Green Gerry

According to Gerry Green himself, “Mean Miracle” is “all about that stinky summer light you can’t seem to shake that’s making you hot and sticky when you’re trying to sleep away that painful, pointless hangover from the night before.” However, the song certainly seems to rejoice more than it glowers. L.A. via Georgia pop-rocker Green Gerry (whose real name is just the reverse order of his pseudonym) has just released his first single on Hit City U.S.A. after a slew of great tracks on Mom+Pop imprint Mermaid Avenue. Built on groovy bass lines and a piercing drum, “Mean Miracle” is the most locomotive an anti-summer gripe has ever sounded.

Gerry’s voice is the perfect compromise of distorted and piercing, and glides in smoothly between complementary elements of funk and garage rock. Two minutes in, the apex of the track arrives — namely, an instrumental freakout reminiscent of the art-rock chaos found in St. Vincent or tUnE-yArDs’ brass-heavy songs. As colorful as it is biting, “Mean Miracle” is not to be missed, particularly if you’re experiencing an “intense and immediate hatred for the sun that’s centered in our solar system, the one in which you carelessly binge.” Supposedly, it’s this rage that Green finds festering at the core of this track. - SPIN

When sweaty, poolside bodies begin gyrating to “Mean Miracle”, please kindly remind them that this is, in fact, an anti-summer anthem. This lo-fi, brass-tinged single is a complaint against the selfish orb sitting at the center of our solar system — usually at its hottest and brightest when one is only wanting to catch a few more Zs to assist a throbbing cranium. Commencing innocuously enough, the Green Gerry tune eventually erodes into a breakdown as frenzied as the most raucous of summer evenings. The collection of tones may be too buoyant to cure that post-party hangover, but it sure is a lot of fun. Secure the track now via Hit City U.S.A. and have it prepped for the next time the sun is more foe than friend - Consequence of Sound

Green Gerry is truly a band for the 21st century, successfully defying all categorical attempts. Led by the eponymous Gerry Green, this band takes everything you thought you knew about disparate sounds and weaves them together into a colorful tapestry. Having started in a bedroom in Athens, GA and subsequently blossomed in Los Angeles, this band knows what you want from your music, and they certainly aren’t shy about sharing it with you. - BuzzFeed

When NY indie label Mom + Pop (Cloud Nothings, Deers, Flume, Polica etc.) gets behind something, you owe it to yourself to at least check it out. And when you do check out “La La Lonely Maria,” originally from Green Gerry’s last album but re-recorded for digital release on Mermaid Ave, you’ll be pleasantly surprised by its sun-bleached pop charm. The video is satisfyingly surreal, reaching a strange climax as the song descends into dissonance before returning for one more catchy hook. The video was directed by Benjamin Roberts and Jordan Reyes, check it out above.

Buy “La La Lonely Maria” on iTunes here. - Pigeons and Planes

Drawing from the modern freak-folk approach of pros like Akron/Family, singer-songwriter Gerry Green (AKA Green Gerry) started carving his own spot on the indie scene in 2010. The LA-born multi-instrumentalist moved to Athens, Georgia to create his first record, but soon returned to his hometown where Green’s more polished sophomore effort King Baby hit the proverbial stands. Now Mom + Pop imprint Mermaid Avenue is releasing Green Gerry’s digi-single and “Mumbo Jumbo” oozes with ‘60s British psych-pop grease. Green is a charismatic frontman who’s able to draw you in with experimental usage of tambourines, piano, and rhythm guitars that each patiently take turns in the spotlight. Until about three minutes in that is, when Green weaves in a semi-distorted guitar chord progression as the track’s crescendo reaches its peak. - Wondering Sound

Green Gerry’s Gerry Green (yes…) has kept this particular project quiet since releasing debut album Odd Tymes, which, for my money, still holds up incredibly well. In fact, I’ll go ahead and just beat the dead horse here: that album is fucking great. If you don’t know about it, haven’t heard it, or didn’t realize that it’s still available for free, now you do, and my job is (almost) done. Gerry (er… Green) has been dillying around with another band called Dally, but I’ve been on pins and needles waiting to see what the “Green Gerry” thing would come up with next.

And so here it is: “La La Lonely Maria #1,” a track that finds Green fleshing out a nice arrangement, reigning in the cataclysmic spook-folk considerably in favor of amping up the jangly pop. Such a move might have inspired some complaints from this or any other music writer familiar with Odd Tymes, but given the results, I’m having a tough time being the big bad critic. For one, this is great songwriting, calling back to The Kinks or The Velvet Underground as much as it reinforces the sweet sound Bradford Cox has carved out for the contemporary indie. But the track also doubles as an excellent vehicle for Green’s once again fabulous lyrics (which you can follow along with at the SoundCloud source page, if you’re so inclined).



And of course, this is just a taste of more to come on a new album from Green Gerry called King Baby. Consider yourself in the know. - Tiny Mix Tapes

The lessons of my mother are finally coming to fruition: dying is a part of living. There’s an anecdote on Green Gerry’s MySpace page that relates the etymology of the word “lunatic,” referencing the cycles of the moon and their relationship to madness. To listen to Odd Tymes is to be buried in sand. It’s sense-tickling, heart-racing, arresting, but ultimately cool, comfortable and somehow extremely safe. In that order, over and over again. A gentle set of feminine fingers strokes your hair as your air-supply slowly vanishes, reviving your spirit in an endless float. It appears in a dizziness; a hazy, vaseline-smeared lens of an audible field, all gauzy and vibrant and terrifying. Sometimes it’s key to let the frightening bring you to the brink and then let go, hover into the next dimension where the storms are tamed, just beautiful rainbows on the other side.

Athens/L.A.-based songwriter Green Gerry captures all of these emotions with a laptop and an internal mic on his debut effort, gently cranking a tumbler with your guts locked inside. You’ll die and be reborn several times over as Odd Tymes gracefully shape-shifts between moments of calm, guitar or ukelele-based folk tunes, haunting reverb-drenched spiritual-like choral arrangements, and distorted crashes of drums and amps that absolutely terrorize. And sometimes, these shifts take place within the span of a single song. No matter how high you’ll climb, never fear—you’ll always land soft.

Overall, Green Gerry succeeds in crafting a record that’s as diverse and multi-faceted as it is singular. There’s swaying indie-twinged tracks like “Cozy Space Mugz” or “Linked Sausage is Delicious” to satisfy the Bradford Cox lover in all of us, and the harangue and excitement of thunder and lightening reminiscent of Mt. Eerie without ever being overpowering or redundant. Finally, despite the sense of community crowding the arrangements—the amount of instruments and voices etc. to be heard throughout the record—Odd Tymes manages to be immensely personal and even a little lonely. Green Gerry stresses the use of headphones for maximum listening enjoyment, and I think this has less to do with production value (it’s pretty lo-fi, and creative use of stereo space doesn’t seem to be of as much concern as sheer tunefulness and lyrics—oh yeah, the lyrics... see below), and more to do with enjoying this album for and by yourself. Let the reverb echo into your subconscious, let the songs surround you, lift you up, give you a shake, and bring you back down softly. Call this gothic folk, call it lo-fi, gospel, indie, art, call it what you will... file this one under “yours.”

Crawf - Tome To The Weather Machine

There’s been a rise in oddball pop bands coming out in the last year or so, or at least being brought further into the foray. I’ve grown quite obsessed, as I deem most of these acts as rather important, especially after listening to this new tune from Green Gerry. There’s a quality of California nostalgia here, which makes sense as that’s the current residence of the group, but I love the way the guitar seems to work against the grain of the track, though clearly it also works in unison; it gives the song a swagger that definitely endears itself to me. Who knows what’s coming next for the act, but for now, I’m enjoying what’s coming my way. - Austin Town Hall