Biography
by Margaret Reges
The Fresh & Onlys started out as a collaboration between frontman Tim Cohen (Black Fiction) and bassist Shayde Sartin, who started putting songs together in 2004. The Fresh & Onlys' lineup eventually expanded to include Kyle Gibson, Wymond Miles, and Heidi Alexander; drawing from a hodgepodge of influences (among them Buzzcocks, the Mekons, and Country Joe MacDonald), the new lineup arrived at a grimy-yet-sunny pop sound along the lines of Saturday Looks Good to Me and Welcome. Over the next four years, the Fresh & Onlys self-released a couple of recordings (Medicine Island, Imaginary Friends), put out a self-titled full-length album on John Dwyer's Castle Face label, and released a 7" single, "I'll Tell You Everything," on Dirty Knobby Industries. The band's second full-length album, Grey-Eyed Girls, was released on Woodsist in the fall of 2009. It was followed by a flood of recordings in 2010. An EP for Captured Tracks (August In My Mind), a handful of singles for various labels, and finally their third album, Play It Strange, which was released in October by In the Red.