“How could that music come out of the same person?”
We’re always looking for ways to kill time in between sets. After being bombarded by an array of sounds in dimly lit rooms, we simply need to communicate with another person. It’s one of the few times in the night where we can converse and catch up with friends. Sometimes this manifests as a makeshift “riffing session”, in which we cosplay as an improv troupe. Eventually, the conversation will wrap itself back around to our common interest, which is of course bands.
While I was waiting for a show to start at Crown Liquors a few months ago, Mynor Gonzalez of the Grool Brothers blurted out the aforementioned quote. Somehow the conversation came upon Grown Ups, the short lived emo revival band from Indiana. In their short career, they attained a devoted following, but like so many of their contemporaries, only lasted a few short years. Doyle Martin, following the end of Grown Ups, went on to form Cloakroom, a slowcore/shoegaze band that luxuriates in long songs, with only a loose connection to his previous project.
This is a story that is not entirely unique, but is still ever present. The 2010’s are scattered with artists who slowly would transition to shoegaze/indie rock. Turnover started out as a pretty straightforward pop punk band, writing songs about breakups that would have fit perfectly at Warped tour circa 2005. With their second full length, Peripheral Vision, Turnover then introduced a whole new era of pop punk kids to shoegaze and indie rock.
Dave Algrim, the front person of Gentle Heat spent much of his teens to early 20’s in the diy screamo scene in milwaukee. In Scowler, as the lead guitarist, Algrim would contour his body, moving his shoulders along to the rhythm, all while his feet remained firmly planted, except for the occasional foot stomp. By the end of every set, his hand would be bloodied, to what he adds up as improper picking technique.
But, as with so many other musicians, they grow and want to go beyond the confines of a subgenre. “I was definitely done with the screamo thing. It was great and I loved doing it, but it wasn’t something I wanted to continue doing long term. I wasn’t really listening to a lot of heavy music anymore and fell off with that kind of music. It wasn’t exactly a reflection of what I was listening to.”
After moving to Chicago, he still wanted to bring that same screamo diy spirit that he gained in Milwaukee to Chicago. “I kind of wanted to start fresh and do something completely new.” This would ultimately result in his newest project Gentle Heat, which toes the line between so many different sub-genres in indie rock, the most apparent being shoegaze. But, unlike so many other bands in that nebulous subgenre, it doesn’t rely on tone and walls of sound. There’s still plenty of interesting choices and composition in every track.
After a string of successive releases, Gentle heat has released their second EP of 2019, called A Lure. It features the newest member of the band, Margaret Mccarthy on bass and backup vocals for the first time. It’s a nice little bite size of a release and a very nice primer to someone who may be mildly curious about the band. I recently had the opportunity to speak with Algrim at about a couple of records that inform the new EP, along with the band’s entire discography.
Jefre Cantu-Ledesma – In Summer
He uses a lot of field recordings. It’s like really sharp music, but it’s not abrasively sharp. It’s really pleasant and odd. He actually put out a collaborative album with grouper that’s kind of like choral music.
Autolux
That record is really catchy shoegaze pop. Their melodies are really cool and really simple. In a lot of ways, they are a really straightforward pop band, but they do a lot of these weird stuff to deviate. The drumming is really cool and concise. It’s not as unapproachable as other shoegaze music. It wasn’t really made to be this anti-establishment record. They live in LA. I don’t get the idea that they were trying to be this unlistenable shoegaze band.
My Bloody Valentine – mbv
It’s almost such an obvious given. It almost goes without saying. It seems almost redundant to include them in this list. I read an argument that shoegaze isn’t a genre, it should just be called bands that like My Bloody valentine. The vocal parts on the songs might get overlooked because of the loud guitars. That record (mbv) is really cool. The way the chords are set up for each song are really smart. It’s easy to not really pay attention to what they’re doing chord-wise. They are doing things that are really catchy but bizarre in structure.
Grouper – Dragging A Dead Deer Up a Hill
It’s not really music that you share with other people. I’m telling you to listen to it but I don’t want to listen to it with you, but it’s great for this reason. I actually saw her at the bohemian cemetery. She didn’t talk. When she was done, she didn’t say thank you or say goodnight. She just went offstage.
Dragging a Dead Deer Up a Hill, I got into that record at the end of Scowler. I was like “I don’t really want to be playing heavy music anymore.” It came at a time when I quit school to be in a band and the band broke up. I didn’t really know what I was doing.
Blonde Redhead – Misery Is A Butterfly
That band started off as making these weirder, kind of punk records. And then that record (Misery is a Butterfly) is kind of a weird turning point. The two twin brothers were jazz musicians or something like that. They are all really talented musicians, who wanted to make pop music. I don’t want to speak for them, but they seemed to want to make pop music that was structurally odd.