The Godrays - Bed Spins 7"

The Godrays – The Bed Spins 7”

Vernon Yard, 1996

Acquired: Love Garden Shotgun Room, Used, 2008

Price: $.25

 

The Godrays rose from the ashes of the excellent little Rhode Island based indie pop band Small Factory. Following the departure of guitarist Dave Auchenbach in 1995, bassist Alex Kemp and drummer Phoebe Summersquash formed the Godrays and continued paying tribute to the rich tradition New English alternative rock. Considering that Small Factory’s “The Last Time That We Spoke” is one of my favorite, most criminally unsung alt-pop songs of the mid 90s (a song I should note I only heard after acquiring the 7” in the Love Garden Shotgun Room) I was absolutely game to finally listen to the Godrays. Of course they’re great. Kemp and Summersquash harmonize in that way that really great indie-pop bands harmonize, which is to say that while they aren’t Singers with a big capital S, when they harmonize they create that perfect human sweetness you love. A-Side “Crummy” capitalizes on those harmonies, and threads an airy little unobtrusive synthesizer riff throughout. Though Kemp has an average-dude voice, it is more than capable enough to deliver the melodic goods on the track’s catchy chorus. The B-Side, “Northless,” provides a nice counterpoint to the upbeat niceness of “Crummy” by setting the mopefactor to 11. It’s a short, downtrodden little tune that bursts into a cathartic guitar solo at the very end. This is one of those perfect little 7”s where a band you’ve never heard manages to blow you away and you realize that there are hundreds of bands you’ve never heard of and will probably never hear that have songs that would knock your socks off if only you stumbled across them in the bargain basement section of a record store.   

"Crummy"