Biography
Mick Trouble, a British musician, produces witty and energetic pop-punk that comes across as a livelier counterpart to the Television Personalities. He stood poised for cult recognition before vanishing from view in the early 1980s—or so Jed Smith would have listeners accept. Smith, who belongs to the indie pop outfits My Teenage Stride and Jeanines, devised the Mick Trouble identity while generating material for several nonexistent acts, and he found the results compelling enough that the character continued independently. This led to the compact yet melodic debut album Here's the Mick Trouble LP in 2019 and the more expansive yet tonally consistent follow-up It's Mick Trouble's Second LP in 2022.
Hailing from Western Massachusetts, Jed Smith formed My Teenage Stride in 2003 to present his songwriting and home-recorded efforts. The endeavor grew into an informal ensemble of Smith and revolving players, which issued its first recording with the 2004 album A Sad Cloud. While MTS built an audience through assorted albums and EPs, Smith pursued alternate musical directions, launching Wondering Sound in 2015 as a vehicle for tracks credited to invented figures that included jazz fusion figure James Lingonberry-Deschain, new romantic synth-pop pair HI, and proto-emo punk group Primo Dix. One such production, "Shut Your Bleeding Gob You Git," marked the first Mick Trouble recording, complete with a fabricated history in which Trouble, born in 1963 in London’s Muswell district, taped demos in 1980 that secured an invitation to John Peel’s BBC program only to disappear beforehand. The master tapes of a Mick Trouble album finished in 1983 surfaced again in 2016 after being concealed beneath a cookie jar. Trouble further maintained that he remained unfamiliar with the Television Personalities until his manager mentioned them to Joey Bishop during a steam bath in New York City.
Once the masters were located, the British indie imprint Emotional Response, run by Stewart Anderson of Boyracer, delivered Trouble’s initial vinyl outing, the limited-edition three-song 7" It's the Mick Trouble EP. Rediscovery prompted a surge of activity that included the 2019 flexi-disc "Glad I'm Not Me" ahead of the full-length Here's the Mick Trouble LP, whose cover displayed Margaret Thatcher alongside British soldiers in keeping with its U.K. 1980s indie character.
Smith’s commitments to the indie pop duo Jeanines kept Mick Trouble dormant for several years, yet the invented Englishman reemerged in 2022 with It's Mick Trouble's Second LP. The album retained the same conceptual framework while delivering denser production and sharper arrangements that supported the wry lyrics of songs including "A Well Known Drag," "Jim'll Fix It," and "Top of the Fops."
Hailing from Western Massachusetts, Jed Smith formed My Teenage Stride in 2003 to present his songwriting and home-recorded efforts. The endeavor grew into an informal ensemble of Smith and revolving players, which issued its first recording with the 2004 album A Sad Cloud. While MTS built an audience through assorted albums and EPs, Smith pursued alternate musical directions, launching Wondering Sound in 2015 as a vehicle for tracks credited to invented figures that included jazz fusion figure James Lingonberry-Deschain, new romantic synth-pop pair HI, and proto-emo punk group Primo Dix. One such production, "Shut Your Bleeding Gob You Git," marked the first Mick Trouble recording, complete with a fabricated history in which Trouble, born in 1963 in London’s Muswell district, taped demos in 1980 that secured an invitation to John Peel’s BBC program only to disappear beforehand. The master tapes of a Mick Trouble album finished in 1983 surfaced again in 2016 after being concealed beneath a cookie jar. Trouble further maintained that he remained unfamiliar with the Television Personalities until his manager mentioned them to Joey Bishop during a steam bath in New York City.
Once the masters were located, the British indie imprint Emotional Response, run by Stewart Anderson of Boyracer, delivered Trouble’s initial vinyl outing, the limited-edition three-song 7" It's the Mick Trouble EP. Rediscovery prompted a surge of activity that included the 2019 flexi-disc "Glad I'm Not Me" ahead of the full-length Here's the Mick Trouble LP, whose cover displayed Margaret Thatcher alongside British soldiers in keeping with its U.K. 1980s indie character.
Smith’s commitments to the indie pop duo Jeanines kept Mick Trouble dormant for several years, yet the invented Englishman reemerged in 2022 with It's Mick Trouble's Second LP. The album retained the same conceptual framework while delivering denser production and sharper arrangements that supported the wry lyrics of songs including "A Well Known Drag," "Jim'll Fix It," and "Top of the Fops."
Albums
