. Luxury
5. Open City
6. Thinking About Sex Again
7. Bruiseology
8. Pleasure
9. Spin
10. They’re All Out of Liquor, Let’ s Find Another Party
11. Bruiseology (Alternate Version)*
From Bread and Butter
12. Bread and Butter (Remix)*
13. Bread and Butter (Dub Mix)*
* NON-ALBUM BONUS TRACKS
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