Listen to the White Mountain Sound playlist on Spotify.
So what is “the White Mountain Sound”?
It's an undeniably authentically Southwestern sound, rooted in these Colorado Plateau small towns, where country twang, garage rock aesthetics, and songwriting techniques imported from faraway places like the Midwest, NYC and the UK swirled into the minds of a group of millennial high-desert dwelling teens in early 21st century Arizona. Those kids started bands and made their own version of indie rock.
Historically, just because I'm almost 40 now, it started with our band, Gorky, who emerged as the lone surviving band among a group of bands from our high school era of friends, and shortly behind us came Alaska and Me, which I guess if any band could have been called our ‘rival’ band it would have been them. They looked great, their songs were great, and their recordings were great. I remember at the time they were like a more rocking version of Lydia, for folks who remember that band.
Side note: We played with Lydia back in 2004, when they were touring one of their earlier records! Good times.
Anyways, they were and were not our ‘rivals’ because really they were the only other band in town, and they were doing awesome things, and we were all technically friends, because they knew Gregg who played bass with us in those days, and they were the same age, so we all were hanging out. We played two completely different styles of rock music, so there wasn't a real rivalry. They had their audience and we had ours, but there was some healthy competition, I think, at least on our side, because we had never had another band to go up against like that before, and we played a couple shows together but most of the shows were with other bands as we both did our own thing, climbing different ladders.
Zella Day at one point got into their orbit, because I believe she dated the singer Tyler Cox at one time, but I can't remember for sure. I remember I was over at Tyler's once and she was there, and there was a bit of recording going on, whether it was us or them, I can't remember that either. Ha! But anyways that was the only time I remember meeting Zella, and not long after that she went to Los Angeles and started her path there, which for her turned out to be a smart move.
After Alaska and Me split up, Charles Ellsworth left the White Mountains for Salt Lake City and started pursuing his own folk-Americana vibe before he headed out to NYC and the East Coast. The rest of Alaska and Me reformed as Boxen briefly, with a new bass player, Tevin, who would end up being the bass player in Gorky for many years after Gregg left, and from there the other members of Alaska and Me ended up forming their own projects.
Around that time, we really started to take off with our singles and music videos for “Datass” and “Super Drunk”, which was then followed by a fledgling acting career where I got to star opposite Tom Sizemore in Durant's Never Closes and then published my book about the Brian Jonestown Massacre, Keep Music Evil--so in a way that first wave of the White Mountain Sound, of all of us who were friends and played and recorded together, really sprang out and imported our thing to different places. Zella to Los Angeles, Charles to Salt Lake and NYC, and now Gorky to Portland, but before we came to Portland we made Arizona history with the Sitgreaves County stunt.
The main group in the next wave after Gorky, Alaska and Me, and Zella Day is undoubtably Negative 32, who really captured teenage angst with their pop punk sound in ways I think that the first wave of us didn't because we were all too focused on trying to sound like cool adults. Negative 32 has some really good songs.
Sadly, for Negative 32, they did not have a band that was more their age that could compete with them the way we had when we were at their level, but I think that led them to really perfect an original pop punk sound for themselves as well, and I think there is a clear evolution in the songwriting that continues today in their new project, Phantom Spring, which is now based in the Phoenix metro area I believe.
Phil The Band and WRNTY have evolved out of Alaska and Me and Boxen, and I have released a couple of solo Jesse Valencia records as well, though Gorky will return one day. Zella Day has an awesome new indie-retro country group, Chapparelle, that hearkens back to her White Mountain and garage rock roots.
I've also collaborated on some hip-hop tracks with my good friend Brandon Rodelo, a fellow indigenous artist from my cousin tribe Mayo (Yoreme), who has established himself as a leader in the Phoenix hip-hop scene with his song “Arismokazona” featuring the one and only Afroman.
I would say this is really the core of this sound and this playlist, these bands, and how we have interacted with each other and against each other over the years, but to prove that the White Mountains has its own sound I've included tracks from Ryan David Orr's White Mountain-based bands The Brighter Still and The Secret Trails, and Ashley Westcott's own original country tunes. These artists were adjacent to us, and the vibes of the mountain can be heard audibly to benefit us all.
There are strikingly similar themes in our lyrics, in some ways a similar twang, and even in the ways we rock out. I could easily hear all of us playing a show together, even though we're all of different genres.
Also because this has happened in the past, and they are memories to be grateful for.
In the future, I am going to review these records my friends have put out, and really dig into them. Get into what makes them tick, and really celebrate this sound that we created together.
-Jesse