Here’s a collection of lo-fi and charming pop from DC’s thriving 1990s scene, with clear, tuneful vocals, a scramble of strummed guitars and the barest minimum of percussion. Glo-Worms’ songs blow in like the freshest breeze, make their casual mark and evaporate in a minute or two. They seem ephemeral, like the music that played the summer you fell in love the first time, but hang around indelibly. More or less contemporary with the Softies and Black Tambourine (singer Pam Berry was in Black Tambourine before Glo-Worm), the band was a precursor to all sorts of girl-forward slacker pop outfits: the Jeanines, Vivian Girls, the Caternary Wires and others.
Glo-Worm was a trio, made up of Berry, Terry Banks on guitar and drummer Dan Searing, that came together in the early 1990s. All three principals were well-known around the Capitol, Pam from Black Tambourine, Banks from Tree Fort Angst and Dan from Whorl. The project only lasted for a couple of years but produced three Eps and this album, which incorporated the previous recordings and originally came out in 1996. This reissue includes all the songs from Glimmer, plus four alternate takes derived from radio sessions from Washington’s beloved WHFS.
The songs are light and lovely, Berry’s bell-clear soprano soaring over a jangle of guitar and drums. Songs like “Change of Heart” are summery, breezy, effortless and bouyant, though, as all good pop music is, tinged with sadness. “Tilt-a-Whirl,” in spinning three-time, showcases Banks’ intricate but easy guitar work, as Berry wafts over him, trilling “on and on, on and on” with bittersweet inflections.
There two really fetching covers, one of the Cure’s “Friday I’m in Love” and another of Petulah Clark’s “Downtown.” The Cure song is full of soft curves and caressing melodies—a set of bells or xylophone notes burble in the background, a song you could live in all summer long. “Downtown” runs a bit rougher, Clash-like guitar clangor going off as Berry embodies 1960s sophistication — at least until the whole band starts whistling. It’s a reminder that everyone in the band had a punk side as well as a twee one and that sweetness goes down better with a bit of the rough.
Glimmer will remind you of other, more innocent times, or at least times that seem that way in retrospect. In any case, if you’re going to live in the past, you could hardly ask for a more inviting example of it. Why not curl up in the Glo-Worms for a while and forget about how the world turned out?
So I re-watched Over The Moon and I got a little excited because I thought surely there will be some gorgeous glow in the dark toys for this, right?
Like how could you NOT make something like a modern revamped version of these bad boys? It’s such an obvious direction to go!
Turns out, no… the marketing department or merch department or whatever department clearly had a terrible and deprived childhood because THIS is what they decided to go with instead.
I am disappointed. Shame. Shame on you and your family and your cow for this.
GLO-WORM & FRIENDS ~ "Huggable Glo-Worm glimmers with happiness every time toddlers lovingly squeeze his cuddly tummy."
Find out more here:
www.ghostofthedoll.co.uk/glofriends.htm
My Little Seapony x3 – plus a taller one with a dog. Seapony Album ‘A Vision’ 31 July 2015 (self release) Buy/ hear here Seattle’s Seapony invite the listener to kick back and let the music do the work on their new album, ‘A Vision’. The tone is hazy and nostalgic, and if the songs don’t immediately take shape and carve themselves indelibly into memory, well, no fret – somehow there simply isn’t…
