R SO: 17 YEARS LATER

Since Amy passed away last month, I have been intent on archiving all the music, video, photos and files I have from our time together as Shitting Glitter. In addition to our two albums and one EP that have been available online and streaming services, we have so much more music that's currently out of print. I have hundreds of video tapes of our performances, and so many photos. 

This week, we have finally made our 2004 single "R So" available again as a grey/purple 7" vinyl single - our only vinyl release to date.

 

In 2003, many things changed for the early lineup of Shitting Glitter. While it had been formed by the nucleus of myself, Amy, and Von (who were a couple at the time), one day I got a phone call that rocked my world. When the dust settled, Amy and Von were split up, and my brother Brandon - who had "temporarily" come to LA to help us produce our debut album - was now in the band, and in a relationship with Amy. I did what I felt I had to do at the time to move forward with the band, and as much as I missed Von being part of the band, I was very glad to be working with my brother again.

One of the first songs we wrote together - me, Brandon, and Amy - was "R So." As with many songs, we started with the title, which was sort of a joke. We realized the initials for "registered sex offender" also sounded like the playground taunt, "are so!" A friend of ours had just been busted for "indecent exposure" in a public park restroom. Cruising for anonymous sex in restrooms has a long and sorded history in the gay community, and Amy wanted to explore the other side of the equation. She completely disagreed with the police tactics employed to entrap homosexuals into committing these acts, even if she also disagreed with those who committed the acts in the first place. So the song ended up dealing with that whole situation, equating the cops with the suspects and questioning who the real victim and perpetrator was. 

We loved the song as we thought it was so powerful, and people really responded to it when we played it live. Around early 2004, I had gotten an e-mail from United Record Pressing, probably the largest vinyl company in the US at that time. They were offering a very good deal on 7" mixed color vinyl singles as a promotion for bands who were headed to the South by Southwest music festival (if I remember right)! Of course we weren't fortunate enough to be part of the festival but we decided to take advantage of the offer and press our first vinyl release - actually, our first "real" release ever, as everything else we had done was made by hand. 

The Art Ghetto was a band we had been performing gigs with, and hanging out with, and the lead singer Thor Stephens had his own label, Trocar Records. So we approached him with the idea of releasing the single on his label and he agreed (we were agreeing to fund it all ourselves, of course). We realized we could fit up to two songs on each side, so we recorded "R So" as the main single, and then we re-recorded "Mechanically Separated Chicken" since we extremely disliked the version we had included on our debut album, Post No Bills. Then we took two songs we had released on our dance EP, Sexy Clown Circus, "Guerilla" and "Slut Buffet." 

We were thrilled to finally have a "45" that we could sell at our gigs, but this being the aughts, vinyl was yet to make it's big comeback. The reaction we mainly got was people saying, "oh wow, they still make records?" Needless to say, we didn't sell a ton of them.

Over the years I had given out a few here and there, but for the most part, the extra copies lived in storage in the backs of Amy and I's closets. When she passed and we were cleaning out her apartment, I found some boxes of these, and I also had a couple boxes at home, so I decided to put them up on our bandcamp page as part of my ongoing efforts to bring Amy's music to even more people. Amy is gone, but whenever I hear her voice now, I remember those early days of our friendship and musical partnership, when our dreams were big and untarnished. These songs were written at a time when we had such a great camaraderie and we were so excited every day to book that next gig or write our next song. Although we had many rough times in the years since then, I can listen to this record and I'm taken right back to Amy's apartment just north of the Viper Room where we wrote "R So" and so many other songs.