So this week I thought I’d go with a recent pseudo-rediscovery, “Petrol” off Ash’s 1995 debut, Trailer. I was already pretty familiar with Ash’s sophomore effort, 1977 (the raucously sweet lead single, “Girl from Mars,” even saw some action on my local radio station), but the band’s earlier material never made it onto my radar. “Petrol” is classic Ash, a glorious mélange of early nineties alt rock benchmarks: Brit-pop melodicism, Nirvanian loud-quiet-loud dynamics, and Superchunk’s trademark “guitars to eleven” blast. It’s one of those songs whose infectious propulsion has a way of masking its long-by-pop-standards duration, practically demanding repeat listens and inevitably evaporating your day in neat little four and a half minute chunks. But I guess that’s why I went into publishing…
Also, slight digression, but I was absolutely blown away by Ash’s web site, which not only fosters a strong online community of fans, keeping them updated on touring info, etc., but also serves as the band’s main line of distribution, allowing users to instantly purchase new releases in a variety of formats (including internet download). Laszlo Toth definitely needs to work on its web presence.
Back when I was obsessed with finding Archers of Loaf material at the local used record shop, I remember always being pissed that I couldn’t find any Archers because the only albums the store apparently bought from “Ar” to “As” were by Ash. Seriously, you could go in there and buy their entire catalog twice, turn around and sell it back to them, and then buy it again because that’s how eager they were to be in the Ash music market. That combined with the unfortunate we’re-a-poppy-fun-kinda-punk-band-so-we-handwrite-our-band-name-! logo made me pass on them without much more than a contemptuous glance. Unfortunately for me, this song is awesome.
Also, I think not having a web presence is the point of Laszlo Toth — they’re nowhere and everywhere at once.
I think you’ve accidentally struck on quite the business model here, Matt. If we could just find a product that customers were willing to buy and then sell back to us for less money, we’d have quite the little enterprise on our hands. One trick, however, is that said customers would have to not be teenagers with no money.