THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “After meeting at a memorial for a mutual friend, Tony Molina (Ovens) and Sarah Rose Janko (Dawn Riding) started spending nights into mornings playing guitar and singing their hearts out to an audience of empty wine bottles in the East Oakland warehouse where Sarah lived.
Fans of each other’s respective musical projects, they bonded over a shared love of The Byrds and Bill Fox and leaned into their friendship as a much-needed support in a time of dizzying grief. The days were marked in trips to Jackson’s Liquor store, the same spot Tony frequented while recording with his band Ovens a decade earlier, at a studio in the same neighborhood. The nights drifted by. The songs kept coming. They decided they wanted to record all they’d been pouring their hearts into and The Lost Days were born.
Over the course of 2021, the two kept writing and sharing songs. Inspired by the solo work of Fox, The Byrds, Dear Nora and Guided By Voices, The Lost Days started recording what was to be their first full-length LP, In The Store, at friend Nick Bassett’s basement studio on his Yamaha MT8X eight-track. The album is an exercise in true DIY lo-fi analog home recorded tradition, with songs that are a unique blend of folk and pop, crafted by two songwriters with a love of Beatles melody and Rolling Stones instrumentation circa ’65.
The comfort and familiarity of friendship and the intimacy of home recording allowed the two to craft traditional and yet deeply personal pop and folk songs. Writing that addresses alcoholism, depression and complex relationships are lovingly brought to life on the 10 tracks (in 13 minutes) that make up the album. Characterized by ’60s folk-rock arrangements, with jangly 12-string guitars, bright tambourine, swells of Hammond organ, and Byrdsian style harmonies, the songs are a groovier take on Molina’s signature pop-gem writing style, pulled together with Vampire On Titus-era GBV recording methods.
“It was really about an obsession with the first three Bill Fox LPs, and finding a newfound freedom in home recording with Sarah that set the concept in motion. The Lost Days was a collaboration in which we were tapping into our love of traditional songwriting. We felt that recording to cassette at our friend’s house was the best way to capture the songs,” Tony says.
The songs that make up In The Store represent a unique collaboration between two songwriters that express true-to-life realities over pop hooks, harmonies, and the songs leave one feeling hopeful or at least able to commiserate in the company of friends.”
