I haven’t converted nearly enough tracks from my constantly growing vinyl collection around here in recent months. My recent jaunt to LA, where I scored a load of 7″ gems, is reason to get back in the habit.

This selection from a 7″ by Trunk Federation counts as a great find in a depressing sort of way: I plucked it from the massive 7″ sale bin at Amoeba Records. Nothing would seem so humbling to a musician as those clearance bins – records upon records reduced to nothing more than a store’s effort to get them the hell out of its way. Of course, I’m happy to oblige.

Like so many great bands never to be heard from, Trunk Federation should have been big. The group emerged from that fertile Tempe, Ariz., music scene in the ’90s but preferred a sound that colored outside the lines a bit more than the somewhat sterile pop-rock that seemed to rule.

This 7″, Hi-Fi for Small Fry, was one of the first products Trunk Federation put out. But I can’t help but think that, after listening to History of Dead Ends on the A-side, the group already was making some statement about the scene:

“This city’s pitiful/
Been talkin’ to myself/
Up here you look so small/
This city makes you ill.”

Trunk Federation released three records, including the great The Curse of Miss Kitty, which recently found new life in Tim Fite’s Gone Ain’t Gone (available at eMusic). Fite constructed samples for his album only from CDs in which he found in the dollar bins. The Curse of Miss Kitty happened to be one of them.

Trunk singer Jim Andreas and drummer Chris Kennedy are now in relatively new Phoenix band LetDownRight, which is opening for Silversun Pickups and Viva Voce at Modified on Sunday.

Trunk Federation | History of Dead Ends
(From Hi-Fi for Small Fry 7″, 1995)

Related:
Tim Fite resuscitates Trunk Federation.