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J coking at the zany album cover of Jay Gonzalez'sMess the early '80s/ Gonzalez says. 'Chris and I are both into that
of Happiness, one might get the impression that the early 70s style, with the low-tuned, beefy snare sounds and
Athens-based singer/keyboardist is a galactic disco the John Lennon-style slap-back.'
cowboy clad in oversized shades and an open-collar polyester, Bom in 1073, Gonzalez says his earliest pop radio memories
getting groovy within his own constellation by the flicker of a include hearing the tikes of Paul McCartney and Wings, Cat
glowing neon sign. In the illustration, drawn '"X - . ; •
by Jeff T. Owens, Gonzalez looks like one of
David Bowie's trippiest characters suspended ■
in an Electric light Orchestra acid trip.
Musically, however, things are more down-
to-earth. Gonzalez's melancholic love songs *
and finger-snapping power-pop anthems
are grounded in heartbreak and human folly
more than anything in outer space. Thanks
to the intentionally dry and muffled produc-
tion quality, the collection rocks with a cozy
(if not mushy) tenderness, the kind your hip
uncle or older cousins might have enjoyed f\ ||||||l
via an 8-track or scratchy vinyl area 1976.
Gonzalez has been a sideman for acts like * VS
The Possibilities, Nutria and the Drive-By • i-XX
Truckers for so long, it seems strange to see
a full-length album with his name on it.
"It's kind of a weird thing, but I decided £ tppgjl
to record it exactly how I write, without try
ing to fit it to a band, and that's why I put
it out under my own name,' he says. 'The | J
guys in The Possibilities were such great
songwriters, and I've worked with other WHmKKmm
great songwriters in projects.' . / ■-'■•7
Gonzalez's touring and recording road duties with the
Truckers over the last few years demanded most of his time,
so he had to sneak into his own studio and track things bit by
bit. It was tedious, .but it worked.
'The title really refers to the chaos involved With the mak
ing of the album,' Gonzalez says. 'I have a six-year-old kid, so
it was tricky trying to focus on the record.. I'd be home for a
few days, trying to record a little bit late at night or whatever,
and Billy would be crawling across the floor during takes. It
was that kind of situation.'
On and off over the last two years, Gonzalez and his long
time buddy and bandmate Chris Grehan tracked the 12 songs of
Mess of Happiness in home studios. They recently hired studio
engineer Tom Lewis to master the final mixes. Despite the
hodgepodge approach to recording, there is a sturdy continuity
to the album as a whole.
'There was a super-dry, muffled quality to a lot of the 70s
music—the pop music just before the digital, reverby stuff of
album. Drummers Peter Alvanos, Jeff Griggs and Brandon
McDearis laid down the beats.
"We went with a really roomy sound,' Gonzalez remembers.
'Chris did all of the mixing and made things sound better, but
all he could do was beef things up. Luckily, we had some good-
sounding drums.'
I Sax player George Davidson and steel
guitarist John Neff stepped in as well.
Gonzalez and Grehan handled the rest of the
instruments and vocals. Gonzalez's seriously
fuzzed-up keyboard tones, mostly conjured
on his Nord Electro 2, played a major role in
the warmth of the overall sound.
'This album started off as a piano-based,
singer-songwriter type of thing," Gonzalez
says. Td been doing some power-pop stuff
with .The Possibilities and Nutria before all of
this. After I started recording the new songs,
making the demos and tracking the instru
ments, the power-pop style creeped in.'
The punchy production of Mess of
Happiness is appropriately implied in the
title of the opening track, 'Punch of Love,'
a smartly arranged rocker with several mini
solos, three-part harmony bridges and driv
ing drum beats.
"I was able to pick and choose the extra
songs I had around, and I wasn't too scared
to try something a little cheesy or too
rockin',' Gonzalez says.
Gonzalez and his backing band, The Guilty Pleasures, cel
ebrate the official release of Mess of Happiness this weekend.
Most of the studio drummers will be on hand, alongside time
keeper Dave Gerow. Other guests include Grehan and Gerow's
bandmates in The Arcs: Kevin Lane, Brandon Reynolds and Ben
Spraker. Davidson and Neff will join in on sax and steel as well
No word yet on whether they'll be clad in space suits or
polyester uniforms.
Stevens, James Taylor and Badfinger. Those early influences
pop up throughout Mess of Happiness.
'Chris I both loved the cheesy Top-40 stuff of that late-70s
era,' Gonzalez says. "We also got really into underground rock
style like The Joe Jackson Band, too. I think there's a little bit
of that new wave/punk think in the album.'
A lengthy 'piano lounge residency" at the old Kingpins
allowed Gonzalez the chance to try out new material that
eventually made its way to the album. He mixed song sketches
with various mellow gold and A.M. radio one-hit-wonder fore.
"I did America, Climax Blues [Band], Little River Band, The
Carpenters and all of that stuff,' Gonzalez says. 'Jake Mosely
would join in and sing on the really smooth stuff. I was the
Captain and he was the Tenpille. I think my heart is more in
the poppy stuff that's maybe just to the side of that ilk—
things like Pilot, 10CC, and weird, poppy, one-off things.'
During the sessions, Gonzalez invited an all-star cast of
Athens colleagues to help Grehan and him track the new
ATLAS SOUND
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