Gallus Mag - Share A Little Medication

  by John Clarkson

published: 11 / 11 / 2003

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Review

Gallus Mag are named after a legendary 19th century New York innkeeper and much feared underworld figure, who became famed for dealing with the more obstreperous customers in her bar by biting their ears off. She then displayed these publicly preserving them in an alcohol jar that she kept behind her pub counter. The group, a duo, is the side project of Mike Griffin, the frontman with New York punk trio the Wobblies. He first started collaborating with Gallus Mag’s other member, James Kavoussi, a local producer and engineer, in late 2001 when his regular band was on sabbatical. Always conceived as just a short term project, Gallus Mag played their first and only concert in October of this year, and then promptly broke up. They have, however, disbanded in style, releasing consecutively on Griffin and the other members of the Wobblies' label, Captive Ring, a five track nearly 40 minute album 'Share a Little Medication', which comes beautifully-packaged and presented in a Victorian-style metal “snuff tin”. One might be lead to expect from the duo's choice of name, and Mike Griffin's past recording history, which, as well as the hardcore Wobblies, also includes the Wick Effect, a psychedelic but equally abrasive previous side project, that 'Share a Little Medication' might be a fairly aggressive offering. While Griffin has never quite lost his capacity for anger, it is though a surprisingly mellow album that is bittersweet rather than belligerent, and melancholic in tone rather than vitriolic. The majority of the tracks use hazy, humming sound effects from Kavoussi as a backdrop, in front of which Griffin's gritty guitars and Kavoussi's steady percussion grind and glide. Written in direct reaction to the events of 9/11, Griffin's vocals, often an indignant roar in the past, are whispering and pensive. "Everywhere we walk is in shadows/This day will never end" he sings with horrified awe on the avant-garde, distorted second track 'Peregrine Giant'. The mournful, slow-churning instrumental final track, 'Potter's Field' meanwhile takes its name from a New York pauper’s cemetery which is infamous for its large number of unmarked graves. The album's central focus, however, is  the masterly 15 minute ‘All My Childhood Diseases’. Telling of Griffin’s shock and revulsion at his worst childhood nightmares of destruction having come true, it is divided into three parts. “From this fever I recovered/Another took its place”, he sings in the first segment , his stuttering guitar also thrust to the fore.The song drifts into a rambling, free-flowing, instrumental, before suddenly returning to the original tune, but which this time , however, is played with a vengeance. “All my childhood diseases have never gone away” Griffin howls over and over, his voice for the only time on the album raised to a shout. The effect, despite Griffin’s past achievements , set against the context of the rest of the album, is both surprising and  stunning. ‘Share a Little Medication’, far from just providing something in the interim before the Wobblies’ long-awaited third album comes out next year, reveals a distinctive new and more sensitive side to Griffin’s previously vehement musical personality. He and Kavoussi’s bruised, compassionate look at their city’s disintegration is as moving as it is often tender,and very much stands as a work on its own merit. Like the rest of Griffin’s work ‘Share a Little Medication’ is not an easy option, but this , however, makes for haunting listening.

Track Listing:-