Car Records was founded in 1977 by Chris Stamey of the dBs. Stamey was born and raised in Winston-Salem, North Carolona and moved to New York City in the 1970s. He founded Car Records, more or less to release his own material. He released a handful of singles on this label. Stamey released Chris Bell’s first (and only) single, “I Am the Cosmos” b/w “You and Your Sister”, noteable because Alex Chilton sang backup vocals on “You and Your Sister”. In addition, Car Records issued a mini-EP (or a maxi-single?), “Big Black Truck” / “96 Sec. Blowout” / “Death Garage” with future dBs guitarist Peter Holsapple.
“Big Black Truck” starts off with drums for the first five seconds, then a guitar joins for the rest of the intro. Then we get Peter Holsapple – doing his best Elvis impression – singing about interstates and the titular big black truck and its specifications. After two verses, there is an instrumental break (including drums); then we get one last verse, a chorus, then – two minutes and forty-four seconds later – the songs ends. It’s part power pop, part rockabilly, and one hundred percent infectious.
One the B-side, we get “96 Second Blowout”, which starts with a fast guitar riff, and is a lot more punk than “Big Black Truck”. It ends with the rhythm (and vocals) becoming much faster before ending abruptly. Then we get “Death Garage”, which sounds much more ethereal, even psychedelic. There’s even a sitar in the instrumental break. The lyrics are morbid: “Never mind the bruises and blood/The cause of death was carbon monoxide/In the death garage”. Unlike “Big Black Truck” and “96 Second Blowout”, the song ends with a fade out.
This record came with a picture sleeve which is both artistic and informative; it depicts the big black truck and tells us that it was produced by Chris Stamey and had Mitch Easter on drums and echoplexes. It’s an excellent single for those who liked the early years of the dBs. “Big Black Truck” is available on the Ork Records compilation released in 2015. The B-side apparently has not been released on CD, but is available on YouTube:
