Results tagged “shuddertothink”

Shudder to Think was one of only two bands to ever make the jump from local indie stalwart Dischord Records to a major label. In the mid-1990s they signed with Epic, and released Pony Express Record, still one of the finest pieces of art-damaged post-punk ever produced by a band in this town. It was an odd record for a major label, deeply complex, with shifting time signatures and singer Craig Wedren's distinctive falsetto taking center stage. While the band's previous output hadn't necessarily been conventional, one imagines the folks at Epic were scratching their heads over what to do with a record that was so relentlessly original and like little else in the post-Nirvana soundscape. The record became a cult hit though, and the video for "X-French T-Shirt" could actually be seen pretty frequently on MTV in the summer of '95, while the "Hit Liquor" video even managed to attain that most auspicious of '90s honors, being skewered by metal-head delinquents Beavis and Butthead.

Craig Wedren has one of the most distinctive voices in rock. How it is that he managed to avoid becoming a household name is a bit of a mystery. Pony Express Record, his 1994 major label debut with Shudder to Think, the band that he got his start with in D.C. in the mid-80s, should have been a huge breakthrough. It was an adventurous record of inventive, art-damaged post-punk, all shifting time signatures and angular...