“I barely ever listened to the first record because I didn’t like the way it sounded,” agrees drummer Jim Spellman. “Especially the drums.”
“The song structures were kind of naive,” adds Brian Nelson, who played guitar alongside singer Sarah Shannon and bassist Kelly Young (then known as Kelly Riles).
Ironically, at the time of its release, “Copacetic” was a resounding popular success. It became Sub Pop’s second-best-selling album, trailing only the debut of a band called Nirvana. The record’s style — indebted to the smeary, dreamy British sound that had recently been dubbed “shoegaze” — significantly tempered Sub Pop’s reputation as a purveyor of grunge only.
“The record that we’re talking about, that we don’t like, was good enough in Sub Pop’s eyes to get us a contract with them,” Moore notes.
Moore has now remixed “Copacetic” to his satisfaction. “I found myself becoming really fond of the songs,” he says. “I guess because I spent hours and hours now with each song, it’s like they’re my kids again.”
“A lot of the material sounds, to my ear, drastically different,” Spellman says of the new mix. “The shoegazey kind of stuff sounds more shoegazey, the pop stuff sounds way more pop. It feels like what we set out to do.”
“I want it to sound 1993,” Moore explains. “I don’t want it to sound like a new record. I want to sound like the 1993 we were listening to, which was a very Anglophiliac perspective.”
The “Copacetic” remix is part of a flurry of activity for Velocity Girl, which disbanded in 1996 after its third album and hasn’t performed since a 2002 reunion gig. The quintet has scheduled two shows this month, one in Washington and one in New York City. The D.C. gig, part of the Black Cat’s 30th anniversary weekend, is sold out. But another local performance has been scheduled for later this year and is expected to be announced next week.
Sub Pop actually owns “Copacetic,” so Velocity Girl can’t unveil its redo without the label’s assent. Sub Pop proprietor Jonathan Poneman has been supportive, according to Spellman and Moore. “We don’t have concrete plans for what’s going to happen,” the latter says. “We believe that at the very least they will release the new version” to streaming services.
Spellman anticipates that not everyone will accept the new version. “Clearly, a lot of people will dislike it. They’ll say it’s pointless. Or we ruined it,” he says.
“We’ve talked about what the backlash will be,” Nelson says with a grin.
While revisiting “Copacetic,” the band also unearthed tapes of unreleased material, alternate takes and the original masters of various singles and compilation tracks. These will be remixed and compiled into an album, and made available for streaming. Four of the songs were just released via Bandcamp, including a different version of “My Forgotten Favorite,” the group’s breakthrough tune, and two tracks recorded by early lineups.
Another rediscovery has been the five musicians’ rapport, Spellman reports. “There’s a weird chemistry thing with music. When a certain group of people are together. It feels like it’s been happening pretty easily.”
“There’s zero chance we’re going to tour or anything like that,” he says, “but it has been fun just being in the middle of those songs again.”
A few more gigs might be scheduled, Moore suggests. “If we’re going to learn the songs, might as well play them more than once or twice.”
“It felt to me like, one song into the first practice, we were a band again,” Spellman says.
Nelson laughs. “It definitely felt better to me,” he says, during “the second practice.”
Sept. 9 at 8 p.m. at the Black Cat, 1811 14th St. NW. blackcatdc.com. Sold out. Later show to be announced next week.