Quasi

Rocking is almost wholly the province of the guitarist. No piano except perhaps Jerry Lee Lewis’ has ever really rocked, and most (Billy Joel, Elton John) are wise enough to not even try. Electronic keyboards are another matter, and occasionally somebody can rock the 88s (or the 60s or the 72s, as is more likely). I’d say a lot of Nine Inch Nails rocks and there’s nary a guitar in sight. In fact, main Nailer Trent Reznor has been quoted saying that when somebody says “drums”, he immediately thinks of the little touch pads on drum machines, so thoroughly has he been assimilated. Another rocking keyboardist is Sam Coombes who, along with his ex-wife Janet Weiss, is Quasi.

Coombes’ instrument of choice is – or was – an oddity called a Roxichord, which he picked up cheap in a pawn shop before that vintage analogue sound got hot again a few years back. He got his peculiar sound by running the Roxi through and old MXR guitar distortion pedal, which gives it a really dirty, throaty sound, perfect for the grunge scene that was sweeping through his native Pacific Northwest (Portland, in his case). His beloved Roxichord predictably perished on the hard road of touring and he has since replaced it with Roland keyboard that emulates the Roxichord.

Coombes comes from the same lo-fi scene that birthed Elliott Smith – and, in fact, was frequently tapped to be in Smith’s touring band. That whole scene is quite incestuous as his ex-wife drummer is also the drummer for Slater-Kinney and, truth be told, she is a large reason why Quasi rocks. Chick drummers are hot, although I don’t know how it works that you can be a band with your ex-wife, it just sounds too messy.

Underneath the grungy grit of the Roxi and the bruising batterie of Janet beats a winning musical sense, and much of Quasi’s material is gorgeous in a charmingly understated way (like much of Elliott Smith’s stuff, too). You can hear the Beatles shining through in their joy of open harmonies and uplifting melodic sense, even if the lyrical content is somewhat bleak.

Such as this song, which cheerfully recounts how even birds, who have the entire sky to cavort in, still manage to get into regular turf wars and how being free doesn’t really mean anything at all. Many of Coombes' songs are like this, cheerful music bubbling away underneath depressive lyrics about failed relationships, dashed hopes, and lonely losers. It’s a wonderful cognitive dissonance that music is particularly well-suited for.

The other thing I really like about this track is the quirky pattern that starts the song and surfaces again part way through. As far as I can determine, there’s no way on earth to actually count the phrase out, you just have to kind of get into the lurching groove of it and feel when the cymbal crashes are going to come in.

This is my favorite album of theirs, although all of them have something to recommend them. The lyrics are clever and poetic, the music is appealingly hand crafted and rough, the vocals endearingly ragged and the harmonies sweet. It’s one of my favorite recent bands which means they don’t stand a snowball’s chance in hell at being anything remotely popular. Sorry, Sam & Janet (har har har), that's just the way it is.