Velvet Crush - Teenage Symphonies To God Infomercial

Here is a rarely seen television commercial for Velvet Crush's 1994 Teenage Symphonies To God album. Or at least I think it's a commercial. Maybe it's just a music video for "Hold Me Up" made to look like a commercial for the album. The director certainly captured the look and feel of late-night cable commercials of the era. My favorite part is when the pop-up graphics proclaim "it's the Rhode Island sound!" This was absolutely one of my favorite albums of the 90s, and its still worth hearing today. Thanks to my friend Adam for pointing me to this video.

Found For $1: Peppermint Stick Parade

I've always been a big advocate of scouring record store bargain bins. That is in part because I'm cheap, but also because I enjoy the feeling of surprise when you turn up something really cool among the discarded Boston LPs and Hanson CDs (that's actually how I found my original pressing of The Velvet Underground's White Light/White Heat).

Recently I found a CD called Peppermint Stick Parade, a compilation of singles released on Iowa's Bus Stop label, nestled among the $1 flotsam and jetsam. It's a real treat for anyone who is a fan of Velvet Crush with no less than 8 tracks by such V.C. related acts as Bag-O-Shells, Honeybunch, The Stupid Cupids, The Springfields, Paulie Chastain, and Velvet Crush themselves.

I really do hope there is another CD compilation of early Menck/Chastain stuff in the works, because between Paul's Halo EP and stray cuts by The Stupid Cupids, Bag-O-Shells, etc. there is a lot more tuneful ground left to be covered. If you don't already have them, Hey Wimpus and The Ballad of Ric Menck are essential purchases for fans of 60s flavored pop music (I know I've mentioned this before, but that doesn't make it any less true).

These two tracks from Bag-O-Shells have yet to be released on CD anywhere oustside this rather obscure compilation. They're both killer cuts. In fact, I'd rank "Whatever Happened To My Life" right up there with the best tunes on any Velvet Crush album--it's that good. Not bad for a buck. Sometimes checking the bargain bins pays off.

Paul Chastain - Halo

I wanted to take a break from my current obsession with dynamic range and compression to offer some really sweet pop music.

Paul Chastain is best known as a member of the long-running indie-rock band Velvet Crush. As I have discussed before there is a long and confusing pre-history to Velvet Crush, involving band names like Bag 'O Shells, The Springfields, The Choo-Choo Train, The Paint Set, and many, many others. It's a history worth exploring. Many of Paul Chastain and Ric Menck's early recordings are chronicled on two excellent CDs: The Ballad Of Ric Menck focuses on the material originally released by The Springfields, while Hey Wimpus: The Early Recordings Of Paul Chastain and Ric Menck reissues material by The Choo-Choo Train (if you poke around Parasol's site, you'll find a few free MP3s from those albums).

But there are many remaining tracks from one or both halves of Velvet Crush's dynamic duo that deserve to be rescued from obscurity and reissued as well. Primary among them is this 1985 EP released by Paul Chastain. The title-track "Halo" is a three-minute blast of perfect pop music. The jangling guitars immediately remind me of early R.E.M., but there is a lightness and sweetness to the track that suggests Chastain was as equally enamored with The Hollies as with The Byrds.

Halo is a very difficult release to track down. I've only ever seen one copy, which I borrowed from my friend Adam. Unfortunately, side-two of his copy has been totally destroyed by what looks to have been an attack by a creature that excretes rubber cement. I have no idea what could have caused this, but there are blotches of goop all over side two that no amount of scrubbing and vacuuming could remove. I considered taking extreme steps like using lighter fluid to dissolve the goop, but since it's not my record I didn't want to do anything too radical.

In any case, in my opinion, this is one of the finest tracks I've ever featured on this site.

Bag O Shells

Before they settled on the name Velvet Crush, Paul Chastain and Ric Menck (both separately and together) issued music under a bewildering array of monikers; Choo Choo Train, The Springfields, The Paint Set, Paul/Paulie Chastain, The Nines, The Reverbs, The Big Maybe, Stupid Cupids, etc. I have never been entirely clear on what distinguished one project from the next, and I doubt even Paul and Ric could explain the difference between all of these bands. (To make matters more confusing some of these early recordings were later collected under Ric Menck's name on the wonderful Ballad of Ric Menck CD.)

This song comes from a 1990 Bus Stop 7" credited to "Bag O Shells." It's hard to imagine that they ever envisioned Bag O Shells as anything other than a temporary moniker, but for all I know they thought that was the name they were going to ride to the top of the charts. More pre-Velvet Crush material has recently been collected on the appropriately titled, Hey Wimpus: The Early Recordings Of Paul Chastain & Ric Menck, but for some reason none of the Bag O Shells material is on it. It's hard to understand why, because this is wimp rock in its purest form, I mean, this song is even called "Pocketbook" for crying out loud.

Like most of the pre-Velvet Crush material, this is more twee and cutesy than anything Paul and Ric did as Velvet Crush, which makes it pretty darn twee and cutesy. It's easy to hear their infatuation with the baroque pop of the The Left Banke on this cut. I like it.