BIOGRAPHY:

Ernest Salaz met brothers Linus and Paul Streckfus in creative writing class at a military catholic school in San Antonio, TX. They quickly bonded sharing a mutual disgust for the military and sharing an interest in 80s punk, 70s glam, 60s counter-culture, and 50s beat poets. They wanted to play music. After school, Linus and Ernest played Velvet Underground songs on the street for change. This was their first collaboration.

The first formal group they formed was called Crowbar. This band was heavily influenced by Velvet Underground walls of sound and Sonic Youth noise-experiments. Members were Carlos Hernandez, Ernest, Paul, and Raul Reyes with frequent appearances by Milo Misut, Clint McCown, Malcom Hamilton, Jason Cotrell and Linus. That group lasted a few months playing its last show summer of 1990. It was very much about improvisation at jam sessions while live shows consisted of a few structured songs, which stretched out into unknown territory. A frequent face at their gigs was Juan Ramos. He played drums in a local band called Sun-Day.

The next year Paul met George in guitar class at UTSA. George was playing bass with Shady Blades, an alternative rock band from Universal City. He recruited Juan and George to play with Ernest and Linus. What resulted was music often punk in spirit and tone, and rooted in classic rock. George was way into Rush and the Police, Juan was way into Metal and the Stones, and the other guys were into punk. The mix of all of that was something entirely different than all of those genres. The first ever gig they played was sans Linus at an open mic night at a country western bar called Country On the Rocks on Eisenhauer Rd. They played some cover songs including Here Comes Sickness by Mudhoney.

They wrote and recorded five songs summer of 1991, and then played two shows at Tacoland before moving to Austin. There they caught the attention of Ryan Richardson at the Cavity Club. He was immediately impressed and released their first single, "Chemical Angel/Divebomb" on his label EV. This was the first time Richardson had ever released a band that was still together. He compared the group to The Embarrassment, Real Kids, and Radio Birdman.

The second single was on Unclean Records, recorded in the fall of 1992. "Iced the Swelling/Fearless" soon became a popular request at their gigs, and became two of their most played songs.

Since 1992 the group has released as many murky home tape recordings of improvised and lo-fi weird sonics as they have studio work, and was always interested in mixing elements of chance, distortion, and emotion into their work. They strived to write songs that were unpredictable, and challenged the expectations of the audience while rooted in rock-n-roll.

In 1993 the group took a more proactive roll in the local Austin scene and helped booked shows at the East Fifth Street Market. They worked to bring touring acts to an all-ages venue, which was sorely missing in Austin at the time. They toured the West Coast and Midwest with friends El Santo that summer. In the next couple of years they opened for such bands as Spoon, Fugazi, At the Drive-In, Six Finger Satellite, Hoover, Trenchmouth, Shudder To Think, Lungfish, Slant 6, The Ruins, Seaweed and Jawbreaker.

The group actively hosted shows within the local music community and when they had the opportunity to headline at a club they lobbied to get their friends' bands on the bill. Trail of Dead, Windsor For the Derby, Drums & Tuba, Paul Newman, Prima Donnas, El Santo, Gomez, Pro Ex Marauders, New Girl Art Trend Band, Cordial, Rock Hudsons, Cleofus Trujillo Trio, Cordial, Yellow Fledgling, Gut, Carbomb, 100 Watt Clock, Motards, johnboy, Desafinado, among others were all contemporaries. The bands were very tight knit, and always supportive of each others' work.

Paul promoted local music on his label, Golden Hour, and fostered a sense of community amongst the thriving Austin/San Antonio art/punk scene. In the 90s, Austin had as many house shows as it did club shows, and there were bands to see every night. Labels like Rise Records, Bunkhouse, Little Deputy, Sleep King, Unclean, Undone and the list goes on...were releasing all the local punk music. It was surely one of the most prolific music towns of the decade, and always seemed to be ahead of the creative curve.

Bands from all genres played together on the same night often. Glorium enjoyed playing with all kinds of musicians from hardcore punks to jazz mathematicians, and sometimes invited street musicians to join them on stage later that night in the spirit of spontaneity. At the end of that year the group recorded an EP on Undone, Phantom Wire Transmissions.

The record was accompanied by an elaborate illustrated lyric booklet reminiscent of Max Ernst's collage-novels. A full length LP on the Undone label called Cinema Peligrosa followed in spring of 1994. The album was treated like a film score, with repeating themes and a cast of characters in every song. It was layered with chaotic, noisy, and creepy sounds. Background noises and pre-recorded sound effects enhanced the spooky atmosphere that the group was going for. Produced by Tim Kerr of Austin's Big Boys at Sweatbox, this record was a last chapter on Glorium's noise-chaos-fueled sets of the previous two years. From this point on their songs became more spacious and soft and less about the struggle reflecting from their lives.

The band toured a second time after recording Cinema, playing the East Coast and Midwest to small audiences, empty garages, and sparsely populated basements. After the tour, with Cinema behind them, they focused again on songwriting and their next album. Two different studios were used in 1995, for an album that wouldn't be released until two years later. Kurtis D. who played bass in Austin's Liquid Mice recorded and mixed 21 tracks at Pyramid Studios in north Austin. A month prior to that Adam Wiltzie of Stars of the Lid recorded seven tracks at Ben Blank, including "Deserter", and "Ghost-Writer."

In 1995 Paul, Ernest, and Linus started a side group called Antarctica which mostly recorded ambient and instrumental work. They played a few shows, the last being January 1998 when they were joined by Malcom Hamilton on synthesizers. Juan also started his own group with Ernest which Jorge joined a little later called Sexto Sol in 1996. That group was active until 2008, although Ern and George stopped playing in Sexto Sol in the 90s.

In 1996 the band had a huge break and was invited to tour with Fugazi and Branch Manager in the south. Jorge skipped sociology classes and the band hit the road from San Antonio, traveling east through a thick fog. The tour exposed their spastic rock hijinx to thousands of young punk enthusiasts. These were the biggest audiences that Glorium had ever performed for and it was thrilling for them.

That summer they toured a fourth time and brought along Nikki Holiday of The Prima Donnas to play keyboards up to the East Coast again. George did not go along on that tour.

Their second album, Eclipse, was finally released on Golden Hour Records in May 1997 as a CD. It had a more open, sparse and quiet feel to it. The band chose songs from a group of about twenty, and decided to create an album that was in stark contrast to Cinema Peligrosa. It was released simultaneously with a vinyl-only compilation of early singles and the first two studio sessions called Past Life Recordings on EV.

Paul started up a new trio called Search Party with Lauren Robertson and Malcom Hamilton on keys. They played a handful of shows and released cassettes on Golden Hour.

While Eclipse and Past Life Recordings were just selling, Glorium had another album worth of material and were in talks with Ataglance Records to release it. The project tanked when Ataglance moved to North Carolina and opened a record store instead and the band decided to release it themselves on a small scale, called Close Your Eyes. Close Your Eyes was recorded with Grant Barger of The Softs, in Paul's attic February 1997.

Close Your Eyes was a step further into the direction of minimalism, and electronic sounds were added to augment whispered vocals, groovy bass and clean reverb-effected guitars, and keyboard lines. A meager fifty copies were made in 1998 and those were soon gone.

At this time all the band's members had become either immersed in other projects, or had returned themselves to school. Ernest had moved to Providence, Linus to Chicago, and Paul ended up in New York by way of Washington D.C. Jorge continued studying sociology at the University of Texas. Juan got an MFA and began developing his career as a painter, and turning Sexto Sol into a full-time gig.

Since 1998 Glorium has played shows intermittently, and released a couple more singles, remaining true to their obscurity. Their unique form of dramatic rock packed with emotional intensity and sensitivity has kept audiences transfixed and loyal for years.

At the end of 2004 the group released Fantasmas, an 18 song collection that reaches back to it's first studio sessions. It contains never before released material as well as re-releases some past singles that were previously only available on vinyl.

The band seems to play whenever the stars are aligned right. Ernest also plays with I Love You But I've Chosen Darkness and Paul is also playing in Kingdom Of Suicide Lovers. Sexto Sol is on a slower gig schedule as of 2009.

GIGS:

The group will be performing their fourth album, Close Your Eyes, in its entirety on the occassion of the tenth anniversary of its release. Two shows are scheduled.

12.13.08 Austin Red 7 Aasim's Holiday Party w/ ...Trail of Dead, Those Peabodys, Ume, The Black, Diagonals, DJ Ramesh, DJ Fuckin' A

12.12.08 San Antonio Rock Bottom Tattoo Bar w/ Trail of Dead, Phil Luna, Casetta

11.17.07 Austin Beauty Bar Jean Mei's birthday party

10.12.07 San Antonio Limelight The Hawks, Peel, Marcus Rubio

06.23.07 San Antonio Mattress Factory Fin Del Mar, Transfers, Jeannette, DJ Plata

06.22.07 Austin Emo's Faceless Werewolves, Horse + Donkey, Matt Oliver(Sound Team)

NEWS:

Glorium's myspace page is located here

Cortez is making a movie. Here's a preview of some raw footage.

Glorium's current release is called FANTASMAS, on Golden Hour Records. This CD compiles some of the best of the band's singles, session outtakes, and work that was never released until now.

REVIEW OF THE SHOW AT RED7:

To read entire article here

I polished off my Lone Star and pushed myself through to the inside bar where Glorium was prepping the crowd with their pre-show sound check. The show starts, and I was instantly reminded why these guys were the kings of the Texas art-noise scene in the mid-nineties. As a kid, I would have to step out of Stafford Opera House because they were just too damn loud! This Glorium, however played with the patience of true veterans. Gone are the bombastic freak-outs, which often times included a microphone shoved in mouth, as far back as the larynx and a scream that would stop a locomotive. This almost seems like a new band that just happens to be the same players.

What has replaced that style was true understanding of not only what they were doing, but also how they wanted to pull it off. It was magnificent watching Glorium and the tension reminded me of a balance act between the old and the new. I kept waiting for the freak-outs…hell, the whole crowd did. What Glorium has managed to pull off is a tense waiting game that crescendos towards absolute breakdown – without the dramatic clatter of all out assault. They successfully leave you yearning for the freak-out, the breakdown, like you’re on the edge of your seat the entire time, waiting to be pushed over the edge. To create such a controlled view of tension is truly a sight I’m thankful I witnessed again.

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