fresh & onlys: early years anthology

These were carefree times. We were young enough to put our bodies to the test every night on the seven-by-seven-mile patch of the Bay. The endless wars seemed less at home. Songs were hanging off the branches heavy, plump and threatening to rot on the vine if they weren’t polished and put to tape. The band was on their third live drummer but the lineup in The Fresh & Onlys’ recording tower was a consistent group of pop soldiers writing, working and whiling away the hours. A beeramid of cheap cans, endless dope smokery and a pretty strong vibe of dudes who would play together into oblivion. 388 rolling, tape spilling over itself, drum kit covered in mufflers, a chest of shitty percussion toys, lots of ideas and multiple secret weapons at their disposal. “Shayde Sartin: the beast from out east, the thud of a heavy slow bomb…the best bass player in the Bay. Unaccredited infinite times on records that were made better by his finely crafted skills. I can pick him out on records instantly. “Wymond ‘The Count’: you can almost smell his hair on his hooks. If there was a stage monitor in your living room his fence-climber boot would be on it. Wymond always has the riff that made the jets of the song take off. Listen and you’ll see what I mean. “Tim Cohen: the man behind the beard. Some would say the leader. In the game as long as Bette Midler. Cohen writes great songs in his sleep, I think. Once referred to by a buddy as ‘like three weirdos in one.’ “Think of these as basement tapes, a companion to the first Fresh & Onlys Castle Face release (which itself deserves another listen). I remember watching some of these tunes get banged out live in a sweat pit in Oakland. The sound guy so gacked out that there was no sound guy, basically.” —John Dwyer, February 16th, 2015