Miss High Heel

Miss High Heel was founded in Chicago, Illinois in late 1995 by James Marlon Magas, Tom Smith, and Christopher Walter (Weasel Walter). Joining the no-everything troika were Azita Youseffi, Jim O'Rourke, Jodie Baltazar (Jodie McCann, Jodie Mecanic), Chuck Falzone, and Bill Pisarri, Mike Green (Wyfe, Her Hair Jelly, etc.), and Nándor Névai. They recorded one radio session (at WZRD-FM), performed one live performance (at the Magnatroid, New Year's Eve '95), and spent three months recording, mixing, and remixing "The Family's Hot Daughter", an album that was to have been issued by Skin Graft Records. When that label lost an important domestic distribution deal, funding for the MHH collection vanished, and the project was shelved. Tiny noise indie B.Sides (now known as No Sides) released a lone radio session, but the recordings ultimately displeased the group's principals. After 11 years, the original "The Family's Hot Daughter" mixes, long vouchsafed within Tom Smith's personal archive, were finally unearthed in 2006. Graham Moore of Blossoming Noise heard five minutes of unedited roughs during a dinner party and quickly struck a deal. Upon release of the album, Miss High Heel clarified in a letter to the editor that the group was "designed to exist as a theoretical unit, and sunder at an appropriate moment. The only impediment to the completion of that goal was the collapse of the album release on Skin Graft." Performers: James Marlon Magas: voice Christopher Walter (Weasel Walter): drums, bass clarinet Azita Youseffi: synthesizer Jim O'Rourke: bass guitar, trumpet, synthesizer Jodie Baltazar (Jodie McCann, Jodie Mecanic): voice Chuck Falzone: bass guitar (live only) Bill Pisarri: clarinet, bass guitar (studio only) Nándor Névai: voice Mike Green: compere, hermeneutics Tom Smith: voice, black metal tape edits, mix, production