Team Aniston 2-1, Jen lent some backing vocals to “Nothing Sir” when Brisneyland natives The Grates recorded Gravity Won’t Get You High last Summer in Chicago with their dream date producer Brian Deck (Modest Mouse, Iron and Wine, Secret Machines).
The Grates are rhythmic gymnastics ribbon twirling, foul-mouthed chanteuse Patience Hodgson 23, and her childhood chums drummer Alana Skyring, and guitarist/boy John Patterson. Among empties (wrappers) of The Six Dollar Bacon Cheeseburger and CrissCut Fries, The Grates wrote and recorded their first full-length, Gravity Won’t Get You High. The three friends – they like to draw and color (their own album artwork for their recordings, posters, etc.) Animals hold a special place in their aesthetic hearts - bambi’s and squirrels and fabled damask giraffes with fluttery eyelashes too (see above).
The words of Gravity Won’t Get You High are not so much confessional (forever a favorite description for any girl songwriter) as manically conversational, especially in fun times “Seek Me” (“Wanna take the car? We can drive all night. We can stop and spoon”) and bad boyfriend drama “Lies” wherein Hodgson lyrically stomps her foot, covers her ears and sings - I kid you not, “I’m gonna go like this to you, la la la la la”.
Stylistically the music is - sometimes impressively and sometimes not - all over the place from a nursery rhyme (“I Won’t Survive”) to Brit Pop (“Lies”) to skanky mainstream punk (“19 20 20 “ “Howl” “Seek Me”) to orchestral swoon (“Rock Boys” “Science Is Golden”). Here, sadly, “Sukkafish”, the highlight of last years EP The Ouch The Touch becomes a slow-witted, countrified outcast amongst most of the Gravity Won’t Get You High amped-and-cracked two-minute fits (Why, Brian Deck…why!?).
Then there’s - in Hodgson’s words, “Love…if you know what I mean” (“Trampoline”). “Trampoline” was the first single from the first demo The Grates ever recorded in Patterson’s father’s garage shed way back when. The cheeky, adolescent song doesn’t do much to show the bands artistic growth and was probably included for sentimental reasons. But back in the day the local radio listeners liked it. And The Grates like to give the people what they want - in their special The Grates way. Like in “Nothing Sir” where Hodgson shoos rainy day clouds away with her hairdryer, so that the sun can shine down on us all. |