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A History Lesson
Kevin McGorey knows I’m searching for the meaty catastrophe as I point out that Detroit quartet The Word Play started tracking their debut LP, How I Became Illustrated, nearly two years ago to the week. I'm doing so in hopes of beefing up the headline and extracting some needless drama from the potentially epic story of the record. “It’s really not that meaty,” the guitarist/singer says, absentmindedly plucking tunes on an acoustic guitar. We're joined by drummer Brandon Sczomak, bassist Brent Mosser and singer/guitarist Ian Rapnicki. McGorey notes on “boring complications” of re-booking studio time, adding in new parts, waiting for contributors and life, school and work. Waiting for the merging of two local labels — their original home-label of Suburban Sprawl and Ann Arbor’s Quack!Media — to finally “get settled,” as McGorey put it, was the result of further delay.
“It seemed everyone had their releases backed up,” says Sczomak. “Everybody [on SubSprawl: Pop Project, Javelins, Child Bite] had their albums done and ready before us. Everybody waited for this deal to go through, so it wasn’t like, ‘Oh, let’s put everything out at once.’ And since we were the new kids on the block at Sub Sprawl, ours was at the end of it.”
“Basically, the headline of the story,” says McGorey, hands raised, “is New Kids On The Block!” Which is far from the case, as the Word Play have been playing together since '04. It only highlights their self-effacing, easygoing manner, as this quip is followed by a deadpanned admittance to being the most “unorganized band” around town. Later on, Sean Clancey from Child Bite unfurls his fuzzy self into the room and jokingly nudges, “Your pretty faces are ready for the cover of Alternative Press! Play up the pretty factor.” And soon the group is willing to add Clancey’s suggested lewd commentary regarding women’s under-garments and “the pretty factor” to their “New Kids” headline.
Downplays continue on influences. “No one’s above influence,” says Rapnicki. “Musically, as far as what we are listening to, it’s changing a lot. If your taste is changing, the music you write changes. There’s never a point where it’s like, ‘OK, new album! Where we goin’ with this?’” says Rapnicki, adding that their second full-length is almost completely written.
Sczomak, McGorey and Rapnicki grew up together, meeting at Plymouth-Canton High School, forming a trio after graduation. The band was completed in late-‘04 by a chance meeting of McGorey and Mosser — a chance facilitated by their respective jobs at rival Jimmy John’s restaurants. Mosser added the bass to their then-developing “post-punk” penchants for propulsive rhythms and dueling guitars. The band agrees Illustrated is an ideal introduction album and that now, as McGorey puts it, they're “starting to define more of a sound for ourselves.”
The sound is raw, dark and dreamy pop pushed by declarative guitar roars and spindly fingered spacey melodies dashed over punchy, guttural beats and driving, wavy bass lines. There's an arch of splattered indie noise-fuzz glory and “herky-jerky” quasi-danceable hooks along with a shining breadth for more softly flown melodies and moving harmonies. Rapnicki concludes, “We’re all over the place … doing our own things ... just … doing music! Just doing music things. Just living!” | RDW
The Word Play CD Release Party • 1/17• Woodward Avenue Brewers
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