More Plastic
The 60 Watt Party
© 2001 More Plastic
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Somewhere between the pop of the 60's, the rock of the 70's and the alterna-90's, you'll find More Plastic
tracks
- 1 Whatever Whatever
- 2 False Sense of Something
- 3 North of Cincinatti
- 4 So Caressed
- 5 Making Angels
- 6 When the Sun Returns
- 7 Who's Who
- 8 Silverline
- 9 Baby Blue
- 10 Haberdashery
- 11 Tomorrow, Mary
- 12 Lethargy
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Some people say rock 'n' roll will never die, but people die, and when lots of people die, the state of rock 'n' roll suddenly doesn't seem like a major national security issue. Which leaves those of us who eat, breathe, shit and piss rock 'n' roll at a bit of a loss in times like these, when we're stricken with the feeling that our lives have been completely wasted getting absorbed by issues -- "Their first seven-inch was all right but then they, like, totally sold out, man" -- that don't even add up to molehills when compared to the mountainous pile of rubble lying in lower Manhattan.
So what can we do to make ourselves feel better? Why, listen to rock 'n' roll, of course. It won't save anyone's life, but when George W. Bush's national addresses sound like they were lifted verbatim from the patriotic pablum in Independence Day, it's important to experience something real. Something that makes you happy to be alive. Something like More Plastic.
When this paper last checked in with More Plastic, 1999 was just a few days old and millennial apocalypse theories/fantasies filled the air -- the chief one being that if the world were to end at the turn of 2000, More Plastic should be the ones in Nathan Phillips Square sending us out with an atomic bastardization of "Auld Lang Syne." Thanks to certain habits -- overturned tables, spilled beers, aggressive dry-humping and singer Dean Sterling's table-dancing moves -- More Plastic at the time were synonymous with certain words: destructive, explosive, lethal and a whole lotta other epithets that seem grossly inappropriate some 19 months later, when the concept of an apocalypse represents more than just a handy metaphor.
But such words are also inappropriate because, five years after forming, More Plastic are way more about giving a hug than giving the finger. Where the band's psycho-delic soul-rock once splattered audiences like an uncontrolled fire extinguisher, relentless gigging (including a three-month tour that took them to California) and a finer focus have allowed More Plastic to -- warning: New Agey philosophizing ahead -- channel all that unbridled energy inward.
Which means the Andrew Innanen/Delko Blazanin rhythm section has become even more fierce, guitarists Andrew Zalameda and Jurica Biondic's mega-riffs are wound even more tight, while Sterling feels just as comfortable laying down a cool soul rasp as a sore-throat howl.
And though they may still come on like the stylish attitude monsters who frequent Blow Up on Saturday nights -- and the Plastics don't deny their live appearances at the El Mo weekly boosted their local profile considerably -- their mindset these days is a whole lot closer to the warm, communal vibe exuded by the Wavelength crew each Sunday at Ted's.
"Wavelength is so much more interesting to me," drummer Innanen says on the back patio at Utopia, where, some 65 hours before the first plane hits the World Trade Center, the stereo is prophetically blasting the Temptations' "Ball of Confusion."
"It's a scene for lousy scenesters, and we are lousy scenesters. The good scenesters drive me up the wall -- they talk about themselves in the third person and it's like, 'Shut the fuck up!' If there's anything I've learned about indie-rock, it's that people spend so much time second-guessing themselves about what is going to be cool, the music that comes out of them ends up being empty."
"Dean and Delko were more a part of the Blow Up scene," Zalameda says, "and they're the ones most likely to dress up in a nice suit for the show. But the first time we played Blow Up, I wore my NWA hat."
"I've seen a lot of bands that dress the part but don't play the part," Innanen continues. "Like, we could cover the entire Peter Criss solo album, but if we fucking believed it, that would come through and people would walk away smiling. But people get too caught up in this process of subcultural over-thinking, instead of... doing what you feel, man!"
Fortunately, More Plastic don't feellike covering the entire Peter Criss solo album. What they do feel like doing is smashing up vinyl copies of The Who Sell Out, the Stones' Their Satanic Majesties Request, the first Zeppelin record, Sly's Stand! and the Stooges' Fun House and gluing the best bits together -- though for their new sophomore release, The 60 Watt Party (Modernation/Shut Eye), they've added a few choice chunks of Wings' Band on the Run.
"We were all obsessed with that album for a while," Innanen admits. "The problem with us is that we really want to write nice and beautiful songs sometimes, but as musicians we're mostly hacks. So onstage, we just go for the bombast. We like to be noisy and ridiculous and destructive and put on a show, so if people haven't seen us before, they won't forget us. But in the studio, we can do the five-part vocal harmonies if we want."
"Dean's also quit smoking for a year and a half now, so his singing voice has developed," Zalameda reveals. "And he's at the keyboard quite a bit now, so even in that sense, it feels like we're working more together."
Though it took a good two and a half years to piece The 60 Watt Party together, all the songs have been set-list standards for just as long -- which means it has the cozy, comforting feel of an old, trusty greatest-hits collection rather than a brand-new album. And just as Plastic live shows rarely refer back to their first album, 1997's The Last Silver Special, don't be surprised if your future experience with 60 Watt songs is restricted to your home stereo.
"It took so fucking long to make this album that it's kinda old hat to us," Innanen explains. "We can pretty much go in and record another album right now."
"We could play an entire set and not play a single song off the record," Zalameda concurs. "And at our CD release party, that's what we're going to do! We'll also be honouring the fifth anniversary of our first gig. And the anniversary of John Bonham's death."
"So we'll be drinking 40 measures of vodka and orange," Innanen adds. "Or whatever it was that killed him."
Last fall, More Plastic logged a three-month tour of 60 cities across Canada and in the Western U.S. So, you can believe them when they say that the rock 'n' roll capital of North America is...
"Tacoma, Washington!" Andrew Zalameda declares.
"That was one of the most open-minded crowds we played to," says Andrew Innanen. "There were five bands on the bill. One of them was like a Misfits tribute -- huge muscles, no shirts, tattoos, hair down -- and I had half a mind we were going to get beaten up, but they were like, 'That was pretty fucking cool, man!' And this other band was exactly like Korn, and they loved us too.
"In Sacramento, on the other hand, we basically did an open-mike night, and there were six people at the bar watching the basketball game. In those situations, Dean gets way more confrontational and weird, so we figured we'd attract their attention... but not a single one of them budged. Sacramento's supposed to be the Satanism capital of the world -- and it sure felt like that."
Written by Stuart Berman for The Eye Weekly