MarathonProxy: Ever Nalens from A Sunny Day in Glasgow

Ever Nalens is the person behind A Sunny Day in Glasgow, one of the most interesting and amazing musical projects I’ve heard this year. He, along with a few collaborators, contstructs dense fogs of sound that find the most interesting, ethereal vocal melodies and sharp, dissonant rhythms pushing through. When he sent me his CD, he included a note with it, telling me that it’s best heard on headphones, so why don’t I please listen to it on headphones. I’d already written about ASDiG’s cover of Guided by Voices’ “Game of Pricks” here, but unsatiated, I asked E.N. to contribute something to my dumb little site for everyone’s enjoyment. He has, and it comes to us today in two parts. The first highlights the wonderfully capricious possibilities for contact and friendship through the Internet, and the second is about this band from Philly that rules ass.

To hear ASDiG’s wonderful music and to admire Ever’s photography, click here and/or here. For now though, enjoy:

Do people have pen pals anymore? I never had one when I was kid and I guess I still don’t (technically), but for he past year or so I’ve been emailing with someone I don’t know and have never met from Sao Paulo, Brazil—Ana. At the beginnings of this correspondence, A Sunny Day in Glasgow, the band, did not really exist. It was Ben and I and our respective 4-track, bedroom recordings but no one heard those except us. But asunnydayinglasgow.com was in full effect as a venue for my photographs and other ephemera.

I have some little note up there that says something like “Please write to me and say hi.” And so far the only person who has ever done this is Ana. During this time I had a job where I sat behind a desk, in front of a computer, and did NO work. I am seriously not exaggerating, I don’t know why they kept me at this place. If I had been able to read books I would probably still be there now, but reading the internet all day, everyday made me hate the internet and my job. I know it’s so easy and hardly remarkable to send an email, but given my circumstances I was so happy to have someone else to converse with. And though I still don’t know Ana, she seems like a really interesting person. She’s a graphic designer, likes polaroids, music, etc…

It was on Ana’s flickr page that I first saw Tony da Gatorra, a 55 year-old TV/stereo repairman from Esteio, Brazil. I was immediately drawn to his instrument, which I later learned was called the “Gatorra.” Tony has been building these since 1995 and they are the foundation of his sound. Apparently, the shape of the instrument came to him in a dream. He made crude drawings but was unaware of what, exactly, he was drawing. After studying his sketches he realized that it was an instrument that fell somewhere between a drum machine and an electric guitar. He’s sold 5 of them and he still plays with the first one he ever built. Unfortunately, this is the only information I can get about the instrument. I don’t really understand how it works, but I think it plays a drum track while Tony plays notes on it as well (???). Also, I have no idea how much he sells them for, but I desperately want one.

“Rap Verdade” (”Truth Rap”) (mp3) is one of the more uptempo songs from his record, So Protesto. It’s almost dance-punky, but for whatever reason I can only think of goth, specifically that scene in Wings of Desire where Nick Cave is playing is playing at the end and the girl gives that big speech about love. That’s too much.

Ana tells me that all of his songs are about protesting. Protesting against the government, violence, capitalism, and other, social problems in Brazil. An ironic situation arose recently where Tony was scheduled to play some big festival with Wolf Eyes and Fennez but at the last minute was denied because he was not a member of musician’s union in Brazil (he has a new song in the works protesting the union!). Clearly, Tony lives by his own rules and I can only hope that he comes to Philly and plays a show sometime, ’cause I’m broke (since I quit my job).

Check out his blog, which Tony manages by mailing letters to a fan somewhere else in Brazil who puts them on the Internet (you have to know Portuguese to read it; sadly, I don’t know Portugese).

So Protesto will be released by Slag Records but you can also buy it from Open Field Records.

There are only a handful of bands in Philadelphia that I like and the Bad News Bats are my favorite. The first time I saw them, I was pretty drunk and for some reason I remember them being kind like some sort of dreamy punk music. But I think they must have had the keyboard turned up because their sound is all dirty punk rock. They get labeled as a ’surf’-type band alot but I don’t think this is right. Guitarist/singer Liz McDermott rarely plays chords, but I don’t think that makes them surf. They’ve got this swing to their songs that’s hard to describe. It’s really loud and dirty but you can totally get down to songs like “WTM” (mp3), “Don’t Run With Pizzas,” and “Baby We’ll Sleep in the Graveyard.” I think their sound is more in line with early Nirvana—”WTM” reminds me of “Mexican Seafood,” and “Don’t Run WIth Pizzas” sounds like it could have been on Bleach. You know how Nirvana has this kind of sparse sound that feels like it is always about to fall apart in some catastrophic way, but a way that is really fun and makes you want to dance kind of? Well, that’s how i always hear it. I don’t know, I’m no music critic, but their new record totally rocks out with eerie keyboards and nervous drumming and screams and big, trashy guitars and they sing about outerspace (they thank outerspace in the liner notes) and it’s way awesome. I love it. Get it! For real!

Buy the new record from Badmaster Records or Hot Dog City Records.