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Winterpills
Subtlety, Texture, Mystery, and Dark Corners

Brattleboro, Vt,  July 14  -  Winterpills is the most exciting act to emerge, in a good long time, from the highly productive Northampton, Massachusetts music community.  Following the release of two critically acclaimed albums [Winterpills,   The Light Divides], Winterpills is getting strong airplay, has lately signed with a respected booking agency, and has an extended-play recording in the works.

Winterpills was early recognized by western Massachusetts and southern Vermont music columnists as having a serious shot at national stardom.

Asked about the impact of one area radio station, the Winterpills' Philip Price said, "No question that regionally WRSI has been huge for us, probably with a national ripple.  In other cities, WRNR in Annapolis, Maryland, and WFPK in Louisville have been great, and others like them around the country, like KEXP in Seattle and KCRW in Los Angeles.  Also many Internet radio stations, like WOXY."

Winterpills albums, so far, have been very strong from start to finish.  Yet certain tracks seem a little more radio friendly than others.  Speaking of cuts getting the most airplay, Price said, "From the last album its been largely 'Broken Arm' or 'Handkerchiefs.'  But I've seen listings for songs from all over the album which makes me happy."

"Broken Arm," in particular, is an excellent example of the obvious radio single.  Jim Olsen, president of the 'Pills record label, Signature Sounds, said in a January 2006 interview, "The whole paradigm for selling music is shifting back towards the single.  It seems to me that the majors have trained young consumers of pop music to seek out the one or two songs that they connect with and disregard the rest of the work.   I think the process started long before the download and file swapping age.  There was too much mediocre product in the marketplace for too long and consumers lost interest in paying $16.98 for one or two songs."

By contrast, a high percentage of Signature Sounds releases are classic albums, such as Tanglewood Tree by Dave Carter and Tracy Grammer, Peter Mulvey's The Trouble With Poets, the Knots and Crosses There Was a Time compilation, both Winterpills discs, and the Signature Sounds 10th Anniversary Celebration DVD among others.  Though I have not heard it yet, the new Eilen Jewell album sounds to be the latest example.

"The audience for our music is much smaller and more discerning," continued Olsen.  "The audience is generally 35+, a demographic that grew up in the rich musical era of the 60s and 70s when the album concept was at its peak.  Their attention spans are longer, and they are interested in all of an artist's work, not just the song they hear on the radio."  No further explanation should be needed as to why the Signature Sounds label is an excellent fit for Winterpills.

The band's coming gig is in the Boston-Cambridge area, which for decades has been a hotbed of alternative rock.  Asked about connections between Winterpills and alternative music audiences, Price said, "I'm not sure  -  I think we appeal across the spectrum.   I also think the term, 'alternative,' is pretty meaningless these days, unlike, maybe, in 1993.  There's nothing alternative about the music those stations labeled as such play.  Most radio has been narrowed down to so few categories while music itself has expanded into even more.  I'm not sure what we are but it's nothing radical  -  we aren't really alternative either, I guess, unless someone says we are.  Someone once called us music the college kids would like that also would not offend their mothers."

In the 1970s, "alternative" was largely a hippie expression; and before the phrase, "alternative rock," finally caught on with the post-punk crowd, "college rock" was the term in common use, though this music was by no means limited to college communities.  But one of the things we understood about college rock in those days is that many performers brought inspirations from other art forms into music.   A few years back, we noted a fantastic roots-rock example, Forty Words for Fear by novelist Madison Smartt Bell and print/spoken-word poet Wyn Cooper.

A lot of college rockers had backgrounds in literature and in the visual arts.  Asked if something similar is at play among the members of Winterpills, Price said, "My main influence is movies.  If I weren't doing music, I'd make films, but it costs so much less to be a musician than to be a filmmaker.  The gap is closing though.  The EP will contain a video."

The mid-60s folk-scene volume, Positively Fourth Street, was a major disappointment in every respect except for its coverage of Richard Farina.  However, that one important exception is more than enough reason to read the book.  Farina was a magazine writer and an aspiring novelist (Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up to Me).  He brought a great deal to folk music from the outside and did much to incite an interaction of diverse arts that has vividly colored a whole lot of the best alternative music ever since.

Varying degrees of closeness in the vocal harmonies of Price and Flora Reed create an interesting form of tension and release and, particularly on the eponymous debut album, sharpened the distinctive edge to Winterpills' music.

"I completely agree that tension and release in sonics and writing, lyrically as well, create compelling music," said Price in a 2005 interview.  "We strive for that.   I can't pin down really what's at work between our voices.  We enjoyed singing together for months before she joined the band, just on our own, and then when we went public with it we got such a nice reaction we were a little taken aback, happily.   I think that's when I knew we were onto something, not before, which was just friends having fun.

"Vocally, Winterpills sees me finally using the lower registers of my voice, and then swooping above Flora's alto, so that the male-female harmony stack is inverted.  Stolen from the Beatles of course but still unique-sounding."

Winterpills' vocal and instrumental sounds allow for several solid artist comparisons, but the music is most reminiscent of the 1960s when Paul Simon was singing with his old school-days pal Artie.  "[A]ny comparison to Simon and Garfunkel is always welcome," said Price.

Happy to oblige.  The track, "Shameful," has a short S&G passage which is so close to the original that it would make Art Garfunkel's head spin.

Winterpills has an intriguing way of mixing subtlety with amplified rock music.  In a January 2006 interview, Reed said, "I can appreciate what you mean about certain kinds of music requiring an appreciation that builds after repeated listens.  That's one of my favorite things about new music  -  discovering the little nuances that went unnoticed before."

But how does a group present music with subtlety, texture, mystery, and dark corners, while playing through the same amps a dance band uses to get people's feet jigging?   "The trick is learning how to mumble with your instruments," quipped Price.  But he could be onto something.  In an October 2005 interview, he explained, "I would say . . . that there are washy sounds/tones, blurry notes, etc., that might be called ambient-inspired.   I grew up listening to those Brian Eno albums, though I would say that Winterpills ambience is more in the realm of a band like maybe Mazzy Star, or a touch of Cocteau Twins, or maybe even some Johnny Marr (The Smiths). . . . "

A peculiarity of Winterpills, an emerging band, is that one member in a sense is already famed.   I don't know whether Flora Reed is a household name; but as the Signature Sounds publicist of several years standing, she is very well known and highly regarded in the music business.  Everyone I work with in music either is on a first-name basis with Flora or at the very least they know of her.  Her name recognition can't help but help.

Winterpills next plays Club Passim in Cambridge.  "We've been slowly growing an audience in Boston," reported Price.  "The built-in Passim crowd will be different somewhat than who we usually play to there, being more in the folk scene.   I think we overlap."

WBOS would seem like an obvious Boston radio outlet for Winterpills, but evidently the band's experience so far has been a little different.  Said Price, "The Boston stations that like us are WMBR, where we have done a couple of live performances, WERS, and WUMB.   I don't think WBOS has done anything with us yet."

The rock 'n' roll life has its odd but nice little moments.  "Most things worth noting happen out of my line of sight," said Price, "but at our last show, which was on a boat sailing up a river with about 200 very drunk people on it, we had to stop the boat in order to give another passing boat a case of margarita mix, because they were dangerously low.  Everyone took pictures.   I have a great fear of boats, but it took a vacation for this show."

"I think the next important step for Winterpills is to get out on the road for a real length of time," noted Reed in January 2006.  "We've had some really great things happen press- and radio-wise and need to capitalize on the momentum and gain visibility by touring."  In what has proven to be an important related comment, she said, "We do have some interest from a few professional [booking] agencies and are trying to be patient until we get someone to commit to working with us full-time."

Patience may have paid off.

These days, the rock 'n' roll highway seems to be beckoning Winterpills anew.  After a year and a half of mutual courtship, the band has signed with the booking agency, the Billions Corporation.   This ought to goose the group's giggage, so to speak.

"They have a reputation in the industry for being very artist-centric and devoted," said Price in a recent interview with The Commons newspaper of Windham County, Vermont.  Winterpills members were looking to sign with an agency "rooted in the indie-rock world. . . . Billions was at the top of that list for us.

"[O]ur needs were pretty basic: we just want to get in front of as many people as possible, in front of what we think would be receptive crowds.  Getting on opening slots for artists we love and admire is a key way, and we think Billions can do that for us."

So what about that forthcoming EP.  Is it a teaser for a later full-length CD?

"No, it's more just to keep the fires stoked," explained Price.  "Everyone has a short attention span these days, us included.  It'll be mostly a digital and live show-only release; it won't be in stores, so it'll be sort of exclusive to fans and frequenters of our site and live shows." [Did he forget to mention promotional copies to the press?]

Why an EP at this point, though?   Aren't band members still concentrating heavily on working The Light Divides?

"Yeah, we are," answered Price, "but we haven't toured on the album as much as we would have liked and are now waiting on booking for the fall from Billions, so we wanted something fresh to bring out.  Shelf life is short in this business."

Has the group worked with Billions long enough to report how it seems to be going?   "Everyone there is great, I know that much," said Price.  "We'll know more soon."  Actually, we know more right now.  That highly elusive booking in Brattleboro, Vermont  -  the principal town in Price's old home area  -  has lately materialized.  Be looking for me in the crowd.

The Beach Boys' Pet Sounds, as well as Rubber Soul by The Beatles, revolutionized rock recordings, giving the album a stronger identity as a vehicle potentially for panoramic views and grander artistic statements.  With sales and electronic distribution of lots of individual cuts, is this coming undone?   Is this an issue?

"It sure is," said Price.   "I don't think the album will die completely, but it has much less cultural significance than it ever did.  But something about the scale of an album is human, so I think people will come back to it."

Sarah Borges, in a Vermont Guardian interview, once expressed real concern that, with so much music so readily available via the Web, there is fragmentation going on and the wonders of shared experience are being lost.

"No doubt about it," agreed Price.

Recent years, including the present one, are among the best in the whole rock era for popular music fans.  There are lots of great records and concerts to choose from, and competition is stiff.  Yet of all the acts out there, many of which I love to pieces, Winterpills is my current favorite band.

At one point in the mid-1960s, "Hazy Shade of Winter" by Simon and Garfunkel was as great an example as any of the recordings that were changing our music in an extraordinary way.  Forty years later, "Broken Arm" by Winterpills blasts through me like lightning just as "Hazy Shade of Winter" did when it was new (and still does).  As Huey Lewis says, the heart of rock 'n' roll is still beatin'.  And so is mine.

Danny Elfman, once in a memorable interview with Charlie Rose, marveled at how Oingo Boingo was huge in Brazil.  So I wondered whether The Light Divides has either sold heavily or gotten exceptional airplay someplace, geographically speaking, unanticipated.  Price is not sure, but he noted, "We get a steady flow of mail from Germany."

Maybe the coming Club Passim concert will lead to postcards from Cambridge.   "I have played there solo, opening for John Wesley Harding, with my past band The Maggies, and the Winterpills also played there early on in our incarnation.  It's a very nice club.  I'm aware of its history.   I don't know that we have anything special planned.  We will be playing some songs from the upcoming EP, I'm sure."

These new Winterpills originals ought to be more than enough to turn the Club Passim concert into an exceptional night in old Harvard Square.

• Who:   Winterpills with Winterpill Dennis Crommett opening
• Where:   Club Passim
• When:   Friday, July 20
• For more information:   www.clubpassim.org, www.winterpills.com