Sam Gray: All the Crystal Castles in the World...

Through my little brother, John, I met a bunch of really cool kids that went to my old high school. They all have excellent taste in music, and more importantly, they make excellent music. One of these kids is Sam Gray. Sam started recording with me in my old house filled with pitbulls, no furniture, and unfinished floors in the countryside of Robertson County when he was about sixteen. Armed with his acoustic guitar, Sam came and played me four folkish sortof songs about girls, Liddy and Leary, and Bob Dylan going electric. Over the next year, I added some overdubs, hammer guitar, drums, etc... and Sam recorded on his own four track, making sound collages, weird folk songs, and fucking spy music by himself and with some friends.

After I moved back to Clarksville, we brought in my aforementioned little brother and laid down the H.P. Lovecraft inspired Dagon. Since we had everything set up, I asked Sam if he had anymore. We made up three songs on the spot and those wound up being included on his album. One was a variation of Mogwai's Christmas Steps which Sam lied about and said was his so he could get around my previous "no covers" recording policy. Little bastard. Those tracks are a testament to his thick and passionate (yeah yeah, what she said, shut up) guitar playing and what a beast John is.

So Sam gave me his tape of songs he was working on, and I went about turning them into MP3's. I waded through a lot of shit and a lot of gold. Sam and I have varying opinions on which is which. I did a few more overdubs and molested his tapes a bit and the result is fourteen songs about science fiction, video games, anime porn laws, self-deprecation, and more girls that don't love him. It beckons SeBADoh and Rivers Cuomo. It's as real as blunt as Woody Guthrie...actually one of them is a Woody Guthrie song. These songs are honest, at times painfully so. I seriously hope some girl listens to Joy and marries him on the spot. It worked for Lou Barlow, after all. If this is the music these kids are making today, I have hope for the world.

Sam Gray makes awesome music and he's a hell of guy.

He's on Facebook and SoundCloud. Talk to him..

All the Crystal Castles in the World... can be downloaded here for free.

Sam Gray- vocals, guitars, chord organ, noise, and album art
John Riley- bass on tracks 2, 3, 11, 14
Amanda Noyes- vocals on track 4
Casey Williams- bass on track 6 and something on track 8, I can't tell
Issac Welfare- percussion on track 5
Nick Riley- drums, guitar on track 13, bass on track 1, synth on track 7, tapes and KAOSS pad

Christmas Steps is a Mogwai song and Do-Re-Mi is a Woody Guthire song.

Tracks 1, 2, 3, 4, 7, 10, 11, 13, and 14 were recorded by me in Clarksville and Robertson County.
All other tracks were recorded by Sam Gray on the moon.