GoodnightGoodnight

Dayton, Ohio’s dark and ambient indie band Goodnight Goodnight formed as a sort of music therapy for its members. Assembling in late February 2015 after a member of the band lost his son to suicide the members decided that they’d write and record music for the simple joy of fellowship and camaraderie. After a few months, they resolved to play their music in front of people. And after 30+ shows the band is seeing an upward trajectory and attention they’d never imagined. Goodnight Goodnight release their debut EP and are currently in the process of writing and recording a full-length.

Ghettoblaster recently caught up with the band’s Gary Thornton to discuss their therapeutic roots, their accomplishments and future.

I heard that the band came together as a sort of therapy for a loss. What happened?

Yeah, we started playing together with no expectations of anything other than work through some personal issues in our lives. We lost a former bandmate named Jason Dryden a few years ago to heroin. I think after that tragedy, we lost contact with each other. A couple of years after that we lost another former bandmate and our best friend to the world. His name is Nick Aycock. He was involved in an ATV accident. Fortunately for all of us, he survived for two and a half years. This gave us time to see him, talk to him, let him know that we loved him. He passed away after his last surgery. It just wasn’t successful.

The tipping point for us all, especially Todd Herbert, was the passing of his son, Nigel Herbert. Nigel committed suicide. So, we were just dealing with so much loss in such a short time span. We needed hope. We needed some type of closure. We all felt and continue to feel that music helps with all of that.

We were all out at a bar Todd’s birthday. He wasn’t doing very well, so I suggested that we start playing. It took a few weeks to schedule time to get together, but in late February 2015 we started. For the first couple of months, it was just Todd, Duane and I just jamming at my house. Eventually we asked my wife, Amanda, to start putting melodies and lyrics to the music. We really wanted to do something with a lot of harmonies; something in the vain of Sunny Day Real Estate. We found a very talented singer named Marcie to do backing vocals live, but the direction wasn’t quite what we had in mind ultimately.

How long did you write material before deciding to play in front of people?

Our first show was in July for a one year memorial for Nigel. I really don’t know if we even had a name prior to deciding to do the memorial. Todd came up with the name Goodnight Goodnight around that time. It is a reference to what he posted on Facebook when a friend or family member passed. He would just post “Goodnight” on their page. It seemed more fitting than “goodbye.” Our first paid gig was in Dayton with Somersault, Bribing Senators and The Story Changes on September 5, 2015. So it was about six or so months of writing before we got out there.

The band has managed to accomplish quite a bit in just a year. What have your favorite accomplishments been?

Probably the things that we are most proud of are raising awareness to suicide prevention. We donate a portion of sales to suicide prevention through Boys Club of America. I think the other thing that we are most proud of is being part of a really supportive scene. Dayton musicians seem to get it. We are here for each other and the community.

What material have you released so far? When did you write it and where did you record it?

We started writing our EP early on as a way to find a drummer. Holding an iPhone out to capture music wasn’t conducive to finding a drummer. The person had to be able to hear what each instrument was doing. After a month or so of working on things, we kind of stopped looking. We recorded all of it ourselves at home. We went to my friend, Moe Beats for mastering at Razdabar. We got our CDs back from the disc manufacturer two days before the first Dayton Is For Lovers show with Hawthorne Heights.

What kind of response have you gotten to your EP?

So far the response has been pretty good for Don’t Fade Out. The main story line on the EP is hope. Some of the songs may sound depressing at times, but if you listen to the lyrics, it is about hope and love. We have had play on W937, WYSO, WUDR as well as play on Australian radio. I am not sure how we ended up on Australian radio since we didn’t market any foreign countries, but we have sales in Europe, Asia and India as well.

What touring have you done to support the EP?

We just finished a five state tour including MI, OH, NY, VA and TN to support the EP. It was a pretty fun tour. We met a ton of awesome people and hung and played with a lot of old friends as well.

You are in the process of recording an LP, right? How is that going?

We are getting ready to put out an LP this year. We have started basic tracking on a few songs. We are still in the writing process though. We want to put something that is cohesive front to back. We aren’t doing a concept album. We just want a certain messages conveyed to the listener.

What else are you hoping to accomplish yet in 2016?

Since September, we have played out a lot, locally and regionally. We are playing Dayton Is For Lovers again this year. It’s going to be a fun show with an awesome lineup. We are very excited to be a part of that. We plan on slowing down a little bit locally and focusing on the LP. We plan on doing some more light touring, possibly bringing some of our friends’ bands with us. Most importantly to us is to continually heal emotionally from the things that brought us together in the first place. To some it may seem a bit morbid. To us, it is therapeutic.

(Visit Goodnight Goodnight at www.goodnightgoodnightmusic.com.) - Ghettoblaster Magazine

LIVE REVIEW: Goodnightgoodnight / Lucious Fox / The Dysfunctional Citizens
by john
It’s no great discovery that the difference between mainstream music and everything else is simply the size of the audience. Mainstream, everybody’s heard of you. Hundreds of thousands of people have memorized your lyrics. Your audience is so big you become a reference point for cultural jokes. Millions of people view your image or hear your music, daily.

That’s mainstream.

Green Day played a show at Rebo’s in Dayton Ohio in 1992 where they carted in all their own gear from the van and played to an audience of 40 teenagers who had nothing better to do on a Saturday night, then loaded everything back into their van and spent the night on the couch of one gracious “fan” from that night’s show. The venue was devoid of goods or service- just an empty warehouse with electricity and an eight-inch-tall wooden stage in one corner. Only punk kids had heard of them and they could barely afford a hotel room on that tour, but they had two studio albums out on a label called Lookout Records.

That’s substream.

GoodnightGoodnight, Lucious Fox, and The Dysfunctional Citizens played The Lamplighter in Kalamazoo, Michigan last weekend.

That’s underground.

Way underground…

Goodnightgoodnight kicked off the evening, slowly. They came on without giving notice. But then people began to take notice.

Their music was captivating. Trance-inducing, one bartender was heard to say. He was listening and listening and four songs into their set he realized, “Holy shit. I’m supposed to be working here.” It’s complex. Arrangements like Radiohead, ambience like an up-tempo Pink Floyd on an album produced by Phil Spector. To fully appreciate the work they’ve put into their music you must pay attention, but it’s ok if you don’t feel like paying attention. They will draw your mind slowly away from wherever it wandered off to and then keep it there, fixed on them, unwavering, until they release you with the cue to applaud.

They don’t do this with antics. There’s no Iggy Pop here, no flashy showmanship. The guitar player goofs around a little but mainly he’s working his right arm feverishly, strumming one chord 16 times in three seconds, from the shoulder. The keyboard player, who doubles as the drummer, produces the sound of three people. The bassist is a master of technique and of subtlety. Like all great bassists, you feel his playing in your chest rather than perceiving it through your ears. Amanda Thornton, the lead vocalist, managed quite a trick: ethereal and disconsolate throughout the songs, breezy and engaging in between. The juxtaposition of heaviness and light in the same person was riveting.

Goodnightgoodnight’s music requires the audience’s full attention and, happily, we had no choice but to give it, for which we were richly rewarded.

Lucious Fox (pronounced loosh-iss) played second, just a drummer and a guitarist probably not out of their teens yet. The drummer hit the cymbals harder than anyone I’ve ever heard and the guitarist’s fingers were in constant motion, but the two suffered from a poor mix so it was difficult to tell what they were up to, other than rocking out. Which they did with fervor.

The Dysfunctional Citizens, the headlining act, are all the best parts of Rancid, Mighty Mighty Bosstones, and Blink 182 packed into a trio of suits and ties loosened from the rigors of their day jobs by a couple of drinks and no alarm clock in the morning. In 39 minutes they bounced through 19 songs, killing it, sweating and smiling the whole time.

In terms of genre it was a mashup, but the audience loved it all and the bands got along famously in the parking lot where the pre-show fidgeting and smoking take place. They talked about their kids, their musical influences, their tattoos, the crazy venue.

The venue, The Lamplighter near Kalamazoo may have been the star of the show. I say near Kalamazoo because to get there you must drive a fair distance away from the lights and strip malls and general population of the ‘Zoo proper. It’s not a college bar and it’s not a nightclub. It’s not the kind of place you stroll by and hear music emanating and say “Honey, let’s check this place out!” Pulling into the parking lot was actually frightening. There were no signs, no lights, the building looked like it was boarded up, scant few cars in the dark lot. You would not have thought the place was open to the public. You might have thought you were being led to some white-power rally or a secret script consultation for Sons of Anarchy. You just knew as your car creeped onto the gravel that somebody had been stabbed here at some point.

Once inside though, it was astonishing. Pristine red velvet and gold wallpaper circa 1928 covered the cavernous performance space, said to be larger than any in southern Michigan except the football stadiums.

It had been a grand hotel and ballroom at one time, the place to see and be seen. Al Capone kept a mistress in residence. Remnants of opulence were evident in intricate chandeliers now hanging listlessly, in the portico, now unused. It looked like a rebuilding had commenced sometime in the early ‘90s but the owners ran out of money. The employees gave the impression of squatters with a dream and some spare elbow grease. A small hot-food menu was on offer from the kitchen and the bar was perfectly well-stocked.

Random derelicts wandered out of the pool hall to see who was making all the noise. A profoundly drunk, undernourished old man slept in a chair on the empty patio, resting on his forearms with his head hanging like he was on the toilet. Nobody had seen how he got there and nobody could imagine where (or how) he’d go at closing time.

The venue was scary and weird and the service was modest, for sure. The audience would have all fit on a city bus. This is the sort of thing you just can’t get at a Muse concert.

There’s mainstream, there’s substream, and then there’s way underground, and The Lamplighter is down there. But they had cold beer, flush toilets, and a sound guy for the bands, who played like it was the biggest gig of their lives.

On the bathroom stall someone had scribbled “this place blows”. Under which I scribbled “go back to the suburbs then”.

I’ll see you at the next show! - Ethics for the Non-Compliant

Formed in early 2015 Dayton’s alt experience Goodnight Goodnight’s nine song set consisted of tunes ranging from electronic grandeur to shoegaze with a smile, in the vein of Moira, Able Danger and Hungry Lucy. Sorry started with shoegaze ambiance with whispers of folk and indie pop. Secret sounded new wave, electro rock with classical keys. Water had a more rock vibe while Laura had some Madonna influence. Plan on Playing began with air slicing keys blending in an atmospheric Pink Floyd dream cloud with dramatic grandeur, ending in eerie serenity. Was it worth It’s ethereal rays of sunshine were illuminated by Amanda’s vocals and Gary’s crashing guitar. Their current EP Don’t Fade Out is available. - Covering the Scene