SPILL MUSIC PREMIERE: THE LIVING PINS – “ALBUM THAT YOU ONCE KNEW”

Simon Le Bon of Duran Duran says this about The Living Pins: “One of the things I can really recognize when I hear a bit of music — is the FUN. The fun that they were having when they made that. And they were having such a great time making that music. In fact, if you do check out Living Pins, you will hear that in all of their music. They don’t have a lot of it out there, but they are having such a laugh when they’re doing this stuff, and I think it’s wonderful.”

Ever since Pam Peltz and Carrie Clark worked together slinging produce and cashiering at Wheatsville Food Co-op in the mid-90s, they’ve been drawing their own pirate map of the rock world as The Living Pins.

Releasing super well-received EPs and singles up til now, Roxy Unicorn is their first full-length album. A lush sonic landscape of Austin psychedelia pulled into focus with some 70s-FM-radio-era shimmer and polish. They’ve always had their eye on that candy window into the mystery tour.

Carrie Clark is a known Austin Music Hall of Famer as the frontwoman for 90s shoegaze favorites Sixteen Deluxe (Trance Syndicate, Warner Bros). Pam Peltz was the frontwoman for 90s Austin alt-rock trio Ursa Major and produced some beloved early Daniel Johnston tracks on Continued Stories. Sixteen Deluxe guitarist/singer Chris “Frenchie” Smith of the legendary Bubble Studios produced Roxy Unicorn.

“Roxy Unicorn”, the first single, is a baroque frolic inside an imaginary CBGB pop-up at Versailles, so they say. It has a tasty weird intro and then a galloping heartbeat to the end. “Secondary radiant joy” is a new favorite phrase for the summer.

Austin vinyl-based label Flak Records (“Because music should be physical”) will be doing a limited vinyl release when the full album Roxy Unicorn is officially out.

In 2023, Carrie made a special appearance at the A Curious Mix of People (University of Texas Press) book launch at the Central Austin Library and talked with its authors about the well-documented weirdness of the 90s Austin music scene and being frontwoman for Sixteen Deluxe. Here’s an excerpt:

Richard Whymark: “Didn’t you say you almost became Gwen Stefani?”

Carrie Clark: “Oh my God, yeah. At the time when Sixteen Deluxe was getting courted by every label in the book. Cuz it’s like ‘Oh, who’s the next Nirvana?’ or the next whatever. And yeah, I think one of those offers was ‘Hey, we’ll sign you guys but we get to decide what Carrie wears and we get to decide what her hair looks like and we get to decide all of these things about image… We said ‘No’“.

Roxy Unicorn will be available on LP and download/streaming on November 13th, 2026.