It is difficult for fans to deal with the loss of a dead band, but they usually have a catalog of multiple albums and/or EPs to remember them by. It is much harder to accept a band's death when they leave only a handful of scattered tracks behind them. Race Car Riot is perhaps the most tragic dead band of all, considering the fact that they professionally recorded only 5 songs during their entire career. This is made even worse by the fact that these songs appear on 3 different albums. Despite their confounding lack of studio material, the few tracks that Race Car Riot did manage to leave behind are absolutely stellar, and suprisingly influential.
The band's first appearance was in 1997, on the poorly named Deep Elm Records compilation, What's Mine Is Yours: The Emo Diaries - Chapter One. Their song "The Last in 4000" is an epic instrumental that instituted the sad yet triumphant sound that is currently selling out venues across the country in the form of fellow Texans, Explosions in the Sky. Deep Elm chose to pick the band up for the first in their split EP series, alongside Planes Mistaken For Stars and the Appleseed Cast. This EP accounted for the majority of their work, with 3 songs, only 1 of which utilized Jason Jordan's vocals. Their final release, the aptly named "Discontinued," did not surface until 2002, on Deep Elm Unreleased Vol. 2.
As a tragic epilogue to Race Car Riot's existence, Jason Jordan created a MySpace page for the band in 2005, announcing that they were regrouping to create a brand new full length. He even posted several new songs that he tracked himself under the alternate band name, The Secret Songs. However, through Jordan's few blog posts, it became clear that the band was not receiving the attention that they had hoped for. The final post, labeled "Musical Doom," reads like a suicide note, announcing that the last remaining member of the band was giving up, leaving him alone, and that if this happened, the band would surely die. There has been no word of any future productivity since.
Check out the band's MySpace page for 2 tracks, as well as their parting words to their fans:
http://www.myspace.com/racecarriot
