You didn’t think we’d let COVID take away GTG Fest did ya? The 13th annual GTG Fest will be coming to you SATURDAY OCTOBER 10, following you on your mobile devices, lurking in the corner of your home on your smart TV, somehow popping up on that confusingly not-discarded Windows 98 Gateway tower that hasn’t been connected to the internet since 2001… EVERYWHERE!
Did I make watching a livestream briefly sound a little exciting? Well, we’re gonna do our best to bring some of the magical GTG Fest chaos to the streams. This thing’ll be streaming live from 4-10 at the GTG facebook page AND on the GTGRecordsTV youtube channel for all you fellow facebook haters out there. The show must go on!
SATURDAY OCTOBER 10 4 PM-10 PM EST
SCHEDULE: Wild Honey / Drinking Mercury 4:00-4:30 The Soods 4:30-5:00 Raymond Strife 5:00-5:30 Narc Out the Reds 5:30-6:00 Jeremy Porter 6:00-6:30 Marsha 6:30-7:00 Honah Lee 7:00-7:30 Hunky Newcomers 7:30-8:00 Invisible Cartoons 8:00-8:30 The Stick Arounds 8:30-9:00 Erotic Novels 9:00-9:30 The Plurals 9:30-10:00
That’s a fest, eh? Well, it’s what we’ve got! Just like Joe Biden. Hey, I kept this apolitical until now, that’s good for 2020, right? Vote for Biden on November 3rd or else you’re part of the problem of social regression, racial injustice, natural destruction, and general being a fucking asshole.
Surprise and thank you, here’s the 100th release from GTG Records. 21 new songs, most of them exclusive and brand new. The Plurals, City Mouse, Honah Lee, Drinking Mercury, Small Parks, Wade from Dreadpool Parker, The Hunky Newcomers, Calliope, Jeremy Porter And The Tucos, Alpha Rabbit, The Stick Arounds, Half Tongue, Stargrazer, Sleeping Timmy, Frank and Earnest, Jason Paul, The Hat Madder, CrookedSound, Tommy Plural, No Skull, AND the debut of Disappointed Dad. Sheesh!! Most of these bands have current or upcoming releases on GTG – and they’re all friends and part of our wider community – and they cover both a wide range of styles and, geographically, most of the US. It’s wild for us to think about how much has happened since 10 years ago when we were just getting into the CD release game with The Plurals and The Break-Ups, something that we celebrated in late 2007 with a mostly-Lansing area compilation CD release called Situations At Hand. It’s amazing that a lot of the people involved in that comp are still present 85(!) releases later on GTG100 but the fact that the family has grown so much is even more amazing. 2007 really was the launch year for GTG Records so as we gear up for the fall releases of 2017 we’re going to be periodically looking back at some highlights of the first 10 years of the label. And you better believe GTG Fest (Oct 12-15!) is going to be the most nuts it’s ever been this year. Good times!
Sorry I used the word “fortnight.” GTG bands and friends are playing in (mostly) Michigan and New Jersey in the next couple weeks. Mark ’em down!
7/23/16 – The Stick Arounds & the Devils Cut @ The Green Door (Lansing, MI)
7/23/16 – Bong Mountain, Undesirable People, Typesetter, Cardboard Swords @ The Sanctuary (Detroit, MI)
7/24/16 – Honah Lee @ Roxy and Dukes (Dunellen, NJ)
8/1/16 – Some Plurals, The Arrangement, Poet Radio, & Deacon Earl @ The Green Door
8/3/16 – Some Plurals & Red Teeth @ Curly’s (Buffalo, NY)
8/4/16 – Narc Out the Reds, Stocksmile, Lucy, & Larson and Killin @ The Avenue Cafe (Lansing)
8/4/16 – Some Plurals, Red Teeth, Idiot Boy & Husky Bundles @ Mill Hill Basement (Trenton, NJ)
8/6/16 – Some Plurals & Red Teeth @ Punk Rock Picnic (Bethlehem, PA)
8/7/16 – Some Plurals & Red Teeth @ Blind Bob’s (Dayton, OH)
THEN…
8/10/16 – Carm @ TBA (Pittsburgh, PA)
8/11/16 – Carm @ Kung Fu Necktie (Philadelphia, PA)
8/12/16 – Carm, Dreadpool Parker, Alpha Rabbit & Meko Brando @ Mill Hill Basement
8/13/16 – Carm @ Buzzbin (Canton, OH)
THEN… there’s City Mouse and (real) The Plurals shows in the midwest, more local shows, news about GTG Fest… the rest of the summer is, to quote Carlos Santana and Rob Thomas of Matchbox Twenty “a hot one.”
In case you’re just blacking in, six days ago we began a 366 day (for real) cycle that shall be labelled as “2016.” In addition to celebrating the birth of Leap Day William, this year also promises plenty of exciting releases from GTG Records. Red Teeth will be making their label debut with theLight Bender 7-inch, which is at the pressing plant with an early spring release targeted. The Narc Out the Reds 10″ is mastered, the next Hat Madder record is approaching the mixing stage (and the band will be touring the east coast and midwest with When Particles Collide in March), the new Sleeping Timmy-fronted project Carm’s debut is in the tracking stage, and the Plurals just booked studio time (and a tour of the southeast) in late March for a fourth album. Honah Lee will also be hitting the studio in the spring, but first they’ll be doing some midwest tour dates. Plenty to look forward to! We also have some really cool split releases to announce and a few more things in the works so get those turntables warming up! Is that a thing? You probably don’t want to burn out the belts on those things now that I think about it. Clean your ears… yeah, that’ll do.
But before we get too future-fixated, let’s take a look back on the previous year. We released three albums in 2015:
Honah Lee – 33 On 45 – 12″ LP of 10 catchy as hell punky rock and roll anthems. Reviews earned them comparisons to Superchunk, Lemonheads, Weezer, and more and they put in some serious road time on the east coast and in the midwest, including festival appearances at Death to False Hope Fest and GTG Fest. The LP gained enough traction that Creep Records in Philadelphia took on pressing up a CD version as well.
The Plurals – An Onion Tied To My Belt – 12″ LP and CD of 12 Plurals-like Plurals songs that we had the pleasure to co-release with Florida’s Infintesmal Records and Arizona’s Diet Pop Records. Tommy Plural is the one writing this update and clearly I’m too close to this record to objectively judge it but we did some coast-to-coast touring with it and people at keyboards (not to assume too much of anyone else’s process) compared it to the Replacements, Husker Du, early 90s DC noise, late 80s SST, and more. And to me it’s a (non) reflection of the style of the time.
Dreadpool Parker – self titled – CD featuring 11 tracks from New Jersey rap crew consisting of MCs Wade Wilson and Raymond Strife with Dready Mercury making the beats. We go way back with Ray (Nich Plural has potentially the best “first impression” story every involving him, and I basically quit drinking to excess after a blacked-out night with him a few years ago) so when he told us that his new group was doing some touring and putting out an album this year we had to get behind it (and book them for GTG Fest). As it stands it’s not only the first rap release on our label but also just a blast of catchy, witty, and fun music that stands tall among our catalog. Can’t wait for them to tour again!
In addition to these full-length releases we also issued an archival live recording of the Hat Madder from a 2008 tour date in France, a free label sampler (and more) nonsensically called Time to Val Kilmer, a compilation of acoustic artists and recordings, and, as always, capped off the year with the strangely-becoming-a-legacy holiday compilationBermuda Snohawk. And in addition to these additions we also, additionally, released 10 live music video recordings in the GTG Sessions seriesthat featured, alongside plenty of GTG usual suspects, performances by Nato Coles & the Blue Diamond Band, The Devils Cut, Logan & Lucille, and Croatone. What a year, and more to come.
I thought about making it a goal to have every band I’m in put out a physical release in 2016, but this is easier said than done as I don’t think a single band I’ve ever been in has actually “broken up” but… I’m hoping for Drinking Mercury, Calliope, and Frank and Earnest to all put out some solid product this year too. Calling it!
The family expands with a ton o’swagger with the debut release of New Jersey hip-hop crew Dreadpool Parker. MCs Wade Wilson and old GTG friend Ray Strife alongside DJ Dready Mercury make up this group and, like Ray’s previous work, they combine punk rock attitude with an energetic, equal parts old-school and modern rap sound. Check out the record here and a video they made a bit ago for album track “Sounds Like Drugs” below!
GTG RECORDS 