Psychedelic, Experimental. New Weird American, Psychedelic, New Age? U decide. AmRep Recording Artists Vertigo and Silver Salute founding member Gene Tangren and long time friend Mike Nehl started GRACKLE to fill their hunger for new psychedelic musi

18 MP3 Songs
ROCK: Psychedelic, NEW AGE: Environmental



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New Weird American, Psychedelic, New Age? You decide! Vertigo founding member Gene Tangren and long time friend Mike Nehl started GRACKLE to fill their hunger for new psychedelic music. NOW you can also feed YOUR need. Use headphones and the right frame of mind for maximum effect! Former Vertigo and Silver Salute founder Gene Tangren was part of the Minneapolis music scene from 1980 thru 1996. During that time Gene played at gigs with: The Replacements, Soul Asylum, Cows, Duran Duran, Buzz Cocks, Surgery, Hammerhead, The Tear Drop Explodes, Everclear, Tar, Henry, Halo of Flies, Clawhammer, Helmet, and many others. Toured Europe with Helios Creed, and returned in one piece. The following is copied from the Agony Shorthand blog:" Here's one I'm young enough to remember - the 1988 debut 7" from this Minneapolis trio came out in a tiny pressing on a nowhere label called Skidmark. Once the mystery of this darkly jarring set of songs spread across the phone lines and printing presses of the US, Forced Exposure magazine pressed up their own big batch and sang its praises six ways to Sunday. VERTIGO were, for about a month, the basement geniuses on every clued-in hipster's lips. Little wonder, because the beauty and power of these three numbers will stand up in any age, whether the record was a simple accident of history or not. Vertigo's debut remain the absolute pinnacle of what the Indies were offering in the late 80s, a time when labels like Amphetamine Reptile and even Sub Pop were exciting and forward-looking. Except this was a case of the farm team upsetting the big leaguers, because Vertigo came in from nowhere Ville, and once called to the majors, just couldn't deliver any big blasts in the clutch (cc: their AmRep material). The fucked-with stills from some ancient monster movie on the record's sleeve hinted at what was inside. "Two Lives" is foreboding and weird throughout its 3+ minutes, when barely-harnessed feedback providing the bedrock for a simple, haunting guitar squall. The singer - when there are vocals at all - sounds distant and a little bit annoyed, like he's parked in a bedroom behind a locked door & not entirely capable of providing his disinterested commentary. "Front End Loader" is a crazed instrumental with a hall-of-fame riff - it makes sense that these guys covered CRIME's "Murder By Guitar" later on, because I'm telling you, they are easily in the same league. Finally, "Phil 105" might be the best of them all, with thinly disguised melodics that are the diamond in a showering frenzy of heavy guitar-shard feedback. If this one passed you by 10 (editor's update = now 19) years ago, do yourself a big favor and track it down, because until someone cobbles together a Killed By Death for the late 80s, this gem will remain far too elusive."
Mike and Gene have been friends and musical cohorts since grade school. Syd Barrett and Carlos Castaneda has been a big influence on us for most of our lives. Listeners have described the music of Grackle as "Sound Art", "Nature and Mankind combined", "It makes me feel like I am on drugs!" and "Holly Cow! You guys are way weird!"