All Smiles

This Myspace Page is maintained by a team of Otters. All Smiles does not respond to questions directly, but does check in frequently.
I know Mr Fairchild doesn’t want me or you to start here, but he played guitar in Grandaddy. Often he played acoustic guitar. You might guess the role of the acoustic guitar in a five-piece rock band is no more essential to the structure than a coat of paint. But it you ever wedged yourself near the front of a Grandaddy show and listened as the structure rose, story by story, you realized Mr. Fairchild’s role was not the paint but the glue. When he picked up his electric guitar, the impression was cemented.
If you spoke with him after the show—which was easy to do—you realized that the playing was an extension of the player, and the self-effacing choice of the delicate instrument was no accident. He transcended the role and bound the whole together on and off stage.
So for those that knew him it was reasonable guess that he should be gifted with the turn of a phrase, that his sense of melody should be both easy and unique, that he could and would do more with less. It should have come as no surprise. However, nobody could have predicted the exploding toy chest of subtly shaded objects of bliss that followed.
Sure, the album opens with acoustic guitar. The first four cues are lead by strumming before diverging into various slices of pop perfection: “Summer Stay” seeking sunlight, “Pile of Burning Leaves” lying down in the shade. On track 5 “The Velvetest Balloon,” Mr. Fairchild sits down at the piano. The candle consumes the bushel. The tiny space of the closet is still audible but the palette widens gloriously. This perfect big/little juxtaposition plays through the rest of the CD. The production rises to warm then recedes to reveal and frame. It’s all woven together with a cherub’s voice that stretches out most heartbreakingly on the final track.
Where did that voice come from? I’d never seen a microphone in front of him before. Okay, maybe once in Earlimart. For a decade he had stood on stage without a microphone stand. It was like seeing an old favorite high school teacher out with an attractive date. No, it was better than that.
He named his project “All Smiles” and this first release is “Ten Readings of a Warning.” The two titles mark the zenith and nadir of Mr. Fairchild’s recent orbit. In Grandaddy it seemed as though Mr. Fairchild’s fortunes could go either way. In the turbulent blast of expression and consumption that is a touring band he and they often seemed to be going both ways at once. Getting run over by your own tour bus is at the high end of anyone’s measure of destructive habits (oh please think of some other things to ask him about too) and yet his craft continued to grow. His collaboration with Earlimart yielded some of the most sublime pop of the year.
Mr. Fairchild relates that the titles are about “recognizing that there are a bunch of events and traditions that you become reliant on and are making you sick, and what is the way past that.”
Some overdubs were recorded in Los Angeles. A few bits were recorded in Chicago after moving so his girlfriend could attend art school. Most of the songs came tumbling out of a 4X4 closet in Portland, Oregon. He used a lot of drummers: Joe Plummer (Modest Mouse, Black Heart Procession) Solon Bixler (Great Northern), Janet Weiss (Slater-Kinney, Quasi), and Danny Seim (Menomena). Mr Fairchld strummed, tickled, twiddled, blew or sang everything else. He recorded it all on 1/2 inch eight track. Brian Deck mixed it. Mr Deck’s credits include Modest Mouse, Fruit Bats and Iron and Wine.
Fuck I’m still blown away by the voice. Mr Fairchild credits Peter Walker (labelmate and co-founder of Dangerbird) for making him learn to sing. I’m grateful to Mr. Walker. I should send him something. - Charlie Campbell