Another Drag Like Anything Else I Like

Here's an oddity to go along with all the Atlas stuff that I've already posted. Gazzara was one of Sean Sheridan's post-Atlas projects, and this is a demo CD EP that Walt from Brass City Records gave to me around 2000 or so. I was already entering one of my slow periods at the time but still hoping that I was going to finish off the last issue of Brushback (#7), which I had already been fussing with for about 2 or 3 years by that point. Anyway, I thought the demo was great and even sent off a letter to the band-- looking to find out about upcoming shows and maybe do an interview or something-- but I never got an answer back. Just as well, I guess, since I never ended up finishing the zine anyway.

As it happens, "The Shool Bus EP" sounds a lot like Atlas, which isn't naturally a given since Sean's done punk stuff and jazz stuff along the way, among other things. The lead-off track, "Work is a Drag", sorta chugs along nicely, but the song that I've always liked the most is "Dreaming of Ruby", which, much like Blanket of Ash's "Too Messed Up", is one of those great lost Connecticut power-pop gems that no one's ever heard. "Dreaming of Ruby" has no real chorus or bridge-- like any of those early Guided By Voices songs, in a way-- and then just when you're really getting into the hook, it ends all of a sudden, which is such an awesome move. The demo finishes with a great instrumental, the skillfully-named "Anything's Impossible", which has a really tough-sounding riff and isn't surfy or wimpy at all, if that's what you're thinking.

I'm not sure how many copies of this thing circulated, since it looks all hand-made to me (remember when people used to use a labelmaker program to put artwork on their CD-R's? Now all they do is write the band's name on them with a magic marker), but I'm guessing only a handful of these managed to get passed around. So, I'm going to post all three songs here, since they're all pretty neat.




Gazzara -

"Dreaming of Ruby"

"Work Is a Drag"

"Anything's Impossible"


Gazzara used to have a page on iLike, though it's long gone now; I managed to swipe some mp3's from it years ago, before it disappeared. As a bonus, here's one of the songs, "Supergirl", which ends with a nice surging guitar solo and features the line "I'm like Roman Polanski / I'll be hiding here when your father comes to get me"-- one of the greatest lyrics in CT indie rock history.
"Supergirl"