Thanks to the inexplicable popularity of my Submit Music page, I always have a digital backlog of albums, EPs, singles and videos awaiting my perusal. Here’s another recent must-hear, along with the Bandcamp link so you can buy the music straight from the source. Tell ’em I sent ya. And if you’ve got something I need to hear, send it my way. If I think you’re half as good as you think you are, I just might include you next time.
Warren Teagarden and The Good Grief
Modern Drugs
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “In November of 2019 my band, Warren Teagarden and The Good Grief, put out an album called Modern Drugs. We recorded the album mostly in Oakland but also a bit in San Francisco. Due to various reasons (well, mostly financial reasons) we did not mount much of a media campaign for this album … and then the pandemic happened. That’s a real shame, as the album represents our best work to date and sounds fantastic. Modern Drugs had several songs such as Haircut, The Deal and Light as a Mouse do pretty well on college radio but we weren’t able to get the album reviewed … except in Serbia. Yes, you read that correctly. The one and only album review Modern Drugs received was randomly from Serbia.
I recorded the album myself on an old Tascam 388 and it was mixed by Marc Pistel (Consolidated, Meat Beat Manifesto). The songs are actually a bunch of older tunes that were release as sort of “demos” from 2006-2009. I wanted to re-record these for a few reasons, I wasn’t super-pleased with the previous versions and I wanted to get the current band lineup to record them as my band is quite solid and they’ve added some layers and parts that have helped bring the songs together. The songs draw some of my earliest influences: Pixies, Violent Femmes, The Smiths, REM, Talking Heads and The Ramones. It’s a blend of punk-inspired indie-rock or maybe garage-pop. I don’t know I hate those kinds of labels.”
MY TWO CENTS: Too weird to be ignored. And too good. Note: Warren forgot to include Roky Erickson and Frank Zappa in his list of influences.
