You know how most rock musicians’ careers have an arc that generally travels from frenetic, aggressive youthfulness to a reflective, subdued adulthood? Like how Paul Westerburg went from shouting “I Need a Goddamn Job” in 1981, to crooning “Here Comes a Regular” by ’85, to looking utterly despondent and confused while twanging out “It’s a Wonderful Lie” (as if he was country all along)—in ’08?
Well, Portland quintet And And And has shotgun sprayed an entire career, with no semblance of a maturity arc, in just over two years.
Which is not to say there’s been no growth in the band’s creative output. Their latest album, Lost, released early this year on Exploding Green Records, is their first on vinyl. The material isn’t entirely newly released. Think of it as wrought from the rich ore of their recent past. The release notes say that the album focuses on “themes of alienation, concealment and becoming ‘lost’ in the confusion surrounding everyday life,” which sounds straightforward enough. But oh the tacks one can take.
The first track, “I Want More Alcohol,” is a driven and angrily regretful sing-along that finds lead singer Nathan Baumgartner and company drowning their sorrows over spurned advances and wasted time. “I want more alcohol,” they shout up the tonal scale, “cause I hate this town, I just been fuckin’ around, and it makes me sadder,” finishes Baumgartner in his little bit indie, little bit country falsetto. His voice wavers and shudders (distortion notwithstanding) but never cracks, always driving true.
But by the very next track, “You Can’t Hide,” they’re drunk-on-the-front-porch alt-country crooners singing about burning down the woods if you try to go hide there. They’ve even got a harmonica, so you know how serious they are. Confused enough yet? Well there’s also trumpet-driven, bass heavy psych-pop—imagine a ska Interpol with the Ass Ponys’ Chuck Cleaver instead of that Morrisey-wannabe lead singer—and some Wurlitzer keyboard. Now what?
A lot of their work has been categorized as folk. Fair enough, since that word is so loosely applied to everything that it really doesn’t mean anything anymore. Let’s call it jangle folk. That means it’s not all cheek-to-cheek, serious sincerity, like Peter, Paul and Mary or those neo-folk milksops like Mumford and Sons, or even angry and overtly political like all those folk punkers.
It’s more incidentally folk. It happens to sound folksy by way of its nonchalance and informality. Like, “Hey, why not hit that chord again on the upstroke? I’m drinkin’. Tambourines are fun!”
Then you dig up something really strange, like former member Run4yoLyfe’s remix/cover-thingy of rapper Wale’s hit “Pretty Girls,” included on 2011’s Life Ruiner EP, and throw up your hands in despair. Run4yoLyfe (gone, but not forgotten, as they say) seems like a pretty strange dude judging by his solo work, with a slantwise hip-hop influence, but still all up in his own head.
And so, while his loss seems to have pared the band into a semi-coherent genre, one wonders if that’s really desirable for a band that has so successfully evaded categorization.
What does consistently characterize the band is a sense of locale. They’re Oregon. The video for “Is It Any Wonder” depicts the band playing on what appears to be the banks of the Clackamas River, Baumgartner singing into the handle of a Bowie knife, guys throwing big rocks into the water.
The “I Want More Alcohol” video was filmed in a snowy old-growth oak forest and features a picnic table tea party followed by drunken mobile home debauch. Hot valley summers and cold mountain winters are the backdrop for And And And’s rock ‘n’ roll existence.
That existence includes forever putting out free downloads, playing free shows and hosting a roving basketball tournament with a minivan-roof mounted hoop. They played a show at a Burgerville. They drop recordings like the sky drops rain, ceaselessly and indiscriminately.
The discography—“corpus” seems a better word, as there are precious few “discs” of And And And’s work to be had—is immense. They make prog-rockers Yes look like lazy stoners (did you know that Yes released 19 studio albums?). I’m not sure how many songs they’ve released, but it includes at least two full-length albums and six EPs with possibly some demo singles thrown in for good cheer.
Lost is available for download or purchase at the Exploding Green Records site (www.explodinggreen.com). Their Life Ruiner split cassette is available from Apes Tapes (apestapes.goodsie.com). All of And And And’s previous recordings were, legitimately it seems, available on megaupload.com, but the government put the kibosh on that site. So if you want the music, you’re going to have to see them live. Or buy a tape deck. But hurry, I hear Goodwill’s running out of those steam-era contraptions.