1980s Yale band Crash Harmony resurfaces with 'Velour Goddess', heralding debut album

FOR FANS OF: Big Star, The Replacements, Hoodoo Gurus, Miracle Legion, REM, Camper Van Beethoven, Young Fresh Fellows, Husker Du, The Barenaked Ladies
INFLUENCED BY: The Replacements, Husker Du, Big Star, REM, Camper Van Beethoven, Sade, Mission of Burma, Squirrel Bait, Led Zeppelin, The Jam, The Clash
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ISRC code QZW5A2400045

'Velour Goddess' video  https://youtu.be/aQrxmbaZ9Ag
'Velour Goddess' single order / download  https://bit.ly/3WMOZ7F
Bandcamp  http://crashharmony.bandcamp.com/track/velour-goddess 
Spotify  https://open.spotify.com/track/4eN7uSEVuTGWjOZn0sj4ER
'Nobody Asked For This' album  http://crashharmony.bandcamp.com/album/nobody-asked-for-this
Soundcloud  https://soundcloud.com/crashharmony/01-velour-goddess  

"A blast of youthful exuberance, raw energy, and unbridled optimism... both nostalgic and fresh. There’s the Replacements’ raw, garage-rock spirit, the Northern Pikes’ innocence and purity, and hooks like a cross between Husker Du and The Go-Betweens, blended into a harmonious concoction that is undeniably their own" ~ The Spill Magazine 


NYC indie rock outfit Crash Harmony presents 'Velour Goddess', the first taste of the band's debut record 'No One Asked For This', to be released via Magic Door Record Label. Released after a 30+ year hiatus, the quartet are back with a full-length album of 10 songs, for which they worked with celebrated producer Ray Ketchem (Guided by Voices, Elk City, Gramercy Arms, Luna) at Magic Door Recording in Montclair, NJ.  

Crash Harmony is made up of Dave Derby (vocals, guitars), Mike Potenza (guitars, keyboards, vocals), Jon Nighswander (bass, vocals), and Nils Nadeau (drums, percussion, vocals). Formed in 1986 at Yale University in New Haven, CT, the band played its last gig in May 1988 and hadn’t played together again until beginning to record this album in 2022.  

If you were fortunate enough to ever be part of a vibrant music scene, then you know how intoxicating, how important, how finally cool you felt to live on this newly discovered planet. It was pulsing with energy and possibility, teeming with talent and artists and then, the jaw drop of realizing your planet was actually part of an entire galaxy of scenes vibrating around the country. A truth revealed that rock legends were not just the leather-pantsed strutters on the national stage but dishwashing oddballs strumming in your neighbor's backyard - heroes you could actually meet, try to impress, emulate and maybe one day open for, if dreams could come true. And, for Crash Harmony, they did for a while.

Yale rock - an oxymoron too good to be dismissed, meeting as undergraduates swept up in the current of something more exciting than college – a New Haven music scene that was real. While college was for figuring out what you wanted to be, college rock was for figuring out what you wanted to sound like. Crash Harmony was absorbing everything, and trying it all on for size at house parties, frat houses, and clubs throughout New England.

Nevermind, doesn’t matter, band over. Life happens. Real jobs, other bands. Dave went on to The Dambuilders (and then Gramercy Arms), Mike served on The Anderson Council, Jon left for Europe, and Nils wandered north. But no matter where they went, Crash Harmony still kind of mattered. Eventually, they had to come back. They had to return to that place so, decades later, Crash Harmony reformed to make a new record of old songs - a rock-and-roll reenactment of the New Haven scene that changed them forever.

Like their name, the record is an orchestrated pileup of long-ago influences that collided in the chambers of their broken young hearts and have again wriggled free from their throats and amps, pop gems humming like cicadas and dancing for the pure joy of being alive again.

"Dave and I initially bonded over anglophilia, including a shared love of The Jam, cockney slang and alcohol. I came out of the New Hampshire punk scene and was a founding member of Five Balls of Power (other members went on to join such bands as Dropkick Murphys, Scissorfight and the Radicts). Dave and Nils both were willing to play around with different styles and a level of musicianship that was a notch above the average college band," says Jon Nighswander.

Dave Derby adds, "Nils and I had been in a successful indie pop band. I wanted to create something that was both heavier and more psychedelic in that 80s college radio Paisley Underground sort of way, but then we recalibrated towards more of a 70s vibe. We tried really early on to align ourselves with the New Haven scene and not just the Yale one."

For Crash Harmony, it’s all so clear now – how lucky they were to have been part of a scene and to have met and grown up in ideal conditions to make music that would somehow find a way to live forever... Everybody, kiss your ghost.

'Velour Goddess' is available everywhere digitally, including Apple Music, Spotify and Bandcamp, where the 'No One Asked for This' album is also available for pre-order. Out October 18, it will be released both digitally and on vinyl via the Magic Door Record Label.

TRACK LIST
01  Velour Goddess
02  Last Night's Girl
03  Building Blocks
04  Under Your Skin
05  German Camp
06  Dancing With Joan
07  Orange Background
08  Wrting You Out Of My Scene
09  Floating
10  Cymbelline

CREDITS
Dave Derby - vocals, guitars
Mike Potenza - guitars, keyboards, vocals
Jon Nighswander - bass, vocals
Nils Nadeau - drums, percussion, vocals

Guests:
Mike Schreiber - organ
Peter Hess - saxophone
Ray Ketchem - percussion
Produced by Ray Ketchem and Crash Harmony
Recorded by Ray Ketchem at Magic Door Studios in Montclair, NJ
and Dave Derby at Missile Shells Sound Studios in NYC
Mixed & mastered by Ray Ketchem
All songs written by Crash Harmony
except 'Dancing With Joan' written by Dave Derby and Eric Masunaga
All songs ASCAP / BMI
Artist photos and single cover artwork by Jon Drake
Released by Magic Door Record Label
Publicity by Shameless Promotion PR
Video directed & filmed by Dan Karlok at Magic Door Recording


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