Optical Atlas

After their stellar, breakthrough The Optimist’s Club, anticipation is high for the third Casper & the Cookies record, Modern Silence; no one wants to be taken off guard again.  And you’ve no excuse to be surprised, since the Cookies have been offering sneak previews of the album since late last year, letting tracks trickle gradually across the intersphere.  The latest is “Pete Erchick Bicentennial Service Area,” a jittery, baggy-eyed, hypnotic, experimental, and hilarious nervous breakdown of a track.  Pete Erchick, of course, is the singer/songwriter of Pipes You See, Pipes You Don’t, who has also played with The Olivia Tremor Control, Circulatory System, The Instruments, and The Gwens.  So why is this song named after him?  No reason.  Jason NeSmith from Casper & the Cookies writes:

“The song originally known as ‘Peter J. Erchick Bicentennial Service Area’ is so named because once while driving the New Jersey Turnpike I wondered which one of my friends deserved to have a rest area named after him.  The answer is the foremost advocate of sports wine and composer of ‘Karaoke Free.’  Aside from the titular shout-out the song is not about Pete in any way, shape or form.  It’s really about the psychological effects of the insane, fragmented pace of touring in a rock band.  It’s our ‘Turn the Page’ or 200 Motels.  There are long stretches of stillness and discomfort (physical and emotional) in the van and in the club.  Then there are short bursts of intense activity– load-in, perform, load-out–capped off with a couple of hours sleep (usually on a floor that has never seen a broom) in a room next to ‘the afterparty.’  This is a highly unnatural rhythm, and it will do ugly shit to you. 

“The lyric is a composite of fragmented memories and premonitions, mostly written late one night on the second floor walkway of a Motel 6 while on the road with of Montreal in ‘04.  I had just heard the call of the grackle for the first time, which still fascinates me.  (Do they only live in Texas?)  I had joined my favorite band and was beginning to regret it.  I felt unwelcome and powerless.  I began to disassociate from the present as a defense mechanism.

“There are a couple of inside jokes in the lyric to leaven the misery.  I mention the beauty of Kay’s toes, and I’m not lying.  The bit about renaming Garden Grove to New Saigon references a prank call on a CD called Funny Stuff that has been passed around the Athens E6 camp for years.  In fact, at a couple of shows on that tour we played a song from Funny Stuff that goes, ‘Whaddaya Tryin’ Ta Do, Blackmail Me?’ ad infinitum.  I’ve come to accept that I do not tour well, but I keep trying.”

MP3: Pete Erchick Bicentennial Service Area

Modern Silence is released May 12th on Happy Happy Birthday to Me Records.

Pitchfork is reporting that Amanda Palmer of The Dresden Dolls will be featured in a play based upon Neutral Milk Hotel’s In the Aeroplane Over the Sea, written and staged by the drama students of Lexington High School in Lexington, Massachusetts.  Apparently Palmer, who graduated from Lexington HS, will be performing the music, and has just begun rehearsals with the young troupe.  This, the semester’s spring play, will be staged May 7th through the 9th at the high school.

Happy April Fool’s Day and I swear to God everything I post today is true.  Frist up: Theo Hilton (Nana Grizol) will be playing some live shows this month opening for Your Heart Breaks.  He’s billed as Theo Zumm, which makes sense if you consider that his other band is Zumm Zumm (granted, that only makes sense to a point). Thanks to mgocze for the head’s up.

Theo Zumm on Tour w/Your Heart Breaks

04.11.09 Tacoma, WA @ The Den
04.12.09 Bellingham, WA @ Friendship City
04.13.09 Portland, OR @ The Dill Pickle
04.14.09 Olympia, WA @ TBA
04.15.09 Seattle, WA @ New Crompton