7″ Selection
Bridge Collapse
“Wilderness” b/w “Blockbreaker”
Crime on the Moon Records 2014
San Francisco’s Grass Widow have been performing and recording minimalist punk in the Bay Area since 2007. Grass Widow’s Hannah Lew recently started her own label (Crime on the Moon) where she released her first side project Cold Beat’s debut 45 (with their Blondie/Go Gos/B-52s influenced indie pop sound). For her label’s second 45 release she teams up with fellow Grass Widow Raven Mahon and drummer Jon Shade (Rank/Xerox) to form a second side band Bridge Collapse – who have a raw edge with a distorted surf guitar style that differs from the more New Wave influenced sound of the other bands (but with the same girl pop vocal harmonies).
This is a very limited pressing with each sleeve featuring a unique hand screened image (so far we have seen 4 different color combinations). To add street cred to this selection I was at the Twin Steps/White Fang show at the Rickshaw the day after picking up “Wilderness” and the house DJ was playing the 45 between sets.
12″ Selection
Joseph Airport
Stronger and Better
Rockathon Records 2014
Joseph Airport’s singer/lyricist Matt Cutter explains how the band member’s first met – “We’d all gone to Dayton for Heedfest, the annual Guided By Voices fan party,” Cutter explained. “That’s where we met. So, in that tangential way, without GBV there would be no Joseph Airport.”
The band members: Cutter, Jereme Sanborn, Ben Penry and Joe Patterson lived in different citys but began functioning as a band by sending each other song sketches and, like their mutual rock hero Pollard, before long they had over 100 songs that they felt worthy of recording.
“Jereme started sending me song titles and instrumentals – just song sketches with one or two instruments, and I’d write lyrics for those,” Cutter explained. “Then Ben and Joe got involved, adding overdubs to the song sketches Jereme and I did”
“I remember having a conversation with Jereme where I told him, Look—there’s no way in hell this record will ever be on vinyl, so we might as well abandon the whole idea of “sides.” We decided to call them “gates” so we could put as many songs as we wanted on each one. That’s kind of what started our tradition of incorporating aeronautic themes and metaphors into our work. Then Bob (Robert Pollard) came along and shot my whole vinyl theory to shit.”
The idea of a 100 song debut album was reconsidered after Robert Pollard surprisingly encouraged them to trim to 25 tracks.
“We know Bob (Pollard) from our trips to Dayton,” Cutter said. “When he asked to hear our songs, I think it was just to be polite. We made him a CD. I didn’t expect to hear anything from him about our music, but a week later he called, telling me how much he liked the songs and ideas he had about sequencing, packaging – all those aspects of rock ‘n’ roll he’s mastered. With that boost, we felt confident about pressing the record on vinyl.
The album’s 25 tracks were handpicked by Pollard. Pollard’s input didn’t stop there he also provided direction on song order, provided original album art, and agreed to release the album on his own Rockathon Records (the first non-Pollard release in 14 years).
It is impossible not to hear the mid-90s GBV influences on Stronger and Better. With the low-fi production, less than two minute running times and a set of songs that doesn’t fit in any one genre this is a record made by GBV fans. Even with the strong GBV influences Joseph Airport is not a GBV tribute band, the lyrics and added instrumentation builds on the GBV sound.
The album’s second and third tracks “It’s Never Too Early (to Have Your Mind Blown)” and “Eyebrow Brackets” (with it’s lyrics taken almost entirely from a 12-year-old girl complaining to her mother in an airport lounge that Matt overheard) could have been ripped from the mid-90s GBV catalog but on other songs like “Hendrick’s Gin is the Devil’s Liquid” Matt’s vocals are more Ziggy era Bowie than Pollard. This simple acoustic song defies the title and is more a gin love song “you like to mix it up in your tigers cap, you drink a tumbler of ice and sloe, sloe gin”.
When asked about the recording process Matt explained “Jereme and Ben create lots of instrumentals, as many as 70 to 80 for an album. I compile song titles and use them to write lyrics. I go to Detroit some weekends to record vocals, and all the files go to Penry and he adds all sorts of instrumentation, overdubs, whatever feels right. I don’t think there’s even one song on the album where we were all present for the recording.”
The week we were preparing this review Robert Pollard released the following:
“Guided By Voices has come to an end. With 4 years of great shows and six killer albums, it was a hell of a comeback run. The remaining shows in the next two months are unfortunately canceled. Our sincere apologies to those that have purchased tickets and made travel plans. Thanks to everyone who has supported GBV.”
Thankfully we have Joseph Airport keeping the GBV vibe alive, at least until next year when Pollard announces the GBV reunion reunion tour.
