Haywood's As Long As There Is Track... Back On Track

The thick-glasses-wearin'-est, One Stars-rockin'-est corner of the indie world's version of Chinese Democracy, otherwise known as Haywood's second posthumous release As Long As There Is Track, I Will Not Go Back, is a few shuffling steps closer to being released. Which is, of course, a certain kind of amazing, since it was made long after the band had saluted us from the bow the first final time, the waves greedily slurping the chaps down into the murky depths of various respectable adulthoods. Don't believe us? Check out the erstwhile Brooklyn indie rock quartet's MySpace dojo here (well, actually, here), where you can also stream four cuts from the long-awaited set. And look, we've got the cover art right there in the left-hand corner.

We accept that our attention to this pending release is a bit ridiculous, but Haywood has been one of our favorite bands since we heard their first single, and, hey, we run this blog, so deal with it. For those of you who don't know what we're talking about, we can refer you to items we published previously here and here and even here and here at Junkmedia's World of Sound. In fact, since the release of As Long As There Is Track... has been so long in the making, we can recycle a lot of that last WoS item. Here:

"So as we breathlessly announced [14 months ago], there is a new Haywood record in the offing, and it's called As Long As There Is Track, I Will Not Go Back. This is in spite of the fact that the band broke up in late 2000, months before their last and supposedly final record We Are Amateurs, You And I was released by the nice folks over at Self Starter Foundation. The short story behind this phoenix move is that primary Haywood songwriter Ted Pauly just couldn't stop writing material, and around 2003 he played the demos for his chum Rob V, Haywood's drummer (and damn near the finest rock drummer going, in our opinion). People got excited, studio time was booked, songs were tracked, and here we are in 2006 with a new platter. Well, there's a lot more to it than that, but we'll save it for another time."

There is a fair amount of free Haywood to be had around the Interweb (not to mention Pauly's excellent and typically devastating solo stuff at his MySpace, linked above). How about we point to some here?

Haywood -- "Button Up, Buttercup" -- We Are Amateurs, You And I
Haywood -- "Plow" -- We Are Amateurs, You And I
Haywood -- "Ogden" -- Men Called Him Mister
Haywood -- "The Kids Are Taking Aim" -- Men Called Him Mister
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[Buy Haywood records from Self Starter Foundation; if you don't own these as well as their first CD Model For A Monument you are leading a seriously deficient life]