July 22-28, 2004

music

Revenge Is Sweet

Photo By: Michael T. Regan

Bitter, bitter weeks has friends over to play.

by Michael Pelusi

Brian McTear has been the best friend of a lot of local bands. In his eight-year career as producer, running Miner Street/Cycle Sound Studio in Manayunk, he's been in the corner for many a Philly indie rocker, helping them translate their visions, usually honed in dingy clubs, onto the recorded medium. Any doubters can be easily silenced by playing the fruits of McTear's labors — records by Mazarin, The Bigger Lovers, The Trouble with Sweeney and many others.

But he's human just like the rest of them.

Photo By: Michael T. Regan

While recording Revenge (My Pal God), his second album as a solo artist under the moniker Bitter, bitter weeks, McTear found he was just as prone to the pangs of self-consciousness and self-doubt as anyone who had recorded under his watch. Hell, he even had a hard time playing to a metronome, something he'd insisted upon as a producer.

"For all the times that I've seen people totally trapped in their head," he says now, over beer and eats at Nodding Head, "and totally freaking out because they completely don't know up from down at whatever given point they're in in their record, I know what that's like. And I know that it does make sense to trust the people on the outside of your head who are telling you it's all fine, and you're doing a good job, and you are on the right track."

The first Bitter, bitter weeks record, last year's self-titled effort, was an austere outing, dominated largely by the sound of McTear's vocal and acoustic guitar, with occasional outside contributions.

"I like involving my friends," he says. "On the last record, I was really psyched to have Matt Pond, Quentin [Stoltzfus, of Mazarin] and Sara Weaver [the late frontwoman for Swisher]. That was really important to me, especially because in every other way it was a solo project. So it was nice; I helped them with their records, they could help me with mine." So for his second album, he wanted outside players to be even more involved.

For Revenge, McTear tapped friends like She-Haw singer Beth Case ("my favorite singer in the world"), pianist Brian Christinzio, drummer Ruth Keating of The Malarkies and others.

"Anybody that played anything, they have their own sense of the song and that just came out," McTear says. "And I needed that to happen. I needed to not be at the center of the idea process."

Though McTear thought of scuttling the project halfway through, sure enough the album assumed shape. (Even if it took over a year and a half: McTear started making it before the first album was even released.) He decided that Miner Street's studio manager, who is also his girlfriend, Amy Morrissey, deserved a co-production credit. "I really know how hard it would be for a person to produce their own record. I found myself incredibly incapable. At least when the music is so motivation-driven, songs that have a real strong meaning to you and are really important to you."

Revenge mixes sparse performances of songs like the pointed title track and "A Deer in the Headlights," with full-band numbers "Kings" and "Ghostride," bouncy pop melodies with barbed lyrics. Other tracks utilizing McTear's friends — "The River is Pale and the Water is Wide" and "D" to name two — make the most of their participation, bringing new layers of drama and musical depth.

While McTear will be busy playing solo shows for Revenge, along with his Miner Street responsibilities, he hopes that someday he can further explore his music through the band setting. "It's my dream," he says. "All my favorite music is made by rock bands." He and Morrissey have a formed a band, The Novenas, as a vehicle for her songs. (She also sings background vocals on Revenge. )

If anything, the new album has illustrated for McTear the benefits of losing control. "The more preconceived of a notion that I have, the worse things turn out," he says, but it's clear he doesn't even begin to regard this as a bad thing. (m_pelusi@citypaper.net)

Bitter, bitter weeks will play a record release party on Fri., July 23, 8 p.m., with Mazarin, Scout Niblett and Espers, $10, at The Parlor, 1170 S. Broad St., www.bitterbitterweeks.com.