The wait is over. On Tuesday, Charlie Gaylord recommenced his philanthropic chronicling of the rootsier (though not exclusively) side of the Portland music scene, after two and a half years, with Volume 7 of his Greetings from Area Code 207 series of local compilations. Begun with a bang in 2000, the series grew into a local show on WCLZ, which has now moved to WBLM (spinning off a competing admirer, Music from 207, on the under-new-ownership ’CLZ), and even spun off a greatest-hits album of sorts with the Maine Tracks disc that Bangor Savings Bank sponsored last year.
With such success, why did a franchise that reliably released a new installment every November for six years take such an extended hiatus? Well, you try releasing a disc full of some 20-odd local songs every year with every penny going to the St. Lawrence Arts Center, and none of it in your pocket. You might want a break, too.
| Greetings from Area Code 207, Volume 7 | Released by Cornmeal Records |
But now that GFAC is back, it seems like it never left, possibly because the 21 tracks here constitute an interesting look back on the series as a whole. Volume 1 came out in the fall of 2000, featuring the Coming Grass, Sara Cox, Sean Mencher, and Say ZuZu (including Jon Nolan); Volume 2 had Rustic Overtones, Frankenstein (which eventually became As Fast As) paired with Darien Brahms, and the Frotus Caper (featuring the Lomax’s Dave Ragsdale and Chris White); Steve Jones (the Boneheads) shows up on Volume 3, as do Spouse, Bullyclub, and Phantom Buffalo (then the Ponys); Volume 4 gave us Ray Charles LaMontagne (that’d be just Ray, now), and Seekonk. All of those bands and musicians can be found on Volume 7.Further, it’s frankly amazing that Jason Spooner is now making his first appearance on a GFAC disc, while Dominic and the Lucid and Subject Bias largely came to light as successful bands in the series’s absence. Husband-and-wife team Lauren Sullivan and Adam Gardner (Guster) make a debut, too, but can’t be called new to the scene. Then there’s the pop-punk Varsity Drag, whom I know Gaylord agonized over including, as none of the members now resides in Maine, and they’ve never really played here much.
The only new-new band here, really, are Daro, a project that introduced Sean Morin as one of the voices to listen for in 2008 with a truly great disc. Their “ITYHM” is included late on Volume 7, with a tremendous bounce and pop that’s “so hard to explain/When the heart beats up on the brain.”
So, what’s missing? While the thing’s not meant to be an omnibus, I wonder if there could have been a few other newer voices. How about Dead End Armory, who I think would sound great on a 207 disc, or maybe something from the Cult Maze/Diamond Sharp/Satellite Lot set? The Pubcrawlers, Roy Davis, Vanessa Torres, Emilia Dahlin, Samuel James, Moses Atwood? The list of possibilities is long and I don’t envy Gaylord his job of curator and tastemaker.
