For the eight years his band Tapes 'n Tapes was a full-steaming machine doing world tours and hi-fi recording sessions, Josh Grier somehow still maintained a day job as a data analyst in Minneapolis. And then, all of a sudden, he had neither the band nor the job.
"I got a call on my day off: I was part of an office reduction," he recalled. "It became a confusing time for me, a midlife crisis kind of thing."
Acknowledging his age, 33, the redheaded, bearded singer/guitarist added with a laugh, "It was so confusing, I didn't even know if it was 'midlife.' Maybe it was a third-life crisis."
As would most musicians with a little personal drama and a lot of free time and music equipment on his hands — Tapes 'n Tapes went on hiatus a year ago — Grier holed himself up, working on new songs in the basement at the Uptown house he shares with his wife, Keri. The end result is Ginkgo, a mostly solo recording project that is also now a new band of local indie-rock stalwarts.
A year-plus in the making, Ginkgo's deliciously warped and humorously titled debut album, "Manopause," arrives Tuesday with a free in-store performance that night at the Electric Fetus in Minneapolis. Grier and the band then play a proper release party at Icehouse on Sept. 20, which is the next weekend night everyone in the band is available.
Ginkgo's full stage lineup includes Tapes drummer Jeremy Hanson and his guitarist brother Jacob Hanson (both also in Solid Gold and a dozen other bands), along with Communist Daughter bassist Adam Switlick and local journeyman Robert Skoro.
"They're all guys I know well who are proficient enough to do these songs without making it too complicated," Grier said, "but they're also all kind of busy."
In the handful of gigs Ginkgo has played, the members have made a habit of exchanging instruments from song to song. That's in keeping with the spirit of how Grier originally recorded them, trading off on different instruments he played all by his lonesome self.
