1998-present

Members:
Eric B.: Guitar, Bass, Drums, Keyboards, Vocals

Guest Appearances:
Chihiro Yono: Drums at a show in 1999
Becki Meier: Bass at a show in 2001
Dan Miles: Drums at a show in 2001
Erick Alley: Vocals on “Erick A. Intro”
Matt Fargo: Keyboards on “She Hits Him,” Vocals on “My Friends Drink A Lot”
David Ballantyne: Phone message on “Phone Tag, You’re It!”
Emily Kincheloe: Intro on “Suburban Home” (Descendents)
Angie B.: Outro on “Suburban Home” (Descendents)

After Blaow’s fiery demise, I spent most of my time playing in The Put-Outs for around 9 months. After The Put-Outs’ fiery demise, I was inspired to get back together with myself after a phone conversation with my brother, in where he said, “I was really goin’ for glory.” I thought to myself “Go For Glory” could be spelled “Gopher Glory” and boy wouldn’t that make a great band name? The jury is still out on that one. Gopher Glory is basically me trying to write pop songs. The original intent was to write songs with my friends as often as possible but that quickly faded and I eventually just settled on writing and recording everything myself. Early on I recorded some songs with Erick Alley that when I listen to them now, I cringe. These sessions are where the bonus track on Pretty To Look At’s 2nd album, “She Hits Him,” comes from.

I worked up some more songs while still in Salem and decided to play a show at Willamette University at a weird open mic night type thing that they used to have. For this Matt introduced me to a fashionable Japanese exchange student named Chihiro, who was a snappy drummer. We practiced and even recorded the songs that we were going to play using a tape recorder, a tape that is somewhere in Japan, which stinks, as I can’t remember some of those songs today. She was also in a Japanese Bon Jovi cover band called The Greenhornes that used to practice in my basement, talk box and all. The show went fairly well. I think I sang a song where she had written the words and it was dedicated to an ex-boyfriend. Or something like that.

After I moved to Portland I purchased a digital 8-track and proceeded recording what would become the “Nature Is Smarter Than People Think EP.” After that Gopher Glory played its 2nd and last show, with Becki Meier on bass and Dan Miles on drums, at CAC’s album release party (video clip below). We covered Crayon’s “Small” which I thought was awesome. After that I slowly recorded the full length “Smiles Spread Like Disease.” And after that I slowly recorded the “Domestic” album, an intended concept record about meeting my wife and becoming suburban. The cover features a photo of Masked Superstar (see above) in a leisure suit, which I find endlessly enjoyable. Gopher Glory lives on today, although in a very lazy, uninspired way.

- Eric

Sly Appearances:


Domestic CD-R (2004)

Download free from Bandcamp.

- “Angie pt. 1”
- “Angie pt. 2”
- “This House Is Way Too Hot And Old”
- “I Can’t Believe That I Live Here”
- “Let’s Move In Together”
- “Suburban Home”
- “Neighbors”
- “Lawn”
- “Exercise”
- “Why Don’t We Just Get Married?”

Smiles Spread Like Disease CD-R (2003)

Download free from Bandcamp.

- “Everywhere I Go”
- “One Track Mind”
- “High School Notes”
- “The First Shot Of The War We Do It With The Rocket”
- “Binky The Doormat”
- “12 Rounds”
- “Claude Lemieux vs. Kris Draper”
- “Go Dynamite Go”
- “Phone Tag, You’re It!”
- “The Sake Flows Like The Yangtze River Over Here”
- “Hello Heartbreak, How Are You? (In The Style Of Mac McCaughan)”
- “The Sake Still Flows Like The Yangtze River Over Here”
- “I’m Upset”

Nature Is Smarter Than People Think EP CD-R (2001)

Download free from Bandcamp.

- “Erick A. Intro”
- “Belly To Belly”
- “Stamps Upside Down”
- “Tripod”
- “My Friends Drink A Lot”
- “Patching It Up With The Ex (In The Style Of Vern Rumsey)”
- “Belly To Back”
- “I Adore You”
- “In Those Trees”

Hi-Fives for Lo-Fi (1999)

Download free from Bandcamp.

- "The Lock"
- "Kind of a Blur"
- "Small"
- "Wrong Frequency (Sans Vocals)"
- "In the Form of a Question"
- "She Hits Him (Original)"
- "Leilani Kai"
- "Queen Pumpkin"
- "In My Dreams"
- "Why Wednesday Wouldn't Work (Sans Vocals)"
- "St. Michael and the Killer Whale"
- "Candi Devine"
- "Honeybees are Kamikazees (Original)"
- "Brad's Legs"
- "Don't I Know You? (Sans Vocals)"
- "When You're Done with Me"


Hostile Faction In The Land Of The Rising Sun CS (1999)

Download free from Bancamp.

- “She Hits Him”