CRASH HARMONY – “VELOUR GODDESS”
A SPILL EXCLUSIVE MUSIC PREMIERE
Get ready to relive your youth (or experience it for the first time)! NYC indie rock stalwarts Crash Harmony are back from a three-decade slumber with their debut album No One Asked For This, to be released via Montclair, New Jersey indie label Magic Door Record Label. Leading the charge is the infectious “Velour Goddess”, a tantalizing preview of the 10-track record that promises to reignite the spirit of indie rock.
We don’t apologize if it feels like you’ve just stumbled upon a forgotten mixtape buried in the back of a high school locker. “Velour Goddess” is a blast of youthful exuberance, raw energy, and unbridled optimism—a sonic time capsule that transports you back to a era when the future seemed limitless and every guitar chord held promise.
With the guiding hand of renowned producer Ray Ketchem (Guided by Voices, Elk City, Gramercy Arms, Luna), this music was created at Magic Door Recording in Montclair, NJ. Weaving together the quintessential sounds of 80s college rock, this music is 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.
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.
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 re-enactment 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.
Album 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 (ASCAP / BMI)
except ‘Dancing With Joan’ written by Dave Derby and Eric Masunaga
Released by Magic Door Record Label
Artist photos and single cover artwork by Jon Drake
Publicity by Shameless Promotion PR
Crash Harmony
[Single]
(Magic Door Record Label)
Release Date: August 20, 2024
Artist Links
SPILL MUSIC PREMIERE: QUIZ SHOW – “SUPER CONCRETE”
SPILL ALBUM PREMIERE: ELK CITY – UNDERTOW
SPILL ALBUM PREMIERE: CR & THE NONES – THE GHOSTS ARE COMING HOME
SPILL MUSIC PREMIERE: GRAMERCY ARMS – “YESTERDAY’S GIRL” FT. LLOYD COLE
