Listening to Chris Bryers makes me feel sad.
And not simply the kind of sad that is a response to his signature brand of Midwestern melancholy. It’s mostly the realization that as such a prolific and distinctive song-writing talent, Chris has been mainly celebrated only by those who remember him from his long resumé of Western Michigan/Kalamazoo bands… such as Selling Heaven, Owsla, twitch, Sleet, and Knives Are Quiet.
Perhaps he’s not the average listeners’ most immediately resonant melodic voice – I mean, how many hugely familiar pop stars offer Peter Gabriel and Roger Miller (Mission of Burma) as primary influences?
Also, he remains somewhat “below the radar” personally — although not entirely reclusive to the extent of – say – the comparable Kalamazoo superstar Brent Oberlin (Thought Industry, Genius Hired Guns, Cosmonaut).
When Bryers’ ‘Hazel and The Black Rabbit’ album hit CDBaby.com, I was ready with money in hand, and bought that thing immediately. I burnt a disc to play in the car while I drove to-and-from work, and that commute CD-R is still spinning now, many months later.
I never spoke to Chris in person. I used to pester those Thought Industry guys all the time at shows, but when I finally got to see twitch live, the closest thrill I got was witnessing Kevin Oberlin’s amusement at my home-made Druglord sticker.
At that twitch show, I had one of those old-school mini tape recorders in my pocket, and caught a good amount of the back-and-forths with some of the more vocal audience members. One dude started shouting “WHO’S THE DANCER?!?”, because Chris was…well…dancing. He was that adept at transforming his vision of lyrical despair and poetic, mournful woe into a cascading hard rock sonic “movie”: he danced while he sang…because it made sense.
To me, Chris (and his then long hair) looked like a combination of Snake from Voivod (who I revered immensely) and Jim Morrison (who I understand perished of his own vices).
On ‘Birds‘, there’s a song that opens with the lyrics “All my friends have holes in their souls”. The first time I heard that line, I bumped forward to the next track: it seemed a silly lyric…I figured I could check that particular track out later.
The second time I played that song, I fucking cried: He’s exactly that kind of talent.
If you are a Michigan music fan, you need to listen to Chris Bryers. If you are anywhere else, please do the same. Check out his Myspace page for the most current info and sounds; and damn if last time I looked he wasn’t friends with both Kate Bush and Roger Eno.
Right on.
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