Recently in Post Rock Music Category

So, it is 4:30 in the morning. It is August 11, 2001. Four alarms in the same apartment just went off simultaneously. We are living in a small just-North-of-the-49th-parallel town called Aldergrove, British Columbia. Myself and my roommates stumble into our dark, collegiate living room. Without saying much we rub our collective eyes and meander out to the station wagon. We drive on empty roads for an hour until we get deep into the city. We are used to the drive; we had done it two or three times a week previously. We arrive at the back door of the (sugar refinery) as we knew that Steve would keep the front door locked with all of the "sketchy" Granville Street fare running around at that time of night.

We are greeted as locals upon entering. Four (and sometimes five) musicians are playing spaced-out ambient ocean vibe music. Besides us, the band, and the sped-up "staff" of the (sugar refinery), the space is empty except a pile the size of a few shopping carts full of musical instruments. This is coupled with the space being thoughtfully cluttered with artifacts: chairs and benches that Steve and company find on street corners, old photo enlargers affixed to walls are used as lamps, half-built walls and extension cords are "re-purposed" as decoration, et cetera. Despite this, the vibe is relatively calm: I feel as though the company of the venue is using sleep depravity as their drug of choice for the first time. As the hours pass and the city starts to go-about its routine, the band continues to play. They play in the same key except every hour on the hour. This is when the band switch keys sometimes dramatically and other times with ease. Even though the key of the music stays the same for any particular hour that the band is playing, the vibe crescendos and retracts with beautiful ease. When this happens, it is what the band calls "being over an urban-zone." So, for each key, the band is actually transcending a time zone. When my friends and I arrive at 6:00 in the morning, they are supposedly playing music over the Atlantic Ocean in E. At nine o'clock, they have hit Reykjavik and the vibe has changed to a subtle focus on stringed instruments in F flat. It is kind of like a metaphysical band/collective floating around the globe understanding their role as communicators.

This band is called The Beans. They are from Vancouver, British Columbia. And, in this aforementioned discursive, they are playing live music for 48 hours straight, "circling" the globe twice all while being the resident band of Vancouver's the (sugar refinery). As we know, there are numerous bands called "The Beans." But, for the sake of this entry as the Greatest Band of All Time, these Beans are from Vancouver.

Even though it might be easy to understand this aforementioned exercise to be simply a test of stamina, it is not that easy to ascribe. The collective of the Beans are highly interested in the responsibility of performance and even though many who viewed the group during those 48 hours thought it to be some kind of joke, they were --and are -- incredibly serious about what they do. For them, making music is not about a jam session. They practice for months prior to any event. I wouldn't be surprised if they even pray about it. Seriousness about what they are doing is inherent to their demeanor.

However, that seriousness is not cogent: it is coupled with a cryptic and complex message. With their homemade instruments (and their stolen Yo La Tengo organ) and their continual recognition of "the vibe" one could easily think of the talented Beans as a NorthWest indierock version of Phish predating much important crescendo and White Rainbow music. Although it is possibly unlikely that the members and followers would protest to such a label as their Vermont predecessors, there is still much more going on -- as Bob and David say -- than "some 40-years-olds fucking around on guitar." I feel as though I am not in a good position to infer what exactly I think is actually going on in their music, albeit, because actually it is hard to be taken "seriously" when speaking of "vibes" and "zones" and "crucial key changes" as signifiers for meaning. However, the cryptic nature of their sessions with a primary lack of lead vocal, leaves the listener open to her own devices in decryption.

The Beans have released a handful of albums, none of which capture their "essence" (this word does not mean "style") like the 2002 outing "Inner Cosmosis" which, again recorded live at the (sugar refinery), chronicles through a breathless hour of non-stop vibe music movements miraculously seamlessly united. This lasts until the last five minutes where the listener is left with a breathtaking array of feedback. Many individuals have developed somewhat of a cult fetish for this album as it ages incredibly well within their "subjective" experiences. Moreover, I would be willing to say that this is the best live album that I have ever heard.

Besides playing for 48 hours straight, The Beans set-up delicate and highly controlled environments for listening to live music. The most recent of which was in 2003 when the band grouped itself and its listeners in a large "acoustic aquarium" playing a then new piece. Typically, as in the case of the 48-hour show, these environments include projections and olfactory devices. Yet, with the December, 2003 demise of the (sugar refinery) (which was their contact mailing address) and members often working on their own projects and families, the collective Beans have been seen very little publicly as of late.

Nevertheless, it is still my contention -- and the contention of most people interested in music in Vancouver during the first couple of years of this century -- that The Beans are easily the Greatest Band of All Time.

The Songwriter. What a daunting prospect. I would like to humbly consider myself a songwriter. I really would. But simple long division makes it a difficult stake to claim. When I think of songwriters--largely the ones that I admire anyway--I think of those haunted by a need to write words; an inherent desire that reveals itself in a prolific body of work. As a person who takes great pain in the songwriting process, I take comfort in the relatively scant catalog of one of my favorite songwriters--one Brian McMahan--the quality of who's discography is largely aided by its scantness.

Despite McMahan's fundamental involvement with two of the most sweepingly influential bands Louisville ever produced (that of Squirrel Bait and Slint), my loyalties--however ridiculously--have always been firmly entrusted in McMahan's less-deified ensemble of late, the enigmatic For Carnation. With less than 10 songs recorded in their first five years of their existence (over two EPs and a compilation appearance here and there), the For Carnation somehow managed to be placed comfortably among the upper escalon of my CD collection.

With Fight Songs and Marshmallows, McMahan and Co. (including the likes of such post-rock royalty as David Pajo, Doug McCombs, and John Herndon) fashioned some of indie rock's most simple and delicate compositions--songs so stark and beautiful that they were scarcely even there. Minimal voice and guitar arrangements that were anything but folk, the first two For Carnation releases expanded on the less muscular moments of Slint's classic Spiderland (think "good morning, captain" or "washer")--but of even wispier design.

In 2000, The For Carnation finally made their "full-length" debut with a six-song self-titled release. The record maintained the somber cast of the band's previous releases, though largely abandoning their subdued soundscape. Despite being a regular who's who of then-modern indie rock (with guest spots by Kim Deal, John McEntire, Rachel Haden, and Britt Walford, among others), The For Carnation forwent the subtle brilliance of the band's early works for more straightforward post-rock jam-outs--essentially eclipsing all the good that came before it in one wanky swoop. That was the last we heard of the For Carnation.

Still, the original EPs remain beautiful capsules of a time when Brian McMahan and his For Carnation, over the course nary a dozen songs, were very briefly--yet very definitively--the Greatest Band of All Time.