#squeaselphobes

Bart Bealmear of Squeaselphobes

I’ve been a fan of Bart Bealmear and Gregory Olds’ songwriting since I first heard their music about a decade ago. I’ve covered a number of their songs with my project Rock ‘n’ Roll Monkey & the Robots. Greg collaborated with Bart on an EP he made a few years back [which also featured performances from Troy Gregory (The Witches, The Dirtbombs, Killing Joke), Brandon Moss (Bars of Gold, Bear vs. Shark) and Tim Purrier (The Hentchmen) among others] and  produced a 7″ as The Blind Doctors. 

Bart’s new collection, Greawesome, is a digital only Bandcamp release of 21 very short songs. I asked Bart to talk with me a bit about  Greawesome and touch on his writing career -- Bart is on the staff of Dangerous Minds and has produced dozens of articles on strange and obscure music, film and pop culture. 

I dig your new album. “Change” really floored me – I love it. What gave you the idea to do this project, this way?

Hey, thanks. Greg and I have been playing together off and on since the late ‘80s. In 2009, he started emailing me short pieces of music he’d written and recorded, then I’d put words over the top, create mixes, and then send the files back to him. The Squeaselphobes project has always been a casual thing, but after a while, we had a decent number of tracks and figured they’d be worth releasing.  

Greg & Bart at the Replacements/Tom Petty show at Pine Knob, Clarkston, MI in 1989

Greg was involved with your last EP, credited to the Blind Doctors, why change the name? What is different about this?

It’s just a completely different thing, really. The Blind Doctors has been a rotating collective that revolves around my songs, while the Squeaselphobes is a joint project between the two of us. I’ll still use the Blind Doctors name for my own stuff.

What is a Squeaselphobe?

Ha, that’s a word Greg made up a long time ago. You’d have to ask him to get the full story.

What is the appeal of very short songs/minimalism?

Short songs don’t allow the listener much time to get bored. They don’t overstay their welcome. As far as a minimalistic approach, we just liked the way the tracks turned out and decided to leave them as-is. I suppose it has to do with why people like demo recordings—you can hear mistakes and quirks that are often lost when a song is labored over.

How long have you been writing for Dangerous Minds now?

For about three years. My first post went up in September 2014.

How does it feel to have your work read by such a large audience?

It’s gratifying. I’ve always liked exposing people to interesting things—be it music, movies, stories, or whatever—so it’s cool to be able to do it on a largish scale.

At one point you thinking about extending your tax scam records piece into book, is this still in the cards? [Read this fascinating piece here.] Any other journalistic projects you’ve thought about putting more time into?

Yeah, it’s just finding the time. I sort of chip away at it. I have other ideas—again, it’s just about time. I recently realized that—like a lot of people—I probably have three or four lifetimes worth of interests, so it’s impossible to explore them all. In some ways, it’s a comforting thought.  

Do you look at the comments on your Dangerous Minds post?

Sometimes! When I do, I have to prepare myself for the worst, such is the internet. But, on occasion, people actually say nice things.

Anything else you want to say or plug?

Thanks for the interest. I never imagined I’d be doing an interview about the Squeaselphobes. 

CRITICAL LINKS:

Squeaselphobes on Bandcamp

Blind Doctors on Bandcamp

Bart’s most recent post on Dangerous Minds

Tax Scam Records article on Night Flight