THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “A Pear of albums on one vinyl LP: A combo of heavy psychedelia, drum and bass grooves, bouncy boogie, catchy tunes and sprinkles of tastee horns, keys and strings thrown in — kinda like a thumb over the genre-hose nozzle. Something for everyone and nothing for someone… guaranteed!” So says JD Pinkus of his new album Grow A Pear.
As for where it grew from: “Grow A Pear has been in the works for five years,” he reveals. “What started as my contributions for the ‘new’ Butthole Surfers album that was not to be turned into a solo album I recorded with contributions from some of my favorite flavor players.” The result, he says, “most represents where I came from and bridges to where I’m at right now. My wishes for the future is that everyone in the world will finally Grow A Pear.”
True to the word of Pinkus, Grow A Pear does indeed feature a veritable cornucopia of American indie-music radicals: Åsa Söderqvist and Lina Ericcson of Shitkid, old pal Paul Leary of Butthole Surfers, Sam Coomes of Quasi (and Jon Spencer’s Hit Makers), Mike Savino of Tall Tall Trees, Walter Daniels of Bigfoot Chester, Mike Alfred of Shed Alford, Jed Willis of Khandroma, Michael Brueggen of Pinkus’s own Honky and Syrup, and Billy Sheeran of, um, Billy Sheeran.
It seems like only yesterday Pinkus release Fungus Shui, his second solo “space-grass” banjo album. The album was written, recorded, and mixed by Pinkus himself at Plastic Cannon Studio in Asheville, North Carolina and was mastered by Kramer. And lest we forget, in 2023 he released Ponder Machine, the mind-bending collaborative LP from Pinkus and Tall Tall Trees.”