Two artists you won't see at xxMerge

And two of my favorite from the Merge roster. Unless something is happening that I don't know about Breadwinner and Coral, two Richmond bands that grew out of Honor Role, are not playing this weekend's festival. But in honor of Merge's 20-year anniversary, and mainly because I love playing around with my new .mp3 turntable, here's a song from two 7-inch records that I've always loved, and pretty much defined the early 90s for me.



"Filling a Hole/Your Reward" by Coral came out in May of 1991 and literally blew me away. This runs a close second to Pure's "Ballard" as my favorite Merge release of all time. Coral on this release were Bob Schick (Honor Role), vocals; John Kovalcik, guitar; Steve Smith, bass; and Matt McGuigan, drums.






Check out the liner notes that came with the Coral record. Mac talks about the upcoming Breadwinner release (below) and mentions "No Pocky For Kitty" coming out on Matador.

Here's "Your Reward" from Coral











Breadwinner you probably remember as the band often credited with inventing Math Rock. That band included Pen Rollings from Honor Role on guitar, Bobby Donne on bass and Chris Farmer on drums.


In this handwritten insert, Mac announces Pure has broken up and reveals that he likes the new Metallica record, which, I think, would have been the Black Album.

Here's "Prescott [Homecut]" from a 7-inch that was released in August of 1991



And, as an extra treat, here's a track from Breadwinner drummer Chris Farmer's high school band, Flat Stanley, who played in Greenville quite a bit when I was at ECU. This is from their 1987 album "Hot Cauliflower," most of which sounds a whole lot like The Connells (in fact, I'm pretty sure I saw them open for The Connells). This track, "Deciduous Forest," is instrumental, and though it's still pretty jangly, I think you can hear a little bit what Farmer eventually went on to do with Breadwinner.