Jacob Barber – Do You Remember?
Sure, you’d assume that the important 1960s pop artists sold millions and millions of records. If fortunate, some of them even managed to see some of the money that they made for big companies. And while those artists are bona fide legends now, just what was the price they had to pay to make sure that their vision was accurately captured on tape?
In order to get themselves locked up in a recording studio, those artists would have to beg, make threats or fake mental illness. And, even then, they’d likely have a producer or manager hanging over their shoulder.
Yet, look at what they’ve inspired? With the benefit of modern, often affordable technology, and armed with a fanatical level of devotion for those kinds of sounds, artists like Jacob Barber are looking to replicate the pocket-sized symphonies on their own.
“Do You Remember?” will speak clearly and directly to all of the people who’ve heard some kind of magic in the recordings of the likes of The Beach Boys or Harry Nilsson. What’s most remarkable is the mileage that Barber gets out of a small, lo-fi recording studio. This is a glorious sound, and the angelic work was all done on an 8-track.
Gregg Garvey – Jeremy (In The Willows)
All the soon-to-be artists made promises with themselves, except for those whose only goal was to become rock stars, build mansions using marble flown in from Southern Italy, and marry Victoria’s Secret models. Everyone else, however, promised that when they grew up, they would tell the people about what they saw.
It’s a beautiful promise. But it’s one that is outgrown quickly. It is forgotten and just comes back in flashes once in a while, perhaps, when you’re dipping the madeleine into a cup of tea. Still, some make the effort to remember not just how things were, but what they felt like, and what they needed to be this way. Gregg Garvey is that rare kind of musical explorer.
“Jeremy (In The Willows)” is a song about childhood and innocence, which inevitably get viciously torn up and discarded by life’s responsibilities. What’s most amazing about the song, besides the eerie, ghostly combination of Latin-jazz meets classic pop tones, is the way in which Garvey treats the subject not with nostalgia, but like someone trying to retrace his steps back to an important secret.
