Your New Favorite Band: Ghost Shirt

L-R: Sam Kim (vocals, violin, keys), Branden Barnett (vocals, guitar), David Murphy (drums, vocals), Ryan Haye (bass)

I distinctly remember my first time hearing this band. It was late last year, the song was "History Of The Radio," and 30 seconds in I went Kool-Aid man onto the Ghost Shirt bandwagon. I immediately played "Radio" again, just to make sure I heard what I thought I heard. I've had this experience with 3 (now 4) songs:

• Beatles, Happiness Is A Warm Gun
• Flaming Lips, Five Stop Mother Superior Rain
• Teenage Fanclub, The Concept

Who has the balls, let alone talent, to join that triumvirate of awesome??? Five songs into their career and they're already in the pantheon.

Ghost Shirt - History Of The Radio [eMusic]

Half this song swallows you up with Spector/Bowie claustrophobia, screeching violin, distorted guitar, keyboard drone, and murmurs of noise all fighting for space. The other half of the song can't decide whether it wants to be Astral Weeks or Fisherman's Blues. Yeah, good problem to have. My only complaint is that Murphy's great drumming is a bit lost in the wash, but I think part of that is being in the mp3 era. I expect this to be corrected on the eventual vinyl release. Buy this EP for "Radio" and "Steam Engine" alone.

L-R: Kim, Murphy, Barnett,Haye

Ghost Shirt - WOLFPACK!!! (4 of 52)

Ghost Shirt - Two Cow Garage (6 of 52)

These are the 4th and 6th singles, respectively, in Ghost Shirt's ambitious 52 Singles in 52 Weeks project (more in a sec). The first song pays tribute to Buffalo's Roger Bryan & The Orphans, whose 2009 album was entitled, Wolves. The second song is an homage to Columbus homeboys, TCG, and

Dig this. These crazy mofos from Columbus, Ohio, set themselves the needlessly impossible task of releasing a new single every week this year. If you're like me, you think that maybe on paper that's a great idea. In reality, serious filler potential. Most bands can't write 3 good songs in a year. Ghost Shirt is aiming for 52?!?! But, here we are in April, I have 17 songs by this band on my hard drive, and maybe 2 are meh, 3-4 are good but not great, the rest (around 10) are as good or a hair below these 3 songs.

Oh, and aside from the EP .. . which you really need to buy ... all these songs
are FREE! Fuck yeah, flapjack. Furthermore, from Camp Ghost Shirt:

You guys been staying up on these singles? If not, start catching up now. Branden said at the beginning of this "52 Singles in 52 Weeks" project that he wanted each single to be just that -- a single. And that’s pretty much held true so far. Already a lot of gems among these 12.

Here's another new twist to the project. Last week's single (#11 "homeiswhereyouare") through #21 is going to be a complete album (which means #12 up there is also track 2). So, keep up with the singles on Donewaiting the next 10 weeks and you'll have a new Ghost Shirt record. All the tracks run together, and violinist Sam Kim is composing some orchestral breaks, too. Once all 10 tracks are released, it's going to be mastered and digitally repackaged with artwork and such. The sound is a bit different than the Ghost Shirt you're used to -- as Branden says, it's more "weird and noisy."

AND...That's actually Ghost Shirt's second album, the first of which, Domestique, will be out on Anyway Records in May or June (with niiice artwork; cover above). You can now stream that album on the band's Facebook fan page.

Get in now, friends. This band has all the ingredients for a Neutral Milk Hotel/Pixies circa Surfer Rosa type breakout. Beyond that, who knows? I tell you what. Mild hyperbole aside, I'll settle for vinyl versions of these DLs.

THE INSTRUMENT OF MY ULTIMATE DOWNFALL

As a bonus, here are two of my favorite tracks from the titular bands.

Two Cow Garage - No Shame [CD] [MP3] [eMusic]

TCG Website
TCG Facebook

Roger Bryan & The Orphans - No Bridge [CD/Vinyl]

RBO Speedwagon
RBO Facebook