HARPOON FOREVER
PRESS CONTACT: bleedinggoldrecords@gmail.com
Available in FRANCE at the Microcultures site here. or La Fabrique Balades Sonores | PARIS, FRANCE or The Stone Records | JAPAN
“I formed Harpoon Forever in Rutherford, New Jersey in the spring of 2010 with my friend Tom Malach, though he and I had been playing music together since high school. I had written a short set of five songs (plus a cover of the Verlaines’ “Death and the Maiden”) over the course of a couple months, and my idea was to make a simplistic/sparse-sounding band where I would play guitar and sing and Tom would play drums. However, a collected love of classic rock (i.e. Boston, Steely Dan, Neil Young/Crazy Horse) and communal 60s/70s English folk-rock/psych (i.e. Fairport Convention, Steeleye Span, Jan Dukes de Grey) made the creation of a full-on-rock-n-roll band nearly inevitable.
One year later and two digital singles later, we see the band’s line up consisting of myself on vocals and guitar, Tom on lead guitar, Danny Arakaki on bass guitar, and Derek Spaldo on drums. I wrote another set of songs that the band had begun to play live, and we had some great times playing shows with Hackamore Brick, Home Blitz, Pujol, and Royal Headache, amongst a slew of other fine groups. We also had the opportunity to collaborate with our favorite Japanese hip-hop plunderphonic-ers Satanicpornocultshop, Orionza, and Hotentot Apron who provided us with krazy remix/dub versions of our tracks “Maya Angelou” and “Summer Vacation.”
However, when it came to recording these songs… we found trouble in broken computers, faulty mics, and mismatched schedules. I had an overall concept figured out for the record, figuring it out with the aid of visual artist/musician/guru Umman Turkoglu, who supplied the cover image for the 7″. It would be a short collection of songs that provided, in a way, a critique of music that only went as far as its image & brand (sorry, can’t name names) while taking an aural journey through the landscape of the Eastern coast of the United States. I had no idea what to call the record, and silly names like “Electrictramp Newman,” “Clovered in a New Room,” and “Folded Jeffrey” became etched into my mind. Carrying the “Folded Jeffrey” title with me, I sheepishly contacted my hero, D.C. Berman, once of the Silver Jews, who very wisely convinced me not to use that goofy selection of words and instead provided me with the support to create the title “Life-Size Cut-Out,” which seemed to tie the cover art, individual songs, and overall theme of the record together. The H.F. ally Kim Tran then put together a simple but sleek back cover, and we were off to the presses!
Spring 2012. The Harpoon Forever Convention has aged two years, but still feels like a newborn, psyched’n’spanked to have an official vinyl release of “Life-Size Cut-Out” on Bleeding Gold Records!”
~~~happy trails~~~
Alex Goldstein, Harpoon-Forever representative
New Brunswick, New Jersey
March 20th, 2012
Press: Bliss/Aquamarine | 7 i n c h e s | Beach Sloth | Village Voice | Very Tiny Songs | The JangleBox | Nu NuLAX NuLAN | The Creative Intersection
Radio/Podcasts: No Pigeonholes | Edinburgh Man | The Underdog Show | WFMU
photo by Joe Duffy
Bleeding Gold 
April 4, 2012 at 6:43 pm
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May 18, 2012 at 3:03 pm
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