Hey Mercedes

Topshelf Records

Born of the ashes of the now legendary Chicago emo outfit Braid, Hey Mercedes consisted of Bob Nanna on guitar and vocals, Todd Bell on bass and vocals, Mark Dawursk on guitar and vocals and Damon Atkinson on drums. Hey Mercedes proved a more melodic antidote to the previous band.

Hey Mercedes had their first band practice in April 2000. Their first release was a self titled EP on Polyvinyl Records in September 2000. Soon after its release, they signed to Vagrant Records and started touring for support of their upcoming Vagrant full length. In 2001 alone, they performed 114 shows. In October 2001, the band released Everynight Fire Works.

After writing the majority of the band’s EP and first full length at the end of 2001, Dawursk left the band and was replaced with Mike Shumaker. The band released Loses Control in October 2003.

With 2 full lengths, 3 EPs and 358 shows under their belt, Hey Mercedes called it quits. Their final show (#359) was at the Metro in Chicago on April 23 of 2005. In a 2007 e-­mail campaign, Threadless Tees reported that Hey Mercedes would play at the Metro, to celebrate the grand opening of the company’s Chicago store.

Fast forward to 2016 when Damon, Todd & Bob realized that it had been 15 years since the release of their first full length record (Everynight Fire Works) and that it would be pretty fun and exciting to not only have that record re-­mastered and re­-released along with the EP that accompanied ENFW (The Weekend EP) and a few unreleased cover songs, but to play a handful or two of shows in celebration of this 15th anniversary.

After a few conversations between Vagrant Records (who initially released ENFW) and Topshelf Records, it was decided that Topshelf would gain access to the masters and artwork in order to re-master and re-­release this album, 15 years after its initial release date on July 8, 2016.