K-G-W! K-G-W! K-G-W!

Ok, that's a bad joke for GBV fans. Seriously, though, comparisons to Guided By Voices will probably loom in this band's future. With this much energy at the service of this much talent, though, I don't think it will be much of an issue. I'd pretty much be a hypocrite anyway not to rank this somewhere close to B-1K anyway (in terms of merit). Even has a bass presence that that milestone doesn't.

Fresh out of high-school (though the band is working on its third year), Graham Smith, singer/writer/creator of Kleenex Girl Wonder may or may not be the coolest person alive, but I will say the kahuna has some cajones. A good invigorating romp, all in all, especially Graham's breaking-in-earnest, almost-but-not-quite-screaming vox. It does remind me a lot of Pollard's, and I even detect a bit of faux British (phrases like "an half hour" give it away), but Smith makes it work. He slugs with such unbridled enthusiasm that I would probably enjoy this even if he had consciously chosen to sing like Donald Duck.

Much of GSITCPA (I just can't type that title again) displays an old-school pop sensibility married to a zeal for unabashed lo-fi recorded-in-a-phone-booth tomfoolerly. Unlike much lo-fi I've heard, though, this has a good low-end attack, some juicy arrangements, and a good sense of why, for instance, Link Wray might actually prefer to play his guitar through an amp with a busted speaker cone.

A little Who-like in parts, a little GBV-like, a little Fall-like, and even a little Spector-like (spectorian? spectral?) in others...but not really derivative. Tracks like "Julie and Barbara" show KGW farming their own little plot of ground, and don't sound quite like anyone else.

And some really great lyrics ('if i can't ever know...i don't want to know'...a line worthy of both James Dean and Zen Buddhism). Some of the vocals remind me of that weird lo-fi Embarrassments/Early-Sebadoh acoustic 'in the room' ambience that makes it all sound kinda homegrown and kinda Real in a way that multigazillion dollar studios can't often 'afford' to sign off on.

Plus, all that & if I hear the awesome Bill-Haleyesque 'Five Minutes' once more I'm pretty much liable to carve its rousing text into my arm with a rusty bottle-opener, get tetanus and die of lockjaw, all while singing blissfully along (and with lockjaw, this will sound mighty silly).

1998
TrentD