I believe this was the Mekons' last release for Virgin, a pair of 7" singles featuring four songs, including the terrific "Teeth," a manic post-punk rocker with a killer fiddle line that's an early indicator of the country-influenced direction the group would take during their mid-'80s renaissance. I tracked this set down on eBay last year as a gift for my wife, who heard "Teeth" on her favorite radio show, exactly once, some 18-20 years ago, and had neither forgotten the song nor been able to locate this version of it. (An alternate take, "Another Set of Teeth," is a bonus track on some reissues of the Mekons' second album, Devils Rats and Piggies A Special Message From Godzilla.) That show, incidentally, is Little Hits reader and occasional commenter Jon Bernhardt's Friday morning indie-rock showcase Breakfast of Champions, on WMBR, Cambridge, 8-10 a.m. Eastern, archives and podcasts available at www.wmbr.org/shows/boc.html and highly recommended to anyone who's spent more than 10 minutes at this site.

My own extremely minor Mekons connection: for several years at an old freelance gig, Mekons/Rumour drummer Steve Goulding was one of my bosses. Steve would no doubt be the first to tell you that this barely even qualifies as name-dropping.

-Stewart Mason