Join Choo Choo la Rouge and Kiam Records for a free listening party to celebrate The Sunshine State. Listen to an advance stream of the album along with the band and chat about the making of the album. Questions encouraged!
Streaming + Download
Pre-order of The Sunshine State. You get 3 tracks now (streaming via the free Bandcamp app and also available as a high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more), plus the complete album the moment it’s released.
Purchasable with gift card
releases April 5, 2024
$9USD or more
Record/Vinyl + Digital Album
150 gram black vinyl lp.
First pressing: 224 copies.
Vinyl pressed by Gotta Groove Records
Lacquers cut by Matthew Barnhart at Chicago Mastering Service.
Includes digital pre-order of The Sunshine State.
You get 3 tracks now
(streaming via the free Bandcamp app
and also available as a high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more), plus the
complete album the moment it’s released.
Hell's not other people
It's a taste I've acquired
For the reckless way I'm wanting you
Hell is future fire
Hell is future fire
I'm cold as gasoline
And you're a red hot wire
And I can't wait to spark our fate
Hell is future fire
Hell is future fire
I've got obligations
You have your old flat tire
Never been but an honest man and now
I don't care about consequences
My conscience is retired
Come and burn with me today
Come and burn with me today
Tomorrow we might have to pay
But tomorrow is so far away
Hell is future fire
Hell is future fire
My friend she speaks in poems and dreams
My wife she just says what she means
Me I'm somewhere in between
I drop my boy at the nursery
With tombstones gathering across the street
Me I'm somewhere in between
Feeling light and breathing deep
Feel a house on top of me
Sunny smiles kept in a frame
Walk away or what's your name?
The moon is peaking through the trees
And glowing on a pair of knees
Me I'm somewhere in between
What I have and what I need
What I say and what I seem
In the clouds or in the weeds
Where I am where I want to be
The hills are soft and green
The sky is looking mighty mean
Me I'm somewhere in between
We would lay a day to waste
Killing beer cans in the ancient everglades
Times were good but not quite great
Golden glow on the condo
Reflecting on the sunshine state
We would float below the rays
Your hips were bronze and your bikini marmalade
The skin beneath was pure cocaine
Teenage haze I remember
Reflecting on the sunshine state
Away away
A way to be free
A way to believe in you
We imagined our escape
Pinned against the sand
By heavy summer days
Planes took off and arced away
Silver light on the windows
Reflecting on the sunshine state
Away
about
“Mystery Train," 1956
“Train I ride, 16 coaches long
Train I ride, 16 coaches long
Well, that long black train got my baby and gone”
Human pitted against human. At the end of the day that’s all we are, and no amount of lawyering around it is going to change that fact. On their newest record The Sunshine State, Choo Choo la Rouge promenade straight down the tracks into oncoming traffic. They’ve been injured, and they’ve been blessed. It is time to make a stand. They have the angels on their side, and then again, who the fuck can count on angels?
The name Choo Choo la Rouge refers to a part of the Boston subway system that passes through working class enclaves and Ivy League sanctuaries. They were part of the remarkably fertile Boston scene of the late-’90s and early aughts, alongside similarly lacerating and loveable artists Papas Fritas, The In Out, and Hallelujah The Hills. That was a long time ago — twenty years, some say — but anyway the weird urgency of that energetic scene persists, ghost-like throughout their first release since 2009’s underground classic Black Clouds. That is not to say that The Sunshine State is a nostalgic album. From the winsomely ominous strains of the opener “Hell Is Future Fire,” it’s all about the things we have to look forward to. Vincent Scorziello sings:
“Hell's not other people.
It's a taste I've acquired
for the reckless way I'm wanting you.
HELL IS FUTURE FIRE.”
I put the last part in caps, because I’m convinced it's important. But why?
Born in the Bronx and raised in upstate Goshen before being moved at the age of 10 to one of Florida’s expansive residential fantasias, Scorziello recollects the cultural whiplash which informs much of The Sunshine State:
“It was jarring to go from tenement buildings of immigrants in the city and a creaky old house in a dusty backwater town--both oozing history and sparking the imagination--to the plastic vistas of South Florida in the '80s: strip mall, planned development with generic tropical name, golf course--wash, rinse, repeat. It felt cheap and fake. In some ways I came to like it.”
And of course he did, as we all have, or must. Florida is future fire.
Fourteen years have passed since the release of the last Choo Choo la Rouge full length. They seem to de-atomize and then quickly reassemble at the bleakest times. Enjoined by drummer Jon Langmead and bassist Chris Lynch, 2009’s Black Clouds was a thunderclap following the comically nightmarish banking collapse and the subsequent orgy of bailouts and bad choices which followed.
And here they go again on their own, with The Sunshine State, a forensically rendered perfect petri dish for losers, false prophets, psychopaths, con-men and all the other things we tend to consider patriotic. “Negative Eight Percent For Nothing” one track is called, an instrumental whose name and sound cannot help but suggest a not-totally-unintuitive collaboration of the Modern Lovers and Milton Freidman. On “The 70’s” Scorziello just says what we’re all experiencing: “The ‘70s are still ringing in my ears.” It’s an incredible album, one-part Kinks, one-part Zevon, several parts unidentified. Sister Lovers. Brothers In Arms. (It is a nostalgic album.)
Look: it’s January, 2024 and there’s no need for concern. You can’t rent a stoop in the Bronx for less than $8,000 a month and Florida too is thriving. Everywhere Choo Choo la Rouge turns, prosperity follows. Get on board, and get your share.
-Elizabeth Nelson
credits
releases April 5, 2024
Choo Choo la Rouge:
Vincent Scorziello - Vocals, Words, Guitars
Jon Langmead - Drums, Percussion
Chris Lynch - Bass, Vocals
Additional Performances:
“Hell Is Future Fire” - Additional vocals by Jennifer O’Connor and Amy Bezunartea
“I'll Be on the Lawn” - Organ by Jon Langmead
“In Between” - Piano by David Sherman
“The Truth” - Electric piano by CCLR
“Negative Eight Per Cent for Nothing” - Additional guitar noodles by Chris Lynch
“The 70’s Are Still Ringing in My Ears” - Casio’s Ghost by Vincent Scorziello
“The Sunshine State” - Electric piano by Chris Lynch
All songs by Choo Choo la Rouge
Recorded by Tom Beaujour at Nuthouse Recording, Hoboken, NJ
Produced by Choo Choo la Rouge
Mixed by Chris Lynch
Mastered by Matthew Barnhart at Chicago Mastering Service
Additional overdubs recorded by Chris Lynch at The Berwick Institute and at home
“In Between” and “The Sunshine State” recorded by Chris Lynch at The Berwick Institute, Roxbury, MA (RIP)
Drums and backup vocal recording for “In Between” by Tom Beaujour at Nuthouse Recording, Hoboken, NJ
Drum recording for “The Truth” and “The Sunshine State” by Will Chason at Rancho Rivera, San Francisco, CA
“Look What You Done” recorded by Andrew Abrahamson at Studio Eight, Allston, MA
“Negative Eight Per Cent for Nothing” recorded by Chris Lynch at The Berwick Institute
Piano on “In Between” recorded by Ben Rice at Degraw Sound, Brooklyn, NY
Album photos by Andrea Sloan
Design and layout by Sara Brownell
Choo Choo la Rouge is a guitar/ bass/ drums rock trio from Providence, San Francisco, Boston, Anywhere, USA. Their songs are
equal parts Kinks, Richman, Zevon, Big Star, Dylan, and more. They’re celebrating the release of their third full-length album, The Sunshine State, available April 5 on Kiam Records...more
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