The Clean: Vehicle

     In one of my early posts, "Flying Nun: The Label, Not The Show", I openly begged for someone to distribute the Flying Nun catalog. Shortly after that, I was thrilled to read that Captured Tracks would be reissuing Flying Nun albums. Finally I'd be able to get my hands on The Clean, The Chills, The Verlaines and Toy Love. Sadly, Captured Tracks' distribution is only slightly better than Flying Nun. I hadn't been able to find any of the reissues in a record store and was resigning myself to the idea that I'd have to order them from the interwebs. Then Mike told me he saw The Clean's Vehicle at Square Records. Yay! So I high-tailed it over there before work yesterday and picked it up. I've been listening to it all morning and it really hits the spot.
     The record comes in a gatefold jacket and includes the live EP, In-A-Live-Situation. Inside the fold, the members of The Clean (David Kilgour, Hamish Kilgour and Robert Scott) penned their individual recollections of the Vehicle Era. In 1989, they had reformed for a tour of Australia, New Zealand, the US and Europe. The live EP was a results of this tour. It features performances of classic material, but they also played new songs during these shows. They were convinced to go into the studio in 1990 to record these new songs, which resulted in Vehicle. The songs were already worked out, so it only took three days to record. Actually, one to record, one to overdub and one to mix it. Alan Moulder was supposed to produce it, but he didn't get there until the third day and only worked on a couple tracks.
     Usually, I'm the guy who likes a bands early output more than their later albums. In the case of The Clean, Vehicle is actually my favorite period. It's straight-up, tight, guitar pop. That's not to say I don't like their older material. The live EP is fantastic as well. It's very raw and up-tempo. I was thrown off a bit though because Vehicle is played at 33 1/3 and the live EP is 45 rpm. Vehicle features several standout tracks like "I Wait Around", "Bye Bye", "Some One", "Diamond Shine" and "Getting To You". These would all become part of The Clean's classic canon. I already owned The Clean Anthology and seven of these songs were included on it. I may actually force my kids to listen to The Clean now, rather than hoping they'll read this someday and check them out. Gun to my head, The Clean are probably the greatest of the Flying Nun bands. It's hard to top a group with David Kilgour AND Robert Scott of The Bats. Peace.