Fire Track: Children’s Crusade – “Man-Gun”

Second release on Robert Pollard’s new Splendid Research label is a vinyl & CD reissue of a 1984 demo cassette by Children’s Crusade, post-punk teenage band of Guided By Voices’ Doug Gillard with vocalist Fraser Sims.

The Cleveland guitarist went on to record for Scat, Homestead and Restless Records with the bands Death of Samantha, Cobra Verde, My Dad Is Dead, and Gem, before joining GBV (1996-2004), then Nada Surf (2010-2016), then rejoining GBV (2016-present), as well as playing on albums by Richard Buckner, Neko Case and others. Check out below what Doug had to say about the history of Children’s Crusade.

Order a copy HERE at Rockathon Records

“In 1984, Fraser Sims and I were 18, nearing high school graduation, and embarking on a recording project called Children’s Crusade.

We had met almost three years prior, sharing similar underground tastes in music in an Ohio school and town where such options and like-minded peers were scant. Fraser had given me some of his short stories, poems, and prose he had written as a 15-year-old, and his wisdom and vocabulary were beyond his years. We formed a band that Fraser named Burning Theater with friend and drummer Sean Saley, occasionally rehearsing and recording cassettes at home on an AV Department cassette deck one of us had liberated from a school. Our sound was mainly informed by UK post-punk along with things we were hearing on Northeast Ohio college radio.

Sometime in spring of 1982, I returned from a family visit to Boston with a record I’d heard on college radio, which I then bought at Newbury Comics: the hardcore compilation This Is Boston Not L.A. We decided to go in that direction musically, going by Fraser’s new band name, Starvation Army. I didn’t last long, but Fraser and Sean carried on as SA, becoming more integrated into the Cleveland scene, as did I with other projects.

“Scene” meant not only all-ages shows but also area bars. Clubs back then didn’t check the ages of band members really, plus we looked older, despite being 16 and 17. So in late ’83 or early ’84, Fraser and I revived our interest in collaborating and recorded these eight songs in a proper studio in spring 1984. Fraser had just signed up for the Army and left for basic training in Texas the next day.

This collection came out only as a cassette release that year, with “Lurker On The Threshold” included on the 1985 Cleveland compilation LP They Pelted Us With Rocks And Garbage. Children’s Crusade recorded again in 1985, but that material remained unreleased until 1990. Three songs appeared on a posthumous 7” EP entitled Scorpio Moon.

This record is a remix and remaster of A Duty-Dance With Death using only the original tracks from the original half-inch multitrack tapes recorded in 1984. I have always been amazed by Fraser’s lyrics and titles, and I am glad these can be heard and read again. Eighteen-year-old me was certainly new to mixing in a studio then, and while I had some assistance from the engineer, I didn’t know too much. I’m happy to have the opportunity to give these sounds a bit more clarity.

This debut effort has always been near and dear to our hearts, and we are excited for everyone to hear this long-unavailable project.” – Doug Gillard