MUSIC
BY WILL KENNEDY
SEASONS CHANGE
Living the last days of tape culture with Eugene’s VCR
I
’m hanging out with Eugene band VCR and two oversized black house cats at their re-
hearsal space in the Whiteaker. Drummer Tyler Howard is treating me to the fake TED
Talk/quasi-standup comedy shtick he calls VAPEtalks, which he occasionally performs
at venues around town.
In the act, Howard riffs on techno-babble nonsense, spouting statistics about the cloud
and the future of emails and global warming, spoofing the knowing gravitas that’s become
TED Talk’s signature style.
It’s funny stuff: light, carefree but still sharp as a tack. Which is a lot like the music of
VCR, who’ve released their second album, Season 2. The self-produced album is available
now on Bandcamp, with cassettes and vinyl possibly out later in 2018.
The trio recorded it with Evan Mersky at Red Lantern Studios in Portland. Emma Hurt
plays bass and sings backup.
VCR lead guitarist and vocalist Chase Clark tells me Season 2 is the second part of a
planned four-part series of albums themed around the four seasons. VCR’s debut, Season
1, was inspired by summer and released on well-known Southern California garage-rock
tape label Lolipop Records!
Clark says his band had autumn in mind for the follow up.
VCR wanted to “remind people of fall, going back to school,” Clark explains, and there
was a lot of reflecting on youth while making the record: remembering moments like when
a boy or a girl you fancy is finally talking to you. This kind of nostalgia is bittersweet for
some, which touches on another theme of VCR’s latest: the shocking loss of innocence the
bandmates, as well as many others felt, after the election of Donald Trump — before and
after “empire falling,” as Howard puts it.
VCR hasn’t exactly gone political, but with Season 2 tracks like “Fake News” there is
a new topical edge to the band’s lo-fi sound, which Hurt says is inspired by ’60s bands like
The Kinks but also ’80s and ’90s punk and post-punk bands like The Replacements. VCR
is flattered when I compare them to The Pixies.
“We sound like the last days of tape culture,” Howard says.
VCR’s strength is not so much virtuosic playing but their ability to spin up a rock ’n’
roll frenzy on songs like “Next Day” off Season 2 or “Outta My Head” off Season 1. VCR
allows the music to nearly reach a point of recklessness, deftly pulling back at the brink of
chaos. The band played their first show after only their second rehearsal.
“I want to know that humans are playing the music,” Hurt says of VCR’s slapdash style.
“We want to let it breathe,” Clark adds, adding that in a trio “everything stands out” and
musicians can’t hide behind other instruments.
More than anything Season 2 is the sound of friends making music — a “power-trio of
friendship,” as Howard calls it. Collegial and intimate, the musicians could be jamming
in their rehearsal space or out playing some hoops because, as Clark says, “We just love
hanging out.”
VCR Season 2 is available now at vcrjams.bandcamp.com. The band’s next show is in
Portland with Cry Babe, 8 pm Thursday, Dec. 28, at White Owl Social Club.
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eugeneweekly.com • December 21, 2017
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