I often wish I liked Cento-matic more than I actually do. Will Johnson has an incredible voice and the songs are lovely and interesting. In fact, trying to put my finger on what makes me not like them as much as I should is turning out to be very difficult. On paper, I should adore this band, but instead I just casually and occasionally enjoy them. I just feel that maybe I'm missing something; lot's of people love Centro-matic but I can't quite get there. Maybe it'll come in time.
A series of excellent events ended in me buying a couple of Centro-matic albums (which is how all my favourite "how I got into this band" stories start). It goes back as far as August 2003 when I accidentally discovered one of my all-time favourite bands, The Paper Chase, but really starts 15 months later when I bought the split 7" they did with Will Johnson. I'd never heard of him at this point, but enjoyed his simple guitar-and-harmonica, 6-minute version of I Did a Terrible Thing greatly, so did some research. For a couple of years I thought little more about the name Centro-matic until, in the depths of exam-season of my final year of university, I found a copy of their 2003 album, Love You Just the Same, in the Oxfam Books and Records shop in Lancaster. I can't begin to explain quite how unexpected this was - the Oxfam in Lancaster had yielded very little indeed of any worth over the three years I lived there and yet on this day it had an album by a band I'd meaning to listen to for years for only £4. Centro-matic albums aren't exactly easy to come across at the best of times, so to find one like that in Lancaster (of all places) was quite a shock.
I enjoyed the album and picked up this copy of Fort Recovery on double vinyl in Colorado whilst visiting a friend (and later a promo-copy of Dual Hawks, a split album with Will's other band South San Gabriel). I neglected the album slightly upon getting home having bought far too many record whilst away, and I've never quite got into it as much as I'd have liked. Listening to it now, I'm certainly enjoying it, but still not as much as I feel I ought to.
Format: Double 12"
Tracks: 15
Cost: £8.13 new
Bought: Bart's CD Cellar, Boulder
When: 18/04/08
Colour: Black
Etching: none
mp3s: no
