Gray Horizon

It’s hard to believe that nearly 40 years have passed since I heard Pink Floyd’s ‘Dark Side Of The Moon’ for the first time. The memory of ripping the cellophane wrapping of a new LP and getting that first whiff of the cardboard sleeve is still vivid. People still argue whether or not digital sounds better than analog, but there’s no doubt that analog SMELLS better.

The early seventies were a watershed era for modern music. The combination of FM radio (with it’s early ‘underground’ agenda), amazing sounding 16 and 24-track recording studios and post-Beatles experimentalism provided fertile ground for rock music to evolve at a staggering pace. And evolve it did.

There were not as many bands or records in the early 70’s as there are today, but this was a time when everyone was looking for their own sound rather than adorning the attributes of whatever sub-genre they were trying to fit into. Few people in 1973 paid attention the notion of sub-genres, and it would be years before music fans would be attuned to the nuances that distinguish ‘death metal’ from ‘extreme metal’ or ‘techno’ from ‘dub step’.

By the time Blue Cartoon started making records, being the late bloomers we are, we were appropriated with the ‘Power Pop’ uniform. Yet, on any of our records you can clearly hear tinges of Folk and Psych or the occasional nod to Progressive Rock. There’s a good reason for that...

After reigniting Blue Cartoon in 2010 to make a new record we quickly fell into the typical ‘trough of despair’ that any terminally underground band goes through when plotting their next breakthrough success: “What kind of record should we make?” “How do we make something of relevance?” “Where do we fit in?”

Of course, we know all the attributes of Power Pop (another sub-genre that didn’t exist in 1973). And yes we have an ass-load of Rickenbackers and Vox amps. So, why not just make another Power Pop record?
Ah, but if it were so simple...

It’s enough of a death wish for a band to have more than one songwriter, but we have at least four and counting. What we didn’t have was a producer. So after a year of aimless democracy I volunteered for the role and explained my vision of making a record that sounds like it fell out of a wormhole from 1973-1975. Ideally, It would sound like a buried treasure from an obscure band produced by someone like Tony Visconti, Ken Scott or Todd Rundgren. Amazingly, the band agreed. It at least seemed better than being an obscure middle-aged band produced by a nobody in 2013.

So, with an antiquated Mac G5, an unused bedroom and no budget whatsoever we set forth with the audacious goal of making an album that would have the scope, scale and sound of a time when such records cost more to make than buying a house.

We also set out not to be derivative of any particular artist or album or be nostalgic for nostalgia’s sake. Sure, you’ll hear references to 10cc, Bowie, Roxy Music, T. Rex, Pink Floyd, Rundgren, Yes and others. Guilty as charged! But these are subtle sonic references used like ornaments in different combinations to decorate songs which were selected with the more generic intention of imagining what Blue Cartoon would have sounded like in 1975. After all, we were there and we do remember.

“Are You Getting On?” is our fifth record and we think it’s our best yet.

Lee Elliott, Austin TX 2013