XL Music

Look, Glass Eye's back! Come see what they've been up to

By Joe Gross
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Thursday, April 06, 2006

To hang out with the newly reconstituted Glass Eye is to hang with a bunch of grown-up siblings. The semilegendary Austin quartet formerly lived under the same roof, still communicate through in-jokes and take an us-against-the world stance when goings get rough.

Of course, it's tempting to say they're family, but that's a cliché, embarrassing in its triteness.

During the act's primary career from 1983-'93 — a period that encompassed almost perfectly the birth and rise of American independent rock — Glass Eye tried very hard to avoid clichés. The band — guitarist Kathy McCarty, bassist Brian Beattie, drummer Scott Marcus and keyboardist and token native Texan Stella Weir — moved gracefully and deliberately between hook and feedback, between songcraft and noisemaking. The band members triangulated their spot and worked the soil as if it were their birthright.

But some clichés can't be avoided. The endless touring in a windowless van for months on end. The $5 per diems. A final record deal that never actually produced a record and helped to shatter the band.

But as another cliché about rock goes, those were different times. Well past a decade after they called it quits, Glass Eye is back, with a new album called "Every Woman's Fantasy" in tow. Same Glass Eye vibe: deft songwriting, weird flourishes. The band even had a blast playing at this year's South by Southwest, more for out-of-town fans than any sort of careering. Glass Eye's record release show is Friday at Room 710.

But why now?

"Brian finally finished the record," McCarty says. It's after rehearsal and the band is breaking down its equipment. The strings on Beattie's headless, fretless and nerdy Steinberger bass are the same as before. Weir's keyboards are so old they're "vintage."

"Yeah, that's really about it," Beattie says, "The thing that led up to it was doing Kathy's record (McCarty's 2005 solo album, "Another Day in the Sun") and getting out the old Glass Eye tapes to learn something about the way we played the songs."

"See, we were one of the last bands of that era to break up," McCarty adds. "Other bands would have these reunion shows two years later that were just milking it and milking it. Brian in particular was very turned off by this sort of behavior. He said, 'Our last show will be our last show and we'll never play again!' "

But there's much at stake 13 years down the road. There's no grind, no idea that maybe the band could be as big as, say, the Chili Peppers in '88, no touring.

"We were out for four to five months a year every year for about five years," McCarty said. "You would be gone for months on end. I really envy bands today. Cell phones and e-mail make life must make life easier."

Then again, Glass Eye's standards for touring are low.

"Kathy's van, bless her heart for buying it, had no air conditioning, no radio and unfinished, bar metal interior. "People would lie down between the amps in the back," Beattie says.

"We were happy to come home with rent money and to pay bills," McCarty says. "If the Internet had been around when Glass Eye was, it would have made a huge difference for a band in our niche." She doesn't say this with bitterness; it's just true. Bands today have both few expectations of financial success and better communication with their fans.

But the Internet is here, and the fans are probably still out there. Would they tour again?

"We would have to be way more cutthroat now," McCarty says. Then she pauses. This is (sorry) family after all. "You know, I take it back," she adds. "I would tour with you guys for hardly any money at all if the conditions were right." A van with seats. Motel rooms, things like that.

But this is not 1991. Nirvana and the Amerindie breakout is history. Nobody in this room has to do anything they don't want to do.

"I had a record out last year," McCarty says. There's a lot of people who care about you and remember you, and that's cool. But you kind of get in this space where you're like, 'I'm not going to convince people who are young now that I'm still cool.' That's just not very dignified on some level to me."

Also, they are open to selling out.

"We need a song in an ad," Beattie says. "How about the new Hummer commercial?"

"If we could sell out and do it with a Hummer, that would be amazing," Weir says.

"But only if we could have a say in the ad," Beattie continues. He points at McCarty. "We would need you standing through the sunroof with an RPG shooting at things."

McCarty thinks for a moment. "Yeah, I'd do that."

jgross@statesman.com; 912-5926