Throw Me the Statue

by Jason Lymangrover
Taking his moniker Throw Me the Statue from an old mixtape title, one-man multi-instrumentalist Scott Reitherman relocated from Half Moon Bay, a small city south of San Francisco, to New York and then Seattle with aspirations of starting up an independent label called Baskerville Hill Records. Inspired by the lo-fi and D.I.Y. sensibilities of K Records, he started putting out CDs in 2004, including one by fellow Vassar College student Sam Beebe (aka Black Bear). Around the same time, Reitherman started multi-tracking an album of jangly indie pop using layers of guitars, keys, drum machines, melodicas, glockenspiels, and whatever else he could add to the mix. Although he wrote and performed the majority of the album himself, some friends contributed to the process, including Casey Foubert of Pedro the Lion and Sufjan Stevens' band. When his debut album, Moonbeams, was finished in April of 2007, Reitherman started assembling a live band, wrangling up Aaron Goldman, Will Cone, Joe Syverson, and Jarred Grimes to assist him on-stage. Secretly Canadian caught wind of his project, and signed Throw Me the Statue to the label's high-profile indie roster, before re-releasing the album and sending him on the road to open up for Jens Lekman on tour in the beginning of 2008.