Category Archives: GTG Activity

The freedom of independent music that is! Freedom of Choice? Thank you Thomas Jefferson for drafting a plan for a nation in which a bunch of head-in-the-clouds idealists can toil away in basements, crafting sounds that they think are cool, with other people occasionally noticing. We are celebrating this freedom with a gathering on July 9th at basement414 in Lansing, Michigan, a “GTG Fest” of sorts. We weren’t able to get together our ridiculous over-the-top GTG Fest this summer, so we’re doing a relatively more low key GTG celebration that will still feature hours of a wide variety of music, refreshments, and plenty of good times. Shows at basement414 (414 Jay Street, Lansing, MI – the alley behind the Nuthouse/ The Loft, etc) are always all ages and free, however we will be “passing the hat” for the touring bands.

Bands scheduled to perform are:
The Plurals (yeah, them/us/whatever), Local Demise (punk-metal awesome from Trenton, NJ), Lightning Bugs (Grand Rapids noise-pop), Idiot Boy (ex-Karma Bat NJ altpop), Little American Champ (Lansing melodicore), MC Raymond Strife (east coast punk rapper), The Guest Stars (Lansing powerpop), NQD (that guy that used to work at QD on Foster doing some hip-hop), Drinking Mercury (out of hibernation but still sleepy space rockers), Sterratic (Jackson, MI dreamy rock), and The Hunky Newcomers (new hunky Lansing idiot punk).

We’ll be starting the show with a cookout around 4 PM, with music going into the night. Those of you of the Facebook inclination can check out the event page here. All are welcome to attend, and we will also have a big ol’ GTG and friends merch table so people can pick up all sorts of music.

Like these three brand new GTG releases! Which you can also order RIGHT NOW via paypal (and no, you don’t need a paypal account to order).

GTG049:

Life Won’t Let Me by Honah Lee

GTG050:

Can You Believe We Landed on the Moon? by Josh David and the Dream Jeans

GTG051:
Funemployment split 7-inch by Frank and Earnest and The Plurals

The best part of all this is that this is just the beginning for a full July of GTG fun. On July 15th there will be a “GTG Fest After-Party” at GTG House (message gtgrecords at gmail dot com for the address, although pretty much everyone in Lansing knows where it is by now) featuring the return of Michigan’s favorite son (now out in Seattle) Johnny Unicorn, along with Josh David and the Dream Jeans and Cavalcade. This party will be starting around 8:30, and earlier in the night of July 15th Jason Alarm are celebrating Matt Waterman’s birthday at the Loft in Lansing.

GTG052, the new 7-inch single from Narc Out the Reds will be coming into the world on July 21st at Mac’s Bar, with a performance featuring NOTR, Hat Madder, Frank and Earnest, and the Fencemen. After this Narc Out the Reds and The Hat Madder are hitting the road for some east coast dates.

There’s also rumblings of a “late-July GTG Fest” at basement414, so all of this may not even be all. August will feature Jason Alarm, The Plurals, Frank and Earnest and Drinking Mercury all hitting the road in some capacity. Holy moley!

Save these dates!

6/17/2011 – Honah Lee CD release party w/ The Plurals @ Asbury Lanes (Asbury Park, NJ)
6/18/2011 – The Plurals, Tim Hoh, Glocca Morra, The Great Explainer, Chris Pinto @ Mill Hill Basement/ Big Dave’s Birthday Bash (Trenton, NJ)
6/24/2011 – Josh David and the Dream Jeans CD release + Frank and Earnest/ Plurals 7″ release party wsg/ The Hat Madder, Infernal Names, Destroy Nate Allen @ Mac’s Bar (Lansing, MI)
6/25/2011 – Skate Park Benefit featuring Frank and Earnest, Jason Alarm, the Cartridge Family, and many more @ Myja’s Grey Wolf Inn (Grand Ledge, MI)

We’ve got great GTG activity for the month of June, with The Plurals jetting to the east coast for Honah Lee’s official CD release for their stellar new Life Won’t Let Me album on June 17th at Asbury Lanes in Asbury Park, NJ. I’m extremely excited to personally attend this release show, as Jersey has always treated GTG well and having Honah Lee among our ranks is just plain awesome.

The Plurals and Frank and Earnest have a split 7″ dropping on June 24th (the same night as… well, stay tuned), and both bands are really excited to enter the vinyl game. Both sides of this split were recorded really fast (the weekend The Plurals got home from the long west coast tour earlier this year) and there’s a sense of urgency to both sides. Dropping the needle on a GTG release feels pretty cool – and we’ll get to do it again next month as Narc Out the Reds are dropping a 7″ single in July.

Finally, June 24th is also the long-awaited release for the debut full-length from Josh David and the Dream Jeans. Aside from a couple compilation cuts and a small-run handmade demo, this is the first release from a great band that we’re happy to have among our ranks. The album Can You Believe We Landed on the Moon? stands as a great snapshot of midwest, and Lansing in particular, punk-alt-something in the second decade of this century. There are clear influence reference points – Black Flag, Misfits, early Sub Pop releases, etc – but JDDJ put a rather unique spin on hardcore punk with their start-at-100%-and-keep-pushing instrumental approach and Josh David’s nutjob-squawk vocals. The release was one big GTG family collaboration, with yours truly recording and mixing the record, Shawn Semen (ex-MK Ultra Culkin) mastering, album art by Ashley Anderson (of Drinking Mercury artwork and various GTG web design fame), and Peter Richards (Stargrazer, ITAV Records, etc) providing the layout. Come on out to Mac’s Bar on June 24th to celebrate this release, along with Frank and Earnest, Destroy Nate Allen, The Hat Madder, and Infernal Names. That Frank and Earnest/ Plurals 7″ should be hanging out too.

The rest of the summer looks just as sweet, with Narc Out the Reds dropping their 7″ on July 21, a posthumous CD release from defunct Lansing noisemakers Edible Intention, and, finally, Drinking Mercury’s full-length album coming in the late summer. Excellent.

tommyplural

The Plurals are officially releasing the new album “Futurospective” this Saturday, May 21st, at Mac’s Bar in Lansing, Michigan. We’ve already gotten a few advance reviews of the new record and reception has been great:

“The music comes at you with a mess of energy almost like it’s trying to kick you into consciousness and force you to join in a punk-infused dance party. And you can’t say no.” – Sarah @ Music She Blogged

“The Plurals do everything well, but above anything else, they do a great job of taking a bunch of my favorite traditional sounds and blending them together into this ridiculously strange sound all of their own. Five stars. Buy it when it comes out.” – Bear @ Idle and the Bear

“They simply play rock music, styles and conventions and trends be damned. Futurospective is the record I’ve been waiting for them to make, and it’s been a long time coming. It’s their Zen Arcade, their Double Nickels. The record where they truly put to disc what we’ve always seen them do live. Futurospective is the past and the future all in one place, with a voice that is undeniably their own. No hype, no bandwagon-jumping, no bullshit. Album of the year, hands down.” – Ryan @ Lexington Music Press

Thanks to these reviewers, and our friends at Raptor’s Delight PR for getting these discs out to these folks. To release the record The Plurals are doing a string of shows with Honah Lee this weekend: Thursday 5/19 at Frankie’s (Toledo, OH), Friday 5/20 at Mulligan’s (Grand Rapids, MI), and the official release party at Mac’s Bar (Lansing, MI) on 5/21 (with GTG dudes The Hat Madder rounding out the show with their first local appearance with their new lineup). If you can come to any or all of these shows they’ll be a great time, guaranteed.

Also, Punknews.org had this to say about Narc Out the Reds’ “…Are on the Run” EP recently:

“The songs essentially bear slightly grungy, occasionally heavier parts as each proceeds, and despite the band’s possible influences they seem to largely abandon verse/chorus structure, with a handful of unpredictable stop-starts along the way. The guitars are dynamic, and rock well. Raspy, smeared vocals drag emphatically across the pauses; the band do away with any sort of wistfulness, instead choosing a noisier pop slant to otherwise riffy rock fare. An almost reckless approach to an older, familiar style, mixing it all up well.” Brian @ punknews.org

What a good time to be in the gang.

Oh wow I haven’t kept up with this very well at all. As I stated before I will go into detail with a more comprehensive journal thing later, but, here goes with a quick recap. I’m writing from Billings, Montana where The Plurals and The Anchor are splitting a hotel room (shh, don’t tell) on a shared off night.
4/6 – Drove from Denver to Albuquerque. Played at a kinda strange hookah lounge called The Orchid Chamber. Probably the weakest show of the tour, but still not bad. Met up with Jimmy from one of the local bands and crashed at his place.
4/7 – Hung out at Jimmy’s for probably too long. Drove to Tucson eventually and met up with Cameron Combs, great dude and one of the organizers of Way Out West Fest.
4/8 – Met Billy Brooks, the other main organizer of WOW Fest, as well as Logan Greene, friggin cool Tuscon dude. Spent the night watching bands at Way Out West Fest. Highlights included Logan Greene and The Bricks, Languas Largas, The Pillowfights, American Lies, and The Anchor. Crashed with Cameron (and his super cool GF Erica) again.
4/9 – WOW Fest continues. Highlights included Shang A Lang, Rumspringer, Something Fierce, Tiltwheel, Discos, UltraMaroon, Shark Pants and… yeah, lots of good music. We played a super fun set and met more cool people, including supercool southern California promoter Party Marty. Testing their patience, we once again crashed with Cameron and Erica.
4/10 – Last day of WOW Fest, with great sets from Dr. Dinosaur, Jason Kutchman, New York Taxi, Gashcat, and International Dipshits. At about 7 PM Dickie from Shark Pant/ Languas Largas/ UltraMaroon/ etc asked us if we wanted to play another show that night at a local club called The Red Room. Totally sweet pick-up show at a cool venue with cool people all around. Very nice. Somehow we convinced Cameron and Erica that we were still cool and crashed there again.
4/11 – Over staying our welcome, I broke Cameron and Erica’s shower curtain, so we took them out for lunch (Rocco’s Pizza!). Drove to Phoenix, met up with our old friend Ahmad, played an odd but fun show at The Rogue Bar and then crashed at Ahmad’s.
4/12 – Had an off day in southern California, hanging out with Party Marty, The Anchor, and the Muy Athentico Records crew (including but not limited to Kyle, Andy, and Mono). Watched The Anchor play at Romano’s in Riverside, CA.
4/13 – Spent what felt like the entire day driving across Los Angeles to get to San Pedro, CA. Hung out with Black Sparrow Press and then played a fun show at Harold’s with BSP, Baby J, and Images. My amp stopped working, but, oh well. Partied.
4/14 – Went kayaking with our friend Eva in the San Pedro harbor. Saw sea lions. Hung out with BSP some more before heading back to Riverside to play at Romano’s. Played a fun show with American Lies, Summer Vacation, and Bonsai.
4/15 – Hung out in Riverside for Andy from Turkish Techno’s birthday. Marty, Mono, Kyle, Andy, Miski, Sasha, Ariel, Dustin, other Hattie, and everyone in Riverside rules. Except that Valerie girl that tried to get me to smoke heroin with her, but, hey, whatever.
4/16 – Discovered that California is a really big state and In and Out Burger is tasty. Got to San Jose to play an awesome show in this dude Eric’s garage. Danielle from The Pillowfights put the show on and she and her band are awesome. This cool dude Sim got us on a late show at a bar that had no personality called Broncos, which was a lot of fun, until they told us to turn down, but, eh. Crashed at Danielle’s. I broke her roommate Mander’s CD player within seconds of walking in the door. Sorry Mander.
4/17 – Hung out with Danielle in San Jose. Got the best burrito of the tour, and then saw a cool house show with some great bands, including Bad Dream from Brooklyn and a bunch of awesome bands that I don’t rememer the names of.
4/18 – Departed San Jose (thanks Danielle!) then had a fun show in Sacramento, CA, care of cool punk dude Twitch Angry. Made the perhaps less-than-wise decision to drive to Kings Beach, CA after the show, with a semi terrifying drive through the Sierra Nevada mountains. Met up with Brett McDowell, a beloved GTG OG!
4/19 – Beautiful day on Lake Tahoe with Brett. Fun house show at Brett’s with Brett and a cool guy named Forrest.
4/20 – Really long drive to Portland, OR. Good show at a bar called The Know (thanks Amai and Dave). Crashed with cool dude Greg from the band Middle Ages.
4/21 – Wandered around Portland and then drove to Seattle and met up with Johnny Unicorn and his lovely girlfriend Naomi. Naomi made enchiladas that were like an oasis.
4/22 – Really fun house show at The Tiger House with Johnny Unicorn (and his Universe) and Horace Pickett. Great times.
4/23 – After driving all day, arrived at the ZACC Gallery in Missoula, MT. Played with The Anchor, which is blast, as well as great locals City O City and Hangover Kings. Marty Hill is a great promoter. Crashed with Andrea from City O City.
4/24 – Got invited to an afternoon brunch thing in Missoula and hung out with locals and The Anchor. Good stuff! Drove to Billings, MT, where I now write.

We got Rapid City, SD tomorrow (w/ The Anchor!), Minneapolis on Tuesday, and Chicago on Wednesday. Michigan awaits! It will be strange to be home, but I do miss Lansing and all of our friends.
Uh, Happy Easter?

tommyplural

Head over to the new GTG bandcamp page to download The Metaphorical Steven, a new 15 song compilation from GTG Records. This compilation is available for free (although donations are welcome) and features a window into where GTG is at in the first half of 2011. All of the songs on this compilation were released in the last 12 months, with 5 of the songs currently being unavailable anywhere else. An early look into new releases from The Plurals, Small Houses, Josh David and the Dream Jeans, The Break-Ups, and middleman can be heard, as well as a live recording of a new song from our friends in Calliope, and highlights from the recent excellent output of Frank and Earnest, The Hat Madder, Narc Out the Reds, Honah Lee (new album on GTG in June!), Drinking Mercury, Jason Alarm, Fade to Black, CrookedSound,and Stargrazer round out the set. Download away and enjoy! The compilation was sequenced by The Plurals while on tour, and our friend Dave Dunn in Denver, CO whipped together the artwork (and coined the title) while hanging out in Denver. In every way, this compilation is a snapshot of this particular moment in time, and we hope everyone enjoys it.

3/30 – Jet lagged, loopy Plurals played at Triple Nickel Tavern in Colorado Springs, CO, beginning our week-long love affair in Colorado. Lots of cool locals and Damian is a cool promoter. Crashed hard afterwards.
3/31 – Worked away on “The Metaphorical Steven” (more info forthcoming). Hung out with friends old and new, went up to Boulder, CO to play an open stage night at The Catacombs Bar. Great bar, cool open mic, weird but nice town.
4/1 – Super fun show at Pourhouse in Loveland, CO. We ended up essentially running sound for the first band, the excellent all female indie quintet The MurderARR, and then unleashing a rockin’ set on the composed clientele. Very positive reception, evidently too loud for some, but we did very well. We partied with the MurderARRs and new friends at a really cool pad (hot tub included) in Loveland.
4/2 – Went to our obligatory Waffle House between Loveland and Denver. Hopefully that will fill the quota. Got a last minute show at an awesome club in Denver called The Rockaway Tavern. The bar staff was awesome and (most of) the people hanging out were really cool. The band scheduled to close the night tried to sneak onstage and take our slot – we had to get the manager to tell them they were supposed to close the show. These total fucking lame asses actually LEFT THE SHOW and didn’t play. We played an adrenaline-infused set and laughed our asses off when we realized these lamewads (who were all in their late 30s at least) couldn’t cut playing at midnight on a Saturday.
4/3 – Fun show at a wicked dive bar in Denver called The Lion’s Lair. Denver County Death March opened the show, and their singer Garth helped us score a gig for the following night. Our set was really fun, probably our best of the Colorado dates, with the awesome Nate King Band following us. This wasted guy named Ben closed out the show with a barely coherent solo acoustic-punk set that ended with him sitting on the bar. Super rad bartender Michelle put us on a show the following night at 3 Kings Tavern in Denver (giving us a 3 night stand in this fair mountain town).
4/4 – Hung out in the mountains by Sedalia, CO with Dave, one of our gracious hosts and now-artwork-contributor. Mindblowing scenery. That’s the best way to put it in a few words. Our pick-up show at 3 Kings Tavern was awesome – we were opening for a burlesque show (Ooh La La Burlesque to be exact) and thus performed our set in our underwear. Ooh La la was totally fun, and a kick ass jazz combo that I didn’t catch the name of closed out the night.
4/5 – Day off. Feels weird, but nice.

Thank you so much to Dave Dunn and Mark Kole for putting us up for a solid week in Colorado. Thanks to Dave and Katie Thompson for hanging out and being such great friends.

tommyplural

I’ll post something comprehensive for sure, but here’s a quick round-up of highlights of The Plurals 2011 tour so far:
3/24 – had to get our tire rim welded before we left, and consequently pulled up to Firehouse Pizza in Normal IL right as we were supposed to be setting up; the set went well. Fantastic venue. Great sets by Off With Their Heads and Fake Boys.
3/25 – the whacky ancient GPS we were using sent us through 100 miles of run-down small towns in Missouri. Our show had gotten moved to a garage (“Detto’s Barn”) in Liberty, MO, with a small but great crowd. Locals Meat Mist, Sealegs, and Regretter were great.
3/26 – Detto’s dad treated us to Cracker Barrel in the morning. Played at a great club in Omaha, NE called The Slowdown – local band Millions of Boys was excellent.
3/27 – Drove down to St. Louis (oh, these crazy tour routes) and nearly lost our minds. Met up with Michigan friends at one of said friend’s sister’s house. Learned to Flabongo. More info forthcoming.
3/28 – Magical day at the St. Louis zoo. Played at a neat little club called Cicero’s with a cool band from Austin called Mobley. After the show we went to the bar Blueberry Hill, which is way more interesting than the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
3/29 – Played a loose but fun set at a great bar in Lawrence, KS called the Replay Lounge, with a great local band called Vegetable. Ended up driving through the night after an interesting evening with some locals. Crashed in the van at some rest area for awhile.
3/30 – I’m in Denver. That John Denver guy was not full of shit.

Colorado Springs tonight!

tommyplural

So, if you haven’t noticed, the website has been overhauled. It’s still a bit of a work in progress (not every CD is for sale in the info/ catalog section yet, but soon will be) but it’s pretty much here. Click on each of the artist pages above for photos, bios, songs, discography, and links to their respective individual websites. Poke around a bit and let us know what you think! If you’re not a part of the GTG mailing list, just send an e-mail to gtgrecords at gmail dot com and you’ll get a monthly round-up of GTG haps.

Aside from the revamping of the website, the other main undertaking in the immediate GTG circle has been the booking of a midwest, southwest, and west coast tour for The Plurals. Check out the The Plurals page for the tour dates. This is all part of the promotional cycle for the upcoming release of the brand-new Plurals full-length The Plurals Today, The Plurals Tomorrow: A Futurospective, due out May 21st. With all sorts of time and money wrapped up in the tour process, we could use as much help as possible with the whole “Plurals cause,” so we’re offering a pre-sale deal that includes, for the nifty price of $7, a copy of the new album, an exclusive CD of outtakes, acoustic versions, live recordings, and cover songs, and a poster to those who contribute to the pre-sale cause. Order between now and May 1st to get these goodies – this will be the only way to get this bonus CD (and remember that The Plurals are recording engineers and visual artists themselves, so we won’t be half-assin’ this package).

Yet another download-only record available! Head on over to Fade to Black’s web site to download, at your own price, the brand new album “Live in Lansing.” The career-spanning set is available in lossless high quality audio WAV file version as well as a mp3. Set your own price, and profits from the album are going to the Greater Lansing Food Bank. Very cool!

Hey! Timmy Rodriguez has completed his first solo album under the Sleeping Timmy moniker, entitled “What World?” Download the whole album for free here. Also, on the topic of GTG members’ extracurricular activities, make sure to check out the It Takes A Village to Make Records website. There’s going to be a lot of cool things coming out this year on the ITAV label, that’s for sure.