Casual Business 02: Kleenex Girl Wonder – Fancypants of Central California

GENESIS
When Graham Smith accepted my invitation to participate in this fledgling Casual Business series he also offered to write two new songs for the occasion. To this I intuitively responded “hell fuckin’ yeah.” Like any real man he made good on his promise. Ladies and Gentlemen, allow me to present to you this 2-song record entitled Fancy Pants of Central California, which consists of the songs “Jobs Jeans” and “Cuperchinos.” Trust Graham. He knows exactly what he is doing.

PRE-GENESIS
Several years ago, Zachary Mexico turned me onto Kleenex Girl Wonder with the album Ponyoak. As promised, it was a delight. Graham recorded these very sophisticated, ultra melodic pop songs all by himself presumably in his parents house. This record came out originally in 1999. Stand out tracks include: “The Nearest Future,” “The Sound of Paul,” and “The Mohican Antler Yard Alphabet”. Listen and buy directly from Smith here.

CREW
So for those who don’t know, Kleenex Girl Wonder is historically Smith’s one-man show, although he’s frequently surrounded himself with strong allies. For our session, which occurred on June 7th 2010, he enlisted a very capable duo of men to help with the bringing of the rock. We had Mr. Matt LeMay (Get Him Eat Him) on the drums and Mr. Thayer McClanahan on the guitar. Smith handled the bass.

GEAR

Smith arrived to the session sporting a sweet pair of what he considers to be “Jobs Jeans,” those loose-ish and sensible denim pantalones that frequently dangle from the ass of one Mr. Steve “Jobs Jeans” Jobs. We taped this session on the day Jobs unveiled the iPhone 4G. Smith opted to not wear the signature Jobs turtleneck.

GAME
Smith lived in the iso booth for this session. The booth can be a steamy place when inhabited by a rock-maker exerting himself. Fortunately, he either doesn’t naturally generate much body heat or the new Vornado fan my lovely wife donated to the studio works very well. While he inhabited it, Smith owned that boof. He’s the type of singer who knows exactly what to do and does it again and again. He’s decisive. It’s comforting to be around someone this certain.

His songs would be difficult to cover if only because the words would be a challenge to memorize. Who else but Graham would be able to sing this stuff?

TWO JOINTZ
“Jobs Jeans” is the peppier of the two and undoubtedly will go down as the A-Side. Inject this number into your ear-holes and you’ll find twisting chord changes, exquisite manipulations of language and what seems like three distinct sections catchy enough to be referred to as sweet chorii. Yes, “Jobs Jeans” might be a good place to start for the G. Smith neophyte.

Pre-take control room chatter slated B-Side “Cuperchinos” as Kleenex Girl Wonder’s “Slint song.” Now wait, it was Shellac. Yeah it’s their “Shellac song.” Special kudos to manly-drummist Matt Le May for his pummeling man-beats on this one. Musically, this ominous pounder hits the target but I don’t know if Albini would ever rock couplets like these:

“The things we crush
And turn to dust
Always end up blown back at us.
A woman’s lips,
A blunderbuss
The repercussions are thunderous!”

I didn’t know what a “blunderbuss” was so I had to look it up. According to Wikipedia, a the blunderbuss is a muzzle-loading firearm with a short, large caliber barrel, which is flared at the muzzle, and used with shot. A-HA! Then it made so much sense. Oh, I see. This is for real. I emailed Smith and asked him to send me the lyrics. I followed along while listening to the songs. He’s not just kidding around writing joke songs about Steve Jobs’ pants. Well he kinda is, but this is one man’s unique voice and this is some next-level shit. “A woman’s lips, a blunderbuss … the repercussions are thunderous!” Good line, sir! What better way for a man to express the simultaneously terrifying and seductive nature of the lady-piece!

I took the liberty to publish the full libretto for Fancy Pants of Central California below. Follow along and engage yourself. Grasping this artist’s use of language will enhance your enjoyment of the music! Visit KGW.me to listen to the entire Graham Smith ouvre and to read along with the lyrics, provided by the artist himself, for every song.

THA STRUGGLE
We’d like to bill this session as Kleenex Girl Wonder but Smith was served with a cease and desist order in late ’99 by the colossal booger control corporation mentioned in this band-name and nowadays goes by Graham Smith or KGW or Graham Smith and KGW. But as long as Graham doesn’t mind too much, I’m taking the liberty to bill this session as Kleenex Girl Wonder within these paragraphs. This is the same name that appears of the cover of Ponyoak, the song cycle that knocked me and presumably thousands of other bat-eared nerds on our asses. Graham, if the booger control corporation’s jackals hunt for you I’ll make it my mission do anything in my power to defend you. For now I’m satisfying my rock phantasies. I recorded Kleenex Girl Wonder and it was awesome.

THA HUSSLE
Smith issues his music and commix on his own micro-indie enterprise, a nerve center called REESONABLE. It will make you happy to pay this site a visit at rsnbl.com. You might also enjoy kgw.me and twitter.com/grahamsmith

PS — Stay tuned to breakthruradio.com for a BreakThruRadio Live Studio session taped on the same evening as these selections. The band rips through ten other songs live in the studio plus Smith sits for a probing interview. This is essential listening. Hysterical!

FIN

JEANS!

Travis Harrison

[[[Download the 7-inch]]]

Casual Business 01: Shark?

To christen our first Casual Business session, we invited buzzing local rock-men Shark? to our studio for what we knew would be a terrific time. We had done our homework, downloading and delighting in their shambling homemade bandcamp EPs, made almost entirely by Shark? main-man Kevin Diamond, a real persona and a fabulously nice fellow. His band, made of Andy Swerdlow, Andy Kinsey, and Chris Mulligan showed up ready to fuck shit up.  I think this was probably the first time these guys have played in a proper fancy recording studio together as Shark? and they BROUGHT IT. Yes they’re a New York band but there’s something resolutely Cleveland about their particular brand of meaty-beaty-big-and-bouncy jamgasms. Sure they’re scuzzy and they rock-the-fuck-out, but there’s an awareness, a slight tinge of the out-there, a little something palpably and deliberately not-normal popping up at every turn that keeps you engaged and trusting in their intentions.

Throughout the session the band seemed interested in their music sounding shittier, more fucked up, more blown out. No problem dudes. Diamond even ran his guitar through what he referred to as his “shit pedal”. Why? “It makes my guitar sound like shit,” he explained. I have a sneaking suspicion they might even think these recordings came out kinda clean (yikes!) even though to my humble man-ears they do sound nicely dungy, especially Diamond’s vocal. Knowing from Shark?’s records that he seemed to like the sound of his voice distorted, I split the vocal mic onto two separate tracks of tape, keeping one as clean as possible and the other dirtier than the Gulf of Mexico. I blended these two signals together, along with some hairy Echoplex slap, in various combinations throughout the session. The filth came courtesy of dimming a fancy Chandler mic pre-amp, which when blown-out sounds a lot like Lennon’s guitar on the Revolution single. For many singers, this treatment can come off as a cop-out or a distraction or a deception to hide behind, but something about the warmth of Diamond’s voice and his inflection just sounds good like this. Being that this was a live recording, the distortion amplified background noise too, most notably the Strummerish strumming of Diamond’s electric guitar, which I thought added a nicely haphazard touch in the mix.

Diamond had the pleasure of performing in our tiny 8×8 isolation booth so we could get a solid vocal sound amidst the pounding of two guitars, baby bass, and drums. That booth gets hot, especially when you’re a big man and rocking your balls off. I warned him and apologized for any discomfort; I like bands to be comfortable in my place. Emerging from thick blankets man-steam, Diamond proclaimed that he “thrives in this environment”. Listening back to these tracks, it’s clear to my ears that he wasn’t just lying to be nice. Everything that came out his mouth was a keeper.

Shark? seems to have no problem with anthems, slogans, big chorii or rock-thrillz. The chorus of their self-titled song “Shark?” makes no attempt to hide its sheer hugeness. Mind you, this is a song in which Kevin Diamond shouts the frustratingly un-Googleable name of his band over and over again in the chorus atop a solid chord progression that hits the bittersweet relative minor in the seventh of eight bars and makes you feel it like a shock in your gut (“Is it a SHARK? SHARK? SHARK? SHARK? SHARK?”) There’s nothing funky, fashionable or guarded about this shit, and that’s part of why Shark? has certain members of the blogosphere semening their pants. The best part? Diamond’s voice boasts the power and swagger to sell it. I’ve heard him compared to Glenn Danzig and I can buy that because he does sound like a fuckin’ manly man’s man amongst men, but he’s no meathead or growler. Nor is he a try-too-hard artsy-fartsy fool, even though I hear some Ian Curtis in there too (minus the fucking brooding). The music sounds effortless, because it probably is for him. From our very enjoyable time together it became clear that Diamond is an astute and well studied rock-fan, and a highly assured conduit for his own brand of natural and assured rock. He knows damn well the game might be hard work, but it’s not supposed to sound like it. His band gets it too and they pound out his songs with the focus and force of a demented Crazy Horse, or a polished-up Meatmen, or a less-druggy more beery Chrome.

And speaking of beers. Several half-dozen giant beers were imbibed during this session. We call these lovelies “GBs” at Serious Business. Cheap 24 oz domestic lagers are the only reasonably priced alcohol in this froufrou SoHo ‘hood we call home, so GBs make up our lifeblood. We know a session is going well when the band so quickly accepts the flavors of our home-field brews. That’s how we roll here, and these Shark-men fit in like they’ve been sleeping on our couches for months.

So, somewhere between our ceremonial sojourn to the Serious Business rooftop for some conversation/inhalation/celebration, and multiple trips to the Lafayette Smoke Shop for more GBs, Shark? geared up–WAY up–and cut two sweet-ass tracks for us. On Side A Diamond shouts, “We got friends”. Well dudes, you’re always welcome at Serious Business.

Travis Harrison

[[[Download the 7-inch]]]