Sarge
- Distant
other
Sarge releases
There was a band named
Sarge. They've disbanded and left us with a scrapbook titled
Distant...
1998
was a breakthrough year. The band's second CD, The Glass Intact,
received rave
reviews in SPIN, Salon, The Village Voice, and the band toured
coast-to-coast from their base in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois.
Sarge closed out the latter half of 1998 by being named "Hot
Band" in Rolling Stone and one of "98 for '98" in
SPIN.
There
were a few lineup changes, 100 more live shows across the US,
some large label
offers, all leading to…Elizabeth Elmore attending law
school at Northwestern University. In the fall of 1999 the
band continued to do weekend warrior live dates in the Midwest
around Elizabeth's class schedule, even extending to NYC in
September for the CMJ Music Marathon. And then, for reasons
best described as contributing-factors-too-numerous-to-enumerate,
Sarge decided to split. And we're all left to wonder what could
have been.
Nevertheless,
Elizabeth has compiled a document in Distant of what was. Booklet
photos
chart the lineup changes. The CD leads off with three new,
unreleased tunes recorded by Sarge's final line-up, Elizabeth
calls them 'demos', we call them smashing and beautiful…
Crackling
with energy the album then lifts off with six dangerously electrified
live
tracks, blistering versions of "Stall", "Fast
Girls", "Half As Far", "Dear Josie, Love
Robyn", Homewrecker" and "The First Morning".
This batch was recorded at Chicago's Cabaret Metro and notorious
Champaign-Urbana rock club Mabel's in 1999, during fellow local
scene heroes Braid's series of farewell shows. The teenage
kicks and twenty-something lusts that made SARGE such a powerful
spectacle on stage are documented herein…
Distant
also includes their cover of CYNDI LAUPER's "Time After Time" from
the "Stall" 7-inch single, available for the first
time on CD, plus SARGE's wholly unreleased version of NANCY
SINATRA's You-Go-Girl classic "These Boots Are Made for
Walkin'", and their cover of WHAM!'s seasonal smash "Last
Christmas" from the 1998 My Pal God Holiday Compilation
appearance.
The album closes with
two new, unreleased acoustic numbers, Elizabeth and her guitar,
pure pathos. And the scrapbook closes.
From the liner notes,
written by Elizabeth:
Well,
this is it. Three new songs, six live, three covers, and
two more to
finish the CD. Most of these songs were never intended for
release. The first three were demos. We had no plans of anyone
but us hearing the live ones but here they are, albeit a
little, um, rough. We played the last Braid shows and since
our friend Lance was recording them, he offered to record
us too. Had I known they'd eventually be released, I might
have tried to sing a little more in tune. Anyway, they're
energetic right? Right. The covers are pretty goofy but we
figured what the hell. The idea for "These Boots…" came
from a bump-and-grind karaoke version I did in Tucson a couple
of years ago. The semi-acoustic version of "the end
of july" is the final song we ever recorded and probably
a pretty fitting ending for the CD. We included as many pictures
as possible from over the years. This CD is sort of our own
personal scrapbook, the good and the bad. We had a great
time doing this band and touring the country. Thanks to all
of you we've met over the years. See you around…
"Sarge understands what you
need from rock & roll: punk guitars, girlie vocals, power-pop
melodies and songs that find new ways to say "Love stinks." That's
what you get on their second album, The Glass Intact, a stripped-down
indie crush party that rocks with swaggering sass." ---Rolling
Stone
" 'I've
been with lots of boys and they've screwed me up,' declares
Sarge's Elizabeth Elmore
on the opening track of The Glass Instact. Then she
lays out a few of her screwed-up experiences. Guys might learn
something from these rocking, well-crafted tunes." ---Robert
Christgau (Playboy, September 1998)
"The
songs on The Glass
Intact are like miniature novels; their narratives collapse
into compact, intense spirals. The more you listen to them,
the more they expand, like a swirl of milk in a cup of coffee,
revealing unmappable love triangles, the joy and terror of
being attracted to a member of the same sex, the emotional
violence you reserve for the people you love most…Nervy,
hopelessly seductive, and hell-bent for trouble and heartache
, The Glass Intact peers at the world through a very dark
lens - but the sun, with both its menace and its warmth,
is never far from view." Stephanie Zacharek (Spin
1998)
"Roughly pop and crisply punk,
this is one of the rare good albums to land tunes first these
days, indubitably fresh despite its verse-chorus-verse and
guitar-bass-drums….You'll encounter not just a sensible
girl but a born writer whose subject is love or relationships
depending on how you look at it. A MINUS" ---Robert
Christgau (Village Voice, May 27 - June 2)
"Indie rock that seethes with
passion and frustration. Sarge's Elizabeth Elmore know how
it feels to be an exile in Guyville. Elmore writes acute, winning
songs that penetrate indie-rock's male veils of irony, aloofness,
and heartache, leaving behind just a sad-looking Wizard of
Mozz." ---David Daley (Alternative Press)
