Do it yourself: Learn how to play guitar. Learn how to write a song. Learn how to record. Then, hand-make your album art, your tee-shirts and then, like an infant: learn how to play your music in front of a room full of eyes and ears. If there is one pronounced lesson that the Green Typewriters can impart is that, if music isn’t your bag – whatever is - do it, the only way you can: By yourself. For Gioja and Jared Lacy, this is and isn’t completely true. For while the two of them have cultivated skills on their own, they have amalgamated everything into one act and one (literal, legal) marriage – called: Green Typewriters. Their songs are a little kitsch. They are a little dirty, and unkempt. Their songs are dark circus corners and the torn seams of the sideshow tent – they are oddly jovial but somehow always chasing the monstrous, the misshapen or the unknown. And while some of their songs may imbue some of those hues - if their songs are anything, they are fearless. For while it may not be apparent in their recordings, stand in front of their live show and you will see that the big melodies of Green Typewriters is the sound of six people consolidated into two: poetry, for sure. Certainly the D.I.Y. ethic has fallen prey to contemporary trends – like any good idea, or catchphrase. But unlike the empty skinny jeans, doing something on your own holds a resounding profundity. Interlace notions of a personal work ethic and overwhelming urge to complete yourself by walking a windy, darkened path and you will begin to learn a little bit about what sits inside the Green Typewriters. Neither of the Lacys will tell you that they are musicians. At best, Gioja will impart that she loves the stage – that she has always loved the stage. And if you press Jared he may tell you that he records everything himself and that no, he didn’t learn from somebody else – and no, he didn’t go to school for any of this. Go ahead, ask him anything you want – and if you do pull-out an answer that you can hear over the house music then your next sentiment will likely be along the lines of, “you surely can’t like playing on the stage in front of all those people, could you?” For the spectator, Green Typewriters seem at once pre-meditated and completely conceived on-the-spot. In the middle of it and explicitly articulated, Jared Lacy will tell you that this project is about more than a whim of personal exploration, or some new fancy. Instead, this is a collision of everything that is uncomfortable. This is about growing into the clothing that you always wanted to wear but never could fit into. This is about blossoming into the human being that you always saw in your notebook scribbles. This is about taking all of that anger, frustration and blindness and turning it into a bright light and abounding confidence. And from the darkness, the Green Typewriters find their abundance of light in Gioja’s startling vocals. Her melody lines are what string the blinding light together with the fearful, tearful darkness. Gioja’s vocal electricity hums and purrs and throttles on archetypal patterns of song in-between her spikes of throaty ferocity. And her keyboard work seems to hold up the light long enough for the audience to crawl-in and take a peek at their inner workings. But this is still a fresh endeavor. Just over a year into the act and the Typewriter’s edges are not torn, nor crisply folded and known. The Green Typewriters have just begun. For now, they are excited about their prospects, their energy and just writing their songs as they come and are recorded in their home. But, give them time and their symphony is sure to call for complicated arrangements. For if the Lacys are anything, they are standing in front of the cosmos, wisps of clouds are below them and the enchantment of explaining their journey ahead is written somewhere, in their hand or on a green typewriter in the cosmic dust before them. Be sure to stay abreast of Green Typewriters’ every movement and be sure to get out to a show to catch their brilliance: www.myspace.com/greentypewriters2. |
