Doug Gillard is known (rightly so) for his guitar wizardry in bands such as Guided By Voices, Cobra Verde, Death Of Samantha and, for the last few years, Nada Surf, but that notoriety sometimes overshadows the fact that he’s an accomplished solo singer/songwriter. With his third LP, Parade On (Nine Mile), Gillard continues to show off his virtuosity—solos like the one on “On Target” are just ridiculous—as well as his knack for catchy, folk-inflected power pop. Gillard will be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week. Read our brand new Q&A with him. To see more photos corresponding to these entries, go here
Gillard: I already milked the whole child thing in another entry, but this one deals with first bands, etc. God, this is getting indulgent, but I needed another post for MAGNET!
Met a guy named Fraser Sims as a freshman in high school, and discovered we shared a love for the “new wave” and college radio, only his went a lot deeper. We were 15, but he was already of an advanced vocabulary and an amazing prose writer.
Fraser had been to Scotland, where his mother was from, and came back with albums by the Fall, Joy Division, Killing Joke and more. He’d given me 2 Poe-like short stories he’d just written. They could’ve been written by a 30 year old, or 55 year old for that matter; they were that good. Fraser wrote insanely pithy lyrics that were dark, cutting and meaningful.
Together with our drummer pal Sean Saley, we decided to form a band called Burning Theatre at first. We’d rehearse in my room, and Sean brought his school-issued cassette recorder. Fraser handled lead vocals/frontman duties only. We taped several songs we’d written, and one particular Gang Of Four sound-alike, “Enemy Of The People,” was especially good. Other songs were vaguely Clash-like or even Bauhaus-y. I visited my brother in Boston and came back with a copy of This Is Boston Not LA, and Burning Theatre turned into Starvation Army. All the songs were now fast, and we didn’t have a bassist. We did one show as this version of SA, thanks to an invite to Akron by Zero Defex.
I saw an ad seeking a guitarist and drummer for a punk band with Cleveland ties that rehearsed pretty close to my hometown. Sean and I answered and promptly joined Suspect Device, a band named for a Stiff Little Fingers song. SD had just had two members move away after recording two sides for a seven-inch. We started playing at The Lakefront and Pop Shop, and it was either sweet talk or just sheer luck that got underage Sean and me in to these Cleveland bars. Frontman Terry Shaw had a love of U.K. political bands, and we covered songs of that ilk in our set: two or three SLF songs, a few Clash, but also some Ramones, Sex Pistols, GenX and even Mission Of Burma. We had several originals as well, and I helped write a few. Sean left to stay in SA, and Bill Tomazic stepped in to drum. I think the band fizzled out before I graduated high school, but the experience was priceless to me, cutting my teeth at playing shows in the big city. We even met future Death Of Samantha members Steve-O and David James in another band we shared a bill with.
I had left SA, and they kept on and got more popular in the hardcore scene. A year and a half later, Sims and I would form a gothy duo and record eight songs as Children’s Crusade. I liked the little studio Suspect Device recorded at, so we did the CC songs there as well. Much like the later Lifeguards projects with Robert Pollard, I handled all the music and Fraser handled vocals, lyrics, titles. Fraser recorded his vocals then left for the Army the next day.
Going back a half year here; in 10th grade (1983?), the school marching band (I played snare) took a trip to Cedar Point amusement park in Sandusky.
At the park I spotted a gangly kid with basically the same outfit I had on: black jeans with a bandana tied around the knee, red converse and a white U2 “Boy” concert T from the War tour show they’d just played at Music Hall. (In Ohio this still wasn’t a common look.) We said “hey,” noticing the common threads. He told me he he’d heard of Suspect Device, and was forming a band in Cleveland called Death Of Samantha. We kept in touch, and I end up joining their just formed three-piece band. They’d played a few shows already, and before my senior year ended, we were playing even more. Dave Swanson of the Reactions organized a psychedelic themed show at Pop Shop called “Games For May,” which we were part of. When DoS began, we had a very heavy Dream Syndicate/Rain Parade/Gun Club influence going on, and tended to get glammier as the years progressed. It was always theatrical, which is an important element Steve-O and John Petkovic brought to the table.
Let’s see, where are we? So, concurrent with Death Of Samantha and college, etc., Fraser and I reconvene to record more Children’s Crusade songs in 1985, and Keith Pickering engineers at his place. We were 19 by now, and this time we play out a bit as a live Children’s Crusade. Jim Smagola and Tom Miller took turns on bass, and Sean Saley, Dave Araca and Mark Edwards drummed. Some of the ’85 recordings were released by Scat Records around 1990 on the Scorpio Moon EP.
A lot of people have heard of the Mice, but for those not familiar, they were a Cleveland power-pop trio made of Bill Fox, Ken Hall and Tommy Fox. They shared bills with DoS and recorded an EP and an LP. I played a solo on 1986’s Scooter album and was always friendly with Bill, so around 1991, he asked me to record with him on an album of acoustic songs he’d written. This was one of the bigger studios in town, and Bill by now was leaning toward a more sort of Dylan-like dust-bowl style of songwriting. I loved playing on it with him, even though the whole album remains unreleased! He went on to put out some great solo efforts recorded on four-track, and continues to write and record.
I would play the odd solo show while still a member of DoS, and record solo a bit. My lyrical skills weren’t too far above the childhood tunes I’d done, but my focus was the music and chord progressions, and even what was going on within the chords. I tried to make sure that was interesting. But I’ve been lucky to be involved with some talented lyric writers along the way: Fraser Sims, Petkovic, Tim Tobias, M. Edwards and the master at lyrics and titles, R. Pollard. Petkovic had a yen for juxtaposing classic authors with historic biblical and pop-culture figures, putting them in crazy scenarios. In Gem, my lyrics were the sort that repeated some rhyming phrases way too often, or the simple nonsense of “I Am A Tree” or in the case of “A Clove Of Harlots” (“Don’t ruffle up my dander/Bay leaves and coriander/Don’t mess with Alexander/There’s nobody home”), I’d write the first things that came to mind just to fill the syllables and have some words to a song. Thinking back, that stanza took all of 30 seconds to write. I hardly spent any time at all and took the lazy approach to lyrics, but would spend lots of time on chords and music, whereas Gem bandmate Tim Tobias brought songs with fully formed fictional or non-fictional stories and a robust vocabulary. When Gem mixed one of Tim’s songs with the late, great Gary Lupico, he pointed out that it was the first time he’d heard the word “prescient” used in a song. I’ve since learned to spend a lot more time on the words, when appropriate. (Sometimes in rock, it’s not.)
Starvation Army continued as a band for many years, Fraser Sims teaches advanced English, Sean Saley now plays drums in Pentagram, Mark Edwards makes music in N.C. as Secular Joy, and Bill Fox has current releases. Do yourself a favor and check out the Mice, if you haven’t already. There are reissues available. I still plan to eventually re-release all the Children’s Crusade material.
