Todd Newman from Topeka, Kansas. A guitar player, songwriter, a vocalist. A pop fan and a musician. He played with The Hang Ups, played bass for Grant Hart and was in The Leatherwoods. It is said he is a decent ping pong player. He’s a Scorpio. His favourite colour is orange.
Todd Newman and The Leatherwoods. That was the name of the band on its first release in 1989. It was a 7″ released by Reverb Jr. (REV701) that included 2 songs, “To Win You Back” on the A side and “Downside of an Eightball” on the B side. Both songs were written by Todd, though the B side was a collaboration with Chris “Jamie” Garner. The two songs were recorded by Randy Fitzgerald (from Action Man, Five-O, Joe Worker and Kelly Girls), produced by Cody and Susie, and mastered by Joe Brescio at the Master Cutting Room in NYC. The photography on the front cover is credited to Samar.
The band was formed by Todd Newman on guitar and vocals, Tim O’Reagan (who also was in The Jayhawks) on drums and vocals, Jaime Garner on lead guitar and Charles Brown on drums.
The band was originally from Lawrence, Kansas. Though at some point migrated to Minneapolis. That’s what Discogs says. Let’s see if I can find more details.
The one release I own by them was the 7″ they released on The Bus Stop Label (BUS015) in 1992. The A side had “Happy Ain’t Comin’ Home” written by Todd and “Something Ain’t Right” on the B side written by Rocky Jackson. The songs were produced by Tim and Todd.
That same year the band released their album Topeka Oratorio on both CD and cassette. It came out on Medium Cool Records (MCR 89220-2). Not the UK label but the Minneapolis label set up by Peter Jesperson. 12 songs were included in the album, “Proof Positive”, “Tinsel Town”, “How Can I Miss You”, “She’s Probably Gonna Lie”, “Happy Man”, “Dreamworld”, “Tell Me Another”, “Jamboree”, “Don’t Take My Happiness Away”, “Wastin All My Time”, “Don’t Go Down” and “Happy Ain’t Coming Home”.
On this record we see Pablo Louseorama on guitar, bass and keyboards as well as co-writer of “Jamboree” and “Wastin All My Time”. Turns out this was an alias of Paul Westerberg of The Replacements.
Other credit we see is that one of Terry Braatz from The Oh’s who played mandolin.
The engineers for this record were a few, Brian Paulson, John Fields, Kevin Glynn, Mike Owens and Randy Wills. The producers were the band and Peter Jesperson, the co-founder of Twin/Tone Records and ex-manager of The Replacements. The songs were reorded at various studios including tofu2, Blackberry Way, Satellite Tracking and Entercore in Minneaapolis and Exception Studios in Topeka.
The artwork is credited to Ann Litchy on graphics and Jay Smiley and Mary Newman on photos.
The Twin/Tone label has a small bio for the band. It doesn’t add much to what I have written, but it still quite interesting to read what Medium Cool wrote about the band, maybe to share with radio stations and record stores.
I think I’ve stumbled upon Todd’s Youtube account. It doesn’t look like there are videos of the band but there are live recordings of The Leatherwoods. That’s interesting. First there’s “Off the Top of My Head” live at the Uptown Bar in Minneapolis. “Cracklin’ Rose” (Neil Diamond cover) is also live in Minneapolis. “American Band” (Grand Funk Railroad cover) is another live song but doesn’t tell us where it was recorded/played. Here there’s something interesting, the image that’s been shared shows a setlist and there are songs I have no clue at all like “Man’s World”, “Get Chris Out of Jail”, “Gimme Shelter”, “We’ll Be All Right”, “Born to Be Wild”, “How Can I Miss You”, “Junior’s Farm”, “Rocky’s Song”, “Baby It’s You”, “Don’t Let Me Down”, “I Can Help” and some other ones I have trouble figuring out the handwriting!
More live songs. There’s “Junior’s Farm” (Paul McCartney & Wings cover) live at the Uptown Bar, “Nighttime” (Alex Chilton cover) live somewhere, and “Eighteen” (Alice Cooper cover) and “Treat Her like a Lady” (Cornelius Brothers & Sister Rose cover) with Clay Galbraith on lead vocals at The Bottleneck, Lawrence, Kansas, in 1989.
Another interesting track is this demo with rhythm machine of “Proof Positive“. A different version appeared on the album. And a cover of Eddie Money’s “Baby Hold On“.
Lastly there’s a rare track, “27-Year Old Actress Majoring in English“. This song is an outtake from the “Topeka Oratorio” album. This song was recorded by Brian Paulson.
In 1995 Todd Newman would release “Too Sad for Words” on Bus Stop. A very nice record worth tracking down too.
There would be a reunion. On August 6, 2016, at Palmer’s Bar, Todd Newman and Tim O’Reagan. There’s a video of that here.
And that’s all for today. Quite interesting. I didn’t know all this. I should try to track down the album when I can. And that early 7″. Would be good to know more about them. For example, why did they move from Kansas to Minnesota? Or why were there no more releases? Hopefully we’ll find out!
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