Gilded Bats... more updates

A lovely review has been written by Jim Musser of the Iowa City Press Citizen. Here 'tis:

The Gilded Bats

The debut disc on artist/engineer/producer Patrick Bloom's new label, "The Gilded Bats" showcases a muscular, energetic old-time stringband that's steadily been expanding its profile in Eastern Iowa.

Composed of Norbert Sarsfield (fiddle), Andrew Epstein (banjo, jaw harp), Billy Bryant (guitar) and Chris Clark (washtub bass), The Gilded Bats apply their kinetic pickin' to an endearing set of 16 evergreens culled from the hill-country canon -- and everybody sings with gusto.

Befitting a band whose moniker was cribbed from the title of a 1966 novel by eccentric Gothic marvel Edward Gorey, the songs' subjects tend to be at least a tad bit twisted, as in the Holy Modal Rounders' "Give the Fiddler a Dram" -- "Pretty little girl with a red dress on/She took it off/I put it on/In come Johnny with the big boots on ..."

Funded in part by a grant from the Iowa Arts Council, "The Gilded Bats" is crisply played and sung, and the disc is brilliantly recorded and mastered (kudos to Justin Kennedy and Bloom), resulting in a freshly-packed barn dance that's ready to go.

... thanks Jim. We think that it's pretty swell too.

There's some sort of unusual hold up going on over at CD Baby, hence the dramatically long wait for the album to go online. They're great folks and they're working on it, so keep the faith, eh?

The Gilded Bats get a punk review.

Ok, maybe this is just our opinion, but it sure seems like a punk review. Article A, the aforementioned review in the Daily Iowan, the fine newspaper of the University Of Iowa:

The Gilded Bats

** out of *****

To compare the Gilded Bats to bluegrass, think of what Sour Skittles are to candy - only hard-core fans can truly appreciate them. The rest of the public simply struggle to understand, while puckering their lips.

Playing "Old Time Bluegrass" to the point of turning off fans in its self-titled album, The Gilded Bats holds true to its style; while the Iowa City band's disregard of modern music decreases accessibility, its steadfastness increases genre creditability.

Paying tribute to its predecessors, the Bats includes covers of "Cumberland Gap" and "Cripple Creek," with little artistic modification but providing a somewhat boring look into the roots of its sound.

In its entirety, the album is an excellent time capsule to an era before electric influences, but at the same time, only true bluegrass connoisseurs and people over 60 will likely understand the style of music they play.

Cole's Pick: "Black-Eyed Susan"

- by Cole Cheney

So The Gilded Bats are like an inaccessible sour candy compared to true bluegrass, so only true bluegrass connoisseurs will like them? That doesn't really make sense. Comparing a band to Sour Skittles? Ok, it's a stretch, but we'll accept that. Cole, however, doesn't say that he/she thinks Sour Skittle suck, but that only "hardcore" fans will appreciate them. So it stands to reason that punk rockers can't like rockabilly, and Nirvana fans can't like Gillian Welch. And if you like Sun Ra's music, fuck you, 'cause nobody else understands it.

So here's the thing about The Gilded Bats. They aren't an esoteric mind experiment into what humans did before top 40 radio. And "genre creditability"? They play guitar, banjo, fiddle, and wash tub bass for chrissakes. Now here's our favorite line:

Playing "Old Time Bluegrass" to the point of turning off fans in its self-titled album, The Gilded Bats holds true to its style...

So there it is folks... the band is apparently turning off their fans because they're playing too much of the music that their fans love. An old time string band can only be good if they don't play old time music, or at least not too much of it. They better play modern, new time stuff. Maybe some break-beats would do the trick.


On another note, we're still waiting word from CD Baby of the availability of the album, so stop bugging us. (Get it? Bugging us?)