“President of What?“
from the album Something About Planes
1998
iTunes
March 1, 1999 — A question I got a lot of last year was, “Hey, see any good grunge bands?” Having spent a little over a year in Seattle and spending more than one night at a club, the answer is a resounding no. I’ve seen the sultry ’70s revived in Huge Spacebird, been entertained by Smokelahoma’s mix of Grateful Dead and George Jones, swooned under the tragic ballads of Joel R.L. Phelps, and gotten down with the funky groovemeisters who pack the Art Bar. But grunge? Nope. Saw a shitty punk band at the Off Ramp by accident. That’s as close as I got.
To answer that question, I throw back a short version of the above paragraph, which inevitably leads to, “So, what are the bands like?” A glance above should give you an idea of what I’ve been liking, but Death Cab for Cutie is something different. These guys came out of nowhere (Bellingham, Washington) and immediately, tongues were wagging. Their debut album disappeared from record shelves. The audience grew. Children were born and old people died. Life was good again.
As Beatles fans might surmise from the name (lifted from a Bonzo Dog song that appeared in Magical Mystery Tour), there’s a little Liverpool going on here. There’s also a serious Built to Spill vibe soaking up the spilled beer on the bar. The result is terrifically catchy power-pop. After the opening acoustic guitar and cello-laced “Bend to Squares,” the band kicks into high gear with the super infectious “President of What?” Deceptively simple at first, the hook digs a lot deeper than you’d think. I’ve been humming this song every day for six weeks, and that’s six weeks I’d spent without the CD. (Pitchfork procedural bureaucracy. I could make a joke, but Ryan would edit it out.)
Almost as catchy is “Your Bruise,” which makes really nice use of echo on the traps. And any band that can make a song called “The Face That Launched 1000 Shits” and not make it sink under the weight of its title, much less make it sound like the Radiohead knockoff it vaguely hints at being… well, that’s just downright cool. As is the rest of Something About Airplanes. You can take my word for it — whether or not they ever get huge, they’re awfully good.