One of our readers tipped us off to this one, calling it a “musical holy grail”: A crisp studio recording of The Ocean’s Blue’s “City Traffic,” a never-before-released concert favorite by the late-’80s/early-’90s jangle-pop outfit, surfaced on YouTube this summer accompanied by a homemade music video.
The track was once a live staple for the Pennsylvania band, best remembered for its Echo & The Bunnymen-like debut single “Between Something and Nothing.” The group reportedly recorded “City Traffic” in 1993 for the long-forgotten film “Naked in New York” — but the song was not used and never officially released.
Meanwhile, the Ocean Blue reports on its Facebook page that it is “working on a new record,” last month telling fans, “To those who have asked, yes, we are working on some new songs. We’ll post more this fall.” The band — featuring original members David Schelzel and Bobby Mittan — hasn’t released a full-length album since 1999’s Davy Jones’ Locker.
oooh, shiny new things from TOB!
Fantastic band !! “City traffic” sounds so good ! Lovely song .The home made video works great aswell .Very glad to read that there’s a coming new album !Thank you for all those precious informations
Fantastic video and a very clear edited studio recording. Kudos to RobaireMi for creating this!
Scr3w these homophobes. I stopped listening to them after readying that they fired a band member just for coming out of the closet. Bigots.
well if you read it in a magazine or online it must be true!
For the record… no member of TOB was fired. The band member you are referring to left to start Kinetic records and quit for that reason. Get your facts straight before you slander someone, and learn to spell while you’re at it.
Wow! I am a long-time Ocean Blue fan since my college days at Penn State, where my room-mate introduced this gem of a band to me. (Lancaster, PA ties) I thought I owned everything they produced,…but “City Traffic” is completely new to me,…and blows me away! Why is this song not on an album? or available via I-tunes?! (How can I get this digitally?) In my 20+ years of loving this band’s music, (which never gets old) my only disappointment was the departure of Rob Minnig, the drummer. Just listen to the drumming in this example song and you can understand the gap Rob left. He was so, so talented, and I wish that someday, when Ocean Blue returns, that Rob will “magically” re-appear. No knock on Peter Anderson, the new drummer,(who sounds good on Waterworks) …but my strong passion in listening to Ocean Blue starts with Rob’s drums, behind David’s guitar.
I never believed for a second that he was fired for coming out of the closet. I have been in love with the masterful, melodic, beautiful lyrics that I could relate directly to my adventurous,sad at times life. This band is a true gem and sadly underrated. There were so many bands popping up like mushrooms during this period in the 80’s. TOB had it’s own unique sound and it was magical, I still turn people on to this incredible band. I remember seeing them at the Knitting Factory in NYC and they blew my 17 year old mind away. I have always hoped they would tour again, please come back to us TOB!! I attended the first alternative school in the country called High School in the Community. This was before the word “alternative” was in the vernacular. It was a hippy school run by the “originals”, they let me blast TOB in the old crumbling building that sheltered all us kids that were kicked out of every other school. We were given a very extreme, liberal education, we were taught the “truth” when it came to government, sex, war,organic farming, shamanism and of course there was a lot of “chemistry” in the mix. TOB brings back so many good memories for me. Come play at the Beacon Theater in the city and blow my 42 year old mind away again!! Love you guys.
To Craig. Steve was never fired. He left on his own accord. I have been to many TOB concerts and Steve has been in the crowd as a fan. David has called on him in the crowd to say hi during the show at least a couple of times I can remember.