SALT was just the right kind of success for Plaastik... it satisfied the fan base and made money, and the modest band members felt comfortable in their career again. Of course, Geffen was upset enough with the lack of a "Daddy's Little Girl" or "Mainstream Single" to move them to subsidiary DGC. The band was unaffected by this, and despite the uncertainty of Jay Kay Ray and Jeff Jooce's future with the band, by the end of 1986 discussions had begun about a possible tour.
Janet Kieran and Nick Parker were now living together and were incredibly prolific during this period with new material. To test some of it out as well as reacquaint themselves with the act of playing live, they booked a two-week residency at Max's Kansas City near their home. The shows were such an overwhelming success that the two of them immediately went into a studio with Steve Albini to record rough versions of the new songs and proposed a tour to the other three band members. Kevin Keys signed on immediately, as did Jay Kay Ray soon afterward; the one holdout was Jeff Jooce, who according to rumor had the worst experiences on the Playtime Tour.
As the story goes, Janet and Nick invited the others into the studio to hear the new material played. It was all the convincing Jeff needed. The initial plan was to tour and then release an album; since the band had issued four albums in four years, they felt entitled to a break. Then came the rehearsals, where Kieran and Parker were startled at the full, exuberant sound of their intimate new songs fleshed out by their bandmates... within two weeks an entire new album had been recorded and presented to Geffen along with promise for a tour in the summer. The (very pleased) label also assured the band that once their six-LP contract expired, they'd be willing to renew it, a relieving proposition for a band that had been barely hanging on to commercial acceptance throughout their run.
The Albini sessions found the band experimenting with loud, unrestrained material; once they'd heard their songs fleshed out, they couldn't get enough, and the band was absorbing influences now from Eurodisco to thrash-metal to punk rock to underground rap. The album was in turn embraced by fans and critics on release, although it did not offer any major hits and it only reached #39 and did not go platinum until 1994.
For the tour, Plaastik wished to only make the band bigger, and to do this they recruited two additional players -- Christina Singleton, who had toured with the band in 1983, on keyboards, and multi-instrumentalist Mitchell Blank (Nick's old art teacher). Initially they were to be members of the touring band only, but all that changed when the group entered the studio in 1988.
The unprecedented worldwide "Information Tour," which began modestly but soon grew to epic proportions, was an immense success, with the band playing to packed houses across the U.S. with the same independent spirit -- nightly medley and all -- that had driven their earliest performances. The feeling was that they had made it and were now able to do the things that had been such a thrill for them in 1980 and 1981 on a larger scale, and the band's future looked brighter than ever... but even they could not have predicted how incredible it would get.
Live Information EP (Nov. 1987) - This limited-edition EP of live tracks was issued in conjunction with the INFORMATION video (see videos section). It includes the only official release of "The Blowoff System." "Yours or Mine" is included in its studio version simply because it was the current single.
