Car Crash
“Execution”, “I Don’t Care” b/w “Bright Future”
scum stats: 200 copies on black vinyl
I am shocked to see that this record was released in 2015. That feels like eons ago. I’m pretty sure I was hipped to this by the K Records email list but instead of buying it straight from the source I put it on a running list of “need to purchase” items that I kept in my pocket for a few months. This copy came straight from Grimey’s, the record store down the street from TMR that is always happy to special order items of this nature when I request them on the regular. These three tracks have been sitting contently in my “to listen to” pile for at least a year. I’ll get better, I promise.
Jams here are gems, all high energy punk ’n’ roll, a vibe that feels properly updated from the mid-90’s heyday when Rip Off Records was king. Tight, lockstep, there is absolutely nothing wrong or out of place on this record. I could (and should) listen to shit like this for days without ever tiring. I feel like my tastes exist in a previously undefined ether-region where something of the approach/style/tone needs to be vaguely familiar, yet anything slavishly rehashed or redundant throws up immediate red flags and shade. Such a fine line and Car Crash is on the proper side of it. Sold out from the label, it’s worth the troll around to find one elsewhere in the bottomless pit internet. I believe the band is Japan and that should only further your appreciation.
I love 45’s existing as 8 minute time capsules into an exact period. No fussing about, make a statement, make it quick and leave it behind for the rest of the world to uncover. I’m STILL turning up wonderfully brilliant 45’s, forgotten for decades, quite regularly. Outside of love for my family and time spent with them, it is no doubt my absolute favorite thing to do.
I’ve no indication that this band is not absolutely killing it live. In my mind, they do. Highly recommended you search this one out..
SIDE NOTE: I guess I’ve been writing about records here for just about 52 weeks, only missing a handful of times when travel or fatherhood became prohibitive. Hooray for me, hooray for you. I’ve got an extra copy of a wonderful book called “Why Vinyl Matters” by Jen Otter Bickerdike that features stellar interviews with all sorts of folks in the “biz” speaking about vinyl. Including yours truly. So in the comments here, in the spirit of the book, these weekly missives and everything we do at Third Man, let us know your thoughts on WHY VINYL MATTERS. I’ll pick the winner, as objectively as possible, and they’ll get the book mailed right to their door. How cool is that?
Thanks for reading for the past year and here’s to another 52 weeks.
Vinyl matters because sometimes, you get a Manny Third Man Record Player for your birthday… and you own three 45s. In the night, you can hear Manny crying quietly. It’ll be okay, Manny. We have been notified of our shipping label. It won’t be long, now.
Nice.
Vinyl matters because it makes music a more communal way of listening to and sharing music. You can’t send a vinyl to a friend by email, they have to come over to listen to it.
Vinyl matters because it is a more interactive way of listening to music. It requires physical interaction to choose the record, get up and put it on and pay attention to turn it over.
Vinyl matters because the larger physical format allows artists to immerse you a little further in their vision with the larger space for art and visual expression.
Finally, vinyl matters because music matters and vinyl allows for a truer expression of that music.
Hey, I wrote about why vinyl matters (to me, at least) a while back! http://kalidurga.blogspot.com/2015/04/record-store-day-2015-human-aspect-of.html If you don’t want to read the whole thing, here’s the pertinent part (and here’s where I’m going to wish yet again we could get paragraph breaks in this comment box)—
“As I began buying records more and more and cds less and less, I realized that there really is something that I prefer about vinyl. I’m no audiophile, so it’s not necessarily the lows and highs or warmth and depth that serious vinyl purists go on about, though those elements are often very noticeable. And, unlike Jack White, I don’t sit and watch my records spin around. I do enjoy admiring the sleeve art and taking the effort to drop the needle in just the right spot, there is a lot to be said for those rituals. But once the music begins, I either lie back to soak it in or bounce around the room dancing to it. So my reason for preferring records isn’t based purely in the sound quality or in the ritual of listening, it’s something more elemental, something I was only recently able to put into coherent thought, thanks to an episode of Marc Maron’s WTF podcast in which he toured the plant at United Record Pressing in Nashville (it’s a bonus episode only available to subscribers but, seriously, go and subscribe and then search for “Marc’s vinyl factory tour”, it’s worth the couple of bucks even if you only sign up for a month).
Marc’s conversation with URP’s PR rep Jay Millar begins with them discussing that return to vinyl that I talked about above, and why so many people are doing it these days. In their conversation, Jay used two words that turned on a lightbulb for me— He spoke about the “human aspect” of vinyl. I realized that’s it, that’s what encompasses the sound quality, the ritual, the art that accompanies record albums, the tangibleness and moving parts that so mesmerize Jack White, it’s that there is a very human aspect to creating, handling, and listening to vinyl records. Of course cds and even digital music files are also ultimately created by human beings, someone has to push the buttons and flip the switches on the machines that manufacture the cds or the computer that turns the music into the 1s and 0s of an mp3 (or flac, if you’re an audiophile purist), but there’s more machine than human in those creations. And while vinyl records are pressed by massive machines, there are humans involved around those machines at every step along the way, there’s a symbiosis between man and machine that gives records an organic feel that digital music just does not have.
In comparison, to me at least, cds and mp3s have come to feel robotic and a bit sterile."
Vinyl matters because when the zombies take over the world, we can still listen to (preferably Jack’s) music. Provided of course you have a vintage Victrola wind up style record player.
Vinyl is to recorded music as rhythm and blues are to rock. It is foundational. It is what people of my era grew up with. The tactile experience of touching the sound. Reading the liner notes. Albums are an experience.