Monday, June 8, 2009
Blaze Of Glory
After Scott Miller broke up Alternate Learning, he formed Game Theory, with bassist Fred Juhos (formerly of Boys Life), keyboardist Nancy Becker (Joe's sister) and drummer Michael Irwin. This band was formed expressly to back him up on a batch of songs that became Game Theory's debut album Blaze Of Glory.
When the album was recorded, Game Theory had only been a band for a few months, and hadn't even played any gigs. There was almost no recording budget for Blaze Of Glory, so the songs were recorded in Scott Miller's bedroom at his parents' house (reportedly he added the "way of the vacuum" line to the song "Tin Angel" because his mom started vacuuming during its recording, which forced Scott to find an artistic reason why there should be vacuuming sounds in the song).
There was also no money for printing or packaging the LPs, so the few hundred copies of Blaze Of Glory were packaged in white trash bags with a photocopied sheet of info. The album was also not "released" as much as mailed to reviewers and college radio as a calling card for a new band. All 12 songs were reissued on the Distortion of Glory CD compilation a decade later (which is difficult but not impossible to find), with minimal remastering and one song ("It Gives Me Chills") re-recorded.
Even though it was released less than a year after Alternate Learning's Painted Windows and features the same lo-fi recording quality, Blaze Of Glory boasts a much stronger collection of songs, and a more cohesive band vibe than any of the ALRN albums. There are a few duds among the dozen tracks (including the "vacuum" song), but Scott's songs and lyrics were miles ahead of anything he'd done before.
A couple of the songs ("Date With An Angel" and "Sleeping Through Heaven") are downright giddy, and a couple others ("Bad Year At UCLA" and "Something To Show") showcased Scott's developing talent as a lyricist. On the downside, even with the DIY minimalism, most Blaze Of Glory still sounds like it was recorded in the early 80s, and the drumming was still a weak spot. Game Theory got a new drummer after this album, Dave Gill, who added his own distinctive "style" to their follow-up records and helped them sound more like a real band.
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2 comments:
I have one of these in the original garbage bag! It looks pretty funny sticking out of my record collection.
I never get tired of "Sleeping Through Heaven" and it's been fun to play it live with Scott over the years -- it's aged well...
"Sleeping Through Heaven" might be my all-time favorite pop song - for sentimental reasons, but no shame in it musically either.
I remember finding BoG at Joe's Record Paradise in Wheaton, MD, the summer (1984) after discovering GT via Pointed Accounts. The record store had 4 or 5 copies available, in original white garbage bags. Years later I would come to keenly regret purchasing only 1, which I still have, though it is long since warped and bagless.
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