1997-2001

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

Guest Appearances:
Ryan Slattum: Bass at a show in 1998
Makato Iijima: Guitar at two shows in 1999

The beginning of Pretty To Look At is kind of messy. The summer after Gagged And Bound stopped playing together Matt met up with Dusty Wylam of Novel and recorded what would eventually be “Folks I Know.” However, when he brought it to me it was an already packaged cassette, with the picture of a walkie talkie on the front and the words “Over And Out” on the front. I was flabbergasted. I hadn’t seen Matt for a month (I think I was into my girlfriend at the time) and here he is with a completely recorded album. He then suggested that we should play these songs as a band. I agreed. I think the Over And Out name stayed for a few months and then we started calling ourselves The Sarah Satter Veterans, in honor of a girl we had both dated. We thought that was really clever. So a new cover was made with the new name. That name stuck for some time until we were driving home from an Unwound concert and discussing how ugly people make the best music. So in some way we thought that calling ourselves Pretty To Look At would be a clever comment on this. Don’t ask. So the cover was changed. Again. And the title “Folks I Know” was added. The front cover has a photo of the two of us although I didn’t actually play on the recording. We had a pretty wuss set up, with Matt sitting down and playing an acoustic guitar and me playing with brushes. We played our first show in the Fall of 1997 at Willamette University. In 1998 we played one show with Put-Outs member Ryan Slattum, wearing a Cliff Robertson face mask, on bass. It was during this time that we were joined for a period by a second guitarist, Makato. He was in the line-up the day that we played at Willamette’s annual music festival, the name of which I have forgotten. For the performance Matt and Makato played seated with their backs to the crowd and Don O’Meara and Erick Alley engaged in a grueling game of chess center stage. I am sure people loved it.

We continued playing shows sporadically for the next few year, often with The Put-Outs and The Widgets, and then decided to record a 2nd album in 1999. Under the watchful eye of Erick Alley we recorded “Hostile Faction In The Land Of The Rising Sun.” We opened for The Widgets and Audio Learning Center at the “release party” for this Sly favorite, which was awesome. Shortly after this we were the sole openers for music legend John Fahey. I moved to Portland at the beginning of 2000 and we unknowingly played our final show sometime in the Spring of that year. Plans were made to release a split 12-inch single on pink vinyl with The Widgets, with our side being dedicated to songs about skin. However, soon after these songs were recorded, Matt moved to Japan and the idea was scrapped, as we would be unable to support the record. The “Skin EP” compiles these songs with 3 other songs recorded around that time. With Matt becoming Japanese and me devoting my time to CAC, Pretty To Look At kind of called it quits. “Tiger Cynalone” was later featured in a Japanese art house film, the name of which Matt is unable to remember.

-Eric

Sidenote:

A common theme of Pretty To Look At shows was Matt and I fighting over the setlist about 15 minutes before the show. He would refuse to play the majority of our songs, deeming them “too boring,” thus resulting in us playing in inordinate amount of cover songs. You may have seen us play one or more of these fine tunes:

- “Spider In My Gin” (Pete Krebs)
- “Scotch And Soda” (The Kingston Trio)
- “Chumming The Ocean” (Archers Of Loaf)
- “Say Yes” (Elliott Smith)
- “On A Tip” (The Halo Benders)
- “Dance Of The Sugar Plum Fairies (Tchaikovsky)
- “I’m Lying” (764-Hero)
- “Get Me Away From Here, I’m Dying” (Belle And Sebastian)
- “Hexenzsene” (Unwound)
- “Bad As They Seem” (Hayden)
- “Angeles” (Elliott Smith)
- “Dearling Darling” (The Feelings)
- “Succumb” (The Virgin-Whore Complex)
- “Moth” (Pond)
- “My Dog Is An Astronaut, Though” (Pond)
- “Cracks And Swirls” (Mood Paint)
- “She Hits Him” (Gopher Glory)
- “Bob” (Gagged And Bound)

Sly Appearances:

Let's Relive the Glory Days We Never Had: B-Sides (2012)

Download free from Bandcamp.

- "Japanese Paul"
- "Japanse John Gardner"
- "Japanese My Painted Masterpiece"
- "Japanese Around On My Insomnia"
- "Melanie"
- "Over and Out (Alternate Version)"
- "Tiger Cynalone (Original Version)"
- "Bob"
- "It is a Beauteous Evening, Calm and Free"
- "Me (Alternate Mix)"
- "Magic Box Instrumental"
- "Hidden: Glory Days"

Skin EP CD-R (2001)

Download free from Bandcamp.

- “Girls Are Crazy”
- “Around On My Insomnia”
- “Tiger Cynalone”
- “Burns, They Peel Away; Incubus Dermis”
- “Fingerprints, They Fade Away”
- “Lust, It Erodes Away; Chipping Slate Lime Shales”

 

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

Download free from Bandcamp.

- “Procreation Takes A Lot More Of Our Time Than We Often Think”
- “My Friends Are Sufi Mystics”
- “Eric B.”
- “The Rate At Which My Body Produces Oils”
- “My Painted Masterpiece”
- “Over And Out”
- “Song For Minako In December”
- “Baseball Fishing Diving Sunbathing”
- “Willamette University Has Expensive Tuition”
- “What To Kiss”
- "She Hits HIm"
- “Masa”
- "Hidden: Gagged and Bound"

Folks I Know CS (1998)

Download free from Bandcamp.

- “Matthew Broderick”
- “Paul”
- “Jong Won”
- “Miyuki”
- “Kathy Lee”
- “John Gardner”
- “Me”
- “Melanie”