What's next?

Well, Erik met up with Hype Ignition founder and Detroit music scenemeister Scott Boyink and slipped him the band's record. Boyink immediately wanted to work with the band. "[Boyink] is an old friend of mine from back in the day," Erik says. "My old band used to play with his band, the Amino Acids. I met him again at the musicians' caucus last year and I ended up giving him a disc and he freaked out and e-mailed me going, 'This is great stuff!' So, he came to one of our shows and he said, 'I have to book for you guys.' He really knows how to do this. And he's gotten people aware."

Boyink's helping with the album release and he's booking all Telecollision shows. There's a mini Midwest tour planned.

Telecollision could easily wear the dull and archetypal tag "band of the rise." Only here, with this band, it's true, they are rising. You easily sense that this isn't another Detroit combo of five folks who are each in five other bands, and who all mostly wear the same T-shirt and beard. That's so played out. No, Telecollision generates a hum that's part chemistry and part a collection of persons who all believe in the songs. So it doesn't matter if you like the group or not, you can tell they all believe in it. You can't deny passion.

Now they're dropping a record of killer tunes. Of course, the band isn't enough to allow them to drop their day gigs, but, as the Paybacks' Wendy Case once said, just you wait.

"I think the important thing is growth," Erik says. "If we can make twice as much progress by this time next year. ..."

Friday, May 20 at Small's, 10339 Conant St., Hamtramck; 313-873-1117; with Jehovah's Witness Protection Program, Almost Free and Future Genies.

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