Dance With Me (T.S.O.L. Album) - Recording and Release

Recording and Release

Following the release of the T.S.O.L. EP through Posh Boy Records in spring 1981, T.S.O.L. moved to Frontier Records to record a full-length album. This led to a dispute with Posh Boy owner Robbie Fields, who claimed the band had not honored their commitment to record a second EP for his label. The issue was settled several years later, with the band received back payments of royalties from Posh Boy while the label was able to purchse the master recordings and publishing rights to T.S.O.L.'s 1982 EP Weathered Statues.

Dance with Me was recorded at Redondo Pacific Studios in Redondo Beach, California with record producer Thom Wilson, who was initially hesitant to work with T.S.O.L. because of their violent reputation: "I was very apprehensive about it," he recalled in 1998, "People said to me, 'Are you sure you want to do this? They beat people up.'" However, he found that the band members took the recording process seriously and worked hard, the lone quirk being singer Jack Grisham's insistence on sitting while he recorded his vocal tracks. Wilson engineered and mixed the recordings, and they were mastered at K Disc. Paintings by artist Mark Wassman were used for the front and back cover, while photos for the back cover and insert were taken by photographers Glen E. Friedman and Ed Colver.

The album was released through Frontier in 1981 as catalog number FLP004. Grisham credited himself as Alex Morgan on the sleeve, following a tradition of using a different pseudonym on each release both to confuse audiences and to hide his true identity from the police. As part of his Alex Morgan persona, Grisham wore stage makeup resembling that of Adam Ant, though this was not entirely new: "I was wearing makeup when I was a skinhead three years ago, just to bum people out", he later recalled.