R.I.P. Pet Genius

in a myspace post made two days ago, pet genius announced that they’ve called it quits. citing conflicting obligations, the post made it clear that the members of the band have future plans that do not include pet genius, although there is apparently an EP still in the works that should see the light of day sometime soon. it seems things have ended amicably and i would hope so, as the members have all been involved in other projects with one another in some shape or form before, which have also ended because of growing interests elsewhere (namely cave in and the octave museum). so as unfortunate as this news is, it seems more positive than anything else. they made an excellent album, toured a bit, had fun doing it and carried on naturally to do other things.

while mr. brodsky has already shown that his solo work is where his priorities are, it’ll be interesting to see what the other members of pet genius do with themselves. johnny “coolbreeze” northrop is also a member of another cave in offshoot, clouds, who have a record that just came out on tuesday. i’m willing to guess that’s where he’s headed, but he might have something else up his sleeve. we’ll see. as for jr, he’s a bit of a mystery. i know he’s the drummer for doomriders, but they seem to be inactive at the moment.

anyway, here are some videos of pet genius doing what they do best. they happen to be the only videos on youtube of pet genius playing pet genius material, so here you go:

Filed under: News , 2008, break-up, clouds, club awesome, doomriders, johnny northrup, jr conners, pet genius, stephen brodsky

Stove Bredsky – Black Ribbon Award

armed with a kazoo and electric guitar, stephen brodsky returns with another excellent addition to his rapidly growing catalogue. calling himself “stove bredsky” this time around, brodsky’s bizzare name change hints that this album is a bit of a departure from what he’s done before: it may sound like stephen brodsky, but it isn’t. there still are remnants of the lo-fi pop leanings of the octave museum, and the rumbling guitars from pet genius, but what’s most apparent this time is brodsky’s willingness to experiment. the instrumental “a swelling hope” is particularly representative of this openness to experimentation, humming along, grounded by brodsky’s acoustic guitar so that it doesn’t float away, all the while creating an overwhelming feeling of optimism; the song is truly uplifting. sometimes this adventurousness gets the better of him, however, and the record slumps in places as a result, robbing it of the exuberance that made stephen brodsky’s octave museum such a pleasure to listen to. the songwriting here is in top-form though, as the majority of the songs find a balance between being irreverent, witty, idiosyncratic and poignant, making the robert-pollard-comparisons all the more relevant while also showing that brodsky is fully capable of being a consistent songwriter in terms of both quality and quantity.

Filed under: Album Review , 2008, pet genius, stephen brodsky, stove bredsky, the black ribbon award, the octave museum