Looking up now-defunct indie bands from the pre-internet days can be a bit challenging, but luckily Discogs and Bandcamp usually lead you to some details. Throw in a band name that is particularly search-resistant, like “Slumber” and you must work a little harder to get at a snapshot of a band’s heyday rather than a sleeping bag on Amazon.
Slumber was a band from Philadelphia that I remember from 90s college radio. In fact, that’s the Slumber Bandcamp ID. Their song “Bell Boy!” made its way onto episode 8 of _____ mood. The song appeared on the compilation CD Sounds From Psychedelphia. The compilation was put out in 1998 by Lounge Records, a label started by The Asteroid No. 4, another band based in Philadelphia (back then anyway). Rocket Girl put it out in the UK not long after.
Thanks to Bandcamp and that obvious URL connecting them with Philly, I was able to get in touch with Gabe Zashin, one of the founders of Slumber. I wanted to know something more about how “Bell Boy!” was recorded and the band’s history more generally. Gabe kindly took me for a stroll down memory lane and we also took a detour to Grayson Lane.
Who was in the band Slumber? You were based in the Philadelphia area, right?
The band started around 1992, but had a different name (Push Daisies, Whirl, some others, I think) and some different configurations originally. The band was Meg - vocals, Ethan - guitar, Mike - guitar, Anthony - bass, and me - drums, and then later Anthony left so I took over bass and Steve joined on Drums. That was around 1994 and we became Slumber
Originally from New Jersey (New Brunswick), but most of the members moved to Philly at some point (95?) so at that point we were Philly-based.
Did Slumber release any singles or albums?
We self-released this single and the somewhat posthumous, a Grayson Lane single on Drive-in Records. Sadly we never got around to releasing a full album.
I’m assuming you played live at local clubs? Any memorable clubs or bands that Slumber played with?
Originally, we played at various clubs in Central NJ, and occasionally in NYC. I can't remember most of the venues, but the Melody Bar in New Brunswick was the best. In that period the best band we played with was probably Midway Still (I think). Also, oddly enough, we played a Rutgers University show with the Bouncing Souls, who are still going, I think, which was a weird pairing, but they were probably the most popular local band at that time. In Philly we played at the good small clubs of the time (Khyber Pass, Upstairs at Nicks, etc), often with other bands in the scene at the time like Lenola, Asteroid #4, etc. I do remember our first-ever show in Philly was at Doc Watson's with some metal band where we had to do the sound ourselves and got paid with a pizza, lol. For the most part we were not that ambitious in playing live though, although we did it fairly often for a while (95-96), but we were too lazy to have a manager or go on tour.
“Bell Boy!” is an incredible track, I love love love those psychedelic guitar freakouts in the left ear! Is there a story behind this song and/or how it was recorded?
Thank you! Mike and Ethan did get a good blend with two very different guitar playing styles. The story of this song is we were trying to get down from three or two chords to one, which I think we did. We had a couple other one-note songs at the time too. At the time, one of the guys in the Asteroid #4 had a studio set up in NE Philly, maybe in Trevose. They had met a guy from England named Richard who was a professional engineer and wanted us to record a few songs there for the compilation CDs one of the Asteroid #4 guys put out. I remember that Richard was cool, but spent longer tuning the drums than the rest of the recording. But I thought the songs came out pretty good. One other song was released on Sounds from the Philadelphia Low Orbit Lounge, "Calling All Cars". It’s a bit more poppy, but probably my favorite Slumber track personally.
"Calling All Cars" was popular at my college station.
Cool to hear. We aren't sure why it's called “Calling All Cars,” or what the lyrics were about, only Meg knew.
So it's Meg on vocals for “Bell Boy!”?
Yes, Meg did all the singing, or most, once we became Slumber. Earlier she sang some, but the guitarists also both sang, especially Mike. I tried to encourage them to let Meg be the main singer so they could focus on the guitars, which got to a much cooler level at that point. You can find some of the "pre-Slumber" songs on Bandcamp.
"Longer tuning the drums" ... lololol ... isn't there a scene in 24-Hour Party People like this with Joy Division?
It's possible -- the Brits are pros. You can't have poorly tuned drums. I'd have to watch that again though, has been a while.
Does anyone know what happened to Richard the drums-obsessed sound engineer?
No, I never saw him after the recording session. I remember he had worked with The Fall, so it may be this guy named Richard Whelan, but there isn't too much info out there. He's probably out there somewhere.
So with "Bell Boy!" do you consider it to have a more psychedelic influence thanks to The Asteroid No. 4 or not really? To me, this song and probably something by The Asteroid No. 4 are what I would play for someone who is unfamiliar with the Philly sound of that time.
I think A4 were going for a more Pink Floyd / traditional psych sound, we were kind of influenced by the bands of the time obviously (Spacemen 3/Spiritualized, the Verve - you can definitely hear that one on a song called “Violet,” basically our guitarist wrote a Verve song there) but we also listened to a lot of krautrock like Can and space rock. I remember one time sitting around before a show, and we were thinking, it might be better just to go on, put on Tago Mago, and dance on stage, instead of playing our set. We didn't actually do that but it would have been easier. No gear to carry.
One of the cool things about the "psychedelphia" scene was I think all the bands kind of sounded different. Lenola were amazing live and doing a kind of MBV guitar meets indie rock, Asteroid #4 were trad psych, then they were mod, then they did a little Gram Parsons-esque stuff, Azusa Plane were more lo-fi and avant-garde, Bent Leg Fatima were a little more art rock.
The collection of Slumber recordings on Bandcamp features at least two that were released as Grayson Lane - can you tell me the story of the connection between the bands / musicians involved in either project?
So, Slumber broke up for various reasons, around the end of '96 I guess, mostly just not getting along that well anymore, but I had recorded the songs for the Grayson Lane 7 inch on a 4-track, and had been talking to Mike from Drive-In Records, which was a little indie pop label, and he still wanted to put it out. Since the band was no more, and there was in fact an obscure UK indie pop band also called "Slumber" I decided to change the name for the release. The one song "Memory Man" is the full band, the other two are just Meg. In fact, John Peel supposedly played one of those on his show once.
Meg is a little bit famous now if you Google her or look on Discogs. She kept up with music as an actual career. Also, she was the most talented :-). Well, I should say Steve was a fantastic drummer, sadly he committed suicide about 15 years ago. Mike and Ethan were pretty good too.
Yes, I know of Meg's solo work a bit and most recently her collab with harpist Mary Lattimore - oh gosh, swoon, it's so lovely!
I’ve got to ask, why the name Grayson Lane?
I had to come up with something and I *think* it was the street my parents lived on when I was born. Pretty sure. Anyway it sounded cool at the time I guess.
Do you have fond memories of the time period, making music?
Absolutely, though there was some heartache too, but overall it was a lot of fun. Once we got to a point where we were actually pretty decent, people wanted to do different things, had OK jobs, etc. I'm still somewhat in touch with the other band members, and see some of them occasionally.
And of collaborating with other bands, labels or scenes in other places like Michigan?
We were definitely part of the mid-90s Philly space rock scene for a bit there, and played a bunch of shows with those bands, mostly at the Khyber. We probably, uh, collaborated in smoking a few joints with them. The label that released the Grayson Lane 7 inch was in Michigan, but we never really got out of the local scene. I was also very into twee / indie pop type stuff, and had connections through various mailing lists in the early days of the internet.
Interesting that you note you were very much local to the Philly scene. Weirdly I always felt that Philly kept to itself - I don't know why I had this idea. I grew up in New Hampshire and did college radio there, loved The Asteroid No. 4 and the things that Lounge Records put out... but nobody ever came up to Boston to play, it seemed. Later I moved to Jersey City and went to grad school in NYC and Philly was so close, yet still so far and disconnected. Maybe it's different now?
Yeah, Philly may be sort of insular. It's far enough from NYC and DC to be a little too far to drive that often, lol. I always felt like NYC didn't really have a scene, at least in the 90s/2000s, because it was too big and too expensive. Might have just been looking from a distance. Obviously Brooklyn became the thing more recently, but now it's super expensive to live there too.
Drive-In Records… I have a couple of old 7 inches and I find it remarkable that bands from Michigan were on vinyl with bands from Australia - for the time anyway. I guess it didn't occur to me to be a big deal at the time, but now I think it is. I'm also someone who misses compilations of various artists and split 7 or 10 inch releases just for the sheer exposure to new things that are similar sounding. I guess there's no point now that we are guided by algorithms. What do you think? How do you discover new things that you like nowadays?
Yeah, the indie pop scene was and still is pretty small, but it's worldwide and pretty friendly, if a bit cliquey. There was this indie pop list that everyone was on, people who had labels, etc. It overlapped with the more dream pop genres too, basically non-punk/hardcore DIY (that was a different scene mostly). I think most of those comp type releases have migrated online to Bandcamp, etc, which is one of the main places I find new stuff. Also, Discogs is useful for finding things; you can look up a band you like, and then find all the other bands the same members have played in, and then the complete discographies of them all and the labels that released their stuff, and then spend all your $$ on records too.
Some of the good labels have survived since the 90s for example Slumberland and Shelflife, so I still keep up with those and find related bands that way. I think since anyone can release anything, labels have maybe had to specialize more to have a niche. I guess it's good and bad, in the pre-internet or early internet days, there was more mystery. I like to tell a story of how there was a girl in my high school class, who was so cool and cute, and she said that she was into "Robyn Hitchcock and the Egyptians." WTF was that?! Sounded so exotic. We had to go to the record store that had imports and mags like NME and try to find out what the deal was... since it was before he was on MTV and there was no Google. But it's definitely easier to find stuff and interact with people, here we are after all. How about you? Do you use Spotify to get suggestions?
I am not really a Spotify user, but I started putting playlists there because a friend suggested it and I realize that’s where people tend to listen. I like getting suggestions from real people, people you come across who seem to have good taste in music. In these exchanges we’ve had about Slumber, we’ve already shared some good stuff with each other. I’m an avid listener and like getting tips from real people, maybe something that was fostered by the college radio community I was part of in the mid/late 90s. But now, podcasts and these ‘mixtape’ shows, like the one I make, are things I really appreciate and discover things through. There are people behind them and they care about what they pull together. My favorite music discovery podcast is Sonixcursions. Mixcloud is a gold mine, but compared to Bandcamp it’s super clunky for finding things. So, then it’s a matter of figuring out who the people are behind these mixtape shows and following them for suggestions. I’m not shy in reaching out to people to tell them I like what they do.
Was college radio a thing you followed at the time or useful to Slumber or other bands you worked with?
I did follow college radio some, but I can't remember the Rutgers station being interested in the local New Brunswick scene much. I don't think we ever had any contact with any stations in NJ or Philly. We were kind of oblivious to promotion though.
Do you or others from Slumber still make music?
Yes, as noted, Meg is kind of famous in certain scenes as a solo act and in various bands. She has toured everywhere. Ethan did a bit of noise rock for a while, I released a few albums for mostly other friends on a "label" of which you may find this most interesting.
Steve was the drummer, he also played with Lilys and Asteroid #4 post-Slumber.
I still dabble a little: TIME VANS. At some point I will finish a few more songs, I hope.
Assuming that you were good friends with Steve, I'm sorry that you lost a friend and bandmate in that way. Terrible. I didn't realize he played with an iteration of The Lilys. I saw Kurt play many times in Cambridge, MA and then in NYC and of course it was different each time and he is kind of a mind-blowing performer, lol.
Yeah, it was too bad. We were still friends but didn't see each other that much. If you ever had a friend or loved one commit suicide, it's not something you could ever really fully understand. He played on at least one Lilys record and one or two A4 records. I agree Kurt Heasley is fairly amazing, and pretty off the wall. I have met him a couple times here and there.
Any bands, genres or albums that you really enjoy today?
I'm definitely into the whole shoegaze revival of the past 5 to 10 years, the Slowdive comeback album was great, hope their upcoming one is too. But new bands like Blankenberge, Soft Kill (maybe more of a darkwave band), DIIV, Nothing, etc. are all pretty great. Music generally still one of my main interests. Have way too many records.
Additionally, I'd like to note that I reached out to Meg about the slumber song "Bell Boy!" and this is what she told me...
Meg, I wanted to ask you about a very old song you did with Slumber back in the 90s, “Bell Boy!”. I included this song on my mixtape show recently (I love love love it) and have enquired with Gabe about it. Do you have a memory or story of recording the song?
“Thank you for finding that song… I don’t have any specific memories or stories to share except that I am sure the title, the energy all comes from that excitement you can feel with friends over loving music, film, culture, all of that. I am sure the title must have been some kind of fun private joke based on Quadrophenia shared with Steve Keller and amplified by his effervescent humor and social observations. I miss him so much.”
Thank you for this Slumber 101 and for answering all of my questions, Gabe. And thank you Meg and Gabe for sharing some memories. I imagine some of them might be difficult to go back to, especially losing your friend and band mate Steve. I very much enjoy these short stories about music that people made 25+ years ago - it's also a healthy reminder of all the "stuff" that can inform our creativity.
Richard, if you’re still out there tuning drums, get in touch!