The second release from Robert Pollard’s Splendid Research imprint throws a little love in the direction of Guided By Voices guitarist Doug Gillard. As an antsy Cleveland teen, Gillard cobbled together Children’s Crusade, a post-punk recording project with vocalist Fraser Sims. Both were seniors in high school when they headed to a “proper studio” to record A Duty-Dance With Death, which saw scant distribution on cassette in 1984. Remixed and remastered from the original half-inch multitrack tapes, the eight-song release will be available November 15 on CD and vinyl. In the meantime, check out the premiere of the single “Lurker On The Threshold” below.
Gillard would become a low-key force on guitar with several bands—including Death Of Samantha and Cobra Verde—before twice joining Guided By Voices. In between, there was a six-year stint with Nada Surf before a 2016 return to GBV.
Here’s what Gillard had to say about Children’s Crusade.
What prompted the reissue of A Duty-Dance With Death
For some reason, I’d decided to put this out on cassette at the time, but I retained the master reel-to-reel tapes. Early this year, Bob Pollard asked me if I still had it and said he’d like to put it out on his new project label for a vinyl release. That kicked me into gear to find a place to bake the tapes and digitally transfer them so I could remix the songs. Former Magic Shop owner Steve Rosenthal now has a tape archival service (MARS) here in NYC that does just that—so utilizing him was a major step in this process. Lucky for us, his space was very close to Travis Harrison’s Serious Business studio, where we then remixed it. With two 40-year-old tapes needing to be synced up digitally, there was some tempo drift between each set of tracks from each reel. But we were able to nudge it a bit so things fell back into place.
How did a pair of high-school kids manage in Cleveland’s dicey punk/alt/underground scene at the time?
Even though we were seniors in high school, Fraser and I had already been in bands (Suspect Device and Starvation Army) that played Cleveland bars even in 1983. We were just never carded. That wasn’t too uncommon, though—our pals had parallel experiences. The clubs were just starting to book more underground bands, and there had been a DIY hardcore network in Akron/Cleveland for a few years. That same spring/summer, I was just joining Death Of Samantha, which had formed in 1983, and we were a sort of noisy, Paisley Underground-leaning band for a while. My Dad Is Dead formed around this same year, as did the Mice. There was also a small experimental art-music scene. There were four or five dependably great college radio stations in northeastern Ohio at the time—and they were all kind to local bands. It did seem like things started to open up more around 1984. More clubs, more bands. Central to a lot of this was a newish studio, Beat Farm, that recorded a slew of Cleveland and Kent area bands. Owners/engineers Chris Burgess and Alan McGinty were in bands themselves and fostered a “try anything” atmosphere.
And Children’s Crusade?
When we recorded the cassette, we were just a studio project. Fraser left for the Army the day after he tracked vocals, though he returned not long after and resumed fronting Starvation Army, while I started playing out with Death Of Samantha. We ended up recording more in 1985, and we also played a few shows that year, including one opening for Swans.
Listening to A Duty-Dance With Death 40 years later, what’s the older, wiser Doug’s take on the younger, inexperienced Doug?
It was pretty wild to hear the individual tracks. I think I’ve learned more economy of writing since then—as in, maybe don’t include so many intro bars sometimes. But I don’t know how much my actual playing has improved since then, aside from having learned more chords and different ways to fret things. It seems I was a much better drummer then, but I was also doing a lot more of that at the time, having played drums in marching and symphonic bands a couple years prior. I was a little too obvious with influences on sleeve, but the results with Fraser’s lyrics and vocals help steer it away from that a bit.
What’s next for the older, wiser Doug?
There should be a couple collaborative releases I helped write and play on, headed up by vocalist Matt Wascovich (Scarcity Of Tanks), out early next year under the names Flowers Destroy and Century Whip. We’re extremely happy with the new Guided By Voices album, which will be out in early 2025—and we’re commencing work on the one after that. I’m also working on more stuff of my own.
—Hobart Rowland
