Embracing a wildly eclectic variety of melodic influences,
Saturday Looks Good to Me is the brainchild of indie pop wunderkind
Fred Thomas, who has been the only constant member of the group since its inception in 2000.
Saturday Looks Good to Me began as a fanciful project by
Thomas (previously a member of
Flashpapr and
Lovesick) to create a record by a band that didn't exist; with the help of a handful of like-minded friends,
Thomas wrote and produced a set of nine songs that drew on '60s pop sounds (Motown,
Brian Wilson, and
Phil Spector are clear reference points) while also taking cues from contemporary indie rock.
Thomas gave the project the name
Saturday Looks Good to Me, and the nine tunes were released on a limited-edition vinyl LP by the Here Forever Always label in the spring of 2000 (a CD reissue appeared two years later). A CD-R album of more music from the phantom group,
Cruel August Moon (aka I Take a Chance Every Time) followed in the fall of 2000, but
Saturday Looks Good to Me was one of several projects for
Thomas until 2002, when the pop-oriented emo group
Saves the Day came across a copy of the debut album and was impressed enough to invite
SLGTM to open for them on a national tour.
Thomas assembled a band to play the songs on-stage, and the tour was successful enough that
Saturday Looks Good to Me not only won a new legion of fans but landed a deal with the Illinois-based independent label Polyvinyl Records. In March 2003, Polyvinyl released the second full-length
SLGTM effort,
All Your Summer Songs, while their third,
Every Night, came out in the fall of 2003;
Every Night was released on both vinyl and CD, with the same songs appearing on both formats but in different recordings or mixes. Between albums,
Thomas and his crew released a steady stream of singles, EPs, and CD-R titles, and the 2006 collection
Sound on Sound featured the lion's share of
Saturday Looks Good to Me's non-LP tracks. By this time
Thomas was also taking
Saturday Looks Good to Me on the road on a regular basis, and the group's growing following and reputation for sterling, idiosyncratic pop captured the attention of the venerable indie label K Records, who stepped forward to issue
SLGTM's fourth proper album,
Fill Up the Room, in the fall of 2007. The band's live-based sound experiments also informed their
Cold Colors EP, which arrived in 2007 and hinted at
Thomas' atmospheric electronics to come with
City Center. Almost six years passed before another
Saturday Looks Good to Me album appeared. In the interim,
Thomas immersed himself in a number of different projects including the aforementioned
Ryan Howard collaboration
City Center and the surf pop act
Swimsuit.
When One Kiss Ends It All arrived in 2013, it featured an array of female vocalists and combined infectious, summery pop with an inventive production ethic. ~ Mark Deming