Formed in 2009, The Stick Arounds – consisting of members of old-school Lansing powerhouses Calliope, the Pantones, and Gentleman Callers – take you to a sonic neighborhood where garage rock, Byrds-esque pop, Guided By Voices-inspired abandon, and classic rock all happily live together. A mainstay of mid-Michigan dive bars, when the time came to make an album the band decided to eschew conventions and record where they felt most comfortable: in front of a live audience. The project that followed ended up becoming a labor of love for the GTG family as the venue for the live recording was the now-defunct but much beloved GTG-operated DIY/ warehouse venue The Mystery Garage and the recording and mixing engineer was the Hat Madder’s Isaac Vander Schuur. The album, appropriately titled Mystery Garage, captures the essence of the band and documents a place and time, as all great live albums are meant to. Check out the album for 12 songs of tightly crafted rock and roll songs with a chiming, three guitar attack to complement the impressive group vocal efforts – best enjoyed cranked up with the windows down. Order the LP here or stream it on Spotify!
GTG Fest 2016: SUCCESS! Soooooo many good times. Thanks so much to The Avenue Cafe, all the raffle donors, the attendees, the bands, the city of Lansing… everyone! GTG Fest 2016 was the biggest year yet for us and we can’t wait to see what the future holds! Even if right now we’re all still nursing our sore bodies and unraveled minds! That’s how you know it’s a fest weekend!
This weekend was also really important to us because we released two new LPs and in the process had two more bands join our family! Small Parks released their debut LP “Honest Light” on vinyl (it came out digitally in the spring but now it’s a for-real real record!) Friday night, with The Stick Arounds following suit with the release of their debut (recorded live at the much beloved and missed Mystery Garage) LP “Mystery Garage” on Saturday night. Two different perspectives of the Michigan DIY community, many styles and sounds, and all good, honest pure-GTG Records goodness. You can order ’em at our store right now!
Expect further updates on these two great bands and more info on their records in the coming days. It was a great weekend and there’s still so much to take in! Good times.
New releases keep coming! A little while ago we schemed to co-release a split 7-inch with Diet Pop Records (these folks who helped make this happen) and Mouse House featuring our southern California buddies Secondaries and true Texan heroes Dubois. It’s now available for streaming and pre-order at the Diet Pop site, check it out! Dubois are new friends of ours and we can’t wait to learn if they prefer the French pronunciation or some fantastic Texan interpretation, but Secondaries are a bunch of old Plurals homies that we’ve been rocking alongside in bars, warehouses, warehouses that feel like bars, and other strange places from the shores of Lake Michigan to the tip of the Pacific. Happy to make it official now! For fans of anthemic gruff ‘n melodic punk ranging a la Latterman, Hot Water Music, Shang-A-Lang, AJJ, to etc etc and so on! More vinyls!!
Get it! The latest GTG release, a four-way split cassette featuring two new songs apiece from Bong Mountain, Bluff Called, Protected Left, and Frank And Earnest! Available digitally and on cassette, get your copy now!
You can finally order the new Junior Battles/ Bong Mountain split cassette from us! Only 75 of these suckers were made so hurry up, they won’t last long! Bong Mountain just wrapped up a Canadian and east coast tour but will be playing in Flint this weekend at Vehicle City Fest alongside The Plurals, Frank and Earnest, The Hunky Newcomers, City Mouse and a bunch of other cool artists including Sean Bonnette, Worship This!, Signals Midwest and oh so many more.
Junior Battles are, as always, sweet, kind, perfect gentlemen. Now here’s a picture of Tommy Plural’s dog with Sparty!
GTG Records is very excited to be releasing the brand new cassette split from our good friends: Grand Rapids’ Bong Mountain and Toronto’s Junior Battles! Bong Mountain has been tearing it up across the Midwest over the last year and a half with their brand of gruff, jagged pop punk. You may remember them from the GTG showcase at Mac’s Bar in February, and since then, they’ve continued to build momentum and are building a ton of buzz. Junior Battles formed in 2007 and has been peddling a solid, unique brand of cynical pop culture-laden indie rock/punk. We met these guys in 2009 when they played a huge, raucous show at GTG House and it feels good to be able to work with them again.
The cassettes are hot off the press and will be available for the first time TONIGHT at BIKE TUFF // BONG MOUNTAIN // LITTLE AMERICAN CHAMP // WORN SPIRIT in Lansing (and on the web shortly after), and both bands will be playing Pouzza FEST in Montreal this weekend. We couldn’t be more excited to help bring these four new songs to life. GTG088!
First off, check out this new video for “Facebook” by The Plurals! Shot on tour last summer, coming out now in anticipation of a new tour. Also, we discovered when we tried to advertise this video on the, uh, real facebook that you cannot promote non-official products that have the word “Facebook” in them. Well aren’t we just little rebels. But anyway, that’s the video up there. This is a link to it too, because why not?
Anyway, The Plurals are going on tour. Here’s the tour dates!
3/18/16 – Cincinnati, OH @ Northside Yacht Club
3/19/16 – Beckley, WV @ Wild Fire Saloon
3/20/16 – Charleston, SC @ The Tin Roof
3/21/16 – Savannah, GA @ The Wormhole
3/22/16 – St. Petersberg, FL @ Fubar Downtown
3/23/16 – Gainesville, FL @ Hardback Cafe
3/24/16 – Jacksonville, FL @ The Headlamp
3/25/16 – Atlanta, GA @ Cunt Cave
3/26/16 – Murfreesboro, TN @ Mothershack
3/31/16 – Bloomington, IN @ Root Cellar
4/1/16 – Dayton, OH @ Blind Bob’s
4/2/16 – Ft Wayne, IN @ The Brass Rail
4/7/16 – Grand Rapids, MI @ Rocky’s w/ Jeremy Porter & the Tucos, Vibrolas
4/8/16 – Lansing, MI @ The Avenue Cafe w/ Jeremy Porter & the Tucos, Vibrolas
4/9/16 – Detroit, MI @ Northern Lights Lounge w/ Jeremy Porter & the Tucos, Vibrolas
Fun stuff, and during that little gap in Tennessee at the end of March we’ll be in the studio making a new album! Very exciting.
Honah Lee are going on tour too!
3/16 – Morgantown WV @ Atomic Cafe
3/17 – Dayton OH @ Blind Bob’s
3/18 – Lansing, MI @ The Avenue Cafe
3/19 – Indianapolis IN @ Melody Inn
3/20 – Cincinnati OH @ Northside Yacht Club
3/22 – Lexington KY @ Al’s Bar
3/24 – Greensboro NC @ Tuba House
3/25 – Washington, DC @ Dougout
3/26 – Trenton, NJ @ Mill Hill Basement
Just in time for this tour our friends at Durry Dog Tapes released a limited edition cassette version of Honah Lee’s 2015 LP 33 On 45, so that baby’s now available on vinyl, CD, DVD, and cassette (at Honah Lee’s shows only!). And digital, of course. Insane! Honah Lee are up to a bunch of cool things currently, including collaborating with a member of Kool & the Gang on the theme song for a documentary about Ghostbusters. True story!
The Hat Madder are, of course, finishing their tour now. Here’s the last couple dates!
