Pot Valiant by Pot Valiant

After a half decade slog in the Gilman Street punk scene as The Vagrants, Brian Jay, Nick Gancheff, Craig Miller, and Dave Henwood resurfaced with a new name and a new sound. Their mid-punk crisis in full bloom, the quartet abandoned dissonant guitars and garbled glass vocals in favor of a jangly, albeit introspective mood. Neither shoegaze nor emo, and sonically exiled from their Lookout Records peers, Pot Valiant carved out their own corner of the East Bay, releasing two singles and a brilliant LP before imploding in mid-1994.

By the fall of 1993, Lookout Records was the toast of the Bay Area, releasing nearly 20 records by a diverse field of “punks.” Having issued The Vagrants lone 7” three years earlier, Larry Livermore’s budding enterprise was a logical first step off the bus from Pot Valiant’s El Cerrito practice space. The EP was tracked by Andy Ernst at Art of Ears—fresh off sessions with Green Day, Screeching Weasel, and Rancid—who masterfully guided the young quartet through the wilderness of soft and big to find a heavenly mix of crushing guitars and driving melodies.

A visit to the Numero office makes it very clear that ‘the stacks’ is a literal description of our process: we accumulate stacks of records, master tapes, photos, flyers, and old newspapers while assembling a project. From The Stacks is our way of illuminating the experience: the selections here are presented without curation. While we’re digging for gold, these are the lesser minerals we find.