Velocity Girl

At one time, Velocity Girl was my favorite band. They are still up there, but the magic has faded a little with time. I was introduced to them by Andrew Friedman in 1994. He played for me Simpatico, their second album and I was pretty quickly smitten. While they are not that similar to Belly, Belly had surely paved the road for Velocity Girl, at least on my front. Once I had my first taste of Velocity Girl I wanted more and I quickly devoured their catalog, which wasn't very extensive. Copacetic is their first album and I have to agree, in part, with the review that I just linked to. It's a great album, but it can be hard to listen to sometimes. I found that I enjoyed it most with headphones because of the wall of noise intermixed with the softer vocals. I think a lot of the songs are beautiful, but I always felt self-conscious playing it in the lab because all I heard was the noise because I imagined that was what everyone else heard. Wow, I just went to youtube to look for any videos by VG and found one for Audrey's Eyes, which is one of my favorite VG songs. I don't think that video could have been more dated. Crazy Town is another VG classic from Copacetic. Check out the video. This song is an example of one that is loud with very quiet, but beautiful vocals. I had forgotten how much I like this song, but once again the video is very dated. I had the pleasure of seeing them perform and the Aragon Ballroom in Chicago with Sugar and Magnapop. It was a very enjoyable show. I was able to see all of those bands again separately. Their third album 1996's Gilded Stars and Zealous Hearts was, for me, a bit of a let down. I was so excited when it came out, but it just didn't do it for me like the first two. I convinced myself I really liked it, but deep down I knew I didn't. I learned a valuable lesson that day, you can trust anyone. At least, I got to see them play one more time before they broke up. This time it was at the Metro, a great venue.

I think I should mention Archie Moore who I think of as the driving force behind Velocity Girl. If you care, the article I linked is pretty interesting. He was also in Heartworms, which you should check out for some good music. I need to go listen to them. It's good every so often.