BLUES LAWYER
Oakland, California—Blues Lawyer is Rob I. Miller (Mall Walk), Elyse Schrock (The World), Nic Russo (Dick Stusso), and Alejandra Alcala (Preening).
Founded in Oakland last year at the edges of these more formalized projects, Blues Lawyer launched as an outlet for friends Rob and Elyse to air their romantic woes over a shared pop sensibility; originally the two had planned it as a comically brief experiment. The group started with the intention of only playing two shows but morphed into the primary outlet for their tragic and hilarious romantic encounters.
Rob and Elyse first met as co-workers at a record store in 2012 where they bonded over bands from the Flying Nun label such as the Clean and the Bats, which surface in the music the two now make together.
Recorded over two days by Andrew Oswald at Secret Bathroom in Oakland, Guess Work (Emotional Response vinyl, and Vacant Stare cassette version), combines punk-like pace and concision with a measure of pop sentiment and wit, eliciting comparisons to bands such as Television Personalities, the Vaselines, and Wire.