The What Gives Up All Night With Bus Stop Label 1995

The What Gives Up All Night With Bus Stop Label 1995 CAT #1012

The What Gives almost exclusively belong to Jon Harrison.  It's really his thing with the help of others.

If you don't know Jon Harrison, all you have to do is listen to this.  He's into records; worked for years as the primary in-store buyer and pricer at Love Garden Sounds in Lawrence, KS.  He's into power pop and 60's Anglophilia; one time webmaster for the short lived Little Hits.com and if you get onto big time Power Pop webboards, he's among the most respected voices.  He's pure Lawrence; he moved there in college never left.  He's also incredibly tall, you'd think his tie to Lawrence would have been basketball he's so tall, but it was the music scene and school.

The What Gives songs are pure Jon.  Sweet, sappy, power-pop gems with a ton of 60's influenced harmonies, chiming guitars, and almost exclusively about heartbreak.  The tunes also got a nice bedroom pop appeal about them, very homespun and natural production.  It's a smattering and scattering of just a million different obscure pop influences.  You could say you hear a lot of the Byrds in his music and you'd be right.  You'd also be right about saying you hear the Beach Boys or the Beatles...Or the Bongos, or Let's Active or the Nerves, it's all there.  The songs were produced by local producing extradonaire, Ed Rose.  The songs feature a plethora of great Lawrence talent, mainly because Jon's a pretty awesome guy.  I don't think there was ever a hope of this 10" becoming a massive success, Jon just had some tunes and everybody agreed to put down some tracks.  Can't imagine a whole lot of money exchanged hands on this project.

Harrison still plays locally, usually under the moniker, The Harrisonics.  He sometimes spins his amazing record collection at fantastic Lawrence establishments.  He no longer works full time at the Love Garden, but friends told me he sometimes works a day or two out of the week to price and grade some records.  He's actually a teacher now at Lawrence High, which makes you think, it's time for a Robert Pollard transformation, could use another guy like that and Harrison has the tunes stored up.

I Can Stay Up All Night