© 2023 BLACK SITE
BS-5
Twenty-five years ago Truck Stop Love released their first recording; a cassette recorded by the band in the back room of Vital Vinyl, a local record store in Manhattan, Kansas. In November 2017, the band released three of those songs, plus 8 more previously unreleased demo tracks and never-before-heard recordings, on vinyl LP through Kansas City coop record label Black Site. Can’t Hear It: 1991-1994 captures the band’s wheels-about-to-come-off-the-rails Midwest rock twang at its most formative – when the songs were fresh, raw, and LOUD! This is the music that perked up the ears of the music industry, and helped make Truck Stop Love the first-ever Manhattan-based band to sign to a major label (much less get featured on MTV and in Seventeen magazine — tee hee).
1991 to 1994 was the key formative period for Truck Stop Love. Those years were likely even more successful for bar owners and liquor stores across the United States. When the band wasn’t out playing their music from town to town, they were writing and recording it — or "drinking," as other people might call it.
In the beginning, the band would record anywhere someone would allow them to set up their 4-track reel-to-reel machine. Later, they would favor Red House Recording in Lawrence, Kansas and its engineer Ed Rose. During the time leading up to their 1995 release, How I Spent My Summer Vacation, they would write and record some 50 songs, most under the mind-freeing influence of Old Crow and Schaefer’s beer. From the stoney drone of “Townie” to the frenetic blast of “How I Spent My Summer Vacation” to the head-slamming psych-pop of “You Keep Searchin’,” Can’t Hear It: 1991-1994 is Truck Stop Love at its wildest, sweatiest, beer-soaked best.
To give these old recordings a new life on vinyl, audio archivist and sound engineer Kliph Scurlock remastered the songs from the original analog and digital audio tapes, and Chris Muth at Taloowa Corp cut the master lacquers. With cover art and design from Commercial Artisan’s Jon Sholly plus incredible liner notes by Edward Skoog, Can’t Hear It: 1991-1994 not only sounds good, it looks good too!
Track List:
© 2023 BLACK SITE