Through 12 years, three record labels, over a dozen band members, one epilepsy diagnosis, and one filthy dress. E.D. Sedgwick has seen it all. It wasn’t pretty. ‘Love Gets Lovelier Every Day is the Smile of Washington, DC drag-punk rock,’ says Sedgwick, a.k.a. Justin Moyer, the El Guapo/Supersystem bassist who started performing under his nom de plume in 1999. ‘Everything conspired against this record. A collapsing record industry. Bandmates moving out of town. A couple of grand-mal seizures. Getting evicted from my studio, which was torn down by the city to build – wait for it – another studio. My decision to stop performing in a dress. The discovery of a 13th astrological sign, which means I’m no longer a Pisces, but an Aries (a fucking Aries!)’
‘The only thing Love Gets Lovelier Every Day has going for it is really good songs, and a really good band to play them.’
Recorded in 2009 but caught up in record label, personnel, and personal drama until now, LGLED is a poignant memoir of a bad season – and, with a long slate of featured performers, a departure for an reformed electroclash artist who used to make records alone in his bedroom. Dancey ragers like ‘Everybody Wants Some’ (featuring Chad Molter and Mark Cisneros of Medications on, respectively, bass and sax) appear alongside ‘He Composed Lines That Frighten Stanzas’, a Pixies-ish rocker co-written by ex-Supersystem guitarist Rafael Cohen. And there is the titular, 12-plus minute pseudo-psychedelic medley equally inspired by John Coltrane’s A Love Supreme and the B-side of the Beatles’ Abbey Road. But nowhere is Sedgwick’s unlikely evolution more on display than in ‘Silver Bullets’, the record’s first single.
‘‘Silver Bullets’ is about survival,’ Sedgwick says of the raucous, four-on-the-floor banger that name-checks Henry Rollins and Chris Cornell. ‘In the dark days of October 2009, I was moping in my soon-to-be-torn down studio when I started playing this reggaeton- ish two-note bassline. Then, I started writing lyrics from the perspective of a lead-singer Superman archetype. Like: “I’m not a werewolf – silver bullets can’t kill me.” Like: “I’m better than Bono. Bono can’t kill me.” When the song was finished, I felt better. I was like, “I’m gonna get through this.”’
Love Gets Lovelier Every Day will be released by Dischord in September 2011. The album will be available as a download or included with the purchase of this limited edition three-song 7”. Sedgwick’s new band will play select East Coast dates before heading to Europe in October.
Love Gets Lovelier Every Day tracklist (tracks 1, 2, 9 appear on the single):
1 Silver Bullets
2 See Saw
3 Natural Born Killers
4 Trip Inside My Mind
5 Everybody Wants Some (Van Halen Mix)
6 Shine a Light
7 Who’s That Knocking on My Door? (Post-Czech Mix)
8 He Composed Lines that Frighten Stanzas
9 Av a Dev i ne
10 (We’re Livin’ in the) 21st Century
11 Love Gets Lovelier Every Day Medley
