The
Gerbils - Are You Sleepy
The Gerbils are a band from Athens,
Georgia, grade-school pals reared and raised in Ruston, Louisiana
(childhood home to the Elephant Six family). They unravel
similar strands of searing psychedelic pop magic as Neutral
Milk Hotel, Apples In Stereo, and Olivia Tremor Control,
but are a bit more Southern Fried (or at least more fried
in general). Are You Sleepy? is a watershed of freakishly
melodic and super-syrupy psychedelic shamble and ear-candy
pop genius, with a keen sense of the weird, lovingly orchestrated
and steeped deep in bubbling pools of fuzz and self-taught
sonic trickery.
The
Gerbils have released 7" singles
with labels like Spare Me, Enraptured offshoot Earworm-UK,
and Parasol Distributed Hidden Agenda. This is the Gerbils’ debut
full-length, compiling the Spare Me and Hidden Agenda singles,
plus 5 unreleased gems from the Are You Sleepy? sessions
(recorded in Austin and San Francisco during 1996, and distributed
underground as a cassette-only release in 1997). The CD also
adds the nimble "Fluid" which floods into a major
sonic freak-out, "Wet Host", recorded Summer 1997
with Jeremy from The Music Tapes (Inbreeding! Out of hand!),
for a total of 11 tracks! Some of these songs were re-worked
by The Olivia Tremor Control’s Bill Doss and the band
during the summer of ‘97, and the Gerbils subsequently
skewed the rest themselves.
The
Gerbils’ founding line-up
of Scott Spillane, John D’Azzo, and Will Westbrook moonlight
as Jeff Mangum’s backing band in Neutral Milk Hotel.
They also perform in the Olivia Tremor Control’s multi-dimensional,
rotating live ensemble. Scott plays all-manner of horns with
NMH, and the fellows will be playing in the NMH band on the
road.
ROLLING STONE
April 2, 1998
excerpt from "PSYCH OUT"
by Will Hermes
It's hard to nail down precisely
what Elephant 6 is or how it functions; even its figureheads
seem a bit fuzzy on the subject. E6 is partly a bedroom record
company that releases some (but not all) of the collective's
projects; it's partly a production outfit. And, perhaps most
significantly, it's a national clubhouse for a cult of musical
friends. At present the E6 family includes founding bands
Apples in Stereo, Neutral Milk Hotel and Olivia Tremor Control;
side projects like Marbles, the Music Tapes and the Gerbils;
and affiliate bands the Minders, Elf Power and Beulah...
MAGNET
The Gerbils
"Are You Sleepy?"
by Jud Cost
Since
you've undoubtedly missed the boat on those early vinyl collectibles
from Neutral Milk
Hotel and The Apples In Stereo, the Gerbils are giving you
a leg up with their own product. This 36-minute CD from Neutral
Milk horn player Scott Spillane and drummer Jeremy Barnes
- aided by NMH utility infielders John D'Azzo and Will Westbrook
- adds two 1996 singles to "Are You Sleepy," a
five-song, cassette-only release, and fleshes things out
with a couple more sonic oddities. If that doesn't make your
head swim, the music certainly will. As might be expected,
the Gerbils sound more like Jeff Magnum's noisy aggregation
than the other Ruston seed bands, with Spillane's pixie-like
vocals taking the place of Magnum's growl. "Box of Crayons," however,
is sung by an uncredited woman, probably Magnum's girlfriend
Laura Carter, who plays a mean zanzithophone in another E6
group, Elf Power. The song's lyrics are so hip they're bound
to seem embarrassing once the Elephant 6 backlash begins: "How
could you go out and watch the show without me?/You know
that Portastatic is still my favorite band/I left you behind
this time/Even though I know that Sebadoh is still your favorite
band." It still sounds pretty cool this week, though.
Alternative Press
August 1998
The Gerbils
<uncredited>
You
already know about Neutral Milk Hotel, so meet the Gerbils
- bassist Scott Spillane,
guitarist Will Westbrook and drummer Jeremy Barnes - essentially
the current NMH line-up minus singer Jeff Magnum. The four
band members have known one another for years; Spillane,
Westbrook and Magnum's friendship goes all the way back to
Ruston, Louisiana - Elephant 6's birthplace. With NMH topping
college radio charts, the Gerbils have released their full-length
debut, "Are You Sleepy?" (Hidden Agenda/Elephant
6), a collection that follows the band from fuzzbox pop of
their first singles through to newer songs that feature wilder
instrumentation and orchestration. "The new songs are
probably a lot more thought-out," says Westbrook. "There
are more instruments. But we still try to keep [the songs]
simple. Scott writes some amazingly beautiful songs, and
a lot of them are really heavy. Then we'll pop them out.
I get a hold of them and put some interesting sounds on top
of that."
Alternative Press
Volume 13, Number 123
The Gerbils
"Are You Sleeping?"
by Eric Bensel
"Is She Fiona" features
sung lullabies that would scare Syd Barrett sober, and "Walnut" falls
into place beautifully with a lose-fitting structure and
popping drums. "Wet Host’s" distant note drippings
would make Misrostoria sound lush, and that's saying something.
The Gerbils' garage psychedelia has a pleasing effect on
the senses, like hallucinogenic drugs on a work day.
Puncture
Number 42
The Gerbils
"Are You Sleepy?" (Hidden Agenda)
by Dan Strachota
Like
their second-tier Elephant 6 brethren the Minders and Beulah,
the Gerbils create entertaining
nuggets of psych-pop fuzz. Neutral Milk Hotel horn-player
extraordinaire Scott Spillane leads the Athens trio, singing
in a nasally conversational tone that suggests a Louisiana-fried
Mac McCaughan, meanwhile playing acid-drenched guitar that
calls to mind both the Seeds and the Surfers. John D'Azzo
and Will Westbrook, who assist both Neutral Milk Hotel and
Olivia Tremor Control during live shows, fill out the sound
here with bass, drums, piano, and tape manipulations. Overall,
the Gerbils are one of the most straightforward of the Elephant
6 bands - perhaps a wise tactic when one considers the wanky
poze of their one experimental track, the instrumental "Wet
Host." Still, the band knows how to borrow a neat trick
from the Fab Four's "The Magical Mystery Tour"-ish
voice that echoes. Spillane's spoken vocals in "Grin" adds
a note to the proceedings that's both playful and ominous.
Mostly though, the songs are just plain fun, with the kind
of exuberance that too often goes missing today. "Ted
Doesn't Mind" has a stuttering drum beat and fuzz-smothered
cowbell that recall the synergy of "Box Elder," while "Fluid" has
guitars that bubble like a witches' brew, tidal wave cymbal
crashes, and goofy lyrics ("your nose smells like a
note and your ears sound just like ears but your lips taste
sweeter than the sugar in my spoon").
CMJ New Music Report
May 18, 1998
The Gerbils
"Are You Sleepy?"
(Elephant 6/Hidden Agenda-Parasol)
As
another in the long procession of Elephant 6 bands to come
out of Athens, Georgia, it may
be easy to assume what the Gerbils sound like. Nevertheless,
the group, led by Neutral Milk Hotel multi-brassman Scott
Spillane (here on vocals, guitar and bass), contributes a
particularly ragged and lovable aesthetic to the Elephant
6 "sound" (even by its rag-tag standards). "Are
You Sleepy?" is comprised of previously released Gerbils
singles with five songs recorded in '96 and two more from
'97, but the record sounds cohesive as a whole anyway, with
Spillane showing himself to be a more than capable frontman,
placing his vocals loud and up front, as the band buzzes
away behind him with gobs of fuzz and skewed hooks in the
casually-produced (but definitely "lo-fi") mix.
Ptolemaic Terrascope
by Phil
Then
we have the Gerbils, Neutral Milk Hotel's backing band who
sent vinyl collectors into
a tailspin everywhere with a superb 7" jointly released
by Earworm and Elephant 6 entitled 'Lucky Girl'/'Big White
Limo,' and another 7" coupling 'Glue' with 'Is She Fiona?" on
the Hidden Agenda label (now also available on an album entitled "Are
You Sleepy?"); psychedelic pop whimsy on the 'A' side
and a classic slice of E6 acapella magic backed with fuzzy
bass lines on the reverse. Pop with finesse, an instant classic
by any measure.
Happenstance
Issue D
The Gerbils
"Are You Sleept?"
Hidden Agenda
Part
of the Athens, GA, Elephant Six student-style squat house
collegiate which also includes
Olivia Tremor Control, Neutral Milk Hotel and Apples In Stereo,
The Gerbils provide another slice of early Pink Floyd, Scottish
indie reel, with a bad drum machine. It's all Guided By Voices
and, and, and... simply speaking, The Gerbils make that kind
of melodious pop that makes their every swerve listenable.
They sound like everyone. There's always a meaningful vocal
- "My life is like a garbage can" - when you need
it. Affectionate, lo-fi and lovable.
Seattle Weekly
Neutral
Milk Hotel, The Gerbils --Anybody can sing about Maria, Caroline,
or Wendy, but paeans
to Fiona are rare indeed. With "Is She Fiona," a
track from their debut cd, "Are You Sleepy?" (Hidden
Agenda), The Gerbils have stepped up to fill the gap. The
record's lyrics like "Your hair/Curls just like hair." No
surprise that one of the band's metaphors for romantic turbulence
is a girl who loves Portastatic addressing her significant
who loves Sebadoh. Then there's the instrumental "Wet
Host," which consists solely of theremin-like squeaks,
tape-loop burbles, and intermittent fizzing noises, plus
a ghostly piano. It's all very catchy, as befits a band containing
members of Neutral Milk Hotel's touring incarnation.
The Big Takeover
Issue No. 43
The Gerbils
"Are You Sleepy?"
"Glue" 7"
(Hidden Agenda/Parasol)
The
Gerbils are Neutral Milk Hotel minus singer Jeff Magnum,
and here they step out to show
what they can do on their own. Unsurprisingly, this sounds
a lot like NMH and Olivia Tremor Control, which they also
play in, but with a higher-pitched vocalist (perhaps this
is the reason for the Chipmunk-like group name) and leaning
more toward the lengthy and experimental. This compilation
of cassette and singles tracks is a nice companion piece
to "In The Aeroplane Over The Sea," as it's obvious
that the two bands share a very similar direction and some
NMH songs and sped up the vocals. The "Glue" single
features two songs from the CD, both enjoyable in that Elephant
6 collective sort of way and a good introduction.
Flagpole
Athena, GA
4/22/98
The Gerbils
Are You Sleepy?
Hidden Agenda Records
The Elephant 6 mission is a highwire
act, requiring the delivery of simple pop that is also sophisticated
enough to stand up to repeated listenings by jaded 21st-century
listeners. Despite any de rigeur indie-rock modesty the collective/recording
company may exhibit, there's no question they're reaching
for something grand. What was the lst record label you ran
across that had its own (irony-free) manifesto? Such reach
is so daring that even when artists fall off the highwire,
it's still pretty interesting. |
