Black Camaro emerges with a new album

By Deanna Rilling

Wednesday, July 8, 2009 | 1:30 a.m.

Distributing close to 200 CDs at the Gypsy Den during a First Friday show last week, Las Vegas band Black Camaro’s goal was to reach an all-ages audience.

“We put together this CD for people who had never heard of our stuff,” Black Camaro’s Brian Garth said.

But in the weeks before the gig, Garth said there was hardly time to record a new album and wanted to have something for fans, too. “We thought, ‘How can we make this interesting? Who wants to hear an album they already have?’”

Thus, “Radio Capricorn” was born and showcases 11 of the band’s songs, plus a new track, “The Trouble with Pain.” Adding a twist to the LP, the band recorded fictitious radio segments, commercials, a traffic report and one of those repetitive phone number ads for who-knows-what.

“It’s making fun of phone number jingles,” explains Garth of “3356797.” “We randomly made [the phone number] up, but it turns out to be someone name Brandy.”

Garth predicts she’ll now receive many unwanted calls thanks to their CD, just like if someone had “867-5309” as their digits in the 80s. “I’ve called [Brandy] about twice a week for the past two weeks,” Garth says. “She doesn’t think it’s funny anymore.”

But overall, it’s a unique way to re-release material. Think: Flight of the Conchords meets songs by The Doors and The Shins’ love child. Everything from the commercial jingle music beds to many of the character voices were done by Black Camaro.

The band’s CDs are still available.

“More than likely, we’ll burn more and drop them off at the Gypsy Den, and bring more to each Zia [Records] for people to steal if they want,” says Garth. “You can have your friends burn it, but then you don’t get the cover that looks like candy — it makes you want to eat it. [Black Camaro’s] Tom Miller does all that artwork.”

So what else is up for Black Camaro? “We just got a new bass player and he’s rad,” explains Garth. “But we’re cracking down. We’re cracking down and practicing four days a week and making a new record."