After hearing about them everywhere in recent months I finally checked out the music of Death Cab for Cutie and The Postal Service, two projects of American indie singer/songwriter Ben Gibbard.
Both bands have similar songs, with a tendency for bittersweet lyrics and melodies, but whereas Death Cab is an indie rock band that has been active since the mid 90s, Postal is a more recent collaboration with electronic music producer Jimmy Tamborello aka Dntel.
I listened to nearly all of their recordings. They’re very enjoyable and catchy (especially the recent albums) albeit somewhat innocuous. And I watched their videos, including the Death Cab tour film Drive Well, Sleep Carefully which like most rockumentaries isn’t very good, but worth a look if you like the music.
Then a funny thing happened. For the next few days my mind started creating Gibbard-style tunes. There were several of them, a few of which I imagined being good enough to record. I soon forgot most of them but managed to record one using software. The results were disappointing, which reminded me that pop music is as much about the sound as the song, and I’m not setup for making pop sounds at the moment (although I’m well sorted for experimental music!).
One of the keys to Gibbard’s music is his voice, which really is the perfect American indiepop nerdboy voice, with a pure, vibratoless tone. (Although his singing is much less convincing live (on the videos I’ve seen) which is OK when he’s among fans, but really not very good on TV show appearances.)
Death Cab for Cutie – Ben Gibbard, second from left
I still don’t have the confidence to record my singing with any conviction (I’ll occasionally sing a part as a way of sketching it before replacing it with another sound). I really believe I could, but need to get over the fear – of my music snob friends laughing at me as much as of just not being very good. Maybe some lessons would help me get over that hurdle. Likewise with guitar.
Not that I want to emulate Gibbard’s music – that was just an exercise, as I wanted to do something with those tunes that were popping into my head. If I actually developed any of them I’m sure they’d mutate into something quite different. But the experience did reinforce my ongoing urge to do some sort of vocal/song project. I’m just not sure of the best way to approach it. I guess the easiest way would be to start as a solo electronic project, that way I wouldn’t have to show it to anyone until I was happy with it. But it would be nice to have collaborators…
The thing is that although I love a lot of indie music I’m not into the indie scene at all. The Broken Social Scene gig that I went to recently was great musically, but I found the majority of the audience incredibly annoying. I’m much more at home in my experimental music ghetto.
But I’ve been listening to so much indie lately (I blame Last.fm) that it’s beginning to affect me. The other day I found myself wearing a short sleeve t shirt over a long sleeve t shirt! And I even dug out my old Chuck Taylors which I hadn’t worn since the 80s, but the rubber had turned to chalk. I went online and discovered to my delight that Converse now make them in black monochrome! I almost bought them until I discovered that they charge about 50 bucks for postage, and they won’t deliver to P.O. boxes (what’s up with that?).
What’s happening to me?? I hope I’m not becoming a grup! Nah, it’s probably just a phase I’m going through…
