Saturday, January 24, 2015

Vitreous Humor/The Regrets

I sometimes like to think Vitreous Humor was famous at one point after all the song "Why are you so mean to me" seems like something that could have been big for the mid 90's in the indie rock scene, then again it is called indie (Independent Rock music) for a reason. Vitreous humor was a band from Kansas city that began in the late 80's the band didn't record any material until they got serious in '93 and released a 3 song 7" called Harbor. The crazy thing is that this was not only the first VH release but as well as Crank! A record company (I will be mentioning that label a lot on here) since this is the first time me mentioning this great label I will talk a little about it, just a tiny bit. At the time of the Harbor 7" release the Santa Monica, CA DIY label (at the time) was called Geerhed Records, it had the same mascot flower carrying the books minus the "Crank!" on the shirt and Gerhead.At the time this 7" was more of a Santa Monica local release meaning the only way to get it is if you have a friend who bought the 7" and gives you the catalog card where you can send you $3.50 for the 7" along with your mailing address. Some crazy shit back then huh, I mean now we have bigcartel websites, storenvy's and even bandcamp pages where it is easy to access music.
This was what you needed in order to obtain one of these, good thing is that I ran into a copy of the 7" on discogs (That is one of my main record collecting sources, its cheaper too)
Harbor 7"
This 7" looks pretty darn cute red, for a moment I thought there was a black press but since most of the 90's emo records were done in one time press its rare to see represses of 90's emo records, most bands today do multiple presses (records are oddly becoming popular, mainstream thought it be cool although small time labels and bands have done it for quiet some time) Harbor is a all time classic for me mainly because the song Harbor just nailed it, in high school I was playing this song and a old time friend was drunk because his girlfriend left him or something began crying halfway through this song because it reminded him of the recent one day ago breakup he had, I felt pretty bad for leaving the song to continue to play but I just felt like I couldn't pause it just because of that. Harbor has more of a emo kick and the vocals are high pitched while the other two songs off side b the vocals are less high pitch and brings a indie rock mood. It may be the possibility that Harbor was recorded first before the other two songs, on the Crank! catalog the 7" is entitled as "Harbor+2" so it may answer the question to why Danny Pounds vocals are high pitched on the song Harbor.

Boys Life/Vitreous Humor Split 7"
Sometime after receiving my Harbor copy me and another buddy of mine who has a large solid vinyl collection on more recent bands we went to a record store in downtown in the city I live in Long Beach and we started having the nerd music vinyl talk, during the brief discussion we talked about what specific records we were hunting down and I remember telling him that I am missing the Boys life/Vitreous Humor split 7" and right when I said that he was flipping through records and saw that exact same split 7" I was mentioning to him, it was pretty fucking crazy. We are still mind blown about it even til this day, I was surprised that Fingerprints had such a good gem since most stuff isn't really my cup of tea. The 7" was about 7.99 I didn't give a shit since I was too stoked about it. Well lets talk about the split, there are two songs, one on each side. Side A has Boys life song "Temporary" which was then added to BL's self titled (Ill talk about that band soon so I won't get into them) now we are in for Vitreous Humor's side which would be side B this side contains the bands more commonly known song "Why are you so mean to me?" even Nada Surf did a cover of the song (Not like they made it sound better since they didn't but good for them I guess) There isn't a whole lot explaining on this 7" also the reason I didn't left a link to this 7" is because this song was then put on Vitreous Humor's compilation CD. The split 7" is Crank's third release.

Self titled EP/Limited /500 10"
This was the only release the band made that was not a single, Vitreous Humor had some slight of new thing going on the guitars are a little more muffled during the strumming but also has a few cleans thrown in. I was lucky enough to have found the 10" this was very hard to find and took me years until some dude who sells cool shit on discogs was selling it. the CD of this is more easy to find, both formats are not being pressed anymore but there is a high chance of finding the CD still wrapped and sealed like on amazon for just a buck or even a few cents. After listening to the 7 songs there isn't much difference to the songs and all have a similar alike tone, I know there are two songs that start the same way just different pace. Overall this is the only non single release the band put out. My Midget b/w New Victoria theater 7"
I didn't even know this release existed until I saw the blogspot For Ivadell mention it. Before For Ivadell other blogspots who mentioned Vitreous Humor never mentioned this 7" or even thought this one existed because it was hardly ever brought up. My midget isn't a song to worry about since that is the first track of that VH compilation CD but New Victoria theater, that song barely saw the light of day. And for some strange reason that song isn't even on the CD, guess they didn't like it. This was not a Crank! release (it might be the reason why no one ever spotted this 7" ) it was under some label called Mute America or something (possibly some label who also barely saw the light of day) From info I have gathered Mute America was very highly active during '95 and '96. Nothing else I can conclude for this 7" I'd say download it for the song New Victoria, I honestly feel like the song is strong enough and worth to listen to, it still follows the same flow off Why are you so mean to me? Posthumous
This CD was thrown to fans after VH had already disbanded but 3 of the 4 members went on to form The Regrets (I will talk about right up next) The CD even obtains a song originally from The Regrets, I have no idea what it's doing in this Vitreous Humor compilation since it isn't really a Vitreous humor song. There are some good ones that may have been put on more single 7"s and others that were just live songs that were never officially studio recorded. The CD is a solid okay one, would've been way better if it included the songs off Harbor, New Victoria theater or even the song The Whisper Twins which was one of Cranks!'s few compilations they put out since it already obtained Why are you so mean to me? and My midget, not sure why they never planned on that. The songs that were recorded but never released do sound pretty good and you can here the bands final form before disbanding and sounded like a pretty neat ass one too. Now that we got all that outta the way lets talk about The Regrets, after the release of My Midget and a few songs recorded off Posthumous, 3 of the 4 members (including Danny Pound of course) went on to form The Regrets. There is a different sound to both bands, while VH has more of a indie rock/grunge-like muffled guitars going on, The Regrets played more in a cleaner tone guitars, vocally some songs are just spoken while others have some catchy ass vibes to it. The Regrets last long enough to have released one full length album entitled "New Directions: Results Beat Boasts" I could only imagine how the bands sophomore album would've sounded like, they possibly wouldn't even be on Crank! A record company anymore. New Directions: Results Beat Boasts
Sooo yeah only have the CD format version of this, Crank! was all about one time press limited LP's while CD format was more of a thing in the mid and late 90's most of the catalog the vinyl records weren't made as often throughout the years. The CD looks like a vinyl record (looks cute man) but like I mentioned before you can tell the difference between Vitreous Humor and The Regrets especially through the tone of the guitars. I am still tracking down a LP copy of this that is being sold in the US only, someone in Japan is selling it but the shipping is totally gonna slaughter the overpriced LP. Danny Pound put out 4 unreleased songs that were never brought up til like a year or 2 ago (I do have them) and well those 4 songs are literally the final ones as The Regrets, it still follows the same flow as New Directions just with meh quality and what not. 4 Track EP

5 comments:

  1. I have a live VH show from '95 in Chicago and a live Regrets show from '97 in Madison, Wisconsin if you are interested.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It's very interesting! If you don't mind, upload it somewhere, please. Thanks in advance.

      Delete
  2. Oh, and we were not from Kansas City. The original three members are from Topeka, Kansas. However, Brooks Rice, the bass player from '93-'96. was from Kansas City.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Oh, thank the blog's author, for visit my blog.

    ReplyDelete