April 27, 2007: Chromelodeon’s Final Show.
I was not in attendance for this show. Heck, I’m not even sure I had even heard of the band at this point. It wasn’t until the Pause re-release of The Final Recordings that I got to experience what I now regard one as one of my favorite albums of all time. Listening to The Final Recordings for the first time set in motion a chain of events that has led not only to a new appreciation of a branch of music that I hadn’t really explored before, but also to meeting a whole group of people I’m happy to count as friends. So, despite not even having seen a live Chromelodeon show, I can think of no other band which has had such a profound effect on my life.
Perhaps it’s because I missed out on Chromelodeon’s heyday that I started seeking out live recordings and video clips, looking for glimpses of the “viceral” performances I had only read about. This was the beginning of my own personal archive. It wasn’t until a handful of years later that the idea of putting together an online archive such as this set in.
And now, five years to the date of Chromelodeon’s last show, I’m happy to reveal this ‘labor of love’: the Chromelodeon Archive.
Part of my intent with this website is to have a means to share my endless appreciation of this band with others. In the past, I’ve passed links to the Final Recordings album to friends to be greeted with enthusiastic responses… and then having to guide people through an endless array of broken mediafire links to Chromelodeon’s other, out of print material. This site serves as a central location to grab the past releases.
For those who already have all of the usual stuff and looking to complete their Chromelodeon collections, I wanted to gather up whatever live recordings and rarities I could find. In a lot of cases this was challenging: a LOT of time was spent scrounging through old message board posts only to find long dead links to individual MP3s. Luckily, I’m not the only dedicated fan out there, and a few kind individuals dove into their collections and shared what they had.
As well, I’ve put effort into procuring the highest quality encodings available. Where possible, I’ve included lossless FLAC downloads in addition to the regular MP3s. In cases where no lossless source was available, transcoded sources were avoided. (Yes, I fully admit to being an audiophile douche bag. I’m sure someone out there appreciates my effort.)
Lastly, I intend for this site to become not only a central location for Chromelodeon’s audiovisual output, but to host editorials, reviews, and first-hand accounts of live shows. I’m not really much of a writer so I open up the floor to anyone willing to contribute: shoot me an email!
This website and it’s content would have not have been possible without the contributions and permissions of many, including (but not limited to) the following (in alphabetical order):
Brendan Becker
Chris Berdoz
Dino Lionetti
Edward Tsang
Johnny Rogers
Kyle Crouse
Mikhail Ivanov
Patrick Todd
Pierre Capillon
Ryan Soloby
Shawn Phase
Enjoy.
It was an honor to be behind the drum kit for this band! We didnt part on the greatest terms and for that I deeply apologize. I love the music we made and the memories are burned in my brain. Thank You for bringing this website to fruition and showing the world how amazing this band was/IS!!!!
Such raw talent; I was heartbroken when the band broke up. Although I love the work still being done, those were glorious, musical days
inspirational as fuck. the vid of your last show is legendary. tons of unbelievable jams and it looks like so much fun.
Wow, I can’t believe it’s already been five years. My memories of the last show are still vivid as though freshly experienced. Though I could never forget such a memorable show. I wasn’t even planning to go. Philadelphia is a long was from Portland, OR, and I didn’t have a plane ticket. But, on a whim, I checked the airfare a week prior to the show and it was incredibly cheap, so I jumped on it.
That whole weekend I was in a state of disbelief that I had brought myself to such an important event in music history. I knew I had made one of the best choices of my life. When Chromelodeon started playing I was in a full audience with a bunch of my best friends, and before the end of the first song I was in tears. The music was overwhelmingly awesome. The band sounded great. We danced to Triangular and the universe smiled at us. After the last song I sat down against the wall, laid my head on my arms, and just cried my eyes out.
I’ll always be infinitely thankful to have experience that show, and that weekend with all those guys. And I’m extremely happy and thankful for this website, Mr JMR! It’s bringing back all these great memories and giving me a chance to keep this music close in my life.
Thanks and love,
house
Don’t know if you get the significance of Heart of Sawdust. One of the band members was read The Velveteen Rabbit as a little boy & loved the story. The term is from the story.