Cool review of the new Reighnbeau tape! Listen here, below:
My name is Kevin Greenspon. I'm from Los Angeles and run a record/tape/CD label called Bridgetown Records.
I'm writing about a 82 day U.S. tour I did a couple of months ago on here and the posts are tagged "tour blog."
Now booking another huge tour from July - December 2013, get in touch at bridgetownrecords@gmail.com and let's do this! Ask
I'm writing about a 82 day U.S. tour I did a couple of months ago on here and the posts are tagged "tour blog."
Now booking another huge tour from July - December 2013, get in touch at bridgetownrecords@gmail.com and let's do this! Ask
May 1, 2013
Anhedonic Headphones review: Reighnbeau - "Friends"
April 30, 2013
: Being A Musician Is Easy: Day 17
Powerful words from my friend Phil aka Scammers. Please read this and the other entries of his tour blog, there are only 4 total and they are so real and so true.
Final Days:
I’m waking up in Phoenix with a new tattoo on my middle finger. It says ‘Dad’. Two of my tourmates are asleep nearby. One will wake up to find ‘Dad’ on her ankle, the other - ‘D’ on her pinky. The last tourmate is asleep in a hotel somewhere. She will wake up to internet…
April 28, 2013
U.S. tour blog day 33: 9/1/2012, Columbus, OH
The sun came up over the horizon line and the dark, sweltering apartment throbbed like a greenhouse. Hot. So very hot. The fan did nothing and I was covered in a liquid skin, a sweat layer. Sitting with Curt and his girlfriend at the table for some breakfast. Cereal, toast, juice, maybe other things. I think they had work and I just wanted to get into the car in hopes of air conditioning saving me. Still warm, but better. Driving south to Columbus, I saw like 10 cars pulled over by cops for speeding tickets or whatever. Honestly never really saw that many in such a short stretch before. The closest was Eugene, OR a few years before when my friend Tyler got a bogus ticket and we saw 4 other cars pulled over in a three mile span, none with Oregon plates. It’s weird. I don’t really speed on tour or anything, am mostly pretty conservative in my driving but it’s definitely strange to see ticketing as a lifestyle or something.
Arrived at Andrew’s house early, to see him and Joseph. They are probably the biggest Jon Barba/Nicole Kidman fans on the planet, and huge fans of a lot of my other friends and stuff too. They’re really nice guys. Meeting them on a tour before this one was pretty crazy, they drove 6 hours to that crazy show in Normal, IL and ran out of gas on the way home and had to get gas and food vouchers from a jail or some weird stuff. They’re diehard. And I have no pictures. But Andrew made food and then we went to Dreadful Sounds, a record store in an upstairs apartment in what I think was downtown.
They played a set as Not Quite Dinosaurs, and are also super into writing pop songs, here is a split between their other projects Pet Rock and Ghost Machines:
My buddy Keith who runs the Orange Milk label played a great set as Giant Claw, here’s a tape I put out a while ago:
And it was awesome to hang with William of the Amethyst Sunset label, who gave me tons of records, too many really. Really great to meet after years of chatting about the dumbest stuff. Casino Gardens were going to play but one of them had work and Colin just ended up playing a super short, fast solo set before the show had to be over at a certain time, like 9 or whatever. It all went through really fast and quick. A tight space. But people who came were into it and nice. I think we ate bagels back at Andrew’s place and watched a movie before going to bed fairly early.
I was comfortable on the couch and moments before falling asleep nice and early for a change, Andrew’s roommate and his girlfriend got in a huge, loud argument and there was a ton of yelling, slamming doors, stomping down the hallway to the bathroom, crying, going back, talking it out, fighting again and so on for the entire night. Sleep was futile. It felt weird to kind of get dragged into that even just as a involuntary spectator. I had earplugs and a sleep mask which come in handy in these situations but they can’t really do anything for your thoughts about what’s going on. It ended up okay, I guess, and she apologized for the whole ordeal the next morning and how it must have sucked to be traveling, tired and distracted from sleeping. It’s all good. Just glad it was okay.
April 27, 2013
Weed Temple: Kevin Greenspon - Paradise A.D.
This exhaustive (65 minutes!) compilation of music from 5 cassettes shows the ideas and the creative processes of the West Coast’s ambient explorer Kevin Greenspon, who effortlessly slaloms between somewhat sandpaper-like synthesizer based textures and gentle, subtle guitar-driven vistas in…
April 26, 2013
U.S. tour blog day 32: 8/31/2012, Akron, OH
Before getting back into posting about the US tour last year, I’d like to excuse the absence of posts over the past several weeks- I went on a West Coast tour with two of my oldest buddies here, released 7 things on Bridgetown, went on a lovely vacation, and came home to a pile of future plans. So much has happened that it is getting difficult to recall the events of that intense journey when other intense journeys have happened since. I’ll try. I really do want to finish this thing out though. It’s almost halfway done.
Maybe for the next couple of posts, please listen to what is one of my favorite albums I’ve heard in so long: “Soft Approach” by iji. I played at Zach’s house while he was out on tour, and he just played at Jack from Big Waves of Pretty’s house in Memphis, the connections never end. Zach is writing some of the most powerful, resonant lyrics out there right now. So many words from this album have guided me these past few weeks. There’s nothing quite like them. “Forever buried treasure, I hope you go for it.”
Okay. So I woke up in Oberlin, in Matthew Gallagher’s bed. He just released his Wax Monsters like, yesterday, so here it is:
I called him up to hang out after waking up and we went to the sauna with Luke. It reached 130 degrees and I lost 8 pounds in sweat. We probably stayed in longer than recommended and quickly proceeded to jump into the icy cold pool. My muscles were so weak, from either the extended stay in the sauna, or from being on tour for a month, or lack of exercise or because they always are, and being in the water made me feel like gelatin. I just bobbed there like a buoy for far too long.
It was so hot outside that I dried instantly, without a towel. Met up with Darrin, who invited me onto his porch and bestowed some amazing sushi. Ran into Bobby Stevens at the Mexican restaurant and he hooked it up with a giant plate of food. People in Oberlin are the best, really. But it was time to leave for Akron for the RCNCAVE.
In downtown Akron, the evening air was like being in a glowing oven, and the orange sky radiated as it dimmed. Sarah was dying for coffee that didn’t seem to exist anywhere downtown. I remember feeling totally sapped of all energy, my mind trudging through the day like an ant on an endless sidewalk. The RCNCAVE is the second story of a large factory building across the river from college bars, and a beautiful view of the buildings and roads presents itself through the windows behind the performers. It was good to be back, and all of the people involved with the space and Rubber City Noise label performed at the show. XXX Super Arcade played a furious drum/modular synth set in the bathroom, then moved to the center of the main area.
The rest is a blur. But Curt played an awesome Black Unicorn set with a great projection setup. Here’s a video of what I think is the very end of the set, or at least of one of his songs:
During the last set, the performer whose first name I can’t recall crooned out the window to the city as if it was one entity and returned to his equipment. 
Minutes later two prostitutes came in, thinking this was some kind of cool, secret nightclub due to the lights and beats and voices bellowing out of the window. NOPE. Just a couple of freaky weirdos playing electronic music in a dusty factory building. I’m positive almost this same exact thing happened when I played here a few months prior.
Afterwards, a futon was provided for sleeping on at Curt’s girlfriend’s apartment, which was just being moved into and not furnished yet. A breathtaking bay window cradled the futon at the edge of the apartment. Exhausted and dehydrated, I sweated out another 7 pounds of liquid weight as a heavy duty fan was aimed directly at me for the duration of the brutally hot night.
April 24, 2013
So this is a blog post or whatever
For anyone who wants to know: I don’t mind music being sampled in general, remixes or artistic ideas being re-imagined and am not mad at the guy/trying to shame him, anything like that. It’s all like anything else: some is solid and some is half-hearted. It’s just how it all boils down to being bummed out that someone sent a track that is immediately recognizable as one of my favorite songs by one of my favorite friends, and the presumption that I (or one of my peers who knows him) would release it as his own work. It’s something worth talking about. Anyone who’s ever gotten a package or phone call from me or let me sleep on their couch knows I’m a super public person and I talk about stuff. Everyone’s thoughts on this thing are totally valid.
I have never released a demo, and probably never will- even though I do listen to and reply to every email because that’s the right thing to do. There are countless people I’ve reached out to in hopes of starting a relationship and been ignored by, and I wouldn’t ever do that to anyone. With that in mind, it’s interesting that I have received nine demos today since posting about this whole thing. Some were really good, or from people who chatted me up at a show on tour or from people who didn’t know who I was but saw that post today and perhaps thought that they could be the first. I’m not the right guy to release any of them. I am releasing 10 new things on the label this summer that I have been saving money for over the past year and am still desperately short of. Bridgetown is hitting it’s 100th release (a split LP between Former Selves and I) soon and there won’t be anything new until Spring 2014 at the earliest because I’ll be living in a van for half a year until then. So honestly, unsolicited demos don’t really stand a chance against the odds. Especially something that is a slightly edited version of music by a close friend I’ve already released multiple things for (and met because he was a supporter of the label).
If you still want to talk about sampling, this is worth a couple dozen plays:
April 24, 2013
This is what happens when you plagiarize the music of one of my best friends and send it to me (and several other peers) as a demo.
I have never released a demo submission ever, and when it is just copying-and-pasting the work of someone I have released, it is definitely not happening.
April 13, 2013
April 10, 2013
“Everyone Works So Hard” out now.
Available now from Bridgetown Records as part of their spring batch. I will also have copies available at shows or probably just on my person.
Order here:
http://www.bridgetownrecords.info
you can also stream the entire album here:xoxo
brent m.
April 7, 2013
Spring Batch out now!
7 new tapes available at http://www.bridgetownrecords.info
Download free mixtape: http://www.mediafire.com/?jqp6l8n8aj84l4f
Bridgetown #90
School Knights - Lethargy
Two and a half years after their Bridgetown debut, School Knights return with a richly multi-faceted album. The eight songs that comprise “Lethargy” shun the notion that rock music is meant to be lazy or simple. School Knights have achieved a level of maturity rare among their peers, and have spun a complex web of rhythms, harmonies and song structures that remains immediate, accessible and fully gratifying, as rock has always been throughout its history. “Lethargy” bursts with a propulsive energy that effortlessly bends around shifting time signatures and races towards the ten-minute magnum opus of a cliffhanger “And the Moon Descends Upon the Temple, Which Was.”
Bridgetown #89
Reighnbeau - Friends
Reighnbeau’s sophomore release for Bridgetown serves as an adventurous contrast to the sparsity and silence that dominated 2012’s “Ashes.” On “Friends,” Bryce Hample twists the methods of shoegaze and slowcore into softer, acoustic-based miniatures. The result is a unique and captivating collection of songs that embrace quiet moments with a dynamic liveliness. The warmth of plucked nylon strings, breathy vocals and sparse drumming have a distinctly organic nature; a refreshing escape from the typical effect pedal overload commonly associated with shoegaze.
Co-release with Grey.
Bridgetown #88
Torn Humorist - Everyone Works So Hard
Laying his Trudgers project to rest, Brent Mitzner has returned under the guise of Torn Humorist to infiltrate new concepts in home-taping. “Everyone Works So Hard” is a testament to the 8-track tape machine as a vehicle for instrumentation. Synthetic sheets of melody are fabricated from dense layering of guitar and viola as the tapes are sped up, slowed down, pitch shifted, EQed and layered again and again into abstractions that bear little resemblance to their original form. A swirl of textures twist into and out of each other in the pool of self-reflection, leaving more questions unanswered than before.
Bridgetown #87
Lavas Magmas - INT.eruption
A mainstay of the Portland experimental scene, Luis Gonzalez has tinkered with sophisticated noise composition, sound design and developed homemade instruments for years. His works are often characterized by ominous, industrial overtones sweeping over an immersive world of post-apocalyptic anxiety. On this full-length album, Gonzalez has crafted meticulous arrangements evocative of natural environments: insects chirping in a swamp, the grinding of tectonic plates, an angelic choir filling an echoing cave below the earth’s surface. This elaborate landscape is as much a living, breathing organism as it is a network of rusted factories, metal clattering and ringing out in the halls of a failed utopia long after human extinction.
Bridgetown #86
N O W - Are You New Age?
Kevin Litrow has pounded out beats as a member of 60-Watt Kid and Dance Disaster Movement for the past decade, finally coming into his own as the solo artist known as N O W. For his first solo EP, Litrow captures the fervor of his live performances over the last few years: a sole body standing before a glamorous dream world of mirrors, lights and smoke that sheds self-consciousness and awareness. There is a room, a dancefloor, a beat, and you are in it. That’s all there is. A chance to exorcise the excess and let everything go until the music stops.
Bridgetown #84
Paper Armies - Tell Me To Give Up
Following up 2011’s split with Desert of Hiatus, Jason Calhoun has composed a masterful work of post-rock infused ambient. Perhaps the most cinematic and powerfully moving release on the label thus far, “Tell Me To Give Up” explodes with tidal waves of searing distortion that relentlessly tear at the heartstrings, beckoning even more melody to emerge from the rubble of one’s crumbling realization. Calhoun’s arrangements command a return to the most painful experiences of one’s life not to induce those feelings once again, but to discover that everything will be okay in the end.
Bridgetown #82
Derek Rogers - Don’t Stop Bereaving
One of the most recognizable names in the U.S. experimental scene, Derek Rogers’ second release on Bridgetown shatters the canon of his entire history with a surprise from left field. “Don’t Stop Bereaving” centers around the exploration of hard panning, rhythms, drastic volume cuts and their interactions with solid walls of sculpted tone. Disorientation plays against stability: a muted piano under rumbling bass, bells ringing through synthesized crunch, fabricated beats bouncing in and out of silence.
