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New England product
For the kids: ECA Records, Converge, and Warped
BY CHRIS RUCKER

The first time I met David Conway, he was interning for Doghouse Records. The kid looked like a dead ringer for Harry Potter, and people around the office swore he could work magic. Which turned out, at least in indie-label terms, to be not far from the truth. Soon after, in the summer of 2002, Conway formed the Weymouth-based label ECA Records to release a demo by a band from Jersey called Senses Fail; within months, the three-song disc had sold out its 1000-copy pressing and the band had been snapped up by the hybrid major/indie label Drive-Thru. (Reissued by Drive-Thru, the demo went on to sell more than 150,000 copies.) When another ECA signing, Halifax, signed to Drive-Thru as well, Conway ended up with an A&R job at Atlantic Records. But after a year in NYC, he decided he missed running his own shop; he’s still scouting for Atlantic, but his current day job is teaching kindergarten in Weymouth.

This past fall, Conway landed national distribution through Lumberjack and relaunched ECA with discs including a CD/DVD by Philly indie-punks Denver in Dallas and the homonymous debut from Cattle, a band featuring hardcore superstar Rich Perusi (of Sex Positions and the Dedication fame). But ECA’s next two releases are by bands who are close to home and yet unlike anything else Conway has put out: Boston garage-punk headcases Tunnel of Love (their CD release party hits P.A.’s Lounge this Saturday) and cult singer-songwriter Jason Anderson, a/k/a Wolf Colonel, a recent Boston transplant whose last home was the storied DIY indie label K Records (the as-yet-untitled disc drops in August). "The Jason Anderson record is exciting because he’s been touring over 200 days a year for the past three years, living in his car and wherever he can," says Conway. "And the fact that he has so many albums out on K, and is gracing ECA with a full-length, is killer. He’s slowly built up fans, and now he can play house shows anywhere in the US to between 75 and 100 kids each night." Anderson and Tunnel of Love are both departures for ECA, but another Conway production finds him turning over an entirely new leaf: this kid who looks like Harry Potter, teaches kindergarten, and works punk-rock label magic is also starting a line of low-cost children’s books. His first release, due in May, is a tale about "a snail and a yo-yo" written by a first-grade teacher from Western Massachusetts. The books will retail for $1, but they’ll be free to any schools that want them. Keep an eye peeled to www.ecarecords.com.

Massachusetts metalcore giants Converge are celebrating 15 years of dominance by reissuing their 1997 and ’98 classics Petitioning the Empty Sky and When Forever Comes Crashing on both CD (through Equal Vision, out March 22) and vinyl (through the band’s own Deathwish, Inc. imprint, out this summer). Both versions have been painstakingly remixed and remastered by guitarist Kurt Ballou, and the Deathwish double-gatefold edition features the deleted original artwork by Hydrahead label guru/Isis frontman Aaron Turner. Converge will celebrate the reissues when they return to the ICC Church in Allston on April 16.

The on-line "pre-sale" for tickets to this summer’s Warped Tour outing begins this Tuesday. (See www.warpedtour.com.) And though there’s been no official announcement of a Massachusetts date as yet, Boston will be well represented: among the local boys on Warped will be Street Dogs, Lost City Angels, Dropkick Murphys, the Explosion, and the Unseen . . . If you want to learn the lyrics to the Perceptionists debut album, Black Dialogue (Def Jux, March 22), before the trio’s Avalon gig on March 23, note that the disc is available for pre-orders at www.definitivejux.com . . . And the bad news on the Nine Inch Nails shows at the Orpheum May 12 and 13 is that they sold out in hours. The good news is that the addition of a local opener, Dresden Dolls, was no fluke: Trent Reznor handpicked the duo to open his entire tour.

Chris Rucker is the host of New England Product, which airs Sundays from 9 to 10 p.m. on WFNX 101.7 FM.


Issue Date: March 11 - 17, 2005
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