Pinback

Indie Fundamentalists

originally published September 17, 2008

Over the course of what's coming up on 10 years, Rob Crow and Armistead Burwell Smith IV (also known as, implausibly, Zach) have accumulated a solid breadth of material working under the name Pinback. In fact, some have even said it's the AC/DC of millennial indie rock. And while no one has actually said that, the comparison is justified - Pinback established a solid formula early on (with its helpfully titled debut This Is a Pinback CD) and has pushed outward and upward from within that formula. It's all carefully, patiently interwoven guitar and bass, adroitly melded live-and-mechanical drums and twin vocal melodies you can hang your hat on. The result is a sound that is instantly recognizable and oft imitated.

Yes, imitated, but never duplicated, and that is because Pinback's songwriting fundamentals are solid. In other words, if this was your woodworking class in high school and we were testing the structural integrity of our popsicle-stick houses, Pinback's would stay strong. The architectural fundamentals of anything - much less music - may be all you actually need to make something solid. And these fundamentals were at odds with a notorious performance in Chicago at Touch & Go Records' 25th Anniversary Party in 2005.

"Oh, sorry about that," laughs bassist Smith when it is divulged that a Flagpole writer was present at the Touch & Go show. "That was kind of one of our worst shows. We had rented all the gear, so it was none of our stuff..." In front of a crowd of thousands, Pinback navigated a gig rife with bunk amps and stage jitters (guitarist Crow took questions, mooned the audience, etc.). But strangely, it wasn't a disaster: set against the Chicago skyline at a luminous sundown, it almost had the feel of a weird, synchronistic bonding experience between audience and performer. We were rooting for Pinback to power through, and they did: the set ended with a dramatically wind-blown "A.F.K.," one of Pinback's many odes to subdued disconnect.

It was certainly a rare moment of lost control for a band that has successfully expanded an intimate recording project into a world-touring indie juggernaut. In the late '90s, while on break from their "main" projects - bassist Smith's legendary Three Mile Pilot and Crow's wonderful, underrated ADHD-addled pop group Heavy Vegetable - the pair got together for some casual writing and home recording. As the "main" projects dissolved, one thing led to another, and the once casual Pinback came into the fore, establishing itself as an unlikely purveyor of subtlety coming from the fiery hardcore town of San Diego in the '90s.

"Just because it's quiet doesn't mean it can't come off as... I hate to say it, but powerful," says Smith. Referring to his friends in the insane proto-math rock dieties Drive Like Jehu as "one of my favorite bands of all time," Smith talks a bit about the scene in San Diego in the times when regionalism meant something (pre-Internet). "I really think there was a camaraderie going on back in the '90s with bands like Jehu, Rocket from the Crypt, No Knife, Boilermaker, all sorts of bands that were... instead of competing, it was more like everyone influencing everyone.  That's kind of disappeared..."

Pinback is currently touring behind 2007's Autumn of the Seraphs which actually takes Pinback's layered, measured approach into its most aggressive realm yet. Taking a page from punk's do-it-yourself mantra, Pinback has never recorded in a "proper" studio, only preferring to record at the band members' homes. Writing and recording simultaneously, the process of composition, practicing and documenting are all one and the same. "If you were to crunch all the days together, I would say somewhere between six to eight months of real working," Smith says when asked how long the average Pinback album gestates, "...but it takes us over a span of a year and a half. If we weren't recording ourselves, it would cost us way too much money!"

When quizzed for tips for the home recording enthusiast - i.e., your roommate in the dorm with ProTools on his laptop - Smith again returns to one of Pinback's recurring themes: fundamentals. "You kinda turn into this gearhead, it's kind of a scary addiction where you're like, 'Oh, I have to get this microphone pre-amp' and stuff, and what it really comes to down to is - I hate to say it - it's really the song. If you've got a good song, you can record it on a four-track and it's gonna sound good. I would say for people to not fret so much about, oh, I don't have the latest and greatest tube microphone - or the oldest and greatest tube microphone - just worry about the song. Everything else will play itself out."

Jeff Tobias

WHO: Kylesa, Pinback
WHERE: 40 Watt Club
WHEN: Tuesday, September 23
HOW MUCH: $12