VIA PRESS RELEASE | Shudder to Think—“a band forever rearranging the uncomplicated urgency of hardcore punk so that it could better accommodate the rococo wowee of its singer, Craig Wedren” (Washington Post)—celebrates the 30th anniversary of their groundbreaking album, Pony Express Record, in stores now.
The acclaimed album was the DC-area band’s first album on Epic Records, following several releases on Dischord Records. Produced by Ted Niceley (Fugazi, Girls Against Boys, Jawbox), it features Craig Wedren on lead vocals and guitar, Nathan Larson on guitar, Stuart Hill on bass, and Adam Wade on drums. Pony Express Record also features some of their most iconic tracks including “X-French Tee Shirt” and “Hit Liquor.” Pitchfork called the album “a nugget of operatic, sinister, and gleefully self-aware art punk” and “an album that pushed the boundaries of mid-1990s indie rock in new and exhilarating directions,” and Stereogum noted it as “a masterwork of alternate dimension progressive pop.”
Pitchfork included the single “X-French Tee Shirt” on their “Top 200 Tracks of the 1990s,” and the band performed tracks from the album on iconic shows like MTV’s 120 Minutes and The Jon Stewart Show. In the years that have followed, the album has been profiled by PopMatters (‘Shudder to Think Look Back on 1994’s Pony Express Record’), Treble (‘Shudder To Think created their own structures on Pony Express Record’) and more, and included on SPIN’s “Overlooked 1994 Albums Turning 30” earlier this year.
Shudder to Think went on to release one more full length album with Epic Records, 1997’s 50,000 B.C. and dove into the world of scoring films and creating music for soundtracks with the 1998 releases of Jesse Peretz’s First Love, Last Rites; Lisa Cholodenko’s High Art, and the Todd Haynes epic, Velvet Goldmine. Wedren and Larson have gone on to be prolific film and television composers with Wedren working on Yellowjackets, Wet Hot American Summer, The School Of Rock, Laurel Canyon and more; and Larson working on Our Idiot Brother, The Skeleton Twins, Juliet, Naked, and High Fidelity (TV series), among others.
Most recently, Wedren composed the score for ALOK, the documentary that premiered at the Sundance Film Festival on the phenomenal poet / stand up comedian / trans rights activist Alok Vaid Menon, directed by Alex Hedison and executive produced by Jodie Foster; and he released his latest full length solo album earlier this year, The Dream Dreaming.
A Note from Craig Wedren via his Substack:
Thank you Stu, Nathan, and Adam for bringing this lethal diamond of an album to life 30 years ago. For me, ‘Pony Express Record ‘was the apotheosis of everything we’d been working on as a band up to that point, and the purest expression of my own songwriting and musical style.
While I love ALL of our records, each for different reasons, PXR was the first (and ultimately, only) one where it felt like no disclaimer or explanation was necessary. Even with its knots and veils, it’s a totally honest album. We were ALL IN. One mind, band-mind, such that Nathan’s and my parts wove seamlessly in and out of each other to the point where it was hard to tell what came from whom, and the rhythm section yanked the tank around like a drunken snake.
Live, it was a fucking beast.
When the album didn’t do as well as we’d hoped, it felt like a personal rejection on a level I hadn’t experienced before. I think I went a little bit insane, such was the shattering, and within a year or so of its release I got really sick.
A brutal crucible.
I can still feel it now.
What I was so certain was the beginning turned out, in retrospect, to be the beginning of the end for Shudder To Think, or at least the end of what we thought we were and were destined to be.
That said, extraordinary seeds were scattered and sown in the band’s final chapter (if there ever is such a thing) – ones that blossomed into the unimaginably beautiful, creative life I now live.
So, while I may have plenty of wincing, achy regrets, I wouldn’t want to go back and change much, if anything. Better to live with all of it, use it for fuel and kindling.
And if you’re feeling sexy, pour out something dark and delicious, then give Pony Express Record a listen (decent speakers or headphones, please) on its 30th birthday. I promise it will take you somewhere, and probably make you grin.
Thanks also to our ever-hilarious and dog-eared producer Ted Nicely; to Will Weems who designed the cover; to our boy-faced A&R champion Michael Goldstone, who believed in us even when he didn’t totally get wtf we were doing; and to Andy Wallace for mixing the music into a perfect poison dart. Thanks to all at Oz Studios in Baltimore, and deepest love and thanks to Ian MacKaye and Dischord Records.
Most of all, thank you Shudder bandmates Mike Russell, Chris Matthews, and Kevin March, forever and always.
Love,
PXR30
“with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high-water mark—that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back.”
