Pinback Tour EPs

The Chameleon Transmission was Blake's show. As a green trainee I was assigned to learn from him the intricacies of broadcasting eclectic music over hopeless airwaves. He had listeners, a few, and the show was even during a prime slot on a weeknight, but our station was in the middle of being shuffled around campus and interest had waned. He and I and Jello J, my co-trainee, would spend two hours once a week raiding the ridiculously large stacks of new music and the station's nearly incomprehensibly huge library of CDs and vinyl and pumping out awesome and unlistenable music to anyone who would listen.

We were terrible, and nothing could stop us.

After a few weeks Blake began to get a sense of my taste in music, and began recommending albums. One of the very first tracks he played for me instantly became my new favorite song, and the performers my new favorite artist. That track was 'Penelope' from the album Blue Screen Life by Pinback. I fell in love, and fell hard. Since then I've done everything in my power to familiarize myself with Pinback's music, and the various winding tentacles of Rob Crow's other musical projects.

Back then Tucson was still overshot more often than not by touring indie bands. They'd hit Modified Gallery in Phoenix or some dump in Albuquerque and then speed through town on the 10. Slowly, though, a couple of venues established relationships, reputations, and the local scene grew strong. Before all that, though, Pinback was a regular. I saw them every single time they came to town, and I never failed to hit up their merch table.

Being a poor boy (some things change; some things stay the same) I couldn't load up on all the swag, but I had a sharp eye for what was worth my dough and what was just another band t-shirt. So every year, when Pinback rocked my world live, I'd pick up that year's tour EP. The first three are sleeves, thick folded stock stitched up with colorful thread. They got fancy with the fourth, though, so Too Many Shadows comes in a bare-bones digipak. This came out just as they were signed to Touch-and-Go records, who put out their album Summer in Abaddon.

I've been in a lot of great music stores, and never once have I seen one of these CDs up for grabs. I know for a fact that the first, Live in Donny's Garage, is a reprint of a tour CD originally distributed on their "first real european tour" ('cause it says so on the little blue insert), but as far as I know the other three are originals, issued each year the band went out on the road here in the U.S.
Update: I haven't been in enough great record stores, apparently. All four of these discs are available for purchase at the Pinback store. Please support a great band and harbor the good taste to own these fine discs for yourself. They're cheap!

So, with great pleasure (now I have great pleasure; putting these together digitally all at once was a bitch and froze my computer innumerable times) I present to you four Pinback tour EPs, in chronological order, complete with scans of the covers (front and back [.jpg]) and the CDs [.gif, so I could crop out the corners and the center hole =o)]. (The scans are included in the archive folders.)

Please enjoy.

Download Pinback - Live in Donny's Garage (Aug. 2000)
(Slight water damage on the back of the sleeve — goddamn cats!)




Download Pinback - More or Less Live in a Few Different Places (2002)
(My copy is signed on the back, "Rob C.")




Download Pinback - Arrive Having Eaten (2003)
(More water damage — STRAIGHT TO HELL, CATS!)




Download Pinback - Too Many Shadows (2004)