i thought it'd be a good idea to start off this blog thing with something i'm very passionate about, so i'm gonna talk about one of my favorite bands of all time: The Vehicle Birth.
The Vehicle Birth (or TVB / VB for short) was an indie/math rock band from Fairfax, Virginia, which formed sometime in 1993. around 1994 the then young quintuple moved to Boston, Massachusetts, which is the state they'd stay in for the rest of their time as a band up until their break-up in 1999.
VB was well known back then in the indie boston scene for their unique, slint-esque approach to making music, as well as how explosive their performances were. Especially with their vocalist/frontman Timothy James who would make up most of what he sings on the spot, and often would scream and act manic on stage, the band very clearly also shows a lot of inspiration from dischord/D.C. indie bands as well as their shows being often described as intense. With VB, you never knew what you were gonna get, and that's exactly what the band wants- not to give you what you like, but to give you what you don't know you want.
The group would mostly give out tapes at shows, but they did put out a few records, plus a couple appereances in compilations. Their discography goes as follows:
- Limousine 7" (b/w Zero Work, Amsterdam, 1995)
- River 7" (b/w Level 90, 1995)
- Tragedy (LP, 1996. Later reissued in 1998 in both vinyl and CD through a deal with Crank! Records)
- They Came From Massachusetts (Comp, 1996. song: Coltrane)
- Pipeline! Live Boston Rock On WMBR (Comp, 1996. song: Two Minutes Hate)
- Split 7" w/ The Wicked Farleys (song: Toronto. 1999)
- Afterbirth : Unreleased Recordings (official comp of unreleased/rare songs, 2016)
- rock (EP, released thru bandcamp. 2021)
"Where are these guys now?" you may be asking, well...
Sometime in 1998 while the band was still active, guitarist Chris Jackson became part of stoner rock band Cracktorch, which became quite successful in it's own right. Nowadays he runs the Dharma Coffeehouse, which he had since the early 90s. I actually got to talk to him through Discogs! Real sweet guy.
In the early 2000s, Timothy James formed The Movies, another awesome indie rock band, very similiar to VB in style too. I guess their style goes wherever tim decides to go. 2nd Guitarist Leigh Thompson went on to form Milliseconds back in 2023 with members of The Dismemberment Plan (fun fact: Travis Morrison of DPlan helped VB with recording a lot of their early material, mainly from 94 to 95.), they'd release the album So This Is How It Happens. Bassist John Stephens seems to not have done much, aside from posting some stuff on soundcloud (including some previously unreleased VB songs). Finally, drummer Jeff Galusha went onto... help with The Dismemberment Plan's Uncanney Valley album.
Also, in 2011 TVB quickly reformed for two reunion shows back where they originally formed, in Fairfax. It's really cool!! I'll leave a playlist for some live recordings of one of their reunion shows.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wqvqE9FMS7w&list=PL9FBfP3yJfhbsZnLsZgtuGoMLrgqEQK9v
All in all, The Vehicle Birth quickly became one of my favorite rock bands of all time, simply because of how creative and abstract they were with their music. If you're a fan of Slint, Shellac, and D.C. Post-Hardcore, you might love this band. I'd heavily recommend giving Tragedy a spin! It's a fantastic album, and frankly I just wish these guys had gotten popular. They were decently well known in their time, but man, I wish they had put out more stuff. But hey, at least Afterbirth exists! It includes their 7" records, their compilation songs, so much live and unreleased material- its insane. It's got everything except for Tragedy. It's so amazing, there's so much stuff that if this wasn't released, we'd be missing out on so much great math rock.
I'll leave the Internet Archive link to Afterbirth here, if you like this band then this album is a must-have.
https://archive.org/details/afterbirth-unreleased-recordings_202504
