The Arms Of Someone New

The Arms of Someone New formed in 1983 in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, USA, when Mel Eberle was playing in The First Things and Steve Jones was managing and producing that band. Almost coincidentally, Mel and Steve started making music alongside Mel's recording and writing for The First Things. Their first four songs were recorded in a small apartment in Champaign and were released on the Hysterical Records in December, 1983, on the Significant Others cassette. The title was taken from one of the names they considered using for the band. The idea for the Arms of Someone New was to combine Mel’s and Steve’s several varied interests in the Beatles, psychedelia, blues, new wave and post-punk to create a sound in which the listener would be enveloped, immersed. They followed up Significant Others two months later with another cassette on Hysterical, Occam’s Razor. It essentially followed the path on which Significant Others had set them. Their ambitions turned toward a concept album with songs tied together sonically and lyrically, and resulted in the Notes From Underground cassette (released in Germany on Devils Dandy Dogs), their final recording for Hysterical, released April, 1984.