CHOO CHOO LA ROUGE
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Choo Choo la Rouge announce new album The Sunshine State, out on April 5, 2024.
First single and title track, “The Sunshine State” out now!
Choo Choo la Rouge - The Sunshine State -
Artist Bio by Elizabeth Nelson
April 5, 2024
“Mystery Train," 1956
“Train I ride, 16 coaches long
Train I ride, 16 coaches long
Well, that long black train got my baby and gone”
Human pitted against human. At the end of the day that’s all we are, and no amount of lawyering around it is going to change that fact. On their newest record The Sunshine State, Choo Choo la Rouge promenade straight down the tracks into oncoming traffic. They’ve been injured, and they’ve been blessed. It is time to make a stand. They have the angels on their side, and then again, who the fuck can count on angels?
The name Choo Choo la Rouge refers to a part of the Boston subway system that passes through working class enclaves and Ivy League sanctuaries. They were part of the remarkably fertile Boston scene of the late-’90s and early aughts, alongside similarly lacerating and loveable artists Papas Fritas, The In Out, and Hallelujah The Hills. That was a long time ago — twenty years, some say — but anyway the weird urgency of that energetic scene persists, ghost-like throughout their first release since 2009’s underground classic Black Clouds. That is not to say that The Sunshine State is a nostalgic album. From the winsomely ominous strains of the opener “Hell Is Future Fire,” it’s all about the things we have to look forward to. Vincent Scorziello sings:
“Hell's not other people.
It's a taste I've acquired
for the reckless way I'm wanting you.
HELL IS FUTURE FIRE.”
I put the last part in caps, because I’m convinced it's important. But why?
Born in the Bronx and raised in upstate Goshen before being moved at the age of 10 to one of Florida’s expansive residential fantasias, Scorziello recollects the cultural whiplash which informs much of The Sunshine State:
“It was jarring to go from tenement buildings of immigrants in the city and a creaky old house in a dusty backwater town--both oozing history and sparking the imagination--to the plastic vistas of South Florida in the '80s: strip mall, planned development with generic tropical name, golf course--wash, rinse, repeat. It felt cheap and fake. In some ways I came to like it.”
And of course he did, as we all have, or must. Florida is future fire.
Fourteen years have passed since the release of the last Choo Choo la Rouge full length. They seem to de-atomize and then quickly reassemble at the bleakest times. Enjoined by drummer Jon Langmead and bassist Chris Lynch, 2009’s Black Clouds was a thunderclap following the comically nightmarish banking collapse and the subsequent orgy of bailouts and bad choices which followed.
And here they go again on their own, with The Sunshine State, a forensically rendered perfect petri dish for losers, false prophets, psychopaths, con-men and all the other things we tend to consider patriotic. “Negative Eight Percent For Nothing” one track is called, an instrumental whose name and sound cannot help but suggest a not-totally-unintuitive collaboration of the Modern Lovers and Milton Freidman. On “The 70’s” Scorziello just says what we’re all experiencing: “The ‘70s are still ringing in my ears.” It’s an incredible album, one-part Kinks, one-part Zevon, several parts unidentified. Sister Lovers. Brothers In Arms. (It is a nostalgic album.)
Look: it’s January, 2024 and there’s no need for concern. You can’t rent a stoop in the Bronx for less than $8,000 a month and Florida too is thriving. Everywhere Choo Choo la Rouge turns, prosperity follows. Get on board, and get your share.
-Elizabeth Nelson
CHOO CHOO LA ROUGE
ARTIST LINKS
“Full of wisdom, heart, and nasal-perfect vocals” - The Village Voice
"There must be a block or two in Boston where country wiseguys rub shoulders with mohawked punks and ironic scenesters, where Bob Dylan shoots pool with Mark E. Smith and Jonathan Richman. I've never been there, but Choo Choo La Rouge has.” - Splendid
“A strangely soothing, happy-sorta-sadness thing that's elusive but not vague, heartfelt but not precious, simple but not simple-minded, yet muscular enough to keep your ass moving. There hasn't been a situation yet where I've put this on and it didn't feel wonderful.” - The Noise Boston
Choo Choo la Rouge - Black Clouds - Album Bio
August 18, 2009
The world is rough, ugly and treacherous. It’s deprivations are endless, it‘s inequities are senselessly cruel. Love is a commodity, sex is an advertisement and for all but a very few, money is in terribly short supply. Choo Choo La Rouge finds all of this very funny, and has set it to song.
‘Black Clouds’ is a supreme work of caustic humanity that belongs in the tradition of Randy Newman, Warren Zevon and the Mekons. Ten gripping, catchy songs which deconstruct the axis points between romance, power and finance with humor, passion and insight. In the upstairs/downstairs dialog that peppers the superb opener ’Money Love Blues,’ a well heeled object of affection brushes off her impoverished would be paramour with the following sentiment: ‘Money isn’t everything, there’s love. And gold.’ The moment perfectly encapsulates the major themes of ‘Black Clouds:’ love matters, but self interest matters more. The album leaves us only to ponder if it is even a close call.
The name Choo Choo La Rouge refers to a part of the subway system that runs through Cambridge, Massachusetts passing through working class enclaves and Ivy League sanctuaries. It is in the distance between these poles that the music exists: sophisticated sentiments wed to simple progressions, like Oscar Wilde embroidering upon the most unadorned blues. Choo Choo La Rouge has been together ten years and sounds like it: a great veteran band that plays together with the trusting abandon of a thousand hours logged together in public and private.
While speaking of the Replacements, an astute observer once described those great men as ‘the little engine that could, but didn’t fucking feel like it’. This honorific may well extend to include the fantastic Choo Choo La Rouge. If they wanted to make hit records they certainly could. Moments of infectious artistry on ‘Black Clouds’ abound. The minor key verse of ‘Mostly Air’ segues into a soaring chorus as transcendent as any rendered by REM or Wilco. It is an album packed with tremendous hooks, poignant jokes and wrenching pathos.
Not that Choo Choo La Rouge feels the need to give their achievement the hard sell. On the wonderful scene closing finale “It’s Gonna Happen Fast” singer and lyricist Vincent Scorziello offers a disclaimer for each of the insightful, humane and caustic things he has broadcast for the previous nine tracks: “There’s no great message/ people say all kinds of things/ you might even hear the wrong words.”
Scorziello is correct, of course. The brilliant charms and resonant message of many a great band have been lost to obscurity, only to be revived after it is too late to appreciate the great work as a contemporary phenomenon. Let us hope this will not be the fate of Choo Choo La Rouge, who brilliance is here for us to treasure right now, more so than ever, with the emergence of ‘Black Clouds.’
-Timothy Bracy