Mike Randle

Growing up amid the sprawl of Los Angeles, Mike Randle first encountered music through his parents’ wide-ranging collection of folk, country, and singer/songwriter LPs. An outlier in that stack—Aerosmith’s Get Your Wings—immediately seized the boy’s attention and opened a gateway to rock & roll’s more unruly side. He began devouring records indiscriminately, soon developing a lasting affection for the Beatles and the Beach Boys. In his early teens Randle started performing in rock bands and making his first attempts at songwriting.

In 1984 he launched the new wave/synth-pop outfit Camera’s in Paris, a venture that ran until 1985. He next assembled the neo-mod band Bad Press with Garfield Wolfe, Charlie Glover, and Keith Chaney. The project proved pivotal both musically and socially, for it introduced him to the musicians who would become his closest creative allies. Chris Johnson supplanted Chaney on bass before yielding the spot to Colin Wolfe; meanwhile Rusty Squeezebox took over the drum chair from Glover, locking in the group’s definitive lineup. Bad Press continued into the late 1980s, during which time Randle and Squeezebox cultivated a tight friendship and lasting musical partnership.

After the band dissolved, Randle left Los Angeles in 1989 for the quieter setting of Santa Barbara, taking a post conducting science experiments on the University of California–Santa Barbara campus. Music receded into the background, surviving only in a casual cover band. The city of his birth nevertheless drew him home in 1990, and he quickly reconnected with Squeezebox. In November 1992 the pair formed Baby Lemonade alongside David Green and Henry Liu; Dave Chapple replaced Liu in 1995. The group began gigging throughout Los Angeles, and one performance caught the ear of ’60s folk-psych legend Arthur Lee. Lee dismissed his existing musicians and invited Baby Lemonade to back the re-formed Love. They toured Europe with Lee before resuming their own work as Baby Lemonade.

The band issued the Wonderful EP on Sympathy for the Record Industry in 1994, followed the next year by the full-length 68% Pure Imagination on the same label. Both releases earned strong critical notice, as did the second album, Exploring Music, which appeared on Big Deal in late 1998. By the close of the decade, Baby Lemonade, together with Wondermints and the Negro Problem, had helped transform the Los Angeles underground pop scene into a recognized phenomenon.

As 2000 neared, Randle and Squeezebox elected to make solo albums that would let them explore songwriting and sonic ideas outside Baby Lemonade’s usual range. Randle’s My Music Loves You (Even If I Don’t) emerged simultaneously with Squeezebox’s Isotopes on the independent eggBERT Records imprint in May 2000. The record marked a pronounced departure, weaving together bossa nova and kitschy lounge textures with Prince-style grooves and the airy soft-rock atmosphere peculiar to Southern California. Once those projects were finished, Randle and Baby Lemonade reconvened to begin work on their next endeavor, the song cycle The High Life Suite.