Category Archives: GTG Activity

We’re already kicking off what should be an incredible year of music for the GTG in 2012!

A year ago, a fellow named Sean Bradley, one of the founders and main contributors to LansingMusicTV, approached the GTG crew and others in Lansing about doing a compilation album consisting of Lansing bands covering other Lansing bands past and present. Unbeknownst to Sean, we had discussed a similar idea at one point, so we jumped on the idea and GTG is proudly co-releasing Secret Identities: Lansing Covers Lansing with LansingMusicTV. We’re having a release party for the CD January 6th at Mac’s Bar with live performances by Frank and Earnest, Cavalcade, American Gothic, Small Houses, and Tommy Plural (doing some acoustic guitar thing, to be joined at different points throughout the set by Michael Boyes to do a Drinking Mercury segment and the other Plurals to do an acoustic Plurals segment). In addition to the bands playing at the release party the compilation also features Fields of Industry, Calliope, Narc Out the Reds, The Break-Ups, and a posthumous track by Jason Alarm. The bands covered on the compilation are all over the map, ranging from deserved local legends like Small Brown Bike, The Fix, and The Ones, currently active artists like Flatfoot, Jen Sygit, and Calliope, to defunct and underrated locals like Syscrusher and A Story Told. The whole thing is a celebration of Lansing music past and present, so work your way out of your early-year haze to have a good time at Mac’s on January 6th. The compilation will be available for order at the GTG website next Tuesday, 1/10/2012.

Full tracklist:
01. Drinking Mercury covering Calliope’s, “Did You Get What You Came For?”
02. Fields of Industry covering Cathy Illman’s, “Maximum Level Heartaches”
03. The Break Ups covering A Story Told’s, “Slow Down”
04. Small Houses covering Jen Sygit’s, “Marshall St”
05. Calliope covering Ronnie Hernandez and the Sweet Energy’s, “Dancing in Lansing”
06. Jason Alarm covering Syscrusher’s, “In Extremis”
07. The Plurals covering Flatfoot’s, “The Crawl”
08. Frank and Earnest covering Mystic Shake’s, “Woman Like That”
09. Narc Out the Reds covering The Ones’, “You Haven’t Seen My Love”
10. American Gothic covering The Fix’s, “Signal”
11. Cavalcade covering Small Brown Bike’s, “The Cold”

A stream of the comp is up here.

Happy Holidays. (Hope that secular statement doesn’t get me in trouble with Paul Dubya… listen to the comp and you’ll follow me). It’s here, GTG057, Bermuda Snowhawk 2011. Download it for free here. Below is a tracklist along with notes by Cale BMP, graciously and unassumingly lifted from the BMP website.

1. Hunky Newcomers – Rx-mas (Lansing’s new favorite PUNX, batting lead off this year)
2. Failures’ Union – X-mas in Hollis (Buffalo, NY, ex-Lemuria, covering RUN DMC)
3. Regretters – New Year’s Reprieve (Craig & Cale of Cavalcade/tCF doing acoustic songs w/ Frankie of The Break Ups)
4. Neganance – Snow Zong (grindy Red Teeth/Bert side project)
5. The Plurals – Wonderful Way (a creepy moody song with Hattie singing)
6. Paul Dubya and the Oak River Bridge Boys Band – We Still Say “Christmas” ‘Round Here (Frank & Earnest’s Modern Country Music Alter-Ego)
7. Stargrazer – Christmas Aftermath (Peter Richards bein’ atmospheric)
8. Wanton Disregard – Straight Edge Holidays (Bebee & Horky of American Gothic/tCF make a sXe Xmas song)
9. Drinking Mercury – Blue Christmas (a fairly straightforward cover of the classic song)
10. Geistlos – Mixed Feelings / Silver Bells (Nick Merz of The Jackpine Snag & Hat Madder solo…didn’t know he could sing!)
11. Iron Christmas – I Need a Ride (Mike Boyes, Josh David, Pudvay etc. per Tommy: a stupid cock rock song with too many layers of guitar)
12. middleman – Free Jack (Mike Boyes)
13. Them Owl House Boys – Hard in the Sleigh (Jake Rad, Scotty & Cale of tCF rapping over Waka Flocka’s ‘Hard in The Paint’)
14. Rockaway Beach Boys – Little St. Nick (GTG all-star Beach Boys cover in the style of The Ramones)
15. Dozic – cHEXmas (extreme tourettes metal incorporating Carol of the Bells as well the Dradle Song)
16. Sleeping Timmy – Maybe This Christmas (Timmy of the Break-Ups solo)
17. Cabin Fever – Facebook (Nich of The Plurals catterwauling over psychedelic noise tracks about pop culture)
18. Champions of Tortured Wang – The Silent Night, Deadly Night Movies Suck (3/4ths of Infernal Names)
19. Dale J. Gordon – An Analog Silent Night (trippy, short, instrumental arrangement of Silent Night)
20. Bert – New Yearz Hustlaz (a Heavy Holiday song from Lansing sludgesters)
21. Neon Tuesday – Christmas Friends (GTG all stars bring the party)
22. Isaac Vander Schuur – Baby Gets What Baby Wants (Isaac of the Hat Madder surprisingly, coming out of nowhere, to take the title for the comp’s token long, ridiculous song)
23. Foxy Gaga – Born in a Sleigh (Dan Fox of the Cartridge Family continuing his yearly tradition of vulgarly taking on one of the biggest pop hits and anchoring Bermuda Snohawk)

Dig in.

Positive word keeps rolling in for the last batch of GTG releases. Small Houses (who are wrapping up a tour in Lafayette, IN tonight) are reeling in some well deserved praise for North, with One Chord to Another stating “The whole album is captivating and extremely highly recommended. Especially if you are into artists like Chris Bathgate and Hezekiah Jones, you have found a new favourite.” Common Folk (of which Small Houses is anything but! ha!) said “North is an album I highly recommend. It’s a quietly captivating album with lovely music and thoughtful lyrics.” The album is a truly great listen, and extremely fitting for the current season – order it here.

Drinking Mercury are no slouches either, with Joe Wawrzyniak of Jersey Beat calling Orcades “Funky and brooding, with a divinely tripped-out retro 60’s dreamy psychedelic experimental vibe to it, this album delivers one hell of a potently moody sonic buzz. Mighty impossible to either resist or dislike. A very groovy blast of an album.” Way cool, man. Drinking Mercury are going to re-emerge from their cave on December 17th to play a show at Mac’s Bar, so mark your calendars for that, and/or order Orcades.

Finally Honah Lee earned some great praise from Readjunk (who haven’t always praised GTG stuff in the past) with this:
“Life Won’t Let Me is a pretty damn good rock album from a group that didn’t want to form just another punk band. Instead they opted to rock and or roll. Honah Lee doesn’t really fit into any one of the particular sub genres of the splintered rock scene. Instead, they find a little corner to call their own, plug in their amps and just play some rock and roll. They have fast songs, they have slow songs, they have songs about sex and drugs, they have songs about life pissing you off, and of course, they have songs about girls. What Honah Lee don’t have on Life Won’t Let Me are enough songs. With only nine songs showing up, it can be considered a let down for someone that just wants more songs. I guess they can only rock so hard. If you’re looking to rock, most definitely check out what Life Won’t Let Me has to offer.”
Well said! Keep tabs on Honah Lee at their swanky website and order the damn record.

So, as the photographic evidence proves, Plurals tour has been a crazy adventure. I’ll fill everyone in on it when we get back to Michigan – we’ll be home for a couple days on the 9th and 10th before taking off for some east coast shows. The Plurals tour page has been updated accordingly. I also found a little bit of time to update the new Alumni/ Side Projects/ etc  page with pictures and information about every band that’s recorded for GTG. Lots of great music!

tommyplural

Small Houses "North"

Small Houses dropped the new album North this weekend, and pre-release reviews have said the record has songs that are “hair-raisingly beautiful, some of the vocal interplay is incredible, and the musicianship is wonderful” (Metro Times) with the overall vibe described as “ethereal, quiet and beautiful” (LansingMusicTV). For this record, mastermind Jeremy Quentin collaborated with a great roster of musicians including Chris Bathgate, Samantha Crain, and members of Frontier Ruckus among many others. The band is on a run of dates supporting the CD release that will see Small Houses (fleshed out for the live dates with a full band including GTG pal John Davey on bass guitar and a wicked drummer/ keys/ etc player named  Adam Danis) hit the Great Lakes states, the east coast, the tip of the south, and the midwest over the course of the rest of October and the beginning of November. A complete list of shows, as well as samples from the new album, can be found over at the official Small Houses website. The album will be available for sale on this site real soon.

In other news…
Some more press has been creeping in for some of the great GTG releases of the summer. Drinking Mercury‘s autumn-fresh album Orcades (did you order one yet?) was called by super hip entertainment blog Idle and the Bear “an amazing combination of different sounds and harmonies. This entire album was great.” This same fine site also reviewed Josh David and the Dream Jeans‘ Can You Believe We Landed on the Moon? describing it as “very raw and powerful. It’s rough, it’s experimental… It’s kickass.” Finally, Revue magazine did a write-up on the Narc Out the Reds 7-inch single (despite being labelled a “CD review”), declaring it “catchy rock-and-roll tunes with a lot of twists and turns” and complimenting the band for laying “down a nice, tight bed for the songs to sit on.” Nick work everybody!

The Hat Madder and Stargrazer are also both nearing completion on full-length albums – a sample of some of the new material from the former can be found in the new 3D (oh man!) video for new Hat Madder song “Mayflies,” which you can view here. Honah Lee in the meantime has revamped their website, and it’s pretty nifty. Check it out for all of your Honah Lee needs, including their many show dates throughout New Jersey, Pennsylvania, New York, Maryland, both Virginias, and Massachusetts. Preliminary reports have the boys coming to the midwest in January, so… stay tuned.

Finally, we just got the new pressing of The Plurals Today, The Plurals Tomorrow: A Futurospective in the mail, which means we can take orders of that again. It also will soon be available all over the internet on itunes, Amazon, and all of those things (and it’s already on bandcamp) so there’s no excuses. The new pressing is just like the old pressing, except that we didn’t rush the order through a crappy company that pumps out defective CDs and doesn’t believe in customer service (*cough*KUNAKI*cough*) and we can still confidently say it is the best Plurals music out there. To further flog the dying horse The Plurals are heading on tour again at the end of October (starting on October 20th at Mac’s Bar in Lansing with Japanese noise legends Melt Banana) through the midwest, dipping into Colorado, and then jogging over to the east coast. Dates are still being posted, but the confirmed shows are listed here. GTG!

Oh yes, we have another entry in the It Takes a Village to Make Records singles series. This time around we have a new track from Frank and Earnest called “Paul 4.” It’s the fourth song Paul has written for this band, and it’s an epic, catchy, anthemic smorgasbord of a song. Download it here. This is the fifth volume of ITAV’s series, so if you haven’t been paying attention to it you need to get on board. So far Stargrazer, The Hat Madder, Narc Out the Reds, The Plurals, and Frank and Earnest (as well as plenty of sweet non GTG artists like Joshua Barton, The Playback, Cavalcade and many more) have all released exclusive new music through these singles, with more of our roster and friends slated to appear in the coming months.

Make sure to order “Orcades.”

Next up on our release schedule is the album “North” by Small Houses. Early reports are calling this the finest release yet from the Jeremy machine.

“North” release shows:
Oct. 5 – The Local Music Show (Radio) – Ann Arbor, MI
Oct. 6 – The Strutt – Kalamazoo, MI (w/ Paleo, Fiona D, and Gitis Baggs)
Oct. 7 – Scene Metrospace – Lansing, MI (w/ Paleo and Sacred Strays)
Oct. 8 – House Show – Albion, MI (w/Paleo and Reef Theory)
Oct. 9 – Dreamland Theater – Ypsilanti, MI

Stay tuned to the Small Houses website for more information.

Hope you’re having a lovely first day of autumn. If you wish to discuss the merits of the term “fall” versus “autumn” or vice versa please e-mail gtgrecords at gmail dot com.

So Drinking Mercury’s been a band for 11 years, but aside from a couple limited-run EPs and some compilation tracks they haven’t released a whole lot. That changes on September 3rd with the release of the full-length album Orcades. The band simultaneously captures their live energy and embraces studio textures on this album, resulting in a fine space-rock meets indie-folk stew with a dash of shoegaze. Pre-order the album and receive a free download of the band’s rendition of Flaming Lips’ “Five Stop Mother Superior Rain.” Do so here:

Orcades release shows:

9/1/2011 – Frankie’s (Toledo, OH) w/ The Faux Paus, The Galt Line, Miracle Vitamins
9/2/2011 – Pyramid Scheme (Grand Rapids, MI) w/ grrRopolis, Trophy, Jake Stills and the Mi Mi Mis
9/3/2011 – Mac’s Bar (Lansing, MI) w/ Nathan Kalish & the Wildfire, People Grinding Axes

Did anyone else ever read that short story August Heat by W.F. Harvey in high school? I think about it every August. And wow, what a twist at the end. Funny, though, as soon as it turned August it got cooler in Michigan. So yeah, who likes to talk about the weather?

As great of a conversation as this has been so far, I’m going to just lay out the news for the month:

Frank and Earnest Tour dates!

8/4/2011 – Castle Anthrax, Toledo OH w/ Lance Murdock, more
8/5/2011 – Annabell’s, Akron OH w/ We Know Karate, Worship This!, Shepler Church
8/6/2011 – Badlands, Syracuse NY w/ Those Ghostfuckers, Leylines
8/7/2011 – O’Briens Pub, Allston MA w/ Direct Hit!, Masked Intruder, Ridgemont, the Handsomes, Yale Massachusetts
8/8/2011 – Kung Fu Necktie, Philadelphia PA w/ Invincible, Robots and Racecars
8/10/2011 – Mill Hill Basement, Trenton NJ w/ The Divided, Jon Harkel, more
8/11/2011 – 15th House, Columbus OH w/ Stymie, more
8/12/2011 – Mac’s Bar, Lansing MI (Razorcake Magazine Benefit Show!)
8/13/2011 – Ant Hill, Kalamazoo MI w/ Seized Up, Ackley Kid, Protected Left

This is the first time Frank and Earnest has made it out to the east coast, so we have our fingers crossed that those of you residing closer to the Atlantic will show them a good time when they roll into town in Ben’s-hopefully-intact van, asking “where do bands play here?” before staggering onto (hopefully the correct) stage and somehow pulling off a blistering set of rough ‘n melodic punk stuff.

Everyone note the aforementioned Razorcake benefit on August 12th. Razorcake is an awesome magazine and it’s written up stuff about plenty of GTG and friends’ bands as well as featured writing and art from a host of cool people. It’s a non profit print magazine focused on independent music (celebrating their 10th year!) so definitely come out to this show. Frank and Earnest put this together and will perform alongside Fisherking and The Playback with some musical surprises in store from The Plurals as well. Speaking of…

Plurals dates!

8/4/2011 – Mulligan’s Pub, Grand Rapids, MI w/ Facing Winter
8/5/2011 – Park Rock (Festival), Wisconsin Rapids, WI (Plurals at 9:00 PM)
8/6/2011 – Disastr House – Artists For Artistry Fundraiser, Rockford, IL
8/12/2011 – Cairo Bar, West Chicago, IL w/ Facing Winter
8/19/2011 – House Show, Kalamazoo, IL

Yep, the midwest is gonna BURN.

Back on the east coast, Honah Lee’ stellar sophomore disc Life Won’t Let Me is beginning to earn some well deserved praise from the media giants:

“These nine songs are back-to-back-to-back hits. Urgent and rough-edged punk rock, their execution is first-rate. Many bands have been described as a wall of punk rock sound, but few have deserved it as much as Honan Lee. Innovative, intoxicating, and above all ear-catching, this is a band I wanna see and experience first hand.” – Phil @ Jersey Beat

“The melodies on this record are fucking infectious and will do anything to prevent you from evicting them from your head. Trust me, you’re stuck with these. If you’re looking for a new pop punk band to become obsessed with, I think we have you covered with Honah Lee.” – Idle @ Idle and the Bear

“Great party anthems. I can only imagine a room full of sweaty punks screaming along.” – Sean @ LansingMusicTV

“This album bounces between guitar-full rock n roll to almost NOFX like hyper punk rock, and even losing itself to more crunchy 90’s style rock… And magically (where’s Puff?) I LOVE EVERY ITTY BIT OF IT!” – Sarah @ Music She Blogged

And they ain’t just stickin’ to the studio.

Honah Lee dates!

8/5/2011 – Dub V Pub, Martinsburg, WV
8/6/2011 -Duncan’s, Frostburg, MD
8/11/2011 – John and Peter’s, New Hope, PA
8/13/2011 -Tavern on the Lake, Hightstown, NJ
8/19/2011 – Troc Balcony, Philadelphia, PA

Beyond this, August 13th Drinking Mercury and Stargrazer will be performing alongside Calliope and Gnome Village at (SCENE) Metrospace in East Lansing, MI. This is an all ages show and is also Hattie Plural’s birthday. None of these bands play out a whole lot, so you don’t want to miss this one. One week later, on August 20th, Narc Out the Reds will be opening for the flipping MEAT PUPPETS at “Crispy Fest” at White’s Bar in Saginaw, MI. Tickets for this all day bash are only $15 and a hell of an opportunity to see some bonafide legends up close whilst gettin’ yr GTG on.

Lastly, but not leastly, I must direct your attention to Jason Alarm’s Farewell Show @ Mac’s Bar in Lansing, MI on August 19th (5:00 PM, all ages). Jason Alarm are a talented and infectious band with something like four years as a band under their belts despite all members being between the ages of 19 and 21. Their farewell show will be a good time, and my disappointment in the band calling it quits is compounded by the fact that I will be unable to attend with Plurals business taking me out of town for the night, so I really hope everyone who can make it gets there. Jason Alarm is one of the casualties of the GTG roster that never was able to make the classic record they were capable of – their 2009 EP Engage is a solid listen, and the three standalone songs they’ve put out since then are even more impressive (all of these, by the way, are available at their bandcamp page), but, as anyone who’s had a band can tell you, scheduling can be a bitch and sadly a full-length from these boys just wasn’t in the cards. However, a band with so much talent and promise parting ways just means that we’ll have a few more kick ass bands around Lansing in the future, and I’m sure it won’t be too long before we’ll all be hearing some great new music from their camp. Fare thee well, beloved hoodrats.

More news will be forthcoming soon! Stick around.

tommyplural

If you haven’t been staying tuned to our friends at It Takes A Village to Make Records and their monthly 3-Way Split Singles club, you’re missing out on some great music. Well, now you can get caught up, as today is the release of volume three of the singles club, which features our very own Narc Out the Reds and Hat Madder, as well as our old friends and fellow mischief makers The Playback. For this single, members of all three bands collaborated in one marathon session to bring three exclusive brand new songs to the masses. Download it for $3, stream it for free, support the cause, check out the other singles, etc here. The future releases in this singles series are very promising, with The Plurals and Frank and Earnest (sheesh, these guys just don’t know when to shut up do they?) both scheduled to make appearances very soon alongside many other cool bands.

PS: Those of you in Lansing best be gettin’ your dancing shoes on for GTG Fest Part 2 at GTG House tonight, with the one and only Johnny Unicorn making his first local appearance in almost a year.

So tomorrow is part one of our “GTG Fest”ivities of 2011. Not to discount the awesomeness of the show or anything (believe me, the awesomeness is a caliber of awesome rarely seen by even those considered awesome) but people that can’t make the show should be given some sort of opportunity to realize that this summer we have the strongest batch yet of GTG releases. The Plurals “Futorospective,” Honah Lee “Life Won’t Let Me,” Josh David and the Dream Jeans “Can You Believe We Landed on the Moon?,” and Frank and Earnest / The Plurals “Funemployment” split 7-inch are all super fresh (with the Narc Out the Reds 7″ single coming up later in July), and many great past releases in the catalog are still available in the store as well. So for the rest of the summer we are offering a 2 for 1 deal on anything in the store. All you need to do is order 1 of the releases and in the ordering process you will have the option to “add special instructions to seller” – when you get to this option just specify which other item in the store you would like. Bam! No strings attached, extra music. Everything in the store is less than $10, so really, we’re borderline practicing bad business here (eh, not the first time… did I say that out loud?). In all deadly seriousness, if you don’t have “Rogue Notes” by The Hat Madder, “Are On the Run” by Narc Out the Reds, or “Old Francis” by Frank and Earnest, you definitely need to use this opportunity to get ’em. Curious about Drinking Mercury? Interested in one of the old bands that a couple of the Honah Lee dudes were in (Too Much Too Fast Too Soon)? Want leverage to mock The Plurals with some older releases? Go to the “GTG Catalog” button above or just click here. If you want to take advantage of the sale but don’t have a credit or debit card e-mail us at gtgrecords at gmail dot com.

That’s all for now. Looking forward to seeing everyone tomorrow!