Biography
In autumn 1995 Red Red Meat joined Rex and the Grifters for an East Coast run behind the Sub Pop album Bunny Gets Paid. Throughout those weeks musicians from the three groups began trading places onstage, with uneven results. At the final triple-bill performance at Bard College the stage was suddenly crowded with every participant, producing an overwhelming, almost numerical grandeur that was difficult to ignore.
An A&M A&R executive had been attending multiple dates, and a recording agreement soon followed that placed Rex and Red Red Meat on the label’s subsidiary Treat and Release. Between 25 August and 4 September 1996 the sessions took place at BJ Transportation, a south-side Chicago truck-stop and trailer-wash facility then doubling as Red Red Meat’s rehearsal and studio compound. Bundy K. Brown, formerly of Tortoise and Directions, and Brian Deck engineered the project. Names were drawn from a hat in groups of four; whichever quartet emerged would enter the room to compose and track a piece. Personnel rotated continually until the material coalesced into the album Loftus.
Treat and Release kept the finished record on the shelf while it struggled to stay afloat within the narrow economics of independent rock. Financial strain eventually forced the label to relinquish the master, which the participating bands reacquired and issued on Perishable Records. Issued with virtually no promotional support, Loftus nevertheless found a gradual, deepening audience among listeners who encountered it and among those it encountered in turn.
An A&M A&R executive had been attending multiple dates, and a recording agreement soon followed that placed Rex and Red Red Meat on the label’s subsidiary Treat and Release. Between 25 August and 4 September 1996 the sessions took place at BJ Transportation, a south-side Chicago truck-stop and trailer-wash facility then doubling as Red Red Meat’s rehearsal and studio compound. Bundy K. Brown, formerly of Tortoise and Directions, and Brian Deck engineered the project. Names were drawn from a hat in groups of four; whichever quartet emerged would enter the room to compose and track a piece. Personnel rotated continually until the material coalesced into the album Loftus.
Treat and Release kept the finished record on the shelf while it struggled to stay afloat within the narrow economics of independent rock. Financial strain eventually forced the label to relinquish the master, which the participating bands reacquired and issued on Perishable Records. Issued with virtually no promotional support, Loftus nevertheless found a gradual, deepening audience among listeners who encountered it and among those it encountered in turn.
Albums
