Tag Archive: Velocity Girl


The name was an explicit signpost. Maryland’s Velocity Girl named themselves after the B-side of Primal Scream’s May 1986 second single “Crystal Crescent.” At this point, Bobby Gillespie and Co were still a Byrds-leaning, Sixties-inclined, polkadotted jangly pop outfit. There were no hints of what came later.
Velocity Girl formed in College Park, Maryland in 1989 but were embedded in the Washington, DC music scene – one which, for much of the outside world, was defined by hardcore punk and the various flavours springing from it represented by bands like Fugazi and Nation of Ulysses. Looking to any British indie archetype was atypical. As the liner notes for new compilation 1989-1992 put it, “Velocity Girl arose from a new…

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…This expanded reissue adds 8 songs recorded at Inner Ear Studios in Arlington, VA, a few months after the album sessions. These sessions provided playfully experimental B sides to the album’s singles, two cover songs (the New Order cover “Your Silent Face,” and a Beach Boys cover) for a single on Merge Records, and a compilation track.
The problem with Copacetic was the dingy production, so for Simpatico, Velocity Girl hooks up with the Smiths’ first LP producer John Porter. Flaw corrected. Perhaps too much? Some have expressed the opinion that Porter has neutered them somewhat, and indeed, the rawer edges have largely been relinquished, but so what? They sound great now, much tighter, more convincing, more together. Constant touring has…

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