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 the Light 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 compilation Bermuda Snohawk. And in addition to these additions we also, additionally, released 10 live music video recordings in the GTG Sessions series that 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!
GTG RECORDS 