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• Brad has just released their second m and they are planning
o visit DV8 on July 7. This paper mayor not be out by then depending
on how late thisarticle makes the paper. Brad is comprised of
Stone Gossard, Jeremy Toback, Regan Hagar and Shawn Smith. With
the exception of Toback they all record for Epic as members of other
bands. The history of Brad goes farther back than the 1993 release of
Shame, their first album. Green River and Malfunkshun shared
rehearsal space in the early '80s.Stone Gossard was in Green River
and Regan Hagar was in Malfunkshun. Today Gossard is a member
of Pearl Jam and Hagar is in Satchel. Along with their other projects
Gossard and Regan run the record label LooseGrooves. Shawn Smith
is in Satchell with Hagar and sometimes he gets together with Steve
Fisk to record as Pigeonhed. Jeremy Toback has his solo career to
worry about. I spoke with Regan Howard about Brad and actually
Loose Groove.
Shame was released with a Loose Groove logo, but Brad is
not a Loose Groove band. LooseGroove was not in business when
Shame was released. The label was formed shortly after and Loose
Groove worked the Brad record for about a year an a half. Weapon of
Choice is probably my favorite LooseGroove band and Howard told
me that they hope to have a new Weapon of Choice record out before
the end of the year.
The band is rehearsing for
their tour, but when I spoke to
Howard James Hall, who will tour
in place of Toback, hadn't yet
arrived in Seattle. Howard, who is
obviously well-educated and not at
all like most of the musicians I
speak with, was supposed to be the
most talkative one of the bunch but
he didn't start to open up until I
asked him about "Upon My
Shoulders." The song is a ponderous,
dark piece with keyboards
reminiscent of a pipe organ and ~
stunning cello interlude played by
the Seattle Symphony's Wendy
Sutton. Smith's vocal is like Neil
Young at a funeral The song isn't
close to rock. It's a hymn. Do they
plan to play it live and if so how
are they going to do the cello part?
"We are doing that song live and
Stone is doing the cello part on guitar.
He's gotten a sound that is
amazingly like a cello. It really has
shocked us in rehearsal. James
(Hall) plays violin and we thought
about him doing it, but Stone is
doing it so well that he's going to
do that part."
I love to ask about radio,
it's about my favorite question
because the radio is so narrowly
formatted and I enjoy the different
responses. Does Brad hope to use
the push tactic and force radio to
play the music by touring?
"Hopefully, although, I don't really
anticipate that. Radio would be an asset in getting this record to pe0­
ple, but it hasn't happened in the past and we think we'll be okay if it
doesn't happen this time. We're going to make our attempts at radio ."
Referring to Shame's lack of radio play, the lack of a tour and the sales
created mostly by word of mouth Hagar said, "That's how this one
might end up although, with touring hopefully we'll turn some new
people on to it. We anticipate people who knew the first record being
the people at the shows." The Salt Lake City date is the first show of
the first ever Brad tour. According to Hagar, "That will be the m ost
nervous show, but that might be the most special show because of it.
. Opening for Brad is Verbow. Verbow is another story all {,
together. Maybe Brad could ask Alison Chesley to accompany them
on cello. She was working on her masters degree in cello perfonnance
when she met guitarist Jason Narducy. What is it with these cellos
anyway? There are cellos all over the place in rockmusic right now.
Verbow is one of those critically praised bands with enticing music
that is too intelligent to gain mass acceptance. Sorry. I love your album,
but"art" doesn't attract money in America at the present time. Go ask
the man who produced Chronicles.
Armpit
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