Naw, bullshit—really? The Tomorrowpeople, live onstage after being left for dead somewhere 'twixt infamy and fortune eight long years ago? True enough, in the words of one Jody Powerchurch: "It won't be big, it won't be pretty."
Though, that's kind of the way we prefer it—baby steps, baby, back toward golden-energy yesterdays till it's tomorrow, people, and the youth are middle-aged but still in orbit nonethefuckingless. In other words: exciting.
Nice how guitarist-singer-keybs-master Trey "Powerchurch" Scholz put it in a misty-eyed missive recently, as those of us with hazy memories do so fondly recall "the days of yore, when the streets of Commerce, Elm and Main were paved with the stubs from the expense accounts of major-label talent scouts looking for the next Kurt Cobain." Still among my prized possessions: the shiny, catchy leftovers and seditious, captivating redos from the band's '97 bow on Last Beat (Golden Energy in Stereo) and its '99 bow-out Marijuana Beach, among them tracks most current bands would be proud to call "hit singles" ("Vacation Destination Earth," "Windows Wide," "Operation Dustoff"). The nine-song disc actually consists of tracks the band cut for Geffen Records, which gave the band the heave-ho during the late-'90s upheaval that found the label annihilated by Universal Music Group. Now, damned near a decade later, the band makes its entire catalog, including those discarded Geffen tracks, available via iTunes 'round about the time you read this.
"We're not trying to sell you anything," Scholz says of his band's reunion. "We don't have any T-shirts, we've got no stickers. It's all about playing, and it's a fluke we're even doing this."
Turns out the Double Wide's Chelsea Callahan told the boys to get with the digital marketplace pronto, so they did—"and she doesn't even like The Tomorrowpeople," says Scholz, who'll be joined on the 17th by Brutal Juicers Mike "Gordo" "Buzz" Gibson on falsetto lead and Ben Burt on the drums and some other extra 'people.
"And we might even do some new stuff" in the future, says Scholz, "but we won't play 'em on the 17th, because we're still re-learning the old stuff." Tomorrow can't get here soon enough, people.
