Squanderers are guitarists Wendy Eisenberg and David Grubbs alongside multi-instrumentalist and legendary producer Kramer. The group burst into existence as the duo of Kramer & Grubbs with the single “Congress of Poodles” b/w “Lendrick Muir Bible Study Weekend”, part of Kramer’s 2023 Shimmy-Disc box set Rings of Saturn.

Squanderers now enter the arena of live performance & recording with the addition of bona-fide guitar slayer Eisenberg, a dream of a foil to Grubbs’s grubbslike guitarisms, setting the scene for Kramer to follow his bass & drone divining rod, divining urges, not dirges. 

In Grubbs’s book-length poem, 'The Voice in the Headphones', “Squanderer” is the nickname that most deeply troubles the book’s unnamed protagonist: “Hang your head, Squanderer. You’ll never darken the doorway of Studio A.” 

Wendy Eisenberg is an improviser and songwriter who uses guitar, pedals, the tenor banjo, the computer, the synthesizer, and the voice. Their work spans genres, from jazz to noise to avant rock to delicate songs; their performances span venues, from international festivals to intimate basements. Though often working solo as both a songwriter and improviser, with acclaimed releases on Tzadik, Ba Da Bing, VDSQ, Out of your Head, and Dear Life, they also perform in the rock band Editrix, and in endless other combinations of their heroes and peers including Bill Orcutt, Caroline Davis, Carla Kihlstedt, John Zorn, Billy Martin, and Allison Miller. They also write about music and other things, with published essays on music in Sound American, Arcana XIII, and the Contemporary Music Review.

David Grubbs has released fifteen solo albums and was a member of the groups Gastr del Sol, Bastro, and Squirrel Bait. He has performed with Tony Conrad, Pauline Oliveros, Luc Ferrari, Susan Howe, Will Oldham, the Red Krayola, and many others. Grubbs is Distinguished Professor of Music at Brooklyn College and The Graduate Center, CUNY, and author of books including Good night the pleasure was ours, The Voice in the Headphones, Now that the audience is assembled, and Records Ruin the Landscape: John Cage, the Sixties, and Sound Recording.

Kramer is a composer/performer/filmmaker and multi-instrumentalist who has worked with artists as diverse as John Zorn, Gong, Butthole Surfers, Ween, The Fugs, Thurston Moore, Allen Ginsberg, Daniel Johnston, Will Oldham and Laraaji, to name but a small few.      He is also a renowned record producer and the founder of Shimmy-Disc. He lives for Collaboration, Improvisation, and Love, but not necessarily in that order. He lives and works in the Appalachian Temperate Rainforest of Western North Carolina.

Produced by Squanderers

Mixed & Mastered by Kramer

All Music by Eisenberg/Grubbs/Kramer                                                                                      (Idiolectic Publishing. ASCAP/ Gastr Virgo. BMI/ Secretly Publishing. BMI)

Recorded May 30, 2024 by Mitch Rackin @ Deep Dive, Brooklyn USA