Boston Indie Pop Favorites This Car Up Back In Service For One Night Only, Saturday Aug. 13 at Great Scott

We first began hearing about a potential This Car Up reunion show about 20 months ago, and we can exclusively reveal today that at long last it will happen, just in time -- more or less -- to mark the MySpace-era hitmakers' 10th anniversary. Believe that headline: This Car Up performs for the first time in five years at Great Scott in Allston Rock City Aug. 13, with support from Sinnet and Pale Hands. Mark it down.

Since disbanding in 2009, members of This Car Up scattered, launching or weaving themselves into a number of Boston and Brooklyn-based projects including Mean Creek, Slowdim, The Hush Now and Stereo Telescope, among others. There was a one-off reunion at Deep Heaven Now in 2011, which elicited raves from a very lucky crowd. The quintet's sole release, 2008's terrifically tuneful Smile When You're Alone, was recorded with Aloha's T.J. Lipple at the legendary Inner Ear Studios in Arlington, Virginia [watch the rockumentary]. The set garnered a Japanese distribution deal with Moorworks and the band did a respectable amount of touring, but the resulting acclaim, frankly, was not commensurate with the excellent music the album contained. Songs like "Dislocate," "Tarzan vs. Graham Chapman" and "Expect Them To Lie" are immediate and irresistible, with massive hooks tastefully downplayed among chiming guitars, blocky synth lines and urgent drumming. The tunefulness suggests an affinity for Built To Spill among many others, but folks familiar with TCU co-fronter and friend-of-the-blog Paul Sentz -- who these days leads Slowdim -- know that the man carries around in his head an encyclopedic knowledge of '80s and '90s radio hits, which he draws upon with such facility that his songs can feel like they are singing your life. Or at least that is one man's opinion.

If there's a silver lining to the This Car Up story, it is that Mr. Sentz and This Car Up co-fronter Eric Glassman contemplate working together again, although sadly it will not be in Boston. Mr. Glassman has lived in Charlottesville, Virginia for a number of years (certain readers may recall the delightful town was the first post-graduate pit stop for this blog's executive editor), and Mr. Sentz is considering relocating there as well. Sentz had previously reunited with TCU bassist Kevin MacDonald for a time in Mikey Holland's power-pop project The Dazies, and keyboard player Kurt Schneider currently holds down the bass for that act and has also found acclaim as part of Stereo Telescope. For his part, TCU drummer Barry Marino logged a lot of years with Clicky Clicky faves The Hush Now (and now plays with Brooklyn rock act Wet Leather).So while This Car Up has been gone for a while, it isn't far from the minds of many. We're eager for the show Aug. 13, so come say goodbye and hello and goodbye to some of the nicest guys to have graced the Boston scene. It will rock. In the meantime, we invite you to click play on Smile When You're Alone, which is embedded below.

This Car Up: Bandcamp | Facebook



Related Coverage:
Playlist: Great Scott, Boston, Jan. 27 | Giveaway

Review: Slowdim | Slowdim

Given the slow, incremental progress that brought Slowdim to this point, the Boston indie pop quartet's sparkling, self-titled debut full-length evinces a remarkable degree of carefree ease that almost certainly belies the sweat and hours ploughed into it. Indeed, Slowdim streets this week as an exclamation point at the tail-end of a series of digital singles, compilation tracks and EPs, a tour de force of bright, melodic guitar pop that situates songwriters Paul Sentz (formerly of This Car Up, who we wrote about here in 2009) and Eric Ryrie (ex-The Shills) at the peak of their powers (sorry, boys, it's all downhill from hereLOLZ -- Ed.). The giddy momentum of opener "Up Stream" and the equally buoyant follow-on "Wishing Well" propel the collection with such energy that its spiraling final number, "Leave Our Names," comes too soon every time.

Certain of the music on the new record will be familiar to fans. Slowdim issued the ridiculously catchy album track "Money" as a single in Feb. 2012, and a year earlier the quartet released the Spirals EP (which now appears to be something of a rarity, as it has been removed from Slowdim's Bandcamp page). The EP featured early versions of "Don't Cough Me Out" and "Wishing Well," and the impressive evolution of the former song -- from a welterweight, hook-laden chant to full-blown, arena-ready rocker with ripping guitar solos -- illustrates the power and payoff of the quartet's wood-shedding over the last few years. Indeed, there is nary a songwriting misstep on Slowdim.

But while its songs are worked over, they are not overworked. To be sure, there is plenty of flourish -- the swoony "ooohs" complementing Eric Ryrie's reedy tenor on the sweet ballad "Can't Stop Falling;" the glimmering guitar appointing the verses of "Wishing Well" and "Birds" -- but there is nothing superfluous. Even when Slowdim stretches out, which they do ably during their shoegazing epic "Uh Oh," layering guitar upon guitar upon guitar to form a curtain of dense melody and noise, the record does not meander long, as the uptempo strummer "Laid Flat" immediately puts the record back on pace. Bassist Ana Karina Da Costa's voice plays a strong role backing up and harmonizing with those of Mssrs. Sentz and Mr. Ryrie, and is crucial to the overall sound in the same way as Phoebe Summersquash's was for Small Factory (or, for you Philly old-timers, Kara Lafty's was to Moped).

Slowdim surpasses the quartet's prior efforts by every metric, but its ultimate success manifests in the same way: listeners are left wanting still more music. While rock and roll inevitably suffers when we try to assign to it didactic intent, the lesson of Slowdim's long-awaited LP clearly is take the time to do it right. Two tracks, the aforementioned "Up Stream" and "Leave Our Names," are currently previewing on Bandcamp; stream them via the embeds below. The foursome plays a record release show at Great Scott Thursday with support from Night Fruit and Fedavees; all the details are at this Facebook event page, and hopefully the band will have product on-hand as there is no way to pre-order Slowdim as of yet.

Slowdim: Facebook | Twitterz | Bandcamp

Playlist: Great Scott, Boston, Jan. 27 | Giveaway

Tuesday night was the big Stranded In Stereo event over at Great Scott in Boston, at which yours truly feigned being a club DJ (we prefer the term selector, since we don't beat match or possess a shiny shirt with zippers all over it). Below we recount for those of you not in attendance what exactly was blasted in your general direction via the sound system. But before we get to that we'd like to try to express how awesome we thought This Car Up was that night. We're relatively new to the Boston-based quintet, who are quirky, entertaining and write the most anthemic indie rock we've heard coming out of this city in years. We loved how the one singer and guitarist -- who lost his eyeglasses and guitar strap within moments of the set opening -- undulates kind of like, well, crap, we can't show you because NBC Universal is suing YouTube, or something. We wanted to point to that awesome video of DEVO playing "Satisfaction" on "Saturday Night Live." You know, the one where they're playing under a strobe light. If you don't know it, it is bonkers.

Anyway, the one guy wriggled like he was in DEVO and was dressed like Fonzie in that one episode where The Fonz pretends to be a nerd that collects snails, and then the other singer looked like that dude from Up Up Down Down Left Right Left Right B A Start. And the bass player and keyboard player made with the funny stage banter. But mostly it was the songs. They played "Tarzan vs. Graham Chapman," they played "Shiny Objects" and they played "Dislocate," and it was huge. All of those tracks are from This Car Up's debut full-length Smile When You're Alone, which was released early last year and which very likely would have made our Best Of 2008 list had we known about it. The band plays in Worcester Feb. 20 and then it is back in Boston at O'Brien's on Sun. Feb. 22 for an early show which we very much want to see. Below is what we played at the Great Scott Tuesday. We prepared three mix CDs to make trebly certain that we'd have enough material to play, and we didn't even get to the end of the first disc. But that means we have three mix CDs that we have no need for, so the first person to email us (address in the sidebar at right) with the words "MIX ME" in the subject line will receive the discs in the mail. Good luck.

Playlist:

1. Weezer -- "Tired Of Sex" -- Pinkerton
2. Johnny Foreigner -- "The Houseparty Scene Is Killing You" -- B-side
3. Telekinesis -- "Coast Of Carolina" -- Telekinesis! [right click/save as]
4. The Small Screen Light Show -- "I'm Too In Love" -- Demo
5. The Hush Now -- "Sadie Hawkins Dance" -- The Hush Now [right click/save as]
6. The Pernice Brothers -- "One Foot In The Grave" -- Yours, Mine And Ours
7. Hot Club De Paris -- "I Wasn't Being Heartless When I Said Your Favorite Song Lacked Heart" -- Live At Dead Lake
8. Crooked Fingers -- "Your Control" -- Forfeit/Fortune

[Spectator performs]

9. Frightened Rabbit -- "Go-Go Girls" -- Sing The Greys
10. Vampire Weekend -- "Campus" -- Vampire Weekend
11. The Manhattan Love Suicides -- "Burning Wire" -- Burn Out Landscapes
12. Varsity Drag -- "Summertime" -- For Crying Out Loud
13. Lemonheads -- "The Year Of The Cat" -- Lovey
14. Eddyfink -- "Will I Get Through Today Without Being Kicked In The Knickers?" -- AQA 63336 Greatest Questions [right click/save as]
15. Johnny Foreigner -- "Rhapsidy/This Trapeze Ball Thought Out" -- Demo

[This Car Up performs]

16. Dinosaur Pile-Up -- "Let's Get Up" -- Demo
17. Dirty On Purpose -- "Audience In The Room" -- Like Bees EP
18. Ringo Deathstarr -- "Sweet Girl" -- Ringo Deathstarr EP [right click/save as]
19. Charlene -- "Ripoff" -- Charlene [right click/save as -- this is the radio edit, we played the longy]

[Black Diamond Bay performs]

REMINDER: We're DJing The Rumble Tuesday @ Great Scott

Dany Sloan from ExitFare has asked us to DJ ahead of and between sets on Tuesday the 27th at his debut monthly The Rumble event at Great Scott, Boston, which we're pleased to do. You can expect to hear new sounds from Boston, Philly and the U.K., as well as a few classics, because we're the kind of blog that will force you to confront the greatness of things like Lemonheads' "Year Of The Cat" or The Trouble With Sweeney's "The Snitch." We don't plan on spinning actual vinyl, so we'll have plenty of time to sit and drink beer with you if you show up. The live bill looks very good, and includes Spectator, This Car Up and Black Diamond Bay (ex-The Dears). We're especially excited to see This Car Up, as we've just discovered their 2008 set and are becoming big fans. Doors at 9. Five American dollars. 1222 Commonwealth Ave, Allston Rock City. Be there. Wear pants.