SUMMER’S BEST

There’s a sea of big budget box sets lined up for the next few months, but even the most glorious among them will have their work cut out to match this summer’s brightest offering—the 5-LP Peter Laughner box set unveiled by Smog Veil in early August.

Laughner, for those who don’t know, was a key figure on the Cleveland scene through the early-mid 1970s, co-founder of such seminal local acts as Cinderella Backstreet, Rocket From the Tombs and Pere Ubu; a much-loved scribe for Creem magazine; and, briefly, a member of Television.

He passed away in June 1977, largely unrecorded and mostly unreleased. But, over the years, a treasure trove of tapes has emerged, ranging from local radio broadcasts and live shows, to home demos and studio sessions. A smattering of these emerged in 1994 as the long-deleted collection, and