The Red and Black

Issue date: 9/30/97 Section: Undefined Section

They've got cat class and they've got cat style, and now they've got their very own album. Gritty Kitty will be performing tonight at the 40 Watt Club and releasing its debut CD, "Mistaking Airplanes For Stars." The band formed in Athens just over three years ago (That's 21 in cat years). Three of its mem- bers came to Athens in the same month and at the time none knew each other. While guitarist John Hart attended classes at the University, drummer Jessica Slavich came down from South Carolina, bass player Polly Hanson moved from Pennsylvania and guitarist Jason Taylor moved in from Ohio. "We're all so different, it's really unusual that we're together," Slavich said. The band's influences and inspirations vary almost as much as its geographic base. "Jason is married, so a lot of the songs are about his lovely wife, Julie," Slavich said. She said Hanson is inspired by items such as "silos and wheelbarrows." Drawings of both appear inside the CD cover. The band's association with Ryan Lewis, future founder of Kindercore Records, began early in its career. "I saw their first show in the bass player's backyard," Lewis said. Soon thereafter Lewis, the drummer for Kincaid, started Kindercore Records and put out the CD "Treble Revolution Vol. 1," a compilation of local bands on which Gritty Kitty appeared. "We've been with Kindercore from the beginning and they've been really good to us," Slavich said. Earlier this year the band started recording its debut CD with Kincaid's Greg Harmelink at his Greg 2000 studios. The full length album contains 18 songs and will be available tonight at the 40 Watt and in record stores around town. "I think we're really glad it's over, but it was really exciting," Slavich said about the recording of the album. "While we were recording the album we heard it so much that we lost perspective," she said, but now that the technical aspects of recording are over she said the band is very happy with its results. "Now we're just going to relax for a couple of weeks," she said. While Kindercore Records has given many local bands the oppor- tunity to record, Gritty Kitty has done something no other band had done before. "They're the first band to actu- ally sign a contract with Kindercore," Lewis said. The label has since signed other artists such as his band Kincaid and Masters Of The Hemisphere, who will be opening for Gritty Kitty tonight at the 40 Watt. "They're really easy to work with because they're so fun and enthu- siastic," Lewis said.

 

 

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