The Big Shot Chronicles is Game Theory's third full-length album, released in 1986. Produced by Mitch Easter, it was recorded with a new line-up of Game Theory members after leader and songwriter Scott Miller moved the band's base from Davis to San Francisco, California. The album was reissued on September 23, 2016, on Omnivore Recordings as part of the label's re-issue campaign of the Game Theory catalog.
Personnel
Recording personnel
By early 1985, all of the original members of Game Theory had left the band, except for Miller. Miller relocated to San Francisco together with future Game Theory member Donnette Thayer. Miller assembled a new line-up in the San Francisco Bay Area, featuring Shelley LaFreniere on keyboards, Gil Ray on drums, and Suzi Ziegler on bass.
The newly formed San Francisco version of Game Theory commenced a national tour in 1985 in support of Game Theory's previous album, Real Nighttime, an album on which none of them (except Miller) had appeared. During a break in the middle of the band's tour for Real Nighttime, it was this line-up that recorded The Big Shot Chronicles.
Touring personnel
Prior to touring in support of The Big Shot Chronicles in 1986, the group experienced another change of personnel, becoming a five-piece band. Suzi Ziegler left the band shortly after the conclusion of the Real Nighttime tour in 1985.
For the 1986 tour, Donnette Thayer joined Game Theory as rhythm guitarist and vocalist, and Guillaume Gassuan replaced Ziegler on bass. This line-up remained together to record and tour for two subsequent albums, Lolita Nation (1987) and Two Steps from the Middle Ages (1988).
Production notes
The Big Shot Chronicles, released in 1986, was recorded in September 1985 at Mitch Easter's Drive-In Studio in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Twenty years after the studio sessions, Miller recalled them as "the most effortless studio experience I've ever had," taking place "in a period of my life when being involved with the music business was surprisingly enjoyable."
In 2001's All Music Guide: The Definitive Guide to Popular Music, critic Mark Deming wrote, "Mitch Easter's production guides the record through moody neo-psychedelia and up-tempo hard pop with an equally sure hand; the record sounds just as good as the band plays." According to John Borack, Easter did "his usual Herculean job behind the console, getting great guitar sounds whether they be gritty and electric ... or softer and acoustic."
In an October 1986 interview, Miller discussed Mitch Easter's role as producer:He helps from the technical end, not from the artistic end. He doesn't say, "You're going to need a lot of backing vocals here" or "Use this guitar on this." I usually do most of that stuff. I'd say I end up doing half of the production myself. He does pretty much all of the engineering and some of the things you'd call production. Like he decides where you stand when you do the vocals, and you know, "We're going to have a nylon stocking between you and the microphone," some tricks like that. He'll do things like say "No, that vocal track wasn't good, let's do it again." He makes a lot of quality decisions, he sort of figures out what we want and has in his head what he thinks a good pop record's gonna be and works toward that. Also, he knows how to use all his equipment precisely and utterly.
Miller added, "Mitch and I are real historians, we're both really into 70s rock. The song 'I've Tried Subtlety,' I said, 'I want a drum sound just like Low by David Bowie,' so we kind of went for that." Referring to the song "Like a Girl Jesus," Miller later recalled that "even the spacey sounding instruments" were recorded in one take."
Songs and thematic notes
In addition to the double meaning of "big shot" (either an important person, or a shot at fame and success), the title of the album was a reference to Big Shot Photo Lab, a Berkeley business where band photographer Robert Toren had secured rehearsal space for the group. According to Trouser Press, the title also paraphrases John Cheever's The Wapshot Chronicle.
In 2008, Scott Miller wrote that "most of the lyrics on [this] album came from dreams I'd had."