64 Funnycars In-Store at Red Cat Records

Correction: when I read the press release for this event, I assumed that the Mike Chang that the band recorded with in Seattle was the same Mike Chang who is now in China Syndrome, because, like, how many musical Mike Changs can there be in the Pacific Northwest? I actually thought that that Mike Chang of China Syndrome was marked safe from being mistaken from other musicians (unlike Eric Lowe and Tim Chan, who have been mistaken for each other, and Eric and Tony Lee, who both play drums.) But physical appearance is not the key to THIS mistaken identity; In this respect, the Mikes in question have more in common with the two Victoria musicians named Colin Macrae.

Anyhow, I have fixed the piece!

...so... as we initially began, having a song about an AMC Pacer, especially one actually called "AMC Pacer", feels very much like a Fountains of Wayne kind of gesture. Compare it, say, with Fountains of Wayne's 2007 song "'92 Subaru". But Tim Chan of 64 Funnycars points out, "Of course we were around before Fountains of Wayne, ha ha."

Who knows, maybe Fountains of Wayne were fans? 64 Funnycars describes "AMC Pacer", the song, as offering "a revved-up surf-rock ode to one of the ugliest cars ever granted access to a public road, imagined here with mag wheels, a 409 and enough horsepower to humiliate a Ford Probe at the lights". It is one of four songs on the band's Hogwild 7", which is set to get a deluxe, expanded treatment this week, coming back into print in 12" format with bonus material some 36 years after its original release.

Hogwild is the second archival release in 604 Records' ongoing Decades series, after the reissue a few months back of the band's LP Happy-Go-Lucky. It marks, according to 64 Funnycars, "a briefer, broader and occasionally even sillier version of the band than the one that had entered Egg the year before."

Egg being Egg Studios in Seattle: The original Conrad-Uno-produced 4-song single, like Happy-Go-Lucky, was recorded at Egg Studios, this time with the Young Fresh Fellows' Scott McCaughey sitting in on the sessions. It came out in 1990, and also included another 64 Funnycars live staple, "Fading Away".

Seattle connections are shot through the recording, in fact. The Funnycars acknowledge both the Fellows and the Posies, two all-time great Seattle bands, as key influences. There was also the band Like Rain, featuring a Mike Chang who is not China Syndrome's Mike Chang, but plays fiddle on the Funnycars' Sweethearts of the Rodeo-influenced "Alone with the Blues", another of the tunes originally present on the Hogwild 7".

Between recording their LP and the 7", the band discovered that Uno had augmented his studio with a Spectrasonics recording console that had been originally custom-built for Stax Records in Memphis. They describe the console in their press release as "an almost absurdly appropriate piece of equipment for a session that would eventually wander from surf and country into the Funnycars’ own attempt at full-blown 60s R&B."

That full-blown R&B tune is "My First Date", debuting for the first time on the expanded EP; it has acknowledged influences including Otis Redding, Wilson Pickett, and Phil Spector. Written based on lyrics of Lowe's about friends who were unlucky in love, "the song gave Chan an excuse to go full 60s R&B melodrama while Uno piled on the reverb and Colin Macrae moved over to piano. They spent ages on it, then naturally decided not to release it."

Macrae is the subject of a Straight 'What's In Your Fridge?" here. Note that this is not the same Macrae who is in Dead Bob (and was in Pigment Vehicle). 

The EP's other bonus cut is “Crush”, which, says the press release, "brings the band’s love of the Replacements, Hüsker Dü and Soul Asylum into a tougher piece of melodic guitar pop." This I gotta hear! 

The original EP marks a momentous point in 64 Funnycars history, the band explains: "By the time the original EP appeared in May 1990, [Eric] Cottrell was already in Japan and Robin Platts had joined the band. 64 Funnycars would continue through more lineup changes, recordings and touring, eventually sharing a Victoria stage with the Buzzcocks before calling it a day in 1992. But Hogwild sits at the hinge: six songs from the moment the original four knew change was coming and headed back across the water to capture what they had become before it did."

To mark the expanded reissue, the band is performing an in-store at Red Cat Records this Thursday, starting at 7pm. We presume Mike Chang will be there with a fiddle? Heck, he better be!