panda bear by anika heinz

A Week With Panda Bear's "Person Pitch": Day 2

5 May 2007
tell your friends... tell your friends...

Words by Sean Moeller // Illustration by Anika Heinz

Here’s a funny story: About a month ago, the pleasure of interviewing Robby Takac, bassist of the Goo Goo Dolls was mine. There’s sarcasm in there, but when someone’s a nice guy — no matter how marginally okay their band is — there’s a twinge of regret being sarcastic about them. So Robby’s a good shit. The air’s cleared. He did say something in the interview that struck me as ridiculous though. He ran a recording studio for some time back home in Buffalo, N.Y., and commented that there are so many bands thinking they can just record themselves nowadays that we are being bombarded by a lot of shitty sounding records. My pause comes when it’s determined who the decider is. This is a comment coming from a guy whose band obviously has enough money to hire whichever producer they want, record in whichever studio they want and take as much time they could ever want. This sort of scenario usually results in flashy, splashy records that are covered in glossy lacquer. To me, those are the shitty sounding records. I’d rather hear Dr. Dog’s Easy Beat and Cass McCombs’ PREfection than have to sit through a Metallica disc or the latest Bon Jovi. Person Pitch can be added to the wonderfully dirty list, where the imperfections only add to beauty, just as the best cards are considered to be the handmade ones — with the Elmer’s glued borders. Lennox doesn’t suffer at all for his methods and his desire to melt his samples together with his own hands and elbow grease. There are many moments that remind of McCombs — of voice and of execution — that put him in splendid company. We shouldn’t be able to eat off of the records we love. They should all be like this, though whose arm to we have to twist to get the vocals higher in the mix? That’s all I’ll ask. These songs, for being so new, have a timeless quality simply because they sound of old and can remind of the music coming out of the overhead speakers at the old drive-thrus as the carhop brings out the milkshakes.

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beautiful! well said.

ps. just found this site today! i am extremely excited. daytrotter and I share such similar interests in music and illustration!

william | 7 May 2007
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this illustration is so spot on.

nick | 10 May 2007

commenting closed for this article




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