the vehicle birth
(Not a picture of them but it showed up on Flickr when I searched for them and somehow it just felt right.)
The legend of D.C. punk rock music generally dies around 1990 or so. Fugazi had climaxed the whole decade-long scene with Repeater, and what followed were simply insignificant aftershocks of tiny bands making tiny noise. But for someone like me, who really got into the post-hardcore/emo sound of D.C. around 1995 or 1996 (end of high school/start of college), the period from 1993 to 1998 or so could not be topped. There was Jawbox! And Shudder to Think! Hoover! The Make-Up! Ted Leo’s Chisel! Regulator Watts! Smart Went Crazy! The Dismemberment Plan! Faraquet! And, better than all the rest, a long forgotten band called the Vehicle Birth.
Tragedy, the sole album by the Vehicle Birth, has remained among my ten or fifteen favorite albums ever since it came out in 1996. It’s a marvelous record, arguably the best post-hardcore/emo album I’ve ever heard, and, like so many great records before it, it has been universally ignored. Part of it was simply timing: in 1996, Jawbox were all but dead, Fugazi, now firmly entrenched as an institution, did not inspire the same fervor, Shudder to Think had gone off the bend and future D.C. luminaries like the Dismemberment Plan were still need of improvement, while Q & Not U’s members were stuck in other, not-as-good bands. It was a weird transitional period, and an unfriendly one at that. (It should be mentioned that the Vehicle Birth split time between D.C. and Boston for this very reason. P.S. there’s an RIP MySpace page maintained by John, their ex-bassist.)
Into this schism stepped the Vehicle Birth, and they were pretty well received. They were always very much a band’s band — Travis Morrison from the Plan was always a big fan, as were Smart Went Crazy — and with a phrase like that comes the implication of general lack of recognition, which was definitely true. (The one time I saw them play was to a mostly empty house at the Galaxy Hut in Arlington.) It gave them a significant chip on their shoulder, an omnipresent apprehension that came through both live and on the record, their songs often long exercises in tension/release, with the mostly crazed mutterings of singer Tim James pushing things maybe too far, his determined declarations of “we need to find the girls” and “we have to die” either funny or creepy, depending on your politics.
Their songs were always fantastic. A track like “Marathon,” it’s chuggachugga riff so immediate, can’t really be argued with, and neither can “Yankeedom” (kid sing-alongs, massive open guitars), “23″ (total pop) or “One Mississippi” (tense, gorgeous, sad), their most popular tracks. Of those, “One Mississippi” is the most representative, so spacious and measured, crisp and clean all around, little organ sighs flirting with Tim’s vocals. The vast majority of Tragedy works the same way, and I’m having a really hard time coming up with a good comparison; the best I can do is to say that the false-softness of a song like “LifeHighSchool” reminds me quite a bit of both of the Velvet Underground’s self-titled albums, even though the two don’t sound that much alike.
God, I feel like I’m dooming one of my favorite bands ever here with a lack of clarity, but they’re hard to write about. All I can think about now is how a friend of mine from college was a big early fan of theirs, and she had three or four seven-inches of songs that never made it onto Tragedy. They were incredible, some of my favorite VB material. I held onto them for way too long before giving them back, but I dunno if I ever dubbed them (maybe on MiniDisc?) and I fear they’re lost for good now. If any fans read this and have those tracks, can you share, pls?
Anyway, ending on a high note. The record can be a bit silly. It’s kinda pretentious. The lyrics aren’t great. But there is an energy here that outshines all of that so handily that you won’t care at all. This record captured a moment, a band playing at their absolute best, a genuine coalescing around 11 fantastic songs that way too few people heard. It’s time to fix that.
Now it’s going to drive me crazy — where did I see the Vehicle Birth perform? Opening up for the Archers of Loaf? No.. UGH. Thank you for this pick!
I saw them only once at the Black Cat in DC, but they were really, really good. I took some photos of them at that show, have them somewhere.
sounds pretty good from the samples. Not familar with them, but the opening track made me think i had spiderland on….
Yes, the VB opened for the Archers of Loaf for four dates on the Loaf’s last tour. 2 in NYC, one in Boston, and one in Philly. Those were our best opening gigs besides Gang of Four. I took that photo. It’s got a people from a couple of Boston bands in it: Three of the Wicked Farleys, Araby from Jejune, and Jeff, the drummer from the vehicle birth. The photo was taken next to a building in Lafayette, Illinois where we were playing a gig in 98 or 99. Just out of sight was an adoining field full of broken portable toilets.
So I was the bass player for the vehicle birth, and must confess to gratitous self-googling, hence my finding this nice piece you wrote. (Thanks!) Anyway, I’ve got the back catalog available if anyone is interested. The Tragedy album is being sold on myspace, as is a live track on MIT’s radio station compilation called “Pipeline!”. The label is likely still trying to recoup the pressing costs for that album, so I can’t give you the tragedy album, but the unreleased, vinyl only, and compilation tracks are fair gam, so if you want that stuff (for free), get in touch with me.
Just email the vehicle birth through the myspace site and I’ll send the tracks to you electronically via dropsend.com. We put out two CD’s of stuff after the band’s demise, but the better tracks off of those can be boiled down to one CD’s worth. The songs from the 2 or 3 vinyl seven inches are on there, as well as the songs from various compilations. The recording quality varies a bit. There are demo recordings of practice sessions, some unreleased studio tracks, some live tracks from in-studio performances on MIT and other radio shows, some Berklee college of music studio recordings that were student projects.
Anyway, post VB, the Singer Tim (aka Timothy James) sings in the movies out of LA. They play softball with other bands you might have heard of, and their new tracks are sounding good. Tim bought Trans Am’s DC studio and drove it to California, where he records bands. Leigh is in a band with th rhtyhm section of the Dismemberment Plan and the singer of Motorcycle Wars. They are called statehood and they just recorded an album with Jason of the Dplan. Jeff is playing with Certainly Sir, but I don’t think they have gigged in a while. They are big in Japan. I record as John vs. Anti-John.
one of my favorite all time bands…nice to hear some good words about them…john (exbass) has a great library of music…about the picture, jeff galusha (amazing drummer)
is sitting on the truss while timothy james (lead vox) is standing in front of him i do not recognize the rest of the people…not sure about them all (VB), however, timothy is out in LA with a project called “the movies”
check them out http://www.the-movies.net i miss VB very much…they rocked!
the vehicle birth did open up for Archers of Loaf on a few dates.
i think i heard the limousine/23 7″ when i was in fourth grade, followed by the level 90/river 7″ in fifth… my brother had them. i was blown away. they had this one song, that they only played for like a summer’s time, and i only heard one official recording of the song, and it was called “two minutes hate”… only later did i find out it was george orwell reference.
A live version of “2 minutes Hate” is available on iTunes, as part of the Pipeline WBMR compilation.
Very much a fan of the vb, so much so as I still have my handscreened shirt in storage so it won’t fade away. Tragedy, both vinyl and disc are in rotation at least once a month. Glad to see some others who remember and love them.
i have a t-shirt, too! can’t remember where it is though.
Sigh. I have stickers. Demo copies… all kinds of old stuff. In large part because I was hopelesslly head over heels in like-like with all of them at one time or another, spanning from elementary school through high school.
I want more VB!! How can I get a CD of 7″ stuff and live stuff!!! Must have..will pay!! Thanks and you guys rule(d)!!
Some of the VB is in your picture. The guy sitting is the drummer jeff, and the guy pointing at him is either me or chris. The girl standing on the beam is Araby from Jejune. Old picture, but I remember that show. note: Wicked Farleys in the foreground….
PS this is my favorite part of this article:
“The record can be a bit silly. It’s kinda pretentious. The lyrics aren’t great”
my response > the lyrics are great! you just can’t hear them, they’re buried in the mix.