Travels With Brindle lets the Sparks fly on ‘Tryouts For The Human Race’
Chelsea Spear’s lo-fi ukulele-pop project releases a fully licensed cover of the Sparks classic on September 6, with the video to soon follow
OUT NOW: Listen to ‘Tryouts For The Human Race’ on Spotify
Performing live at Jamaica Plain Music Festival on September 7
Listen to Travels With Brindle: Bandcamp // YouTube // Spotify
“An extremely gifted songwriter with a golden ukulele, Chelsea Spear is an American treasure” – Jersey Beat
CAMBRIDGE, MA [September 6, 2024] – Travels With Brindle has found a new creative spark — and it can soon be heard everywhere from Boston to Bonn.
The lo-fi ukulele pop project from Massachusetts songwriter and artist Chelsea Spear is set to release a fully licensed cover of Sparks’ ‘70s classic “Tryouts For The Human Race” on Friday, September 6. It hits the streams a week before the arrival of its official music video, directed by Will Hall and inspired by Worcester native Robert Benchley’s 1928 short film The Sex Life of the Polyp.
Surrounding the cover is a flurry of live appearances, as Travels With Brindle performs at Gilman Park in Somerville with Balter Dance on the night of the release; followed by an appearance at the free and all-ages Jamaica Plain Music Festival on September 7. The project then heads south to Providence on September 27 to perform at AS220 with Folk the Empire.
The “Tryouts For The Human Race” cover kicks off a bit of a Sparks era for Spear, as it not only serves as the follow-up to last year’s well-received and literary-minded Notes From Undergrad album, but sets the tone for her latest covers record, a ukulele and banjolele reimagining of Sparks’ entire 1979 Giorgio Moroder-produced disco album No. 1 in Heaven. Her Sparks covers effort is her second since 2018’s I Love You Like A Cover, where she took on Alex Lahey’s debut album.
“One of the things that hit me about Sparks is how effective they are at pastiche and at making genres their own,” says Spear. “It feels like they learn the rules of a genre just so they can subvert them. The fact that Sparks inspire such strong feelings among their fanbase also lends itself well to cover songs – you can hear the joy in the recording.”
Spear recorded “Tryouts For The Human Race,” as well as the entirety of the Sparks cover album – set for release next year after a Kickstarter campaign launching September 17 helps to finance post-production – at the Boston Public Library.
Which is very Sparks-esque in its own right.
“When I finished Notes From Undergrad, I was antsy to start working on my next project, preferably something I could self-produce,” Spear says. “I had been listening to a lot of early 20th-century ukulele music to cleanse the palate, and after I saw Sparks in July 2023 I’d been listening to No. 1 in Heaven while I made dinner. When I was listening to side two, it hit me that ‘Beat the Clock’ sounded like a George Formby song, and then it hit me that ‘My Other Voice’ sounded like a Cliff Edwards song. At that moment I decided to record a song-for-song cover of No. 1 in Heaven.”
Here on “Tryouts For The Human Race,” Spear performs vocals, ukulele, finger snaps, and the essential torn paper snare – she purchased a magazine at a bookstore in the Back Bay and set to work ripping pages into a mic – creating a soundscape that takes the original’s disco-era leanings and strips it down to its essentials, allowing the vocal wordplay to shine through.
The track’s vocals were engineered by Spear’s longtime trusted collaborator Joel Edinberg, with ukulele arrangement by Sage Harrington and mastering by Josh Cohen. Spear helmed the ukulele recording and track mixing, and Catherine Maddux supplied the textured sleeve cover art.
Spear says the effort put in, both for “Tryouts For The Human Race” and the forthcoming record, was worth the time and investment.
“I wanted to be worthy of Sparks, after all!” she admits. “I learned new skills in playing and recording, from Formby and Reinhardt-style techniques to how to mix my songs so they sound like 78s.”
Sparks’ intricacy in their songwriting and sonic craftsmanship, which has allowed the Los Angeles band to endure, earning cult-like status several decades after forming in the ‘70s, was tough for Spear to crack. But she was able to identify each song’s core identity, and then break it down before rebuilding the Travels With Brindle sound around it. Spear notes how malleable Sparks songs tend to be, and how they can be reimagined and still retain their overall flair.
Of course, the project was not without its hiccups – from a few takes and sessions with Edinberg in attempting the vocals to capturing the certain peculiar energy that permeates through a Sparks song, no matter who is playing it or where they are creatively taking it.
“Some of the songs were easier to cover than others!” Spear notes. “A few of them lent themselves well to the instrument, and others required some work. ‘Tryouts’ was one of the tougher songs to reinterpret, since the original version is so minimal. My initial idea was to record something more in the style of Formby, but my attempts at arranging it didn’t work.”
A new collaborator in Harrington emerged from the promotional haze of the internet, and the pair had instant chemistry in bringing the band’s kinetic art-rock style to a stripped-down ukulele vibe.
“I saw an ad on Instagram for Sage Harrington’s Ukulele Swing School, listened to a few of her songs, and contacted her about working on this,” Spear adds. “She responded affirmatively, and within a week we met on Zoom. She came up with the stripped-down, Django Reinhardt-inspired arrangement that retained the pulsating rhythm from the song, and that’s where it began.”
So what does Spear think Sparks would think of the cover effort that begins with “Tryouts For The Human Race”?
“A lot of the covers of Sparks tend to stay close to the original versions of the songs,” she concludes. “I think they’d appreciate the originality! Beyond that, I think Ron Mael – who favors rap and heavy metal – would be disappointed that it’s not aggressive enough.”
‘Tryouts For The Human Race’ single artwork:
‘Tryouts For The Human Race’ production credits:
Vocals, ukulele, finger snaps, torn paper snare by Chelsea Spear
Recorded at the Boston Public Library
Vocals engineered by Joel Edinberg
Ukulele recorded and track mixed by Chelsea Spear
Ukulele arrangement by Sage Harrington
Mastered by Josh Cohen
Sleeve art by Catherine Maddux
Press photo by Krzystina Calderone of Vintage Girl Studios
Travels With Brindle short bio:
Chelsea Spear has been a music critic, a show promoter, a college radio host, and a video director… but all she really wanted to do was start a band. Not long after learning to play the ukulele, she formed the bedroom recording project Travels With Brindle. Her melodic original songs and wry, poignant lyrics have attracted a growing audience at open mics and busking pitches in the Greater Boston area. Spear is inspired by lo-fi songwriters and jangle pop acts of the 1980s and ‘90s, and her work has been compared to the Marine Girls, the Raincoats, Courtney Barnett, and Liz Phair. In June 2023, Travels With Brindle released debut album, Notes From Undergrad, led by a string of well-received singles, including “Ivan,” “Linden Street,” and “Something’s Wrong.” In late 2024, she began a Sparks covers project with the September release of “Tryouts For The Human Race,” with a full album reimagining of the art-rock band’s 1979 classic No. 1 In Heaven in early 2025
Media praise for Travels With Brindle:
“Fantastic.” – Rock N Roll Fables
“Power pop ukulele — you can't go wrong with this. This is great stuff!” – Mark Skin Radio
“Chelsea Spear’s lo-fi ukulele pop project Travels With Brindle delivers a highly intelligent collection of songs that are simply brilliant.” – The Whole Kameese
“An extremely gifted songwriter with a golden ukulele, Chelsea Spear is an American treasure. If you do not believe me, listen to anything and then everything she released this year.” – Rich Quinlan in Jersey Beat’s Best of 2022
“[‘Switching Tracks’] is the kind of song that could sneak up on the mainstream, the way Belle & Sebastian do every so often. It has enough of a pop sensibility to appeal to (at least some of) the masses, but enough indie charm and quirk to entice us music snobs.” – If It’s Too Loud
“...it's clear that Chelsea Spear (aka Travels with Brindle) is picking up even more momentum and speed with every single stop along the way - 'Switching Tracks' is a poppier stop, the opening warm and welcoming as it embarks on a journey of realization.” – Tour Bus Tunes
“Melancholic mellowness.” – Turn Up The Volume
“[Linden Street’ is] as glorious and refreshing as the first crisp, autumn morning… Spear’s brand of melancholy exposes a raw humanity in a poignant and brave manner… [it’s] the closest Spear has come to achieving perfection.” – Jersey Beat
“Travels With Brindle creates harmonies that balance on the line of folk and indie-rock singer/songwriter, an artist loaded with stories to share... 'Linden Street' sets the intriguing tone and curiosity to hear what the next single of this trilogy will bring.” – I’m Music Magazine
“‘Something's Wrong’ is going to immediately remind you of The Magnetic Fields, especially Claudia Gonson's songs. It has that stripped down quality along with a storytelling feel to it. It's almost even more theatrical than you would get with The Magnetic Fields despite having bare instrumentation. A lyric like ‘I read his emails by the glow of the Coke machine’ just sets a mood completely. ‘Something's Wrong’ is going to be nearly impossible to resist for many of us.” – If It’s Too Loud
“Once a busker on the streets of Boston, Chelsea Spear is now performing in venues, and she’s not afraid to get a little spooky.” – The Lynn Item
“The [‘I Want U’] video, directed by Vanessa Mark and shot in Central and Harvard squares, is inspired by Spear’s experiences busking – ‘You run into a lot of interesting people, folks who maybe need a therapist as well as people who are very enthusiastic about music,’ she says – and proves that things go more smoothly with a dinosaur by your side.” – Cambridge Day
“Chelsea Spear makes her ukulele rock throughout a collection of six poignant tracks.” – Jersey Beat
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