KELLEY STOLTZ
Antique Glow
THIRD MAN
8/10
WHEN Kelley Stoltz moved to San Francisco at the start of the millennium, he intended to record an album with his flatmate, a drummer. But after his friend began to take more of an interest in the bars than his bass drum, Stoltz took matters into his own hands. He taught himself to drum and acquired a Tascam 388 eight-track reel-to-reel tape recorder. He wedged his mic into a half-open drawer for a mic-stand and when he needed bass, he detuned his guitar. But the coup de grace was a huge old two-deck keyboard loaded with effects that he found for $50 in a Salvation Army charity shop and wheeled home on a skateboard. He dubbed it his “granny organ”.
Using this rudimentary gear he recorded 2001’s , a landmark in home-production techniques thanks, showcased his excellent songwriting in the form of a hard-earned gift for hooks inspired by his love of ’60s pop – a vinyl nut, he worked in a record shop during the day – but also his ability to pull apart melodies and rebuild them in complex and unexpected arrangements. This homespun approach would be influential and extended to the art: each of the 300 vinyl LPs had a unique cover Stoltz painted himself over the sleeves of old records. They were sold at a loss but reaped long-term rewards when Ben Blackwell, passing through SF with the Dirtbombs, picked one up and loved it. Blackwell now works at Third Man Records, where he nurtured this 20th-anniversary reissue, which returns to vinyl and features some of Stoltz’s unused original artworks in a diecut sleeve that creates six different covers, a nod to the original conceit.
