Music

Sally Crewe puts her music in drive with CD release

Sally Crewe has been writing punchy pop songs since she was too young to drink. Heck, the 30-year old singer, songwriter and guitarist has been in a band since she was 18 and moved to Leeds, U.K., a genuine big city with decent rock shows.

Yet even with a second full-length album -- released earlier this week -- it's clear music is not her first love.

No, her first crush was -- and is -- cars. Her first album of bright, sprightly pop-rock was called "Drive it Like You Stole It." Her second for the micro-indie 12XU is called "Shortly After Take Off," (which isn't car-related, but it is related to airplanes, which this British native has spent a lot of time on, and there's a picture of a car on the cover).

Photo by Wylie Maercklein Sally Crewe, right, has an Austin version of her band Sudden Moves with drummer David Evans, left, and bassist Matt Baab. Sally Crewe and the Sudden Moves play a record release show for 'Shortly After Take Off' Thursday night at Emo's.

"I loved going for drives when I was a kid," she adds, poking at her fajita. It's about noon, and Guero's is slowly filling up with a lunch crowd.

"If there was a trip to be had, like picking someone up from the airport, I'd beg and plead to go with them and just sit in the back with my Walkman," she says. "The feeling of traveling whilst listening to music is just awesome."

Her first car was a 1976 Mitsubishi Colt Lancer. "I had it about three weeks before the engine blew," she says with a sigh. "Now, I wish I'd had it fixed, but I ended up getting fifty quid (British pounds) scrap for it. All my friends had sensible, small modern cars, and I wanted something that looked cool and felt cool. Of course, I didn't feel very cool on the side of the M1 with it broken down."

Crewe kicked around Leeds for a bit, put together a band called Oscar, and moved to New York at 20, keeping Oscar on life-support. She pretended that Oscar was a real band, but it was clear that she was calling all the shots. "I was just a dictator," she says matter-of-factly.

A few years back, when she moved from NYC to London, she found herself at a breaking point. Oscar collapsed after Crewe put out a 7-inch single. "I took couple of years deciding what I was going to do, and I started listening to records again," mainly Elvis Costello and the Beach Boys, she says.

The songs from "Drive It" were taken from this period, while "Shortly" which has been done for a year, was written after Crewe had found her feet again.

Crewe ended up in Austin last year, when she and husband Gerard Cosloy, co-honcho of prominent American independent label Matador Records, moved here after several years in London. The Austin version of the Sudden Moves includes drummer David Evans and bassist Matt Baab.

"Austin's worked out very well," she says. "There's a little bit of an infrastructure here. We already knew Spoon (who served as the Sudden Moves on "Drive It") and there are plenty of musicians here."

After the record release show, the band's next gig is with Spoon outdoors at Stubb's in late June.

"We've never played in front of that many people, but I love Stubb's," Crewe says. "I love seeing bands there in the summer with the (sun-going-down-late) light evenings. It's gonna be fun."