The Orange Peels
THE ORANGE PEELS | SQUARE (REISSUE) | MINTY FRESH | JUNE 26TH, 2020
Bio:
“Becoming The Orange Peels”
Allen Clapp explains: It’s 1995. The musical landscape is littered with bands drowning in self loathing, feigned rage, and a decidedly non-literal definition of irony. The timing couldn’t be worse to embark on recording sessions for a collection of earnest, melodic pop songs.
But it’s exactly what happened. Little did I know that the project would have me and my bandmates jumping between three different record labels and two producers, or that it would wind up being released under a band name I couldn’t have imagined.
Everything that happened in the next two years would redefine my concept of making music and what it meant to be in a band. It's how and why we became The Orange Peels.
So why are we here in the early light of 2019, revisiting this album that came out in 1997? Three reasons.
Square Cubed?
First, the album never came out on vinyl, and we've always talked about the idea of eventually releasing it as a 12” LP. We sequenced the original release in two halves, and have always thought of it as having a Side A and a Side B (with “Spaghetti-O Western” as the end of the first side, and “She is Like a Rose” kicking off the second).
Second, there are two unreleased versions of the album that tell the story of how we got where we were going and how we became a band in the process (there's a whole version of the record recorded on a 4-track, and there's a whole version of the album we recorded and mixed in California and finished in 1996).
Third, we want to remaster the original tapes and collect all this stuff to make the ultimate edition of our debut album. Ultimately, it would be great to put all of this on vinyl and release it as a triple album—and if there's enough interest, that could still happen—but realistically, we're hoping to release a remastered version of the original album on heavy, 180-gram vinyl with a double CD holding all the bonus materials.
Ok, we know it's not really Square³—it's really more like Square x 3. Poetic license invoked.
Read more about how the Square reissue came to be via the band’s original Kickstarter campaign for the project here.
NEWS:
PRESS QUOTES:
“It’s taking the once-besuited lo-fi pop band — and its followers — out of controlled ‘Meet the Beatles’-esque comfort zones and into a kind of ‘White Album’ wilderness.”
“Immaculate jangle meets harmonic bliss.”
“Allen Clapp believes in the curative powers of pop music the way someone going to Lourdes is betting on a miracle; his faith in the stuff is so strong and compelling pretty much anyone willing to give him a listen is likely to become a convert . ”
“The kind of hit that music critics imagine will be a hit. It’s made of all the stuff that fans of Marshall Crenshaw, the Posies, and Big Star appreciate.”
PRESS RELEASES:
On The Web:
Assets:
The Orange Peels (circa 1997) (L-R): Bob Vickers, Allen Clapp, Jill Pries, Larry Winther. Photo Credit: Karen Mason. Click for hi-res.
The Orange Peels (circa 1997) (L-R): Bob Vickers, Allen Clapp, Larry Winther, Jill Pries. Photo Credit: Trent Ruane. Click for hi-res.
Square (Reissue) cover art. Click for hi-res.
“Everybody’s Gone x3” single cover art. Click for hi-res.
“Something Strange Happens x4” single cover art. Click for hi-res.