Good Grief / Eureka California on Rok Lok, Strictly No Capital Letters and Happy Happy Birthday to Me Records

This is a great split that brings together two bands thousands of miles apart, Good Grief from Liverpool and Eureka California from Athens, GA. The single also brought together three labels, Rok Lok, Strictly No Capital Letters and HHBTM. I'm glad my previous brushes with Rok Lok had them want to pass this one along as both sides are filling that late 90's indie hole that's been empty for a long time now. A time when keyboards were utterly shunned, you could name the alternative labels on one hand and all it took to be friends was seeing someone crossing the street wearing a Sonic Youth t-shirt.

Good Grief's first track, "Rusty Nail" opens in shrieking feedback that slides right into the thick indie chords, to me it's got a Husker Du punk sound through a real pop lens or the sensitive stuff written by Grant Hart anyway. It's got the same guitar focus, the same warping strings into harmonized melded tones. Maybe it's their gritty massive sound or this Robert Pollard vocal, with maybe even some Sebadoh Harmacy in structure. It's got that polish but the sheer velocity and inertia of this plows right through any question of mainstream ambition, the landscape has changed. It's scrappy but really just relying on that speed while being so shiny that it's a single you come across randomly once and they sink their teeth right in. You can hear the camera shaking, shot slow and played back at normal speed, completely dizzying. All of the fourth of july in two minutes. "Another Round" comes on with straight forward jangle that blows up again, deliberately holding back with a great vocal doubling completely different from that first track which now gets into later Husker on me. The guitar here is taking a bit of the back seat and they remain hyper, with some aspects of the Swirlies or later Replacements even. The optimistic, anything-could-happen-today-is-going-to-be-pretty-great, soundtrack.

Eureka California's side opens on "Turn on Autopilot" in a similarly huge sound but a little rougher and with more separation in channels, completely different fuzz distortions with a little bit bleeding over into the vocal. They hit on a similar catchy groove and ride it like some kind of spazzy Pavement track. Not garage but fired up indie jammed through static valves, blown out the other side. The same vocal and static party as Times New Viking, a similar underwater plaster texture to this. They aren't trying to question sonic taste as much as this texture just happened during the recording. Towards the end of this the bass really rumbles in on vinyl with major banging on the kick.
"DC Sniper" has me thinking these guys sound more like GBV especially in track name, buried vocals and the guitar. Bass and hiss piles up into that turn shoegaze took in the early 2000's? The lessons of shoegaze were turned into faster melodies the way that hardcore started to get faster and faster testing the limits of the genre. Or they just hit all those nostalgic notes for me.

If you're in the UK, get it from Strictly No Capital Letters, or locally from Rok Lok or HHBTM.

Make It Plain on Rok Lok and strictly no capital letters Records

Just reading the about page on Rok Lok Records is exactly why I love writing about singles for this dumb blog. Back in 1998 Mike Andriani was inspired by the success of DIY labels like KRS, K Recs and Shrimper and wanted to do something similar with his local scene. That’s it. It’s the simplest plan and the hardest to follow through with. Especially at first. One day you have nothing, the next day you have to figure out a release, come up with the money, design the thing and maybe start organizing shows for the bands involved. If you’re lucky, you break even, but even better you make your town a little better for everyone involved.
One of the bands that Rok Lok Records (and let’s not forget their UK pals strictly no capital letter Records) wanted to support from their scene is Make it Plain. They’re a five piece out of Patchague, Long Island featuring a married couple Duncan and Kristen MacDougal on guitar and vocals…pretty sure that’s her on the sleeve, channeling an early Sunny Day Real Estate or Rainer Maria indie pop punk sound.

A-Side’s "Somersault" has that ultra crisp production, capturing every gated slice of distortion. The insert has the lyrics two ways, one written out on an old cassette and the other on an old dirty typewriter. This reaches for an epic melancholy emo sound with upper register Tanya Donelly vocals; she’s perfect for delivering this late summer track of an unrequited relationship. It’s hitting on all those things that Sunny Day did for me at the time; a misguided angst and the exciting parts of hanging out with your friends while also being bored out of your mind. Everything was incredibly important in your self-centered world and then you meet someone and the whole thing eventually falls apart. Adventureland captured this period perfectly as well and I wish the soundtrack would have taken more chances with sounds like this.

On the B-Side "Hutch" has a slow start reminding me of another favorite of my depressed-no-one-understands-me- days, The Spinannes. The heavy, unusual beat with that bass end in double time after a false start. Thumping against Kristen’s butterfly vocal, they work with and against each other before coming back plowing right into the belly of this one. Bursts of chords over her layered vocal is sadder because it comes off so blindly optimistic? It’s just too damn fresh and shiny, you start to question what they know about heartbreak or tragedy - except they're really digging deep into those heavy emotions that come out in huge dynamic changes that grab your collar. Kristen’s vocal is a incredibly unique fit with this mathy, tougher emo punk sound, they found a great vocalist hitting those nostalgic chords.

Pick this up from Rok Lok Records or the overseas inclined should contact strictly no capital letters Records/distro.

Imaginary Pants on Rok Lok Records

Sometimes I accidentally get things right.
I wrote up some first impressions about this single from Imaginary Pants before even checking Rok Lok Records and putting the final post together. I wrote some things about how it reminded me of other guy girl duo's like The Yips or Kitchen Floor combined with The Softies. I even read the back of the sleeve that listed the members as 'Jon and Rose' but didn't put it completely together until reading this description from Rok Lok:

Words don't justice to describe the great emotions I feel about being a part of this release. For starters it feels great to document more of the great music that my friend Jon Manning (Sandy City, Blanket Truth, Lost Sound Tapes) creates but it feels even greater knowing that I am also helping document music that the other half of Imaginary Pants, Rose Melberg, has created. To put things in perspective, as of this writing I am 35 years old and I have been listening to music the Rose has written/recorded with her various projects (Tiger Trap, The Softies, Go Sailor, Gaze, as well under her own name) since I was a 16 sixteen your old indie rock kid in highschool. If a past version of me got knowledge from the future about this release he (I) would be freaking out. Fanboy nonsense aside, it feels great to simply document great music by people such as Rose and Jon who have an impeccable track record of being a part of some of the best indie pop music my ears have ever been fortunate enough to hear.

Of course. I have a section on the record shelves that's grouped together by records I used to listen to nonstop in high school and still are great (and a lot that didn't make the cut). Records from The Cure, Pixies, The Smiths, Morrissey, Dead Milkmen and two from The Softies, Winter Pageant and Holiday in Rhode Island. Mind you I listened to them on CD or on mix tapes but I found myself picking these up years later because I missed them. Later I managed to get their singles and go further back to Go Sailor and Tiger Trap. It was the gold standard to measure other unpretentious music with feelings and it's great to randomly come across this latest from Rose without even have tried.

A-Side's "Channels" features warm acoustic with hints at The Polyphonic Spree or Sufjan with a twee element, just acoustic and centered on the vocal. Jon and Rose's high register unassuming vocals that work at getting the harmonies just right. Before I realized this was THE Rose, it always surprised me when I would listen to The Softies and it would always hit me that there's no percussion and here it is again, nothing but the slight echo in the vocal and this mellow electrified acoustic...or just an electric? Calming indie pop that soothes in a melancholy way. I always found her vocal to be sad without even trying. Bunnygrunt, The Swirlies, Bearsuit...all of these are coming back with Imaginary Pants lyrics about the shore, summer, the channel that runs out to the ocean; lofty, epicly sad sentiments from a back porch or lazy days in the screened in porch. You had it pretty good before winter started to set in. We're left with this salt stained stack of Hipstamatic prints all stuck together.

"Seacliff" picks things up which I guess is unusual for a B-Side, but the A-Side was so perfect, here's a jangly buried electric twanging away, franticly strumming in a pretty serious rhythm. The great mix of loose carefree sound of Jon's higher vocal...an introspective bedroom Mates of State. They get into this chorus of chanting and the whole thing is a little loose and surfy sounding with barely an effect on the vocals like the Besties with odd choppy rhythms of Dog Day that they make work completely with sheer creation and layered harmonies. It's a specific style but one that's closely associated with DIY and cooperation and not stomping the shit out of each other in a warehouse like assholes. There's room for a nicer scene like this. Instead of mean Mr Rollins yelling at Calvin. I always hated that story...reminds me how much more punk this is because it isn't trying to be punk to the point it can be actively hated? Ugh, forget all that, I'm glad to hear this...a great new release and I'm going back now through her catalog thanks to this single.

Pick it up from Rok Lok Records. Another label that seriously cares - the most important thing.

Giant Peach on Rok Lok / Life on an Island Records

Mike emailed me the other day about his band, Giant Peach and their new 4 song EP "Callous and Strange" out on Rok Lok and Life on an island Records. I think the 4 track EP is almost the perfect first release for a band, it allows enough room for the longer experimental track or the brief skit, anything is possible on something like this, and if you don't have an idea what the band is about after both sides then it's your fault.

A-Side's first track, "Almost Dying" is pure indie '90s pop complete with those big dinosaur jr style guitar noodlings, real screamy soloing that eventually forms a melody, but really they could go anywhere with this. Great ultra poppy guitar layered sound, landing near the Lilys precise harmonies or even Lync's loose sort of energetic punk. The hyper fills and changes are astounding, pure throwback to the kind of gleeful indie rock of K Recs or KRS stuff that bordered on being cute or tough depending on your mood, but always finding itself on a good mixtape. Jangly warm chords, melodic unaffected vocals, everything clean as day, focused on another clever turn just down the track. A reminiscent Swirlies pop feel. "My Love" find the other half of Giant Peach, Frances Chang on vocals, doubled up and polished, singing abstract lyrics over the more restrained distorted riff melody. Reaching into more of their harmony and carrying those punchy pop changes along with a hint of looser solo guitar. If they woudld bring this together we'd really have a Swirlies situation on our hands, or Rilo Kiley...or Rainer Maria. it's bringing that early indie pop style all back in waves.

B-Side's "No Fire" has Frances sorrowfully belting out a Liz Phair style crooning, breathy, close mic'd track over minimal bent chords and half melody. She's got the quivering vibratto of a naturally gifted voice, well aware of where this needs to go emotionally, the rest of the song fading into the background with a little snare shuffle. The guitar picking up to punctuate the heavier vocal phrases. Keep trying to break hearts. "Wild dogs" is back to the stuttering jangle strum and bookending Mike's first track, there's a great back and forth between them on this one, turning a little bit duet, and by now I want to hear that kind of twee harmony stuff come together over this heavily complicated indie pop. Really this is a single that you would have cut the coupon out and mailed in from Craphound or Beerframe Zine.
Check it out below and order here.