running my mouth off about bands i’m not very familiar with: fly pan am and do make say think
As much as I like to deride my alma mater, there are a few resources on the campus that I
really do enjoy. The Wexner Center, despite
the fact that it’s named after the man who unleashed such abominations as Abercrombie & Fitch,
The Limited, and it’s frightening little sister The Limited Too on the world, provides a huge
volume of cultural programming which, though not oft publicized is fairly accessible to the
student community at OSU. One of the best events that the Wexner Center puts on is a series of
concerts where they bring in artists who are doing things that are significantly more
interesting than most. Last night I had the pleasure of seeing two bands, Fly Pan Am and
Do Make Say Think, who I was previously unfamiliar with, but will certainly investigate
more ardently after witnessing their performances.
What drew me to the show in the first place was that I learned that Fly Pan Am was a project
of some of the members of the “post-apocalyptic orchestral”* group Godspeed You Black
Emporer!. While Fly Pan Am does create intricate, and textured audio experiments, they
differ from Godspeed in the scale of their music. They lack Godspeed’s orchestration, diverse
instrumentation and broodingness of sound and instead produce a stripped-down but still
interesting and satisfying take on the post-rock genre.
I’ve never quite understood what “post-rock” means, other than the fact that I must like it
since bands that I’m quite fond of such as Godspeed, Mogwai, and Rachel’s all seem to earn the
moniker. Seeing Fly Pan Am work through their set gave me a better idea about how to define the
genre. The configuration of Fly Pan Am could be that of many rock bands. The band, as I saw
them, consisted of 3 guitarists, a bassist, and a drummer. When they started playing, however,
it became clear that the rock instrumentation would lead to a far different result than
conventional rock music. The drums provided a minimalist base for the music, while the guitars
were by far the most notable percussive element. They were played both conventionally as well
as with drumsticks and with objects like keys connected to the strings to create a number of
interesting sounds. While they maintained the rythm of the songs and set the droning mood of
the pieces, an occasional melodic loop would make it’s way out of the soup of sound, perfectly
complementing that from which it arose. In another departure from traditional rock, most of the
melody in the song was driven not by guitars or vocals (which were nonexistant) but by a
5-string bass (it’s refreshing to see that this instrument is used outside of nu-metal). This
gave the music a refreshing twist and kept the music from being the uninteresting noise of some
of the post-rock I’ve heard.
Do Make Say Think may hail from a totally different part of Canada, but in my oppinion they
shared, at least musically, far closer ties to Godspeed than Fly Pan Am. Most notable was the
use of saxaphone and trumpet to add a moody, sultry quality to their songs. The mood of the
songs was accentuated by strong melodic hooks from the guitars but driven home by the horns. In
many cases it seemed like parts of the songs focussed on a pair of sounds – two drummers, two
saxaphones, two guitar melodies, which sounded really amazing. It’s really nice, once in
awhile, to just be able to get lost in a band’s music without the encumbrance of lyrics and
that’s how I fealt during Do Make’s set. I just stood there with a little smile on my face,
rocking out and thinking how good it was to hear some good music and see all my friends at the
show.
I’ve always really hated jam bands. Some of it is joking anti-hippy rhethoric, but there’s
also a more deep-rooted disdain for the genre. Seeing both of the bands that I saw last night,
I have a more concrete understanding of why I hate the genre. It’s not that I dislike
instrumental music it’s that jam band music seems bloated and masturbratory, frivilous and
boring. The music that I heard last night was none of those things. The sounds were complex
and the musicianship excellent, but it all had a directness and sense of purpose that kept the
songs flowing and managed to consistantly surprise me. It’s the purposefullness of everything
combined to create something that is diverse enough to defy the cookie cutter formula of pop
music that I like. It’s the same reason I like improvisational jazz, and I guess post-rock,
where the solos or individual parts all seem to feed each other and contribute to a tight
package rather than existing for their own sake. So, listening to the bands last night, I just
thought, “you hippy fools, you’ll never be this good”.
* Thanks to Kevey for that description.