Ever since the demise of SUBRAB: The Utah Valley Music Archive, I’ve received requests to amass the archive together and burn CDs for people. Some of these requests are a couple years old at this point. Part of the problem is that some of the files were lost somewhere in transferring them from the server and I haven’t gotten around to re-digitizing the albums. Another issue is that I would rather send out a complete archive rather than the spotty one that was up before — I never had complete discographies for Liquid Forest; Sope; Spanky, Dan, and Doug; and I always wanted to get Mar-Tie up there with the rest of them.

I have no plans in the near future to complete the archive since I’ll be moving next week and trying to get resettled while fumbling through the first few months of home ownership. But in the meanwhile, I’ll share a good chunk of the archive by Gladbirds.

Gladbirds consisted of Spanky (vocals), Jason Rabb (guitar), Dan Day (percussion), and Grant Jarvis (bass guitar). The band existed briefly between 1990 and 1992 (if anyone has better dates, please feel free to dispute). Gladbirds played one of the first local shows I ever attended. It was held in an aerobics studio, and I honestly don’t remember any of the other bands on the bill. I just remember that Spanky couldn’t make the show, so Pete Green (of Liquid Forest) filled in on vocals. Since then, I have yet to find another band quite like Gladbirds. They have some of the fuzzed-out flavor of late 60’s psychedelia, some jazz influence, and the ability to make their sound their own. Most of us that played in bands in Utah after 1992 were just trying to figure out how they did it.

The following represents a series of 4-track recordings done around 1991. The sound is as good as I could get it off of the audio tape, but I think the poor sound quality works for the songs. I’ll also throw in their only official recording from 1991 consisting of six tracks. Enjoy.

Update (08.26.06): The songs used to be stored on the server at my place of employment, and I no longer work there, so they’re gone for now. You might be able to dredge up a few tracks at Jason Rabb’s site.

4-Track Recordings
• 01 / Robot & 7/4
• 02 / Jake
• 03 / Opening
• 04 / 5-4-3
• 05 / Stay My Way
• 06 / The Retard
• 07 / Slow Frump
• 08 / The Jaminator
• 09 / Jam-O-Rama
• 10 / Jamisationalistic
• 11 / Slow Frump (Instrumental)
• 12 / 5-4-3 (Outtake)
• 13 / Opium Den (Instrumental)
• 14 / Fist (Instrumental)
• 15 / Hesitate (Instrumental)

Gladbirds:
• 01 / Hesitate
• 02 / Opium Den
• 03 / Fist
• 04 / I Want It
• 05 / The Magic House
• 06 / Jazz Deeluxe

Disclaimer: Due to the archival nature of this entry, technically this would be “Old Music Friday.”