Today is a good day for fans of The Replacements, Hoodoo Gurus, REM, and Camper Van Beethoven as the time has finally come – more than three decades on – for indie rock/power pop band Crash Harmony to release their album.
There’s quite the backstory with this one, with the band having pulled themselves together in 1986 to form a band while they were attending Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. Part of the active New England music scene of that period, you could say that they enjoyed fertile ground for making music and living the college rock dream.
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).
The band played their last gig in May 1988 before parting ways and pursuing their own individual life paths. 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. The guys hadn’t played together again until beginning to record this album in 2022, but they had collectively decided that they had to return to that place. The result is this album of old songs – a rock-and-roll reenactment of the New Haven scene that changed them forever.
Now based in NYC, Crash Harmony is finally releasing this debut record ‘No One Asked For This’ via New Jersey’s Magic Door Record Label. With 10 songs on offer, they also present their latest video for ‘Orange Background’, which Nils Nadeau describes as “a letter from our college selves to our grown selves and also, in a way, from Generation X to what we have now in the world”, following the earlier-released ‘Velour Goddess’.
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.
Mixed and mastered by Ray Ketchem (Guided by Voices, Elk City, Gramercy Arms, Luna) at Magic Door Recording in Montclair, NJ, this album was recorded by Ketchem and Dave Derby in NYC, and produced by Ketchem together with Crash Harmony.
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 neighbour’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.
On October 18, ‘No One Asked for This’ will be released on vinyl and digitally everywhere, including Apple Music and Spotify. In all formats, it can be ordered directly from the label via Bandcamp.
Listen to ‘No One Asked for This’ – BELOW:
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