THE WINECHUGGERS MYTHOS

Mount Vesuvius. Mount Olympus. Mount Tarsus. Mount St. Helens. Leslie West's Mountain. Winechuggers.

What do these things have in common? Nothing much, although some of them are mountains. One of them is a musical group, a very special musical group. And then there is WINECHUGGERS.

Winechuggers is the codename for a group of friends who have banded together to lay down some simple pop music about complicated emotions and situations. Beneath the pretty harmonies and sunny melodies that greet the listener's ear is a roiling cauldron of emotional turmoil: fear, misery, pain, depression, jolting, fatigue, drunkenness, hopelessness. However, the songs are nice to listen to, and provide an adequate soundtrack for seduction, provided the seduce-ee is into life-bummering.

That said, there is also a good deal of humor found in the songs, leavening all the doom and gloom with the occasional wry smile. The odd progressive-rock synthesizer riffing or fuzz-bass solo serves to lighten the gloom a bit, offering listeners a chance to smile a little as they make their way, weeping, to the crazy house.

A 1999 Winechuggers EP entitled "Thank You All Very Much" was little-heard but much-loved by those who did hear it. Like that record, the new full-length Winechuggers offering was recorded in Indianapolis and Chicago and enlisted some of the best musical talent in the Midwest, drawing musicians from a number of noteworthy groups including Emperor Penguin, Marmoset, June Panic's Silver Sound, The Mysteries of Life, The Stapleguns, Sardina, Brown Betty, and others.

The new Winechuggers recording is Grand Rapids, available now from The Arena Rock Recording Company. The record is a pastiche of classic pop and rock maneuvering tempered with the swiping of the best ideas from today's top songsmiths. A casual listen offers echoes of critical and popular favorites like Big Star, The Go-Betweens, Jeff Buckley, The Beach Boys, American Music Club, Arab Strap, Elliott Smith, Scud Mountain Boys, Sebadoh, and more.

Take some time away from this world and slip into a new world... a sound-world... the world of WINECHUGGERS.