Hey! So as the year winds down, it’s a good time to reflect on all of the cool things GTG Records was a part of this year. An annual highlight is always GTG Fest, naturally, and this year we had the good fortune to be joined by Stephen DeFalco from the Chicago-based podcast Friskie Morris & Friends who spent the weekend interviewing a handful of bands on the festival and graciously profiling the new releases from Small Parks, The Stick Arounds, and Bong Mountain that came out at or shortly prior to this year’s fest. Interview segments in addition to the three new release-rs include Handwringer , Matt Wixson’s Flying Circus, City Mouse, Jake Simmons & the Little Ghosts and a freewheeling roundtable with members of The Plurals, Drinking Mercury, and Frank and Earnest (with a brand new Plurals recording snuck into that segment!) to round it out. We had our best year ever at GTG Fest 2016 and while this is just a selection of the all-around great lineup we had this year it feels great that Stephen was able to document the event and we can’t wait to relive it and do it again!
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!
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.”
I get excited about every show I play. You never know how a show is really going to go, it could look like it’ll be a great crowd and then the response is tepid… the room could be empty before you start and then suddenly fill up with enthusiastic, awesome people. The band could be a well-oiled machine but then inexplicably fall off the rails for no real reason, or you could be under-rehearsed and then totally nail the set. Every show has the promise of something new and exciting and I hope that never changes.
This Friday I’ll be playing the first proper show in over two years by my very first band Drinking Mercury. We’re playing at GTG House with Brook Pridemore, Elroy Meltzer, and Rent Strike. This band has continued to exist for over 16 years because the sheer joy of making music together is something that we can’t get away from and even when we don’t do anything for extended periods of time we can always pick it back up where we left off. We’re currently recording for a new split LP that we’ll all be talking about plenty in the not-too-distant future but as is the nature of the band it could be another little while before we play live again and, well, playing live is incomparable to anything else. Get some insights into our recording and rehearsal process on the band facebook page and try and get as excited as us.
I don’t really have more to add. Just excited! Being excited is cool, right? Kids still use that word still… “cool”? – Tommy
Jeremy Porter & The Tucos brought their Detroit-made powerpop n’ roll to GTG House when they were touring with the Plurals earlier this spring and we’re happy to kick off the summer-ish time by releasing the latest episode of GTG Sessions, featuring four tunes by this power trio. Check out more of their music and tour dates here.
The great Lansing duo Red Teeth release their first 7-inch via GTG this week! Thursday March 17th at The Avenue Cafe (which also doubles as a tour-homecoming-of-sorts show for The Hat Madder) this four song slab of wax will be available to the public for the first time and it is not to be missed. Light Bender (GTG083) showcases the frantic, angular instrumental skills of the two brothers that compose Red Teeth while cramming in enough fuzzy hooks to not completely melt your mind over the record’s 14 explosive minutes. The record boasts a timeless production sound – care of Funender mastermind Colin Such – with nods to classic hardcore and post-punk that maintains plenty of edge to still not seem like throwback music. This is the real deal! Check out “Light Bender, Sound Bender” below and click here for the release party event info!
So much good stuff happening in March, and this is just in Lansing! Stay tuned for further updates about tours by The Hat Madder, Honah Lee, and The Plurals!!
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!
GTG RECORDS 