Mark: A number of times over the years, I have thought that it might be nice to write something about San Diego indie rock greats PINBACK, but I could never find the right angle. They’re not really the sort of act that I like to tackle in a REEVALUATING series of posts, and it’s been difficult to fit much else into this blog’s busy schedule of alternating between posting a mountain of 90s alt rock stuff, and… getting lazy and not posting for many months at a time.
In the course of writing SHUFFLE ROULETTE with my friend Mike, though, the perfect angle for writing about Pinback presented itself. It became apparently that Mike had heard about Pinback from me, years ago. But he knew so little about them, he actually had them confused with Shotmaker.
These are both bands that I probably never shut up about in the early 2000s when Mike and I first started hanging out, but they’re extremely different bands! I love Shotmaker, but they are far from something that I would consider “a band that Mike might like”. I would say that they’re not really a band that most people might like.
Pinback, though? The great leveler! From the mightiest Pharaoh to the lowliest peasant, who doesn’t enjoy a good Pinback record! And by “a good Pinback” record, I mean “one of the first two Pinback records, or the related EPs released in the same time period”. I think that Pinback are good as hell! And Mike should too!
So now I’m going to set out on my very important quest. A quest to… get my friend Mike into Pinback.
Or die trying!
Mike: I am happy to be your narrative device, Mark. More uncertain about being your indie rock guinea pig, but let’s see what I’m getting into here and dive right in…
Tripoli
Mike: Well this is as undeniably pleasant as it is undeniably dudes with guitars making music at the turn of the century. I like the descending line and I love the interplay of the lead vocals, backing vocals and guitar. That’s a really interesting vocal melody too. A minute and a half in and I’m smashing the “like” button.
Oh no. This “scratching” break is a total buzzkill in an otherwise excellent song. Musically embarassing (“cringe”, a person younger than myself may say), and casually racist in that way indie dudes at the turn of the century so excelled at.
Mark: The “scratching” break seemed fresh and cool at the time, I swear!
“Tripoli” is more or less the quintessential Pinback song, in my brain. Something about the way that the opening instrumental crawls up there in front of you and says “Howdy” just transports me instantly back into a body wearing oversized chunky corduroy pants and a much too tight t-shirt.
So much of what I like about the band is present here, but chiefly I think that this song is a great example of the band’s ability to swap between sweet passage and tense passages while managing to maintain a chilled out vibe throughout.
But yeah, the “scratching” thing hasn’t aged super well! But this was a time where you’d log into KaZaa to steal some music and see, like, a dozen “cute, ironic” tracks floating around where some white guy with an acoustic guitar is covering a hip hop classic. So… I dunno, I guess we didn’t know any better?
Hurley
Mike: There’s something in the structure of songs from this era/style that feels like an etude out of a workbook. It’s the picked out lines (rather than strummed chords) combined with the repetition plus variation. I like this one but not as much at the previous track. Again, a highlight for me is the interplay of the vocals and guitar.
Mark: You’ve really put to words something about the early 2000s tunes that I’ve often thought about. It’s like a lot of the parts/songs emerged out of jam sessions and the songwriters were too commitment adverse to actually cut any of the ideas from the jam, so every little thing that they came up with gets a couple of bars.
This isn’t a fave track for me from this record, but I think that it works in the context of a full album listen. This one even more overtly switches between tension and sweetness, with the transition between the dark choruses and the major key choruses giving me a bit of whiplash.
Very mellow whiplash.
Charborg
Mike: This track is less fun off the bat, but I got into it’s slumpy dirge vibe as it went on. I like how they got Super Mario to guest on the track with his jumping sound.
Mark: This is actually the first Pinback song that I ever heard. I was in a Yahoo! chatroom during my disastrous first year of University, chatting about music with a bunch of strangers. Somebody recommended Pinback and “Charborg” was the first song to finish downloading on KaZaa or whatever other filesharing program I was using at the time. I was actually immediately smitten with it, because at the time my whole life was a “slumpy dirge vibe”.
This song also gets credit for including lyrics about playing shows with crappy monitors, something that we can all agree is universal to the human experience.
Chaos Engine
Mike: I don’t love this one. More of the same song structure, driven by repetition of simple individual lines that interlock in interesting ways, but this time it’s missing a spark compared to the rest so far. Vocal melody is not doing it for me either. Highlight for me is the organ part.
Mark: Agreed that this song is mostly a bummer compared to others on the album. Also agreed that the organ part kind of rescues the vibe. I will say, though, that when I was just getting into Pinback, I found some things about this song very intriguing. The vocal interplay, and the deliberate strangeness of the “ee-ew, ee-yah-ew” part had a real impact on me! Also the hilarious and incongruous aggressive drum loops that enter near the end of the song and refuse to leave.
Shag
Mike: I really like how the music propels forward on this one. Great melody line. Lots of interesting sonics coming from auxiliary percussion and keyboards. And the addition of the organ in the chorus gives it an early new wave twist. This is going on the “liked” songs playlist.
Mark: This is a fave! To this day. “Shag” is slinky and catchy, and somehow super creepy. Just like me!
You’ve nailed a bunch of high points about the tune, so I’ll talk about something else. I’ve seen Pinback live a couple of times, and every time I’ve seen them play this song, they play it so fast that it’s not good anymore. Hahaha. Just frantic. No fun. Just thought I would mention that.
Loro
Mike: I like the guitar part on this one. It’s a very pleasant song overall. I could see it being used effectively in a movie.
Mark: If I had to pin down (har har) a song that I considered to be “the Pinback song”, I would probably point to this one. Pinback is kind of a vibe band for me, and this song nails much of the vibe that I’m looking for when I throw on a Pinback record. A chilled out vibe, with heavy doses of cryptic weirdness. Well chosen melodies, layered on top of each other. The song is kind of slight, but also it isn’t. Does that make sense? I don’t really care of it does.
Crutch
Mike: Bringing out the big fuzz for this one. I don’t love what the vocals are doing in this one, musically. I would like to hear an instrumental version of it. Ah, but by the second verse it’s making more sense to me. I’d say this is a filler track, but there’s still lots to like here.
Mark: This is another fave of mine, but in my experience, I’m the only one. That monster fuzz bass has always been irresistible to me, as well as the goofball major key switch of the chorus. That portamento squidgy sawtone lead line in the chorus? The guitar and drum break in the middle of the last verse? This song is great.
Rousseau
Mike: This is the first track where I kinda want to say I don’t like it. It’s very dramatic, which normally I’m on board with, but it’s not grabbing me. Maybe it’s hard to be effectively dramatic with that repetitive simple lines circling around formula we’ve heard throughout the album. It does pick up toward the end when it falls into sort of a “round”.
Mark: I like this song! This is actually a live version, I think. My bad. It’s fairly consistent with the studio version, except a lot less chilled out. There’s a definite live swagger that the version I’m used to doesn’t have.
I think that there’s a lot of great piano work on this tune, and I will always love the chorus, but this song sticks out for me because I have memories of being around other Pinback loving friends many years ago (in a tour van, even, I think), shouting “RED BLACK WIRES! RED BLACK WIRES!” along with this song.
Lyon
Mike: Again, I find the organ a highlight on this track. The organ gets a little more leash to run with than the other instruments (both on the track, and generally within their style). This is another winning vocal melody, and the interlocking second vocal line works really well.
Ah, heck, I’m gonna “like” this one, too.
Mark: This track was less of a fave of mine years ago, but is what I might consider a “modern fave”. Probably because now I’m over 40 and something that sounds this warmly blissed out is a balm to my weary workaday soul. Love the organ work on this track, and even though the song eventually moves into an endlessly repeating outro that seems vaguely unpolished to me, the vibe carries it.
Although I have to be honest, I clocked this as a “modern fave” for the first minute or so while I listened to this and by the end I had corrected myself to bring this track back down to “less of a fave of mine”. It’s okay, though!
Montaigne
Mike: This opens up feeling much closer to a traditional songwriting structure, before it inevitably falls into short, simple, repetitive lines. I know I keep coming back to that, but…so do they. The Pinback MO seems to be throw some contrapuntal lines at each other and see which ones sound best. Could be that the songs were written through jams? I could see that being the case.
Anyway, this is another track I really like. Kudos, Pinback (and by extension, Mark).
Mark: “Montaigne” contains some of my favourite little instrumental lines on the album. Some of the little guitar and piano licks sound so sweeping and dramatic to me, it’s no wonder that I spent so many hours walking around in the rain as a young man, smoking cigarettes and listening to this kind of shit.
Like the prior track, this song is at least half outro, but the outro on this one feels much more earned and super hypnotic. I remember this being great live, too! You know, back when shows were shows, and we all still did things.
Wait, are people still doing things?
THE VERDICT
Mike: Three songs added to my “liked songs” playlist, so I’d say that’s a pretty effective first salvo in this conversion therapy of a blog series.
For the most part, I dig their complex simplicity approach to their songs. It all feels very much of its time, but that doesn’t have to be a bad thing. Many great things are instantly recognizable as being from a certain time and place.
Mark: Pinback were absolutely of a time, and you are correct that the music has the feel of that time. Perhaps it’s how consequential that period of time was for me (I made the bulk of my most enduring friendships during my “Pinback” years – yourself included!), but there’s just something about this music that I get swept up in whenever I return to it.
There are even things about this band’s sound that I should – on paper – be put off by. There’s a LOT of “slappy” bass playing on this material, and that usually sends me heading for the hills. But in terms of kind of chill, kind of busy, kind of simple, kind of deep tunes, I’m not sure that you can do too much better than Pinback’s best material.
Their follow-up album to this debut is also excellent. Given that it’s taken me well over two years (or three???) to complete and publish this blogpost… I do not think that we will actually be covering it.
Mike, I apologize for the delay and I thank you kindly for indulging me in this lil’ trip down memory lane. May your days have a mellow vibe and a minimum of cringe-y “scratch breaks”.
The Fraudsters' Almanac 