The Princeton Reverbs Colonial

Today I'm content to share with you all one of my prized possessions. It's a vinyl rip of New Hampshire band Princeton Reverbs Colonial's 1999 LP Christ On The Foreheads of 144,000.

And this was an extremely limited debut-- one that has been woefully out-of-print now for several years. I first heard it on WUOG (of course) one afternoon during their "Lunchbox" program, & scrambled to hit the "record" button on my boombox. It kind of hit me as a cross between GBV's glorious 4-track era and the best of the E6 collective. The hooks on this thing are just fantastic! And I thought to myself, This should be the biggest indie band in the world right now.

Soon after, I got a chance to see PRC rock the Watt with fablefactory opening!!! It was one badazz show, and I'll always remember the Reverbs were wearing like, Sunday school attire-- churning one great tune after the other. I would later discover the connection between these two awesome acts-- PRC frontman Paul Vittum & his label, Red Carpet Ring.

A year passed by, I think. And then they came back to town: they were on the air (WUOG, again!) with those Je Suis France dudes. I called the station and talked with Vittum for a long while, gushing about how awesome they were.

Paul was a gracious man, he gave me his number and sent me a vinyl copy of Christ on the Foreheads, along with fablefactory's American Custard CD.

I can't tell you how much it meant to me, and still does. We spoke to each other on the phone handful of times-- talked music, college, what it was like running a label, the NH climate. I was going through a particularly rough divorce during this time, and Vittum was even cool enough to endure my drama for a spell.


They came back to Athens, in the summer of 2000 I think, playing at the Ultramod Compound-- but this time with the France. I finally met Paul and the 'verbs in person that night. After some wicked guitar destruction courtesy of Ryan ("The Darkness") Martin, PRC rocked the house. I begged them to play the closer to Christ.... ("Laudanum"), but Vittum said he couldn't remember how to play it. I laughed. So I said, how about "Our Red Clarinet" (their latest single then)? And as I was off somewhere drinking in the packed house, they gave me a shout-out & dedicated that one to me. That had never happened before. I would give almost anything for a video of that night.

I kind of fell out of touch with PRC around 2002-2003, though. I heard through the Athens grapevine that they'd broken up, and that Paul V. had quit music altogether. So I was very much elated to discover while surfing the Internets recently a new email address for Paul (the Red Carpet Ring site has been neglected for so long), along with some news on the band. I emailed him, and here's part of the reply:

My wife Faith and I recorded the third PRC disc wtih family and friends in NH in
2005. We mastered it with Jeff Lipton whose done some work with Magnetic
Fields, Pernice Brothers, etc. The disc is titled join the invisible
choir and its the third installment to the story we started to tell
back with ..and the flute to float the soldiers sword. The choir record
hasn't seen a proper release yet. I think many of the songs are
floating around out on the internet, though probably somewhat hard to find.


...I'll always be making music, its the
best thing for my mental health. Talk more soon, sincerely Paul

So look out for Princeton Reverbs, and if they come to your town-- check them out. You won't be disappointed. Until then-- enjoy today's music, and I'll be back here around the end of the week. Cheers. And long live The Princeton Reverbs Colonial.


Side A mp3 (16 MB): Swt. Spts. Nitro/ Miscommunicated words I wrote to Jeff/ Only Veratria Ointment/ Prelude to Christ/ Zoological Examples of personality traits


Side B mp3 (20 MB): Trains we rode/ Falling Forward/ Ammoniaque/ Season of Change/ Laudanum