#colemine

Photo by Jessica Calvo

BY JORDAN MAINZER

Even though it seems like everything is rehashed versions of something else these days, guitarist Matthew Stubbs thinks GA-20 is unique. Indeed, when the Boston-based trio (Stubbs, vocalist Pat Faherty, and drummer Tim Carman) released their debut album Lonely Soul in 2019 via Colemine/Karma Chief, they seemed like the only contemporary band making music wholly inspired by classic Chicago blues, loud and proud, raw and ear-shattering. In the years that followed, they’d double down, releasing an excellent 2021 record of songs written or performed by Hound Dog Taylor, in conjunction with Alligator Records for their 50th anniversary. Last fall, they released Crackdown, which delved further into the garage-punk side of blues. And now, they’ve revealed Live in Loveland, a pre-pandemic relic that tells the story of the first few years of the band more clearly than ever.

GA-20 had recorded and originally planned to release Crackdown shortly after Lonely Soul, mirroring the fast schedule and prolific recording nature of the legends they grew up listening to. In the early stages of 2020, setting out on a tour, they stopped in Loveland, Ohio, home to Colemine and its associated Plaid Room Records store. Burning through Lonely Soul favorites, Crackdown highlights, and other unreleased covers and originals, the band lit up an after-hours in-store at Plaid Room. They covered Little Walter’s “My Baby’s Sweeter”, rife with a bridge chock full of blistering guitar solos, and brought the crowd down with Lonely Soul’s surfy title track and the heartsick “Dry Run”. They paid tribute to their roots with the Chicago blues of “I Let Someone In” and “My Soul”. Faherty especially shined, with gravel-throated performances on “Lonely Soul” and the unreleased original “Hold It One More Time”. The performance, recorded to tape, edited down, and switched up, makes up Live in Loveland, the band’s first live record.

Shortly after their performance at Plaid Room, COVID hit, and GA-20 delayed the release of Crackdown until last fall. In between was when they collaborated with Alligator for GA-20 Does Hound Dog Taylor: Try It...You Might Like It!; they didn’t play any Hound Dog songs at Plaid Room because, as much as they grew up worshipping the house rocker himself, they didn’t even yet know they would release a tribute record. So if you’re a record completist who cares about canon and lore, know that Crackdown was supposed to be the band’s second as opposed to third LP. Either way, the ever-changing-yet-consistently timeless and, yes, unique band already has finished their next album, an acoustic concept record. And they’re writing their next electric one--you might hear “Hold It One More Time” on it.

Earlier this month, I spoke over the phone with Stubbs from his house in Providence about classic live albums, setting up a setlist, the story of how GA-20 signed to Colemine, and where they fit in music today. Read our conversation below, edited for length and clarity.

Photo by Matthieu Joubert

Since I Left You: GA-20 has released live EPs before. What made you want to do a whole live record?

Matthew Stubbs: First of all, historically, all styles of music, but especially blues and jazz, have put out lots of live records. Growing up, lots of my favorite blues records were live records because in blues and jazz, there’s a lot of improvisation. Every night can be a little bit different or very different. One of my favorite records is BB King’s Live at the Regal. It was one of the first blues albums I really connected with.

This particular record, we were on our way to do a gig. We were starting a tour, and our first stop was Loveland, Ohio, which is where our record label, [Colemine] is based. They also own a store called Plaid Room Records. We were starting to tour and had a day off, so we decided to do a show after hours in the record shop and sell tickets. A couple days before, I had contacted Terry Cole, the owner of the label, who also records. They have a recording studio above the record store. I just threw it out there, “Why don’t we try recording tonight to see what happens?” He had just bought a second TASCAM-388 tape machine. We pulled in the night before the gig, and he was working on the tape machine in the store. It was a spur of the moment idea. We didn’t know we’d get a record out of it. It was fun: great audience, and it was cool being in the hometown of the label. 

SILY: Were you pretty much playing the songs on this record on the tour, from Lonely Soul and Crackdown?

MS: Yeah. Lonely Soul songs and Crackdown songs. This live record has three unreleased songs, one original and two covers. We recorded all night. I went through it and picked what songs had stronger performances, and songs off those two records. It was recorded in January 2020, before we did the Hound Dog record, so there’s no Hound Dog [songs] on this particular record.

SILY: But you had already been working on Crackdown?

MS: Yeah. Crackdown was recorded not long after Lonely Soul. The plan was to release it in 2020, but shortly after recording this [live record], everything shut down, and we couldn’t tour. We decided to hold off on releasing [Crackdown] so we could do proper touring and a proper release behind it. During COVID, we got approached by Alligator Records to do a record for them. They didn’t realize we were already signed to Colemine. So I cooked up the idea of doing a Hound Dog Taylor tribute record. Alligator started its label to release Hound Dog Taylor’s first LP. It was the 50th anniversary of the label and Hound Dog’s first record, and we were all just at home hanging out. So we ended up recording that and releasing it before Crackdown, but it was recorded after Crackdown. It was released under Colemine and Karma Chief in partnership with Alligator. We used their promotion in coordination with our team and got their full stamp of approval.

SILY: In your sets, do you work in Hound Dog songs?

MS: Every night, we do a few Hound Dog songs for sure.

SILY: What was the first time you heard Harold Burrage’s “I Cry For You” and Little Walter’s “My Baby’s Sweeter”, the first two songs on Live in Loveland?

MS: “I Cry For You”, I remember hearing that song at 16. I got a double CD compilation of Cobra Records, and that song was on there. I’d always loved that song and never heard anybody do it. When we started GA-20, it was on the list of cover songs I’d like to do. I presented it to Pat, who sings it very well. “My Baby’s Sweeter”, Pat and I had been doing since we started the band. We didn’t have any originals yet and were doing lots of 1950s Chicago blues, Little Walter and stuff, even though we didn’t have a harmonica player. It’s [been] in our catalog of songs to pull from for a long time. We did a full gig that night, and [it was] one of the slow blues numbers we called on the fly. We didn’t play it planning to release anything. The performance was good.

SILY: What’s the story behind the original song played that night and on here, “Hold It One More Time”? Have you recorded it yet?

MS: I think it’s gonna be on the next electric studio album. We haven't recorded it yet but had written it not long before that gig. I love blues and soul music, but I also love garage rock, so I’m pulling from it on that song.

SILY: I love how when Pat introduced “Dry Run”, he told the story behind it, that it was about a girl who was using him to practice her flirting. Since at so many blues gigs bands are just playing standards as opposed to originals, I feel like I so rarely hear an ounce of the story behind the song, especially the ones about heartbreak.

MS: Pat wrote those lyrics, and I arranged it with him. He tells the story most nights, and people always chuckle.

SILY: How many songs did you play this night?

MS: It was probably a 75-90 minute set, and for the most part, our songs aren’t very long compared to most modern day blues bands. We never have a song that goes over 4 minutes. It’s maybe 2 and a half or 3 and a half [minutes], and then maybe one longer song. So usually, a 75-minute set has about 20 songs. 

SILY: Did you just take out some of the songs for this record, or did you actually rearrange the order?

MS: The order of the record is definitely not the order we played them in. There are a couple songs that go into each other that we kept, but I definitely changed the sequence for the live record to get it to have a smoother flow.

SILY: How would you compare sequencing a setlist versus sequencing a live record?

MS: I’d probably approach it similarly. The only thing that changes is not doing 75 minutes of music on this record. We usually try to come out with a bang, something pretty hard hitting. I like to have peaks and valleys in a set. I want to draw the listener in and have dynamics with quiet moments, loud moments, songs more focused on the lyrics and songs more focused on the energy of guitar playing, or drum solos. I want to keep people engaged. People don’t have super long attention spans, so whatever I can do to keep them with us in the show.

SILY: What’s the story behind the cover art for this record?

MS: Terry’s wife Whitney shot the show, and the effect on there is a crystal she put in front of the lens. The vibe of it was more on Terry. We talked about what we wanted, and we had that photo, and I wanted it to be vibrant and jump out on the shelf of a record store or on the merch table.

SILY: What are some of your favorite cities to play?

MS: I love playing Chicago. A lot of major cities tend to be really good to us. Los Angeles--I used to live out there, so I like coming back through. Austin. Denver.

SILY: Are there any countries overseas that tend to be really receptive?

MS: They’re all pretty good to us. This past year--and we’re going back in June--we went to Finland. I had been there with other bands, but not GA-20. We had maybe 8 gigs, and a bunch of them were sold out. It blew my mind that we rolled into a theater in Helsinki and it was sold out, us having never been there and a fairly new band. Every time we go back to London, it’s growing and growing. Spain is fun. France is great. Europe and the UK are very supportive in general.

SILY: What else is next for you?

MS: We have a couple singles that will come out in a few months. We’re gonna release a 45. We have another album all done that’ll come out in a year or so. It’s more of a concept album, an acoustic album. Right now, we’re writing the next original electric record.

SILY: Do you feel a kinship with other contemporary original American blues bands?

MS: A little bit. There are a few that are into similar things we’re doing. Modern blues in general for me, a lot of the modern day blues rock scene, it’s hard to explain unless you see us live and those bands live, but we definitely rock. We’re pretty loud. I consider us a traditional blues band live, and when we’re making records, I’m trying to make timeless records. There are some modern elements to it, but I like 50s, 60s, 70s records for blues and soul. A lot of the modern day blues releases seem like they’re coming from a different place, with their influences starting with the British blues of the late 60s on, or Southern rock. Their approach is [that] the entrée of the song is the guitar solo. Everything is based on the guitar solo coming, and long collections of notes. That’s not us, man. We have songs that don’t have a guitar solo. Most of them are in the 3-minute range. I’m more interested in producing songs I’m interested in listening to. To my knowledge, there aren’t really any up-and-coming blues bands making those kinds of records. There are bands in other genres making them, especially traditional country and soul music, like [those on] Daptone. Some garage rock bands are doing it. But not a ton of blues bands are making that style of record, getting out on the road and trying to reach a broader audience.

There are a few younger players I dig. Jontavious Willis is a player we’re friends with. Eddy 9 Volt is a good buddy. I like Cedric Burnside. Those are who come to mind. But I feel like we’re slight outliers in general.

SILY: That’s why I noticed GA-20 in the first place. It’s timeless, harking back to an era long before I was alive, but that sound like those old records I’ve heard. It retains that spirit without pretension.

MS: When we recorded Lonely Soul, we didn’t have a record label yet. We recorded 6 out of the 10 songs. I sent the EP/demo to Colemine and Alligator. They both got back to me in the same week. Alligator very quickly rejected it. They didn’t want anything to do with that record. Bruce [Iglauer], the president, said it was too distorted and too retro sounding. He didn’t like the production at all. He thought it was too raw. At the time, I found it interesting because I didn’t know I could be too raw for a label that started for Hound Dog Taylor, one of the most raw electric guitar players of all time. I said, “Why don’t you take the weekend and listen to it just in case?” He turned it down. The same week, Colemine got back to me, and they had no blues acts, loved it, and wanted us to go back in and record a few more to make it a full-length. The non-blues label that put out a lot of cool sounding soul records--and now that they have Karma Chief, it’s not just soul music--that had the common thread of timeless production, [accepted us,] and the blues label wanted nothing to do with the up-and-coming band playing raw blues. Then [Alligator] saw us live, and when COVID hit, they sent an email saying, “We saw you live, and we get it now.” They didn’t understand the production sounding lo-fi and raw, because new blues records don’t sound that way anymore. Eddie 9 Volt releases ones that sounded that way. I also heard a rumor that Alligator wasn’t interested in his first record, but I don’t know that for sure. I’m not saying I’m the greatest thing ever, but I’m pretty proud of [Lonely Soul], and I think we’re outliers.

SILY: Is there anything you’ve been listening to, reading, or watching lately that’s caught your attention?

MS: I really like Sierra Ferrell. I like Ty Segall, King Gizzard. There’s a band out of Australia called Surprise Chef, an instrumental, like an El Michels Affair-type groovy funk 70′s thing. I listen to a lot of instrumental music. I have a side project kind of on hiatus now called [The] Antiguas, which is like psychedelic twang cinematic music.

Kendra Morris’ debut album, Babble, was self released in 2016. Colemine/ Karma Chief Records will be re-releasing the album with additional tracks on March 3rd. Here is a taste of the album from the single “Twist & Burn.”

Scone Cash Players - "1% Crown"