07/31/2023
So what is there to say about MLU 0004? I moved to Philly in 2001 from Smallbany NY, and found a freedom I’d not experienced in my upstate NYxHC and punk scene. Sure things started changing in the later 90’s as 3rd (?) wave emo started coming about and I would always hold myself back from talking about how so much of it just sounded bred from the 80’s/90’s college rock I’d loved and held hidden from the kids in One King Down shirts or bo***ge pants. I’d heard the replacements and superchunk influences in the Get Up Kids, and the other way around when I heard the Lilys Breif History and heard what essentially was a promise ring song years and years before Davey had even left Cap n Jazz.
It was in Philly I began to not hide my true loves, but wore em more on my sleeve. People at Spaceboy records helped kickstart my re-education. I’d found Sarah Records on my own from a stumble onto Boyracer, and then Secret Shine…and then the internal explosion that was The Field Mice. New Order had been my favorite band since I was about 5 or 6, the Cure and the Smiths would be the more talked about, but just like my oft infuriating answer of “The Who” to “Beatles or Stone?” New Order to me was perfection. I think it was around 2000 I’d discovered My Bloody Valentine and re-discovered Ride (I had a passing glance during the Tarantula record and wasn’t moved)…and the Field Mice was this perfect evolution in my mind. The pop and dance perfection of New Order, the fearless casting of of masc bravado and an embrace of something softer, kinder, sensitive, yet still covered in fuzz when it made sense. It could be big and dancey, and sweet but still pointed.
From there it was falling back in love with my hidden treasures, like Velocity Girl, The Lemonheads, Mathew sweet, and The Jesus and Mary Chain, new additions like Galaxie 500, heartworms, From Bubblegum to Sky, Slowdive(band), and Pale Saints (another life changing forever in-stone favorite, I still remember Julie G playing Half-life remembered at the Khyber and literally having to run up to find out what this magical thing was, and for her/that I am forever grateful).
All of that is to say when Tom and I met and started playing music; music I for the first time truly felt (between ability and personal honesty) could be mine, A CERTAIN SMILE started, and then became Aircrash, and stumbling a bit between became this: ports of call, the first record I ever made that sounded like “something”.
It took us 7 years from our first show on Temple’s campus, just us and a drum machine (HAL), but I have no question this record was started when the two of us met and allowed each other to finally be honest about music we loved, things no one else we knew really understood, it’s one of the most important relationships in my life and I’m grateful for it every day. (I don’t want to discount the other people who made this record what it is, Dan was a solid drummer, and an older person who helped foster us digging through the various boxes of influences we were falling over; Andrew taught me so damn much and is still hands down one of the best bass players I’ve ever had the privilege of playing with. Carolyn brought credibility and balance to what essentially had been two nerdy kids in their dorm, she helped add a beauty that we’d keep seeking even after she moved on to other things. I also need to note Mike and Jason, who though not on the record we’re instrumental in helping Tom and I get to this point, and Mike did an amazing job engineering and Co-producing the record with us.)
In many ways I think of this as the first a certain smile record, or at least the giant leap from that first show in 2002 that leads right to today. I still remember sending the master to (a hibernating at the time) Slumberland Records because they were essentially this crazy lighthouse of everything I loved and everything I was trying to synthesize into my own. When they didn’t take it there was literally no other choice for me, I didn’t want to send it anywhere else. If they wouldn’t do it, we’d do it ourselves on CD and try again for Slumberland next time (and it took me how long to realize my neurodivergence???) For years I’ve thought about putting it on vinyl, but this year, my first back in Philly, and my first back only a few blocks away from Tom, on his birthday, seemed like the perfect time to finally move on it.
So MLU-0004, dipping back into a lil self-promotion, ports of call - Like Thieves…
We still have a box or two of CD’s, though at one point it was a relatively hot item on Discogs, much to our surprise. But this will be the first time you can here these songs on vinyl, and I’m excited.
So yeah, pre-order for all three of these will be up on Friday. And we will keep talking about em here and there from now until the official release date (still waiting on confirmation of date from the plant but shouldn’t be too long amazingly), and we are hoping to have some more release announcements after we get done with these three.
When I first talked to Chris at Jigsaw Records about spinning a label off of our My Vinyl Underground shop, I’d talked about wanting to start with all the amazing things I loved that never got a vinyl release, focusing on short runs, and treating the covers like a bit of an art project. So I’m exciting to be starting off in that direction, and hope to have some more old first time on vinyl releases, but also up for new music and things so feel free to say hi and send us some new music to listen to!
Cheers, thanks,
Thomas
