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Thursday, March 13, 2003 Kick Out the Jams
Death Cab for Cutie at the Huntridge, March 10 After the epic swath Cobain, Corgan, Cornell and a California surfer named Eddie Vedder cut through alternative music during the '90s, forward-thinking artists had nowhere to go except back into their bedrooms to tinker. Not with luscious babes, or each other or even themselves, mind you--but with 4-tracks. With grunge degenerating into shallow, arena-rock bombast a la Stone Temple Pilots, the kids were forced to break everything down and start over. Forget moshing; it was time to wade into the mush pit. Some of the results have been noteworthy. Built to Spill, Guided By Voices and Pedro the Lion have released some fine music. But indie rock--like any movement--is a reactionary one. And, like all movements, indie rock has arrived at the twilight of its popularity, especially as emo and its lesser brethren, "screamo," move to the foreground. Seattle's Death Cab for Cutie has always provided the ideal soundtrack for heartbreak. The band's show Monday night at the Huntridge was flawless in its execution, all chiming guitars and tasteful drumming. But like country music, DCFC's lo-fi indie rock obsesses over life's limitations: My Ghost World girlfriend left me; my Honda Civic won't start; my cat died. Transgression and transcendence are never part of the equation, and that's the point. Singer/guitarist Ben Gibbard kept his cool, fragile tenor on a leash, delicately parading it the way a Summerlin soccer mom walks her Spaniel at the dog park. Pop music often succeeds because of a vocalist's ability to remain emotionally distant from the song, thereby spotlighting the lyrics and melody. Gibbard understands this and uses the technique to its fullest. With "Styrofoam Plates," he blithely delivered dark lines about paternal abandonment ("It's no stretch to say you were not quite a father/ but a donor of seeds to a poor single mother/ that would raise us alone, we'd never see the money/ that went down your throat through the hole in your belly"); with "Photobooth" he allowed his ripped-straight-from-the-diary ruminations to coast on a sugar-coated melody. Overall, however, the show was little more than fleeting moments of beauty punctuated by interminable bouts of hardcore navel-gazing. Lord knows pop music needs more sensitive, literate bands like DCFC. But a show is a show--not an opportunity to faithfully reproduce recorded music in a live setting. Now, mush! --Eric Rohner |
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