Crownhate Ruin | Expanding the Bookends of Now

The Boom in Germany 1999

After The Crownhate Ruin broke up, Fred immediately started a new band called The Boom. Initially, they rehearsed in the basement where we lived, and then Fred moved and they rehearsed over there. They released two LP’s, “Movin’ Out” and “Any Day of the Night” on Slowdime and did a US tour.

I ran into Fred in the winter of 1999 at The Raven, and he told me they were planning on a European Tour in the late spring of that year. I jokingly said I wished I was going, and also told him that when I saw them recently at the Galaxy Hut, I loved the new songs where he played trumpet instead of guitar. Maybe I could play guitar with you I asked. And suddenly I was in the band. I learned all the songs from mostly Any Day of the Night, and some from Movin’ Out. The line up that rehearsed in the Spring of 1999 was:

Fred Erskine on trumpet

Carlo Cennamo on saxophone

John Wall on bass

Joseph P. McRedmond on guitar

J. Carrier on drums

I believe we played at a party in Mt. Pleasant, WDC right before we left for the tour. We started the European tour landing in Amsterdam by way of Iceland and had a hell of a time and played everywhere. John Wall was booking more shows to the end of trip as we went along.

After we returned home, Fred and Carlo got to work on writing new songs, and recorded a 4 track demo to show us their ideas. It was at this time also that J. Carrier decided to join the Peace Corps, and he left the band to be replaced by Justin Wierbonski. Josh LaRue joined on electric piano.

We played only 2 shows with this line up. One at the Black Cat, and one in Baltimore at the Ottobar. We also recorded the material at Trans Am’s National Recording Studio, which was broken down into 7 tracks, but meant to be presented as one whole body of music. We had a tour planned of the US in August with this line up, but Justin suddenly left the band just prior to the start date and could not be replaced. The tour was cancelled. The gentleman in Belgium who was going to put the 3rd record out disappeared off of the face of the Earth. Fred and Carlo moved to Chicago to form HIM, and John went to Law School.

The songs are below to listen track by track, and if you like, the zip file is available below that for your downloading pleasure.

Track 1