Cracking Up

Chancellorpink

Reclusive bedroom-pop and basement-rock auteur Chancellorpink is long-time Pittsburgh vocalist, songwriter and modern rock musician Ray McLaughlin, who makes swirling, heart-rendered distortion and guitar-based indie rock and is also an attorney. As a boy, McLaughlin listened to his mom's record collection, movie soundtracks like "The Graduate" & crooners like Tom Jones, Andy Williams, Noel Harrison. He used a songbook to learn Bacharach/David tunes on the organ. In 1986, after years of songwriting & home recording, McLaughlin joined Six Gun Jury, a popular alternative guitar rock band in Pittsburgh. In 1988, Six Gun Jury’s "Climb the Scene" was in regular rotation on commercial alternative radio station WXXP, & in 1989, their debut album "Res Ipsa Loquitur" was nominated for 2 In Pittsburgh Music Awards. The band broke up in 1990 as McLaughlin began work as an attorney. In 2006, McLaughlin forged the solo project Chancellorpink, releasing his eponymous debut album, with regular rotation airplay on underground radio 3WK for single “Annajo”. 2007’s Darkrazor (“Lock Me Up”) excelled on college airways like Chicago’s WZRD, & Chancellorpink’s Valentine Parade ("Unfinished Valentine") (2008), was called by David Cowling (Americana UK) “an amalgam of David Bowie, Scott Walker and Stephin Merritt.” Of 2009’s Life Like Sad Music, Jonathan Leonard (Leonard’s Lair) wrote, “Now more than ever, McLaughlin is heading towards the sinister but tuneful territory of Babybird & Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti; There’s that same sense of reclusive pop genius at work here." In February 2019, McLaughlin released his first Chancellorpink album in 10 years, All of Them Monsters, with first single “A Rainbow’s Knocking”.

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