One of my favorite bands—Glass Eye—has just released a CD entitled “Every Woman’s Fantasy”. Mostly recorded in the early 90’s and then finished and mixed in the last year or so, the band still proves to be ahead of their time. They actually called it quits in 1993 after a major label deal went nowhere, but reunited this Spring to play at the annual SXSW music festival and promote the release of this long in the making CD. After 13 years, they’re taking a casual approach to playing the occasional gig - now that playing together is fun again.
This Austin Texas based band has always had a penchant for AC/DC-like heavy rock and it’s in full force on this new release. The harder edged sound was always evident in live shows, but earlier records seemed to capture the more poppy and quirky side of the group. Still though, what sets them apart for me is their ability to explore the empty spaces between the notes, and the way they pay attention to dynamics - both of which are often ignored by bands these days. Standout tracks for me are the opening “Boring Story” which seems to sum up the record industry shenanigans nicely, Kathy’s “My Dog Is Dead”, and the closing track “Mushroom Song”.
Since they’ve all moved on to other projects and jobs, Glass Eye will be a “once-in-awhile” activity. Bassist Brian Beattie is a producer and is building his own studio now (full disclosure - Brian produced three Dead Milkmen CDs). Kathy McCarty has released several albums over the years, most notable are the Bar-None released and Brian produced CD “Dead Dog’s Eyeball“, a disc of covers of Daniel Johnston songs, and her own self-released solo CD last year entitled “Another Day In The Sun” (see my review here). Keyboardist Stella Weir has a writing and editing gig with the University of Texas, and drummer Scott Marcus plays full-time with the Asylum Street Spankers.
You can hear songs from the new CD on the Glass Eye MySpace page. Or check out some samples from their older releases on The Official Glass Eye Website. There’s also a complete discography with links to lo-fi song files too. You can get the CD from the band directly now (see the website for details) but it should be available through CDBaby soon.
But what about the CD cover? The cover art for this new CD has a story behind it. Read it here. You can also read the Rodney Anonymous take on it.
In my opinion, this release can stand long side any indie “alternative” release today, but as Kathy said in an interview recently, “There’s a lot of people who care about you and remember you, and that’s cool. But you kind of get in this space where you’re like, ‘I’m not going to convince people who are young now that I’m still cool.’ That’s just not very dignified on some level to me.”
