After 30 years in obscurity, Kansas City's Titan Records claims its power-pop throne

"(Baby) It’s You," by the Boys, fromTitan: It’s All Pop! (Numero Group):

If there is a god of Midwestern power pop, then the little, bug-eyed deity, with its crown of tumbling curls, its nicotine-yellowed fingers and Jeff Lynne shades, has spent most of the past 20 years in Kansas City. Specifically in P.O. Box 5443. Around 1981, appeals to the little god began trickling to this post office near 75th Street and Troost. The paper sacraments would evoke forgotten names — Gary Charlson, Arlis Peach — praising their greatness and asking for other relics of the Titan Records legacy.

Though Titan Records was active for only four years (1977-81), releasing six singles and one sampler LP, enough of this tight, catchy, vocal-harmony-driven rock got out into the world and caught people's attention.

There was the Gems' relaxed "Save Your Money," with its ringing harmonic-chord intro and singer J.P. McClain's gulping up of syllables like Elvis Costello with a head cold. And Gary Charlson's cover of the obscure Dwight Twilley song "Shark " had a winning, made-to-be-a-sports-anthem chorus.

Or how about the Boys, Titan's most flamboyant bunch — would this quartet of Nebraska glam lads have been famous rock stars if they'd come from a coast instead of the heartland? The Boys' record "(Baby) It's You" b/w "Bad Little Girl," released in December 1979, is a Rambo knife of a single. The smooth and sharp A-side makes reference to the Zombies with "Time of the Season" vocal percussives — albeit slightly more drunk. The serrated B-side is fast and punky, with searing dual-guitar leads.

It's no wonder that, after Titan's collapse, record collectors wanted to buy in, even as most of the artists drifted even deeper into obscurity. Disciples the world over had given their souls to that Kansas City sound.

Like Cheap Trick's promise fulfilled, they wanted it, and it wanted them. In a time when punk and new wave dominated the indie scene and album rock trampled the FM dial, Titan's brand of Beatles-influenced pop-rock was as unpopular as the 45 record itself — an outdated, unsellable format, a Chiclet among Big Hunks.

Over the years, though, enough orders came in to P.O. Box 5443, and enough labels showed interest in rereleasing the music (not to mention all those unreleased reels of tape). Titan's founders, Tom Sorrells and Mark Prellberg — the heroes of our tale, now in their 50s — saw that, finally, 30 years after that first single, a real market had sprung.

Sorrells' and Prellberg's Nuggets-style dream has come true in the form of Titan: It's All Pop!, a sterling 43-track, two-CD box chock-full of liner notes and artwork. It was released on November 4 by Chicago's Numero Group, an up-and-coming label devoted to digging up obscure gold from the past and spreading the wealth.

When asked to recall the first time they met, Sorrells and Prellberg (both of whom possess long, don't-give-a-fuck manes of gray hair) sound every bit like old brothers asked to remember an incident that one still finds amusing and the other is sick to death of hearing.

"Tell him about that story of how we first met," Sorrells says.

"Aw, nah, there's no need to go into that," Prellberg replies.

"It's a classic."

"You can tell him if you want to."

"I was living in Portland, Oregon." Sorrells pauses, easing back to the days when he dealt vinyl out west. "And he wanted a record — what was it, a Who record? — for, like, three dollars. And the check bounced, and then he complained because the record had surface noise. That was actually our first correspondence. In, like, 1973."

Sorrells goes on, telling how the next year, he moved back home to Kansas City (St. Joseph, actually, to live with his mom), and Prellberg came over with a box of 45s and ...

No, wait, Prellberg says, he didn't go to the house — they first met when Sorrells came into Love Records in downtown Overland Park in 1976.

"That's when we first met in person — when you walked into the store. You didn't know I was there; I didn't know you were coming in."

"I didn't know what you looked like, so how would I have known it was you?"

"I was playing a Raspberries record."

"Oh," Sorrells says, laughing, "there you go!"

United by fate, the two pop fans and vinyl addicts began dreaming up a zine, Teen Titan, that would not only cover under-the-radar Midwestern bands but would also do stories on '60s garage and psych groups like Chesmann Square. The first issue was almost ready to go when Prellberg met Charlson, who was playing in a Kansas City, Kansas, cover band. Before long, the two were in Chapman Studios, laying down Charlson's "Real Life Saver."

Sorrells had no idea what Prellberg was up to. "I was young and impulsive," Prellberg says. But Sorrells signed on, and the cool, swaggering "Real Life Saver" (b/w "Not the Way It Seems") became the first Titan release.

It also became the first in a series of brilliantly recorded, artfully packaged, money-losing records.

"We've always been out of sorts with the rest of the world," Sorrells says. "We just did what we liked."