PHARMACY SPIRITS

"ALSO CONSIDERED: Pharmacy Spirits — Truth be told, these perturbed pop-rockers had a strong case to be drafted as our indie up-and-comers, despite being active since 2007." - The Boston Pheonix

With this self titled track comes a bombardment of U.S guitar rock, tinged clearly with 80's New Wave British influences. We are lead in by a bass rift which echo's of Joy Division, and there is no denying a strong Cure feel to this amazingly vibrant song. There are of course some American influences evident too; the vocals are reminiscent of Arcade Fire in their haunting harmonies. There is a hungry sense of urgency conveyed through the up tempo beats and hearty vocals that gives this song an interesting edge. "It's like moving in a dream, you're asleep but your body doesn't know it," with their well written lyrics and catchy melodies this American band are definitely stirring up some interest.



THERE IS A HUNGRY SENSE OF URGENCY CONVEYED THROUGH THE UP TEMPO BEATS AND HEARTY VOCALS THAT GIVES THIS SONG AN INTERESTING EDGE.

Formally the Bad sects, after losing their bassist James Pelter, the remaining members Courtney Nore (Drummer and vocals) and Jim Reiley (Guitar and vocals), knew they still wanted to make music together. After changing their name and recruiting new bassist Brendan Evans their sound became stronger than ever.
The Pharmacy Spirits are from Lincoln in the U.S and their list of influences is as diverse as their sound, from T-Rex, Jesus and The Mary chain, to Bob Dylan and Nick Cave. This wide spectrum of sound is conveyed in their music, as people with a range of tastes, especially fans of 80's British new wave will appreciate what these guys are doing right now. Their EP "Every song ended in 1994", which consists of five spectacular tunes, is available now. - TSM Radio UK- Jane Pople

“Every Song Ended In 1994” "When the Bad Sects lost its bassist James Pelter in early 2007, its remaining members Courtney Nore and Jim Reilly knew they still wanted to make music together. While they searched for a replacement bassist they changed the band’s name and recorded an EP worth of songs that became “every song ended in 1994.” The result is a five-song (one is hidden) collection of songs that makes for a great sampler start to the direction Pharmacy Spirits is headed. The songs would easily fit in a group with any number of 1980s new wave bands that made a name for themselves combining the ethics of garage rock with more electronic sounds created with pedals and computers. Fans of bands as varied as Built to Spill and the Cure could have fun with a half hour to burn and some headphones, and by the time track three, “Can’t Say No,” rolls around I’ve been lulled by the mellower rhythms of “Excuse Me Lady” before being yanked into a sharper reality courtesy of Nore’s frantic drumming behind Reilly’s haunting vocals. I’m appreciative of the chance to get to know even a limited number of songs from Pharmacy Spirits as they play shows in Lincoln and Omaha from time to time, and the more music I’m familiar with the more typical it is for me to have a great show experience." -OMAHA CITY WEEKLY - Omaha City Weekly

Pharmacy Spirits
The Bowery Electric- April 22nd
Goodbye Blue Mondays- April 23rd
The National Underground- April 24th

Nebraska philanderers Pharmacy Spirits are touring the US and are making a special 3 day stop in NYC. Though I am getting the word out a bit late, I can’t recommend this show enough. They have the most beautiful and affective tracks I have heard in quite a while. Over the past month or so have fallen in love with Jim’s voice. A contemporary instantiation of what post-punk or Brit new wave ought to sound like. Think The Cure‘s Faith with a bit more light and a bit more fuzz. Their latest album Teen Challenge contains some truly outstanding shit. Time to get to Manhattan or Brooklyn and see the energy of this outfit for ourselves.

http://www.myspace.com/pharmacyspirits
- Frederick Foxtrott

Lincoln band Pharmacy Spirits is slated to play two shows - one in Omaha, one in Lincoln - to celebrate the release of the group's new album, "Teen Challenge."
"I think that Pharmacy Spirits have found our definitive sound now. That's a good thing," said James Michael Shannon Reilly, the band's frontman.
Ground Zero caught up with Reilly, who explained the ins and outs of recording and the challenges and rewards of time on the road.
Ground Zero: "Teen Challenge" - what does it mean?
Reilly: It is a reference to growing up in Lincoln, Neb., or any small town. The way I see it, the limits of opportunities here are so severe that from the moment you're born, you've got a smaller chance of achieving your dreams and perhaps a larger chance of sacrificing your desires and ambitions, or muting them, just to fit in and succeed at something you never loved and never could love otherwise. This goes for jobs, friends, pets, homes, life partners - everything.
GZ: What was the timeline for making the album, from writing to recording?
Reilly: What ended up as "Teen Challenge" had a couple different incarnations in the last two years. Due to an extremely sexy and charming revolving door of band members, many of our ambitions had to be shelved until we were in a fairly stable situation.
The finished product that we call "Teen Challenge" began in October-ish 2009 and was sent to press for vinyl early this March. The bulk of the band's work was done in five to eight intense recording sessions, and our good friend Ryan E. Nash was our fearless producer, who worked tirelessly for very little pay or respect from the band. ... We recorded in a basement with a Disco/‘Wizard of Oz' setup where we would speak to a box with flashing colored lights, which would send our signals through a cable and up three flights of steps to Ryan. When we did vocal overdubs in the staircase, we were forced to look at a vinyl copy of some Dolly Parton record - don't know which one. The experience was breathtaking.
GZ: Tell me something I don't know about the band.
Reilly: We have never paid over $300 for the production of our music. Yes, when you add reproduction costs, merch, etc., the number beings to skyrocket, but $300 is the most for any recording. Our first album was paid for by something like $150 and a 12-pack of beer.
GZ: What does this album mean to you and the rest of the band?
Reilly: To me, this album is hopefully a turning point for the band. I'm not so interested in playing Nebraska anymore. The creation of "Teen Challenge" and the booking of our first tour, a 25-date trip east of Nebraska, are coming together in a significant way. We've never done vinyl before. We've never toured before. We've never taken the band seriously before now.
I spent six weeks in a van with the brilliant Darren Keen on the Beep Beep/The Show Is The Rainbow tour last year, and although I think we got on each other's nerves at times - did I mention six weeks in a van? - by watching him exist in his natural habitat, I learned a lot about what I wanted in my life.
I don't think it's too corny to say that there is a magic about being on the road and seeing the land. There is a magic about (stuff) going horribly wrong, only learning to just ... deal with it cause you've (got) to get moving or you're going to be late for the next gig. Learning to deal with the suffering of being so far away from loved ones, to return and appreciate them even more than you did before you had left. These are the experiences I crave, and it's a firm reminder to myself that I'm not as stuck in life as I thought I was. I'm not as old as I thought I was. Every time I'm playing music in a different city, I feel a little younger and a little more loved.
This album has been my greatest test. I was extremely involved and hands-on in the post-production of it. The tour that I created was 100 percent my doing with zero help from a booking agent or label. People need to know that that is possible. - Lincoln Journal Star, Ground Zero

.....Indie-rock quartet The Pharmacy Spirits (based out of Lincoln, Neb.) open the show on Thursday. They specialize in a more atmospheric, Sonic Youth/Pylon-inspired style of stiff-dance post-punk. —T. Ballard Lesemann - Charleston City Paper

James Reilly is putting his house on the market in January. He's downgrading his grown-up job and putting a halt on school plans. The frontman of local band Pharmacy Spirits wants a different life - or at least wants to take a break from the one he's living now.
After spending the earlier part of the year traveling with Omaha-based band Beep Beep, he's getting that itch again. But this time he's taking Pharmacy Spirits on the road.
"I had more fun in those six weeks of traveling, sleeping on hard floors and wondering what I was going to eat that day than I do at home in my own house wondering how the bills are going to get paid," he said. "It's just like whatever your passion is, you really do have to follow it or at least give it a shot."
The thing is, Reilly is going to have to do it on his own - or at least without the support of longtime Spirits drummer Courtney Nore and current bassist Brendan Evans. Nore, who has played drums with Reilly since they began as The Bad Sects back in the early 2000s, is moving to Boston to train in book-binding. And Evans, who joined the band in 2008, has a family and a job, and they don't exactly allow for months on the road.
Things are changing for the band, and with a new year and a new lineup on the horizon, there will be a new sound, too. The group has been at this for years, and it seems to be time for something new.
"There are songs we've been playing for a long time," Nore said. "I don't know how the Rolling Stones do it."
Pharmacy Spirits has always been known for its self-described "No Coast Yes Wave," which is a cheeky nod to its new wave influences. But after the band finishes its upcoming album, to be released in 2010, Reilly has another direction in mind.
"I'm auditioning a new guitar player, and I told him if I write a pretty part, then I would rather have him bang his guitar against something than complement it with another pretty part," he said. "I don't want to be encouraged in that direction."
He wants to make a dance record, but not the kind you're probably thinking of. Think The Rapture and PIL, not Britney and Rihanna.
"If I can find a way to have a dancy beat and have a lot of ... sounds over it, that might be what's happening next," he said. "It's all about the party."
"Yeah," Nore joked. "Where they say, ‘Turn this crap off, we're trying to have a party.'"
Reach Liz Stinson at features@journalstar.com. - Lincoln Journal Star, Ground Zero

Pharmacy Spirits
These folks have an interesting blend, but it's one that other bands, including Pains of Being Pure At Heart, are being hailed for by music press all over the country.
Made up of former members of the Bad Sects, Pharmacy Spirits combines '80s New Wave sounds (think of the Cure) with guitar rock (think Built to Spill).
The music includes intricate melodies, and they're loud enough live to make you feel like you're at a full-on rock show rather than the experience of watching some New Wave kids stare at their keyboards.
In March, the band released its first full-length album, “Teen Challenge.” - Omaha World Herald

I saw this band a little less than a month ago. They were so good. They put so much energy into their set. After the show I didn’t have enough money to buy one of their CDs, so I traded them Eight Below (on Blu-Ray), King Kong (on DVD), and about 80 cents in exchange for one of their DIY, homemade CDs. - How To Be So Real (Birmingham Alabama)

I like this band, even with the doofy sunglasses. They’re from Lincoln, NE, and they have an album called Teen Challenge that I’ve only ever seen CD-R copies of with simple homestyle screen-printed sleeves, but I’ve listened to it a bunch of times and I like it a lot, and I think I heard that you can get it on vinyl now. Then again, they also said on twitter that they’re a 12-piece now, and I’m having a difficult time picturing that. - The Centipede Farm

"This spring we received a beautiful gift from Nebraska’s Pharmacy Spirits. Following the path carved by their debut EP Every Song Ended In 1994, Teen Challenge stands on the shoulders of giants, and it stands tall. The record somewhat insinuates a contradiction, sharing the name of an evangelical Christian outreach program created in the 1950’s to heal the country’s youth of their addiction to drugs, alcohol, and sexual perversion. Pharmacy Spirits and Teen Challenge explores the expanse between depraved debauchery and outlandish treatment programs; the anxiety of each extreme is encapsulated by the band’s style. Taking a listen to their earlier EP, one recognizes a celebration of British and American new wave and post-punk engaged in fornication with college radio demigods, producing a dance driving vegrandis opus that is ultimately hip.

The observation that sometime in 1994 the music died sells the narrative that the 80’s was a truly significant decade. The lives of such admired artists as The Glove, The Cure, Joy Division, Bauhaus, The Fall, and later bands like the Pixies and Pavement (Slanted and Enchanted, 1992 and Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain 1994), all flared and faded by the time 1994’s final sun set. Though this would be only one telling of the story, as many would argue that the few bands who still release albums are alive and well, not to mention, the very existence of Pharmacy Spirits’ seemingly inarguable relevance underscores the fact that many of these bands’ early catalog has never been hotter. These artists though have come through the looking glass marred by the now romanticized experiences of sex, drugs, and death. Enter Teen Challenge.

Piecing together and then articulating the ambient qualities of a record is never easy. The critic is forever the douche bag for ever even considering the use of his vocabulary. Teen Challenge though has a warmth and beauty that is so exquisitely wrought with desperation and exhaustive emotion that it would be difficult to talk about it without reading like a canvas description at the MOMA. Teen Challenge has all that the throw-backs of the modern era could ever hope. The best songs make you want to dance, the rest are just as cool, though the contrast between pulsations such as Books or Just Like Charles and the slow downs like Safety Now only serves to elevate the power and energy of the former. Simply put, Teen Challenge is a beautiful gift that has reified all that we ever loved about the decade of decadence, yet at the same time Pharmacy Spirits has the guts and vision to move beyond a bygone time, through the looking glass, to explore what still counts, what is still relevant. By all measures they have succeeded." - Frederick Foxtrott (Williamsburg Brooklyn)

"George W. Bush makes an appearance on the Pharmacy Spirits' debut album, "introducing" the title cut "Teen Challenge."
But it's a pretty safe bet that the Manchester-A-Go-Go instrumental wasn't what the former president intended when he was talking about the "Teen Challenge"program. Nor is it likely that the former presiden of the United States would dig the song.
That would be his loss.
Released this spring and followed by an East Coast tour, "Teen Challenge" is an effective slice of Joy Division/Cure/Buzzcocks post-punk for the 21st century, riding on driving, buzzing guitars, snaky melody lines and the high, often haunting vocals of James Michael Shannon Reilly.
The songs have a wide dynamic range. One back-to-back pairing goes from dreamy and soft on "Safety Now" into the harder rocking, nearly abrasive "Just Like Charles."
Lyrically, there's some zombie references, a tune of odd juxtapositions called "Don't Believe in Ghosts," a take on books and a handful of numbers that take on the eternal pop duality of love and the lack thereof, albeit without the usual cliche.
In an interview with the Journal Star earlier this year, Reilly talked about the low budget the band had for recording. That doesn't come through on the very cool white vinyl LP, which has the warm natural sound of the format and a vibe perfect for the music.
Pharmacy Spirits will be at Knickerbockers Tuesday with For Against. I'm guessing that you can pick up one of the LPs there." - Lincoln Journal Star Ground Zero