Herb Sundays 112: Greg Mendez
The Philadelphia-based songwriter lays down a perfect tableau of songs + revisiting Claire Rousay's Herb 09.
Herb Sundays 112: Greg Mendez (Apple, Spotify)
Art by Michael Cina.
“I just really love these songs, some of them I’ve lived with for a long time and some are things I’ve discovered more recently. They all make me feel something and they all feel like they just should exist and to me those are the benchmarks of a great song.”
- Greg Mendez for Herb Sundays
Quick Housekeeping: I spoke with
for his excellent newsletter on furniture/design/vintage/etc. I featured Sami as Herb 93 last year and go deeper into the topic of “stuff” at hand too. It was fun to share some odds and ends from my cave. Since Sami is so obsessed, I may have to give him my Suede poster. Maybe.
Greg Mendez is a Philadelphia-based songwriter known for his songs of “quiet, lo-fi urgency.” His self-titled album is out now via Forged Artifacts and Devil Town Tapes, and he has a plethora of earlier work and demos on his Bandcamp to fall into. Some show dates are added below, too. I’m excited to catch my first, too.
While Herb Sundays isn’t a new music newsletter, I like to share artists I’ve come to admire even if “off-cycle” (industry speak for ‘no new record coming soon/just out’) to share this discovery. Mendez has been releasing music since 2006, so he’s hardly new terrain for serious critics, but his most recent album from 2023 has attracted new fans like me, so now’s the time. Man with guitar and somber, knowing vocals would work as a description, and I’ll let you decide who he sounds like (it changes for me), but the effect is pretty immediate. He doubles his voice up to give it a richer and more ominous tone and tucks it in the pocket of the mix, which feels right for his songs, lending a hint of danger (and some f-bombs too). Occasionally, there’s a little keyboard dirge, or a second voice comes in out of nowhere. It’s wonderful.
Mendez’s lyrical style is sort of oblique but colloquial, very everyday stuff, maybe similar to what I like about MJ Lenderman (Herb 46) but there’s a prism of the sacred in it, maybe a churchiness which doesn't stop at the sleeve (by Veronica and Greg Mendez), even the little organ intro and the song titles and lyrics suggest this.
On a lyrical tip, I was thinking about what lyric would be fun to print, but soon realized that Greg’s lyrics don’t print with the same feeling of hearing the songs, which I see as a compliment. It shows that the songs are indeed songs, that I don’t need to trace their literal meaning or beauty on the page. Instead, they are fragments of a life. Since we can’t all help but do a T. Swift nod this week, here’s mine (I’ll listen to the new record at some point soon, I’m sure), but a tweet (about a tweet) from Tone Glow’s
that sort of hints at a prosaic attitude about lyrics sometimes, that they have to be “poetry” or that they have to be rich with meaning and allusion, it’s worth a read:
From an interview with Mia Hughes for Stereogum last year, Mendez opens up about the album, which apparently was “recorded while Mendez was on workers’ comp after getting a concussion during a construction job, so some of these songs, he reckons, almost literally fell out of his head.”
MH: What’s the story of you moving to Philly and starting to put music out?
MENDEZ: I moved to Philly in 2006, and I was doing the solo stuff at that point and putting songs up on MySpace that I recorded at home. But I was also in an indie-pop band called Airports that was more like what was going on at the time, like big orchestrated Wolf Parade kinda thing. When I got here was really the first time that I was really introduced to a music scene, with, like, house shows and stuff like that. Everyone was really nice and everyone seemed for the most part really supportive of each other.
He’s also open about his working back from his addiction:
MH: Was that a conscious decision, to focus on songwriting once you got clean?
MENDEZ: It was a conscious decision. It was always what I wanted to do. I feel like everyone I’ve ever known who’s been an addict like that, there’s always something where you’re like, when I stop this, this is what I’m gonna do. It boils down to something to live for, I guess. There’s always something like that, and that was it for me. I wanted to make records and play shows and see the country.
It’s easy to see how Mendez’s sound could be a huge watershed for new fans, and I hope that’s the case. It may already be that way, judging by the numerous pressings of his S/T album that are out of stock (at last check you could get one for 200 Euros from Germany on Discogs). I have been assured there are more pressings coming.
One more shot from the Mendez hit factory:
MH: This is your fourth full-length. Is there anything you’ve learned going into this album?
MENDEZ: I definitely think I got a little bit better at the recording side. And also the arrangements. I don’t have any training in how to do that. I just feel like I did a better job of the way that the different instruments are working together.
MH: What were you going for with that?
MENDEZ: Well, if I’m being completely honest, what I was going for was not what happened at all. In my mind I started making this and I was like, I want it to sound like the Beach Boys. And it does not sound like the Beach Boys at all. There was one song that kinda did, but I cut it. ‘Cause it sounded like the Beach Boys if like, Brian Wilson didn’t understand music.
5/10 - Montreal, QC - La Sotterenea ^
5/11 - Toronto, CA - The Baby G ^
5/13 - Milwaukee, WI - Cactus Club ^
5/14 - Minneapolis, MN - 7th Street Entry ^
5/15 - Chicago, IL - Sleeping Village ^
5/16 - Columbus, OH - Ace of Cups ^
5/17 - Pittsburgh, PA - Club Cafe ^
5/18 - Philadelphia, PA - Johnny Brenda's ^
6/26 - Asbury Park, NJ - The Stone Pony #
9/8 - Philadelphia, PA - The Fillmore ~
9/24 - Lebanon, NH - Lebanon Opera House *
9/25 - Portland, ME - State Theatre *
9/27 - Northampton, MA - Academy of Music Theatre *
^ supporting Babehoven
# supporting Balance and Composure
~ supporting Waxahatchee and Snail Mail
* supporting Angel Olsen
From the Vaults:
Herb Sundays 09: Claire Rousay (Apple / Spotify). Art by Cina.
original text:
🌱 San Antonio-based Claire Rousay is a rising voice in experimental music circles. Her compositions breathe noisily and throw off detritus like “voicemails, haptics, environmental recordings, stopwatches, whispers and conversations” which glint upon discovery, but never with judgement. Her 2021 breakout album, a softer focus, a collaboration with visual artist Dani Toral, is a fragile and colorful starting point to her work. The album combs the faraway beaches of ambient with a metal detector, pulling up fragments of the human experience. Rousay is a great on social media and her appreciation for powerdreck like Switchfoot made me realize she had the Herb Spirit. And so we embark on a playlist of country, outsider folk, and modern pop, in a concise and direct 10 cuts.
Celebrating more sad bastard music, this week saw the release of a new Claire Rousay album, sentiment on the esteemed Thrill Jockey record label, which features guests like more eaze and Hand Habits. Still making my way through it a couple times, but it has an affecting quality, once you settle into the feeling. It’s racking up great reviews and given Rousay’s gift for public storytelling through their socials, you can’t help but share in the enthusiasm. sentiment feels like the sort of record that could really change you at the right age. I revisited Rousay’s Herb 09 playlist back in August, on the same trip at this and was revived, it’s gorgeous, so I’m glad to have another excuse to share.
