In a nostalgic nod to Cleveland’s gritty post-punk scene, Doug Gillard, best known as the guitarist for Guided By Voices, has just reissued A Duty-Dance With Death today, a 1984 cassette from his teenage band, Children’s Crusade. This remastered collection captures the raw energy of Cleveland’s post-punk underground, where Gillard and vocalist Fraser Sims first experimented with intense, gothic-tinged sounds influenced by local heroes like Pere Ubu and The Dead Boys as well as UK post-punk icons. Released today, this album is the second release on Robert Pollard’s new label, Splendid Research.
In this interview, Doug dives into what it was like to revisit this music after so many years, how the project shaped his path as a musician, and how he thinks Children’s Crusade would have evolved in today’s music industry. For Guided By Voices fans and new listeners alike, this is a rare look at Doug Gillard’s roots in the DIY Cleveland scene of the 1980s.
We’re grateful to Doug for sharing his time and stories as he revisits A Duty-Dance With Death. Read on below for his insights into the release, and be sure to grab a copy at your local record store or directly from Rockathon Records HERE.
The Fire Note: Reissuing music from your teen years must feel like stepping into a time capsule. What was it like revisiting the material from Children’s Crusade after so many years?
Doug Gillard: It was exciting to be able to hear the individual tracks again after 40 years. I had always had the tapes, but didn’t think I’d be able to get them baked and transferred successfully, as the format was odd- 2 reels that were synced up during recording, so I knew there would be some drift between the tapes. The chances of the 2 machines they had at this small project studio in Elyria Ohio in 1983/4 being perfectly calibrated and running at the same exact speed weren’t super high, but there wasn’t too much nudging we had to do. The engineer I worked with there at the time was professional and knew his stuff. He was literally the adult in the room. I was legally one, having just turned 18, but i barely knew shit about tape machines, outboard gear and mixing boards. It was just he and I, except the day Fraser recorded his vocals. One thing I remember about that day was that he had to get them all done, as he was leaving for the Army the next day.
TFN: What do you think Children’s Crusade represents about the time and place where you recorded it?
Doug: We were high schoolers that were already in bands playing in Cleveland bars despite our ages, though we still lived in a relatively suburban area. Fraser’s mom was from Scotland, so he had visited the UK and brought back incredible records a couple years prior to this project. It was a combination of this plus what we heard on college radio at the time that went into the musical direction, and Fraser’s lyrics were somewhat tailored to fit this sort of thing, but some were short stories and poems he had written the past few years. A couple drew on experiences he/we had had. “Betrayal In Three Acts” is about a breakup he went through, even though I sing lead on that one. He was a fully developed and mature writer at 15 when we met, and that’s one of the main reasons the titles and lyrics of this project and his hardcore band Starvation Army seem to belie his age.
The style I was writing in was drawing on music that was released 2-3 years prior in the UK mostly, though one was a Chrome type thing, which was San Francisco. The town we lived in wasn’t rife with this kind of stuff in its veins, though MTV was going by then. We were definitely 2 of 3 or 4 kids in our school even into this or were aware of Siouxsie, Chameleons, Killing Joke, or Chrome, etc… Even though we were playing out a bit in the city in other bands, it’s not like the music was a product of living on my own, trying to make rent and what I got from the hot nights & city streets and all that. I was still a few months away from moving out and getting hit with that full force.
TFN: Looking at how music production and distribution have changed since the 1980s, how do you think Children’s Crusade would have been a different band if you were starting out in today’s industry?
Doug: It definitely would have been different. We may have been kids that grew up on YouTube tutorials to learn guitar & had way different influences. Recording wouldn’t have been on analog tape, and I’m grateful to have had that first experience of being able to run around and play all the stuff while the poor engineer dutifully tracks the weird-ass music a couple kids want to do.
TFN: Looking back, how do you think your experience with Children’s Crusade shaped your musical path? Do you hear echoes of your teenage self in any of your more recent work?
Doug: I do. I think that kind of stuff has always been a part of things I play, parts I make up, etc… There’s always a little John McGeoch or Geordie [Walker] influence that seeps through sometimes, and more often that, James Honeyman-Scott for sure. That was what I was into then for a few years, but later that same year (1984) I joined the newly formed Death Of Samantha, which was more a mélange of Dream Syndicate-style Paisley Underground, fucked up Gun Club americana, and a hint of 70s glam. I did music for the project Lifeguards (with Robert Pollard) and the feel of “Product Head” was inspired by this post-punk influence, in particular a couple songs on Joy Division’s Closer.
Playing all the instruments on the record & pretty much producing it I’m sure helped shape me for writing in the band Gem and some of the other collaborative projects I was involved with in that it made me think about the whole musical picture & not just one part. We recorded & mixed this Chil Cru tape pretty quickly, and I wasn’t well versed in how to engineer or ‘produce’, but it proved to me what I was capable of, and just knowing I that could even achieve whatever this was at the time opened up possibilities & gave me a modicum of confidence.
TFN: What is the one song from Children’s Crusade that stands out to you now as especially meaningful or even ahead of their time?
Doug: It’s hard to say, because I know where the songs come from, or what we were sort of trying to sound like, which was stuff that was already a couple years old. I guess in these songs resulting from digesting those influences, they became their own thing. “Decade Of The Worm” to me probably is the most sophisticated thing I’d written up to then, & I dig the chord progressions of that and “Lurker On The Threshold”. Lyrically, I think “Betrayal” is timeless, and anyone today would do well to be able to write bitter breakup lyrics as good and as pithy as those.
TFN: For people hearing Children’s Crusade for the first time with this reissue, what do you hope they take away from it?
Doug: I hope they can hear some developed but not too overthought songs with some catchy chords, some pretty good riffs and descriptive lyrics – some being to the point, some relatable and heartrending, some stopping just short of vivisection.
TFN: Any fun comments about this release from your GBV bandmates? How do you think the loyal Guided By Voices fanbase will respond to this album?
Doug: Yeah I’ve had positive comments from the band for sure. Bob owns the cassette from years ago, and wanted to hear it on vinyl. That’s why he agreed to put it out on Splendid Research, and I’m extremely grateful. I’ve no idea how fans of the band will respond, but I’ve heard some nice things already, so that’s great.
TFN: Did working on this reissue ignite some interest in making another album in the style of Children’s Crusade?
Doug: Not yet, but Fraser and I recorded more Chil Cru material in 1985 after he left the Army, which never got released until 1990. We played a few shows in ’85 as well. It’d be fun to do some more music along these lines. We’ll have to see where we’re at in a few months. I may incorporate more of this kind of thing into my own stuff, though I always have in a way. Hearing this again did send me down a deep-dive revisiting all things Joy Division and early New Order. Unknown Pleasures was one of the albums Fraser brought back from the UK and we certainly spent time absorbing that. Surprising just how many books and podcasts exist devoted to this history. It’s fun to read & hear the different members’ memoirs. The movies were cool, but you really want to hear it from those who lived it, y’know?
TFN: Finally, what’s next for you musically?
Doug: There are more GbV albums on the horizon, I’m working on solo things, and one of the projects I recorded with Scarcity Of Tanks’ Matthew Wascovitch – band name Flowers Destroy has an album called Hawks Listen that is being released right now I think (Nov. 15). It’s Matt on vocals, Jonny Bell on bass, Raul Morales drumming, and Norm Westberg & I on guitars. We recorded it during the first years of the pandemic, and it’s on Total Life Society records.
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