I downloaded Centro-Matic’s new extended single from eMusic yesterday. “Triggers and Trash Heaps” comes from their upcoming release Fort Recovery, due out on Misra records March 7. You can actually download a lower quality (160 kbps) version of the song for free at the band’s home page.

I couldn’t help thinking that with a little polish “Triggers and Trash Heaps” could be very mass consumer friendly for a young adult marketing demographic. I haven’t had or even really watched tv anywhere in a couple of years but I remember seeing a commercial on the WB network in which they co-opted some hip song and played it behind black and white scenes of their various attractive young stars doing mundane things such as smiling, laughing, palling around with each other, and well, looking attractive. I guess it was supposed to make you want to watch all of the shows those people were on. Anyway, my imaginary slick version of “Triggers and Trash Heaps” would be perfect for a spot like that. Wistful but catchy and cool in a very calculated way. Fortunately for indie snobs like me, the band doesn’t give in to the song’s nefarious potential. Instead it’s wistful but catchy in a rough-edged, innately cool way.

B-sides include a a stark demo of Will Johnson playing a solo acoustic version of “Triggers and Trash Heaps” in the natural reverb setting of a Dutch stairwell. There’s a fuzzed out slow jam demo of another song that will appear on Fort Recovery, “Take a Rake.” And finally, “The Little Guitars” is a minute-and-a-half leftover that’s unremarkable except that it was seemingly recorded in the red.

On a side note, apparently Johnson is a baseball fan. A couple of my friends hung out at a Centro-Matic show in Chicago and talked about it with him. They were ostensibly there for an interview but the drunken fools forgot a recording device! Came across some backhanded tribute haikus that he wrote about Ricky Henderson at the Misra site. Some other funny stuff on there too.