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"Every time I've completed a song, it feels like
something huge has happened in my life, like a wedding
or a first kiss or a graduation," says Aaron Robinson,
singer/guitarist and songwriter in
Murfreesboro/Nashville, Tennessee's Imaginary Baseball
League. "But as much as it feels like a personal
accomplishment, it dually feels like an unexpected
gift."
Songs, to their writer, will always be precious. A
first kiss, a gift, the products of sweat and tears
and gnarled fingertips from playing until fingers move
on their own. But the trick is, can that preciousness,
the emotional weight of the writing, be transferred to
you?
At a dusty warehouse in an industrial park on Long
Island, Imaginary Baseball League set up to play for a
predominantly punk and hardcore scene. Untattooed,
unpierced and unknown to this group of kids, their
task-winning the crowd over-was daunting. But one by
one the audience focused as the band started to play,
and one by one the signs of apathy dropped like dead
weights; idle conversations halted, lingerers outside
sped in, eyes and ears opened wide. Copies of the
band's Cardiact EP (on their own What A Waste
Recordings) in hand, nearly every kid in the place
showed up later that same night where they were
playing a county away. And several months later at the
Knitting Factory in New York City, and a few after
that when Imaginary Baseball League were one of few
unsigned bands invited to play the 2003 CMJ Music
Marathon.
The band's greatest strength is this resonance-the
unshakeable lure in songs of life and loss and love,
built on moody melodies and elastic rhythms that grab
steadfast hold of your hidden romantic.
"I'm just trying to put my own sadness and joy into
songs in hopes that someone else can relate," Robinson
says. "Mostly I concern myself with relationships-not
just my own and not just romantic ones-and searching
for the chemistry it takes to make them work right."
Chemistry, also, is key to Imaginary Baseball
League's potency. A team at its best will sync like
cogs in a precision motor, weave into position like
seasoned detectives sneaking up on a crime in
progress. When Robinson's voice grows to a
heart-wrenching wail, drummer Ryan Rayborn and bassist
Ben Evans ratchet the pace and tension, pulling back
and releasing as effected guitar and keyboard sound
designs from Keith Childrey rise into focus. It's a
graceful synchronicity, and an agile meshing of four
very distinct personalities: Robinson's classic,
catchy pop; Rayborn's off-kilter and hyper-emotive
sense of rhythm; Evans' strong melodic anchor; and
Childrey's creative atmosphere and texture.
"The four of us come from pretty different
backgrounds, and that hodge-podges for the best or for
the worst," says Rayborn. Robinson continues,
"Business decisions come up, creative rifts start to
form, feelings get hurt, and somehow the songs get
better. I think that's what keeps us going. We rely on
eventually finding the common ground that keeps us
working together."
As the band's collective personality has gelled, the
songs have grown in leaps-most evident on their debut
LP, Revive, self-released in the Spring of 2004.
Recorded at Cylo Studios in Nashville by Chris Common
and Geoff Koval and mixed by Childrey, the album's 13
tracks flow from a driving Britrock sound on "Don't
Call At All" to lovelorn pop on "The One Infallible,"
and into the lush expanses of "Statistics," keeping an
elegant cohesion throughout.
The band's first two EPs, The Letter and Cardiact
(both recorded by Childrey), earned Imaginary Baseball
League invites to share stages with national acts like
Songs:Ohia, Wheat, The Six Parts Seven, The Gloria
Record, Year Of The Rabbit, The Features and Starflyer
59, and airplay on Steve Lamacq's influential BBC
Radio1 show In The City in the U.K. The band will
support Revive with several tours-including Midwest
and East Coast tours in late May-and a national
publicity and college radio campaign.
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