The Oranges Band has been around for some time now, and Two Thousands is essentially their early roots legacy. These days, the Baltimore quartet is doing fairly well. Their debut full length All Around was released by Lookout! in March of 2003 and begat two MTV videos for "OK Apartment" and "Finns For Our Feet," after which the band closed out the year supporting indie legends Guided By Voices. None of this would have happened if it wasn't for the works collected here. Morphius was the first label willing to bankroll the Orange effort with the 2000 five track 7"/CD combo, The $5 EP. Following the modestly successful but ultimately taxing support tour, Morphius released the group's follow-up EP, Nine Hundred Miles Of Fucking Hell, almost a year after the first. It was around this time that lead singer and guitarist Roman Kuebler began moonlighting with The Thumbs and playing bass with Spoon which led them to getting Lookout!'s attention... it's all connected. Anyway, now is your chance to not only see where the now MTV famous band paid its dues, but to give a little support to the little guys that helped bring them to you and, hopefully, will be able to bring us more of this quality in the future. Two Thousands collects both of The Orange Band's first EPs, Nine Hundred Miles featuring the original version of "OK Apartment," and has them remastered along side four previously unreleased tracks and demos. This is young energy satisfyingly brought to grimy, guitar heavy, totally underground alternative rock. The $5 EP has a better sense of completeness to it, with some truly gorgeous punk keyboards and layers of Kevin Shields-style guitar effects saturated by the sound of a low quality recording -- but that only makes it more compelling. Though the lyricism wasn't quite as aggressive as Never Mind The Bollocks, there certainly is an undercurrent of the sterile thanklessness of the industry written all over it. Even if you don't like their first LP, you should hear their first EP. Two Thousands is an unexpected surprise... but be wary of MTV, they taint souls.
1. A&R Job
2. What Got You Off The Hook
3. Stars Are Ours (Stuck)
4. Nextstopexjock
5. All Those Marching Feet
6. All The Ghosts In Your House
7. Sweater Weather
8. One Parts
9. Instrumental
10. OK Apartment
11. Take In The Scenery
12. Today, Are You Nervous
13. Seld And Siddhartha (Demo)
14. I Live Alone (Demo)
More about: The Oranges Band
