Roger Bryan on 'Recovery'

As he eases back into the beige-ing faux-fur couch in his second-floor practice space above Main Street, Roger Bryan takes a drag from a freshly lit cigarette. "It just reached a point where it really wasn't going to work the way it was," he explains.

In 2004, Roger would help start a band that would consume his creative energies for the next four years of his life, the Old Sweethearts. The band would go on to produce two proper releases. "When the Sweethearts first came together," he says, "it was a pretty inspiring period of time."

Grabbing a Miller High Life from a small dorm refrigerator a few feet away, Roger heads back to the couch as he describes how the band would fall apart as lost momentum gave way to dwindling creative drive and weakening relationships. The situation was further strained by guitarist Andy Vaeth’s commitment to his other band, the power trio Johnny Nobody. As the weeks, months and years passed Roger became increasingly frustrated.

"By the time we'd started the third record, it had been two years," he says. "Also, the 'new' songs we were recording, we had been playing all along (this period of time)."

Perhaps for a shot at redemption or maybe for closure-- Roger was inspired by this time in his life: the long, slow deaths of an important relationship between himself and the band as a whole; between himself and his band mates. This inspiration found its way into the songs on his second full-length as a solo artist, Recovery.

Although his backing band, the Orphans, includes some familiar faces, ex-Sweethearts Jeff Pietrzak and Erik Roesser, he wanted an otherwise fresh approach to Recovery. The new songs were shorter and faster. The band was recorded mostly live and in a few takes. Recording in guitarist Matt Smith's Hi/Lo Studio, the band entered the sessions without any preconceived notions on how the record would sound. The only predetermined goal, says Roger, was to finish the record with a sense of urgency and within a year from when the first songs were written. The results were better than he had expected.

"Everyone brings a very high level of play... we're lucky to all be on the same page," he says. "It was extremely refreshing, especially after years of sitting around."

Roger Bryan and the Orphans cite both Crazy Horse and the Replacements as strong influences, which can be heard throughout much of the album. The folky-garage of "This Song" punctuates distant, sing-a-long verses with searing guitar lines that flicker up like campfire. The 90’s alt-pop meditation of “If we fall” finds the band I an up-tempo gear, swapping melancholy for bitter-sweet.

And on an album filled with rebukes and flat-out regrets, Roger feels out for redemption on the record-closer “Full Reverse”, as Crazy Horse guitars wash over his scratchy vocal lines. Where he and the Orphans go from here is anyone’s guess.

JUCIFER! @ Mohawk Place, Friday July 25th w/ Chylde and Sonorous Gale

a rudy sizzle review

What the fuck is wrong you? Why do you even waste your time going to shows if you are going to run away at the first signs of something dangerous and perhaps even debilitating? SO WHAT if you might be deafened by the insane decibels that Jucifer is about to spew forth from their monolith of Ampeg? Who cares about your hearing anyway, you obviously don’t use it if you sat through Chylde’s set and thought, “aw yeah, right there is some real rock and roll.”

Your friends, you know, the guys who all work at that sweet restaurant owned by the piece of shit Greek who has more cocaine up his nose than on his cheap Pier One glass dining room set. Yeah, the same gang that seems to run the show in town, perhaps bringing in all the hot shit just to be able to let their awesome rock and roll band open. The same people that base their entire ideology on remaining ten minutes behind the coolness curve to make sure it at least sticks for their entire night on the Allen Street strip. See yourself there, wearing those flip-flops and that torn up ironic metal t-shirt, chugging cans of PBR at the Old Pink flamingo while your boy is spinning CD’s and no one is really using their hearing to discern the blandness piercing the speakers as a flash-in-the-pan, waif-British novelty has already run its course. Reach out across the room to your pal to give him a secret-man-shake and perhaps exchange witty retorts that are all based on your favorite sketch comedy show. Make a snide remark about how bored you are with the fact there is nothing wrong with your life as your parents keep sending you a check once a week to keep you well submersed in the ever-so-boring lifestyle that you seem to think of as being a “hardcore existence.” You know, you are so punk that you cannot stand punk music, nor can you stomach the thought of watching live music.


However, if your bros in Chylde are playing, than it’s got to be a party. It’s got to be the place where all the shit is going down. Right? “Who is the opening band? Sonorous Gale? What do they sound like? Big Business? Tragedy? A raw version of NoMeansNo? Perhaps the coolest band in Buffalo? No way, Chylde obviously is, I mean at least that is what they told me. Sonorous Gale just can’t contend, what with all that precise musicianship and intricacy in song structure. That just bores the hell out of me, especially when it is delivered with such ferocity and honesty. I hate that shit. I like when my music sounds like it is overly thought out, as if the songs are eschewed from any type of shred of original thought. I need my music to remind me of what my cousin’s and older brother liked when they were 16. I cannot fathom anything that sounds remotely like it is original because then it might be too much for my PBR buzzed brain to handle. My girlfriend liked it, but fuck her anyways. She likes anything that pisses me off, that’s why she dragged my ass to Jucifer anyways. I went because my boys, my main dudes, Chylde were on stage promptly @ midnight. They always do it right, hitting the toll of midnight and letting the riffs roll and rage proper. I like to smoke a bunch of weed and pop some pills and act all stupid-off-the-chain when they riff, but my gal just idly watches and occasionally reminds me that I am making an ass out of myself. I don’t care, I love rock and I love Chylde. She loves Jucifer, probably because there is a girl in the band that kind of looks like a deranged fairy on acid. She probably digs them because they sing about the French revolution and Marie Antoinette (whoever that is?) I think that they are just a phase and someday she’ll realize that their complicated raucous is merely an allusion to the fact that they wish they could just let the good times roll and forget about stuff like historic events that shaped cultures and what not.”

Yep, that sounds about right, doesn’t it? I guess if Jucifer’s immense wall of Ampeg cabinets frightened you away before you even gave them a chance (they were selling earplugs jack-ass), then you might as well have went back to your hipster high chair for your bottle to be inserted back into your stupid mouth. Mommy made sure it was nice and lukewarm, like you like it.

~ Rudy Sizzle