Luxury – It Might As Well Be Skin (The Pink Tape)

Luxury
It Might As Well Be Skin (The Pink Tape)
1993 (no label)
Tocca Falls, Georgia, USA

1. Pink Revenge
2. Solid Gold
3. The Luxury Theme
4. South
5. My Last Gasp
6. When the Curtain Falls

So after releasing Candy, Darling? in 1993, Shroud changed their name to Luxury and recorded this demo in the same year. Sounds like a pretty busy year. They include a full version of “South” this time. All of the songs on this demo except for “My Last Gasp” were re-recorded for 1995’s Amazing and Thank You on Tooth & Nail Records. It seems that this tape was known as The Pink Tape because there was no name on the cover, but I think the band had the longer name for it in mind. In 1994, they released a different version of this tape that was clearly a self-titled demo, with a similar cover but in blue. They also changed the song order and added “Flaming Youth Flames On” and “Vanity.” “When the Curtain Falls” was also included on their Nude at Last collection tape.

The Shroud (early Luxury) – Tinsel

The Shroud (early Luxury)
Tinsel
1992 (no label)
Tocca Falls, Georgia, USA

1. Honeymoon
2. I Don’t Hate Her Anymore
3. How Strange
4. Touch
5. Collier’s Fame

If you weren’t aware, all of the early Luxury demos are up on their BandCamp page, so I thought I would go through them and add them to the site. As far as I can tell, this is their first demo when they were known as The Shroud. It seems they changed that to just Shroud for 1993’s Candy, Darling?. If you can imagine Luxury’s sound from 1994 rewound a couple of years, that is what you have here. A bit faster and more youthful in places – you can see how much they matured by their major label debut. But don’t take that to mean it’s bad – you can still get their sense of crafting melodies and artful indie rock songs. “Touch” was re-recorded for Candy, Darling?, but it seems the rest of the songs are only on this tape (unless they were re-worked so much that I just can’t recognize them). The artwork above is what came with the BandCamp download – I wasn’t able to find a scan of the full tape artwork anywhere. Also of note is that “Honeymoon” and ” I Don’t Hate Her Anymore” were also included on the Nude at Last collection tape.

Shroud (early Luxury) – Candy, Darling?

Shroud
Candy, Darling?
1993 Rage Records
Tocca Falls, Georgia, USA

Lee Bozeman
Glenn Black
Jamey Bozeman
Chris Foley

Side 1:

1. Velvet
2. Touch
3. (And I Say) Bitter
4. Anniversary

Side 2:

1. Me, The Lounge Singer
2. This Season
3. South
4. Carnival Vamp
5. Sleeper
6. Stay Still

For those in the know, you immediately recognize this as an early demo by the band that soon changed their name to Luxury. Most of this demo is available on BandCamp (for some reason, “Carnival Vamp” was left off of BandCamp), so you can listen to this there. The year before this demo, the band was called The Shroud, and they released a demo called Tinsel. Later on the same year after this demo was released, the band changed names to Luxury and released It Might As Well Be Skin (also known as The Pink Tape). “(And I Say) Bitter” (renames “Bitter, Once Again”) and the full version of “South” (only 48 seconds are on this tape) was later re-recorded for their Tooth & Nail label debut Amazing and Thank You in 1994. Both of the songs “Velvet” and “Touch” were also included on their tape compilation Nude at Last in 1996.