The Bollard Bulletin for April 14, 2025
Local Music Monday: Gum Parker foils the AI auto-correct dictatorship
Local Music Monday
“Did you mean: ‘Asian Robot’ Galen Richmond
“No results containing all your search terms were found.”
No, Google, I meant what I typed: “‘Agian Trobot’ Galen Richmond.” As in, the first notable indie-rock band formed by longtime Portland musician and record-label owner Galen Richmond. And a few more things while you’re listening (and you’re always listening, aren’t you?)…
In the English language, Alphabet Inc., the first line of your response to my query, a question (“Did you mean…”), should end in a question mark. Your grammar is ass.
You and all the other AI-powered, auto-correcting digital Brownshirts, including Substack, need to step off my shit. You’re consistently turning proper names into commonly used words despite their capitalization. I’m constantly correcting your automatic “corrections” because you’re fundamentally stupid and inherently antagonistic to any ethnic or artistic manipulation of words and names.
To quote The Dead Milkmen, referring to a mall record chain in 1988’s “Punk Rock Girl”: “If you don’t got Mojo Nixon then your store could use some fixin’.” Likewise, if your artificially intelligent, pseudo-omniscient search engine can’t find Agian Trobot, even given the hint of its locally famous founder’s name, why are we burning every last drop of oil and fresh water on the planet to power this colossal mistake machine?
The fact that Agian Trobot — an unconventional separation of the term “A Giant Robot” — prompts you to insert that little red-dotted underline denoting a misspelled word, but the Nazi combination of “Brown” and “shirts” is deemed correct, probably answered that last question.
I bring this up for two reasons. The first is that Galen has been making jangly rock music for a long time, since before almost every band had a social media page and songs on streams for search engines to find. Agian Trobot was followed by Computer at Sea, a weirdly wonderful, solo electro-pop project. Several years ago he started Repeating Cloud, a small label that’s released albums by standout punk and indie groups from Maine and away like Crystal Canyon, Little Oso, Mouth Washington, Crunchcoat, and his own outfit, Lemon Pitch, which includes fellow singer/songwriter and guitarist Brock Ginther of Midwestern Medicine.
Galen’s latest musical vehicle is Gum Parker, a mini-supergroup that also includes drummer Jeff Hamm, Crunchcoat guitarist Jason Unterreiner playing lead, and bassist and vocalist Kate Sullivan-Jones of The Outfits and The English Muffins. Which brings me to the second reason: Galen’s tendency to auto-self-correct.
Having practiced the craft for over a quarter-century, the dude knows how to write and record catchy college rock like the chord changes are tattooed on the back of his fretting hand. The first few songs on Gum Parker’s debut album, The Brakes, follow the verse-chorus-solo-verse-chorus formula as if they were compelled to do so by some sinister auto-correct music producer. The energy on opener “Two Subarus” is excitingly high and I dig that this band has a decidedly more ragged sound than Lemon Pitch. When Kate takes over lead vocals on “Not Breaking Rocks,” it’s a refreshing change, but the formula persists.
Around the halfway point, however, Gum Parker comes into its own. “The Hive,” with Kate on lead, rocks with more aggression and urgency than we’ve come to expect. Same with “Crocodile,” on which Kate handles the verses and Galen and the guys shout along on the chorus.
The downtempo “Silver Medalist,” with Galen singing again, addresses the seldom lyrically explored topic of the responsible friend or partner to an endearing but reckless friend or lover. “I’m gonna pass it off as charming and probably you should do the same,” he sings in his wordy way. “Treat it like a shot-out disposable camera, then you’re gonna leave with what you came with.” “Thumbtacks” sneaks a little alt-country into the mix before closer “Bird in the Furnace” delivers a blistering kiss-off.
Gum Parker is already really good. This debut points to great things ahead. And by the way, Google, Agian Trobot does exist online, referenced in an interview with drummer Spade (a.k.a. Ted Homer) that local R&B singing star Megan Jo Wilson conducted for The Bollard in the first week of our existence. I made the band’s name a tag, and you still can’t find it. Methinks you don’t really care.
Highlights
California psych-rock band La Luz conjures dreamy grooves grounded by guitarist and songwriter Shana Cleveland’s recent bout with breast cancer and new motherhood. Fellow West Coast sonic space travelers Color Green open at SPACE (538 Congress St., Portland) at 8 p.m. Tix: 25 (all ages).
Author and researcher David Vermette gives an enlightening talk titled, “Couldn’t Have Done It Without Us: How Franco-Americans Saved the US Economy,” about the key role French-speaking immigrants in Maine and elsewhere played in the textile industry that powered our post-Civil War boom times, at the University of Southern Maine’s Lewiston-Auburn campus (51 Westminster St., Lewiston) at 6 p.m. Free.