Part of a 1980's sound & scene that included early REM, Dream Syndicate, Rain Parade, 28th Day, and Let's Active.

25 MP3 Songs
ROCK: American Underground, FOLK: Psych-folk

Show all album songs: Greenhouse Songs


Details:
"Absolute Grey - really a great band, I still have the original LPs" (Peter Buck of REM, March 2003)

In the 1980's ABSOLUTE GREY was part of a movement including Rain Parade, Let's Active, Dream Syndicate & 28th Day - all fans of AG's electric folk rock. Featuring singer Beth Brown, bass player Mitch Rasor, guitarist Matt Kitchen, and drummer Pat Thomas they recall Jefferson Airplane & Fairport Convention mixed with the modern psychedelia of Echo & The Bunnymen. (with a touch of the Velvet Underground). The 1984 debut LP GREENHOUSE is now a 2 CD set with live material. Favorites of Forced Exposure magazine, the 24 page book has liner notes by Byron Coley and Lester Bangs biographer Jim DeRogatis.

"Absolute Grey's Tell Me When It's Over is a lot more towards Fillmore West than ours, more towards Quicksilver and Jefferson Airplane. Jefferson Airplane more than anything. It's very good"
-Steve Wynn, July 1986

"Long before self-reflective female singers became the hip trend on the alternative music scene, Beth Brown was writing and singing about loneliness and the challenge of independence. What Brown lacked in vocal range, she more than made up for in guts and naked emotion. Greenhouse defines the quartet's garage-pop approach, with the bass carrying most of the melodies and the guitar adding color with Peter Buck-ish arpeggios."
-Karen Schoemer, Trouser Press Record Guide 1991


"This Rochester, NY quartet would be part of the paisley underground if they were from the West Coast; comparisons to Rain Parade and Clay Allison are not unfair, although I hear a purer folk sound than the nutmeg and incense crowd usually evokes."
-Fred Mills, Option May 1985


"Rochestern servants of genius-pop-beauty.....strong evidence that ordinary gumps can make fragile substance that is absolutely not weak, limp, or languid."
-Jimmy Johnson, Forced Exposure Winter 1987

"Absolute Grey boil a heap heady psychedelic brew. Rocketing out of a lysergic watering hole...this quartet take off as energy-filled as early Jefferson Airplane while their taste in covers is impeccable: the Velvets' "Beginning to See the Light" and, surprise, surprise, the Dream Syndicate's "Tell Me When It's Over". The studio performances, at their best, are raga-tinged folk rockers. Bless their pointed little heads."
-Nigel Cross, Sounds (London) May 25, 1985

"Like a wave of young 80's outfits: Miracle Legion, 28th Day, Salem 66, and Zeitgeist - Absolute Grey attempts to recapture a kind of folk-rock synthesis that vanished somewhere between the Summer of Love and the Sex Pistols."
-Steve Dollar, Times-Union July 3, 1986