the grassy knoll

a bio written by Bradley Bambarger

In the late 1990s, The Grassy Knoll was on the leading edge of a new kind of music, a darkly artful mix of the electric and the organic, of digital sampling and analog virtuosity. It was the sound of rock, jazz and electronica melded into a sometimes sly, sometimes seething and always forward-minded infusion. Salon dubbed The Grassy Knoll’s music “groundbreaking and futuristic.” Billboard magazine went further, describing those early albums on Nettwerk and Antilles/Verve this way: “A soundtrack for the conspiracy theory in your mind, The Grassy Knoll fuses the technical terrorism of the Bomb Squad with the organic impact of Miles Davis’ Jack Johnson – industrial-strength beats vying with serpentine sax solos, ambient-noir atmospheres cloaking coiled aggression... Cut-and-paste style, it effectively blurs the line between Birdland and clubland.” The albums featured such edgy instrumental stars as Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth, avant-jazz saxophonist Ellery Eskelin and genre-defying violinist Carla Kihlstedt. And tastemakers from Shirley Manson of Garbage to guitarist Vernon Reid of Living Colour were among the faithful, singing the praises of albums The Grassy Knoll (1994), Positive (1996) and III (1998), as well as new-century addendum Short Stories (2003). After a long break from the scene, The Grassy Knoll made an inspiring return in late 2014 with Electric Verdeland Vol. 1 and again in fall 2020 with EP01. Before the series of EPs continues – with new music already in the can – The Grassy Knoll, a/k/a multi-instrumentalist and producer Nolan ‘Bob’ Green, is releasing Short Stories Redux, a revamped and remastered edition of Short Stories. This reissue will be available digitally on Bandcamp and via all streaming services on August 6, 2021, from Electric Verde Records.

The Grassy Knoll’s music sounds as vivid as ever, with that fact underscored by filmmakers relying on key recordings for sonic scene-setting. FX’s sci-fi hit series Legion incorporated the track “The Art of Fear” (from Electric Verdeland Vol. 1), while the creators of Netflix’s recent Bobby Kennedy for President used “Corrosion of the Masses” (from Positive) as the theme music for the docu-series. So, with new buzz for The Grassy Knoll among kindred spirits, it’s an ideal time for Green to have revisited Short Stories, his most unsung release. When originally creating Short Stories in the early 2000s, Green was exploring new territory by incorporating abstracted spoken word into looser tracks that had a garage-rock feel. He collaborated with poet Becca Ayers, cutting and pasting her recitations into his live-wire soundscapes. Bay Area jazz trumpeter Chris Grady returned from previous Grassy Knoll projects (with his Milesian horn like ghostly counterpoint in downtempo album highlight “In the Winter of ’72”). But the biggest sound source was Green himself, not only as bassist and sample-savvy producer but also as a gritty guitarist. In reconsidering Short Stories – an indie release that flew under the radar at the time – Green sought to refocus the album, trimming the running order down to his seven favorite tracks; he also tapped noted restoration and remastering engineer Jessica Thompson (who also mastered Electric Verdeland Vol. 1 and EP01). She clarified the sound, getting it closer to what Green had in his head at the time. Such standout tracks as “Burn” and “The Confounded Bridge” have come to fresh life, resonating like the soundtrack to a noir movie in your mind; the music grooves and grinds hard, the words like a femme-fatale whispering in your ear.

About the album, Green explains: “Short Stories was a departure for me. It was the first time I had worked with any vocals, and it was a more lo-fi production compared to my first three albums. It was also more of a ‘played’ record, although there are plenty of samples on there. I was going for a loose feel, with live guitars as the basis for the tracks, most of those captured in one take. I loved that garage-y sound, particularly with something like the big rock riff that powers ‘Carrie, Carrie, Carrie,’ but I’ve always had something of an ambivalent feeling about the album. Part of that is because it was a dark time in New York City, where I was living at the time, and for me. I made it just after 9/11, as the track ‘They Found Another Arm Today’ references. I was in a hermetic, alienated state of mind, just DJing a bit around town, working on these tracks and probably spending way too much time by myself. I dug what Becca Ayers did with words, so I invited her to record some of her poetry onto a DAT machine I lent her. Then I cut up her readings and worked phrases into the tracks. She never heard the music beforehand. I abstracted the recitations quite a bit, using her words to my dark-minded ends.”

Another source of Green’s ambivalence about the original version of Short Stories was that he was never fully satisfied with the sound of the record, considering it a bit unfinished. Unfortunately, his hard drive with all the original multi-tracks for Short Stories was stolen. “But I was talking with Jessica Thompson about new technological tools she had been working with, and that gave me the idea of having her help me subtly improve the sonics of the album,” he says. “Using just the CD as the master, she was able to dig into the music, clean some mud out of the sound, and even sink the vocals further down, so that we could highlight the instrumental parts more. She did a wonderful job, helping me remake/remodel the sound of the music to a degree. Then I eliminated a few tracks to focus on the core of the record, making it a more cohesive album. There are a few bands around now who have been incorporating spoken word into their music, like Dry Cleaning and Black Country, New Road, so it seems like this kind of thing is in the air at the moment, making the reissue seem timely. Short Stories Redux is now the album that should have been – and I hope more people get a chance to hear it this time around.” 

A New Era for The Grassy Knoll

The December 2014 release Electric Verdeland Vol. 1 signified a new era for The Grassy Knoll, with Green now crafting music at his Electric Verde studio in Austin, Texas. The album represented an interactive evolution of The Grassy Knoll method, while retaining that signature combustible mix: vintage hard-rock samples, flesh-and-blood solos, dark-hued rhythmic atmosphere, an ever-grooving pulse. Along with Green on bass guitar and various other tools, Electric Verdeland Vol. 1 featured a host of instrumental luminaries, plus several featured vocalists: Texas icon Jon Dee Graham, Adam Sultan of Poi Dog Pondering, Ann Courtney of Mother Feather, Francine Thirteen, Laura Scarborough and James Rotondi of Roto’s Magic Act. The starry guest array on that album attested to the continuing resonance of The Grassy Knoll’s music, with another key contributor being Vernon Reid. Ranked No. 66 on the Rolling Stone list of Top 100 Guitarists of All Time, Reid had this to say about Green’s music: “The Grassy Knoll was in a group of artists that helped define the ’90s scene outside of hard rock, metal and grunge. To me, Bob Green is a genre-twisting, outside-the-corral genius.”

The four-track EP01 – which includes the classic-sounding Grassy Knoll instrumental “Dead Rivers and Smoky Skies,” as well as vocal tracks with Jeff Klein of My Jerusalem and the Austin singer and radio host / producer Laurie Gallardo – is the first in a series of EPs. The next installments will find Green recasting demos from his first three Grassy Knoll albums, as well as some prime live tracks. “I haven’t felt this enthused about making music in years,” Green says. “Short Stories Redux allows me to put a new shine on a bit of the past, and the series of EPs points to a creative path ahead, keeping on keeping on. As I’ve said before, The Grassy Knoll is a vehicle for me to be relentless – relentless in the pursuit of something beautiful and true amid the chaos and darkness.” – Bradley Bambarger