Day After Day is an ambitious attempt to write about a song every day in 2024 (starting on Jan. 4).
Everyone Choose Sides (2003)
Plenty of things can go wrong when you're in a band. You might not get along with other members of the group because of business or artistic differences. You might be dealing with pressure from your label. Or you might be a perfectionist who has a tough time letting go and releasing new music. Or if you're the Wrens, all of these things might be true.
It wasn't always this way. The Wrens came together in 1989 in New Jersey when brothers Greg (guitar/vocals) and Kevin Whelan (bass/vocals) added their former high school classmate Charles Bissell to play guitar in their band for a gig supporting The Fixx. The gig was cancelled but the band stayed together, adding Jerry MacDonald on drums in 1990. They took the name Low and released a single of the same name in 1993, signing with Grass Records. Once they learned there was already a band named Low, the group changed their name to the Wrens in 1994.
They released albums in 1994 (Silver) and 1996 (Secaucus), combining power pop with an indie edge reminiscent of the Pixies. The Wrens were touring for Secaucus in 1996 when Grass Records, which had been bought out by businessman Alan Meltzer, offered them a big contract in return for writing more radio-friendly songs. The band refused to sign and Meltzer stopped production and promotion of the first two Wrens albums. Meltzer changed the label name to Wind-Up Records and eventually found success with the likes of Creed and Evanescence. The Wrens fought to regain the rights to their first two albums; Wind-Up finally re-released Silver and Secaucus in 2006 but retained the rights to the albums.
The band released an EP, Abbott 1135, on Ten23 Records in 1997 and started working on a new album in 1999. It took four years to complete the album, with Bissell later citing exhaustion, writer's block and lack of confidence in the new songs, which forced them to rewrite or get rid of many of the songs. The Meadowlands was finished in early 2003 and released on Absolutely Kosher Records to critical acclaim, with Magnet naming it the album of the year for 2003.
The album found the band stretching out, with darker themes and slower tempos no doubt influenced by the band's travails over the previous four years. "Everyone Choose Sides" reflects those struggles as Bissell sings of the state of the band.
"Thirteen grand/A year in the Meadowlands/Bored and rural-poor, Lord at 35, right?/I am the best 17-year-old ever/I've worked these sands/I won't go back again/Quitter, quitter, one boy bitter - rough luck/Man to man, hand to hand, fight 40/We're losing sand!/A Wrens' ditch battle plan/Record after record, Black and Deckered, tack, tack!/Definition: hell and high water."
Musically, distorted guitars fight their way through while urgent drums propel the proceedings. The financial dire straits of being a beloved indie band is top of mind; three of the four band members took full-time jobs while Bissell was a stay-at-home father giving guitar lessons.
"Fatty come a courting, Lord, the money!/Everyone choose sides/The whole to-do of what to do for money/Everyone choose sides/Poorer or not this year and hell's the difference/End of ropes and lines/Everyone choose sides."
The song is a total ripper on an album full of them. Sadly, legions of indie rock fans have been waiting a long time for the follow-up release.
This is where things really slowed down for the Wrens. After more than a decade of inactivity, the band announced on its Twitter in May 2014 that they had finished recording their fourth album, but no release date was announced. An alternate version of a song from the album was released in November 2015 to readers of Esopus Magazine.
In an interview with Uproxx in January 2021, Bissell said the album was finished in June 2019 and the band had signed to an unspecified label that was going to release the album in 2021. Fast forward to September 2021: the New York Times reports that Kevin Whelan would release some of his contributions to the fourth Wrens album under the name Aeon Station, with support from Greg Whelan and Jerry MacDonald. Kevin also said he and Bissell were no longer on speaking terms. The Times article reported that the fourth Wrens album had been completed and given to Sub Pop release in 2013 but Bissell pulled it back so he could continue working on his songs. In 2019, Bissell completed his contributions, but then further discussions delayed things again. Whelan got tired of waiting and released an album called Observatory as Aeon Station on Sub Pop in December 2021.
After this, Bissell said the Wrens "were dead" and that he would release his own songs. In October 2023, he announced that his songs would be released in early 2024 under the name Car Colors on Absolutely Kosher Records. He released a single, "Old Death," in November 2023. It's August 2024 and nothing else has been released...yet.
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