INSTANT KARMA
Greg Mendez
I’M NEW HERE
Philly’s fertile lo-fi scene spawns another astute songwriter
Mendez: “Music held me together”
JULIETTE BOULAY; PAT PIASECKI
‘‘TO
be honest, I originally thought
that people would think it was really fucking weird,” says Greg Mendez, as he recalls his initial feelings about “Maria” – a slight, lilting song about getting arrested in a crack den that provided his unexpected breakthrough in 2023. Mendez had been writing and recording music since 2006, releasing a couple of low-key, melancholic singer-songwriter albums on cassette since 2017, but “Maria” and its self-titled parent album resonated far beyond his peers in Philadelphia’s DIY underground. It currently has 2.3 million streams on Spotify and led to a deal with Dead Oceans, who reissued
Greg Mendez
at the end of last year, along with a new EP, “First Time/Alone”.