In the late '80s, Via only played two shows before disbanding. The group is made up of Thalia Zedek (Come, Live Skull, Uzi), Jerry di Rienzo (Cell, Nuclear Theater), James Apt (Six Finger Satellite), Adam Gaynor (Nuclear Theater), and Phil Milstein (Uzi), and they're releasing their long-lost eponymous EP this fall. The aptly titled “1,000 MPH” is out now.
“This may be the first song we wrote," Zedek says of the lead single. "It was inspired by the sensation of sitting on a parked train in a station next to another parked train — thinking the train you’re on has started moving, only to realize it’s actually the other train that’s moving while you’ve been sitting still the whole time. At the time, it must have felt like a metaphor for my life.”
Via comes with liner notes by Chris Brokaw (Come, Codeine). Dromedary Records’ Al Crisafulli recollected a conversation he had with Brokaw that led to this project:
We were talking about bands from the Boston underground rock scene in the late ’80s and early ’90s, and Chris mentioned Via. He said, "Maybe Thalia’s best band. Jerry’s, too." That’s a pretty big statement. Of course, I’d never heard of them. But soon after, I had a folder of rough mixes emailed to me. And not long after that, I was sitting with Thalia and Jerry, again in Catskill, discussing releasing this music together.
Listening to it was like opening a time capsule, a group of 8-track recordings from 1987, before Come, before Cell, when these amazing musicians were just discovering themselves. The music was loud, aggressive, and actually ferocious in spots, these two brilliant guitar players coming into their own, with a rhythm section of James Apt and Adam Gaynor of the band Nuclear Theater and Phil Milstein of Uzi providing tape loops. I could instantly hear what Chris described to me months before.
Hear "1,000 MPH” below.
TRACKLIST:
01 "JJ"
02 "Cell"
03 "1,000 MPH"
04 "How We Got This Way"
05 "The Other"
06 "Way You Say You Feel"
Via is out 11/14 on Dromedary. Pre-order it here.
