Winter Hours-The Band

About a year ago I was reminded about this band...I heard a few tracks began searching for any Winter Hours I could find....now a year later I have everything they released and a bit more...because of the lack of any WH on CD this band seems to be forgotten.
I understand a small label will be releasing an expanded edition of their Chrysalis CD "Winter Hours".
There's a few tracks posted on their myspace...check them out.
I also need some help with a track from someone with more knowledge of Winter Hours than me....
I'm trying to determine a title for a track I have...
I have it on a collection of songs (A 2Cd set"These Familiar Places") and it's a very short instrumental...about a minute long....it's between the tracks "Up There Again" and "Tell Me Today".
It was probably issued on one of their Ep's on Link Records..."Leaving Time"...which is one I don't have..those other 2 tracks are from that release so is it possible that short instrumental track is part of the preceding track or just untilted...anyone know about this track....

Thanks,
JF

 

I was going to tell you to go to Subterranean Records in the village. Mike Carlucci (sp?), the owner, was the band's guitarist. But I now see that the store has closed. Very sad. Another one bites the dust.

 

Thanks Mike, I found a site on the web that had a letter from Mike about the band and his plans for releasing some Winter Hours tracks....I e-mailed him but the address was no good...must have been an old e-mail address.
If I can find the 12 inch those tracks are from I'd be able to figure out the title of that track...it might not even have a title...it might be part of the track before it...
Anyway....I did'nt know about Mikes store...like you said another one bite the dust!!!!

Thanks anyway....I get the feeling there's not many WH fans here at the forum.

JF

 

I remember hearing this band on college radio back in the '80s and really liking them, I may even have an album somewhere in my collection.

It's too bad about the record store, I remember going there a few times when visiting NYC. It doesn't sound like there are too many stores left in the Village or the City these days. Are Footlight and Bleecker Bob's, Record Runner, and House of Oldies still around?

 

I have "my" stores that I hit (that I need to avoid after getting the tax bill!), so I'm not sure about these...I think Footlight is gone, Bleeker Bob's and House of Oldies are still charging too much and I honestly am not familiar with Record Runner. Academy remains my favorite and I love Eat records/restaurant in Greenpoint, Brooklyn (though I still miss Venus Records from my youth).

 

I should add that Mike is a really, really nice guy and really cares about the music scene in NYC. I interviewed him for a film that I'm perpetually working on, and he was very passionate about how great lp's sound compared to a lot of cd's, how few good music stores are left in NYC, and how the character of the city in general is changing (high rents, chain stores, etc.).

I picked up WH's "Wait Till The Morning" a while back, but never gave it a spin. I'll try and do so soon and report back.

 

"short instrumental" on Winter Hours' "Leaving Time"

I don't know if you ever got a reply to your question about the short instrumental from Winter Hours' "Leaving Time" LP, which you described as being between "Up There Again" and "Tell Me Today", (your post was about 3 years ago) but I thought I'd throw this out there.

I do have "Leaving Time" (on vinyl) and I believe the snippet you're describing is just the intro to "Tell Me Today". I too was confused by it, but examining the track separators on the vinyl and going by the track listing, I have concluded that is the case.

 

Wow there's a blast from the past... if I remember right I saw these guys open up for Hoodoo Gurus back in the day, and they were great.

 

Was this the cd-r set that Michael Carlucci was selling around ten years ago?
I found a great review about it yesterday and it sounded like a really quick way to get all their music. I'm guessing he's long since stopped selling these?

I did manage to get a track on iTunes yesterday that was tacked onto a tribute album done not too long ago. It's called "Her Heaven," and could have been a seamless addition to the Chrysalis album. I plan on getting the reissue that Arena Rock Recordings put out a couple years ago, as it has some bonus material (demos, and finished track that never got released).

 

manicpopthrill, "Her Heaven" is a demo track from around the time Winter Hours was recording their self-titled Chrysalis release, and can be found on the Winter Hours tribute CD "A Few Uneven Rhymes", which I guess is the tribute album you refer to. This 2-CD set was released early in 2009. That's right -- 2 discs worth of contemporary artists covering songs by a great band that almost no one remembers these days, 18 years after they disbanded. Miraculous. You should pick up a copy.

Also, I wonder what the "finished track that never got released" is that you refer to on the Arena Rock reissue of the self-titled album? Is it "Still"? That was released as a B-side on the "Roadside Flowers" CD-single back not long after the album came out. It's been one of my favorite WH cuts ever since. Not only does the reissue contain it (finally), but it also has a demo version of the same song that is different enough from the completed cut that it is really worth having. Not only THAT, it has a live cover of The Hollies' "Bus Stop" that originally turned up on the WH MySpace page. It's a great little package, well worth what I paid for it. Especially considering that it came with a link to download an entire live album from a performance that WH played in Chicago while touring the Chrysalis release.

 

We must be something like the only 10 people who were into Winter Hours. I too purchased the comp you were referring to from Mike Carlucci on Amazon. It receives regular play and everytime I hear them, I'm puzzled as to why they didn't make it bigger. File Winter Hours under "they could've been a contender". Thanks for the tip on the tribute cd. I just ordered it from Amazon.

 

11...Joe Marques-lead singer died of an overdose years back...

 

I love their self-titled album a lot. still listen to it. I never knew that the owner of Subterranean Records was their guitarist. I used to go there all the time. Great store.

 

Thanks for the info. I'm hoping they still have the live album available for download!

"Her Heaven" is a jangle lover's dream. If that's a demo, then their demo's beat most other bands' finished product.

 

No sign of These Familiar Places on Amazon, so he probably stopped offering it years ago when he closed down his record store.

 

Truer word was never said. In fact, I think it even beats some of their OWN finished product. I could easily come up with a couple of songs that actually made it onto the Chrysalis release that I would have left off if that's what it took to make room for "Her Heaven" and "Still", IMHO, no dis to the folks who like everything on that record.

I mentioned the tribute album before. In addition to featuring Winter Hours' recording of "Her Heaven", it also has a cover version of it by one John Caselli. If WH's version is jangle heaven, then Caselli's cover is textbook power pop. Of course, I LOVE textbook power pop. It's interesting to see how he makes it work with the genre shift. The only change I would have made to it is the omission of about the last 50 seconds, which is mainly (again, IMHO) pointless guitar noodling. In fact, I think I did clip it off in software before putting it on my iPod. Then it was perfect!

 

You probably already know this, but I read Carlucci's myspace page and he hopes to release a cache of material he's been sitting on for the past two decades.

 

Well, then, I must get it (if it ever, in fact, sees the light of day). I have pretty painstakingly built up what I believe to be as complete a Winter Hours collection as is possible (at least, possible to get via public sources), most of it acquired just in the last four years. That's why I was so jazzed to see "Her Heaven" on A Few Uneven Rhymes -- new Winter Hours after 20 years! So if even more new stuff becomes available, I would definitely be interested. I wonder if that would include at least a demo of "Faded Pictures"? That's the "cover" song that Carlucci's band East of Venus did for the tribute project. I was thinking that I had somehow missed a Winter Hours track somewhere until I read that it was actually one that never saw the light of day, so Carlucci took the opportunity to get at least some recording of it out there, even if it was by a band that had only one WH alumnus (Carlucci himself).

 

Here's the actual quote:

Being the band archivist, I have a multitude of live concert performances on tape as well as a bunch of studio out-takes which I hope to release a little at a time.
http://www.myspace.com/winterhours

 

Well,I've finally had a chance to catch up on my Winter Hours thread....I see it's really been busy...I forgot about it...and thanks to siestabug for giving me a heads up that there were recent posts!!!!!
I think that track I was wondering about would be the intro you mentioned...since I only had the CD on Chrysalis I had no way of knowing how the tracks were seperated on the original LP. Thanks for filling me in on that.
My introduction to WH was an interview with band members on the local college radio station talking about the band and the current(at the time)Tribute Cd "A Few Uneven Rhymes". They played tracks from that CD as well as other WH music....I was like....how did I miss these guys...they were right here in my back yard....
Anyway..I was really lucky to pick up the 2CD set of most if not all of their material other than the Chrysalis CD...I've since played it for friends and they all had the same reaction...
I look foward to any new releases that might be coming.

JF

 

I need to correct myself...that short instrumental was not part of the Chrysalis Lp/Cd but part of the 2CD set "These Familiar Places"...bewteen the tracks "Up there Again" & "Tell Me Today"....sorry for the mix up.

JF

 

I saw Winter Hours at The Zephyr Club in Salt Lake City in 1987 and when the singer Joe noticed my buddy and I down in front grooving to the music he invited us backstage during the set break. (I think we were the only ones in there who were fans; that night it was mostly yuppies trying to get laid and not paying any attention to the band) They were dead broke but shared their beer with us and we talked music and they thanked us for coming out. Real nice guys and it’s a shame they never hit the big time.

I had that record with At A Turtle's Pace, Simple John, Wait till Morning. Great songs.

 

Is that the CD reissue of Wait Til the Morning? Yeah, that is a great CD. I liked Winter Hours when all I had was their S/T Chrysalis release -- but when I picked up Wait Til the Morning, I was a stone cold fan for life.

I believe that that CD was basically all the tracks from the vinyl version, plus all the tracks from the Churches EP, plus one or two previously unreleased tracks. Can somebody verify that? I don't have the original vinyl of either WTTM or Churches. I am basing what I said on track listings I have seen when they were on sale on Ebay.

 

Would someone mind posting the tracklist to the These Familiar Places comp?


As a side note, I was floored when I saw Stan Demeski was their original drummer (under the Ward 8 name). The guy's been in three great bands.

 

it's nice to see some appreciation for Winter Hours.

Michael Carlucci currently performs with two groups, one of whom is playing this coming Friday, May 4th at Tierney's in Montclair, NJ. Michael is the guitarist in Thousand Pities - I saw them do a short set a couple months ago and they were very good. Michael's playing was wonderful, he cut loose with some terrific solos.
http://www.thethousandpities.com/about.html

Michael leads another group called East of Venus, a quartet with Glenn Mercer (Feelies), Stanley Demeski (also Feelies) and Rob Norris (Bongos). They have a solid repertoire that really appeals to my musical tastes, but they don't play out very often.
http://www.myspace.com/eastofvenus

Michael and Stanley were both in a band called Red Buckets in the early-80's - East of Venus materialized for a Tribute Concert to deceased Buckets' leader Richard Mason. They liked playing together so much that the line-up stuck.

I suspect that they've done a fair amount of recording, but nothing has been officially released. There have been five songs posted on their myspace page for a couple years now. Jane September and Cover Your Eyes are Red Buckets songs... a sadly unrecorded band.