Week in Pop: Gary's House, Keith More-Fire, Tee Vee

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Bill Baird

San Francisco’s patron saint of all things pop & not—Bill Baird; press photo appears courtesy of the artist.

Our longtime champion & hero Bill Baird blessed us with the new striking single “Walking In A Straight Line” ahead of the artist’s upcoming dual releases of the albums Easy Machines & Baby Blue Abyss available July 28 from Red Essential. Baird taps into our own indulgent collective psyches to give us all illustrations of all the catchy acronyms & anachronisms along with all their corresponding cliches that are the source of endless obsession. This is a song for everyone that loves that old modern time sound, along with all those that love their contemporary lo-fi freaks & maximalist hi-fi heroes of the scene while Bill continues to play it the way he senses it & hears it that obviously operates on arrangement instructions from a higher order than we have ever known or understood. Baird elaborated upon the song’s robotic square dance beginnings with the following insights:

I pulled out the trusty 1950’s Gibson Lap Steel and, remembering some quote from Jimi Hendrix about doing 24 tracks of guitar, tried to create a weave of interlocking parts that each reinforce each other. It was all really quick and intuitive. I played it for some friends and they were like, What the hell is this? but with a smile on their face. So it felt like I’d caught something.