The Spinto Band

自九十年代初，一众美国的Indie-Pop乐团开始建立了一条明显而成功的方程式，使部份乐迷渐渐接纳及确认了一种属于美国的音乐风味。说到这里，你也应该尝试从脑中勾起一些美式乐团的歌曲片段，好想象这种风尚的发展，也更好了解北加州六人乐团The Spinto Band的「音路历程」。可能，时间越久，这种风格越是变得坚实。因此，新的接捧乐队就更要维持前辈们的功业，延续这种美国风格。   祖父启发 故事，是从一间座落密西西比三角洲的美式大宅中开始。刚完成学业的Nick Krill在家中阁楼找到祖父Roy Spinto的遗物——零食Cracker Jack的旧盒(生产商曾在这种产品中加入玩具来吸引顾客，可能这是其中的契机)。在盒子背面，写满了Spinto作的词。日子渐去，Nick被身为结他乐手的祖父启发，开始作曲。并找同学来组成乐队。在威明顿城，这个以「会由某地变成某人」为口号的城市，身为主音结他手的Krill找到了Jon Eaton(结他)、Thomas(低音结他/主唱)及Sam(键琴)两位当时未毕业的Hughes氏兄弟、Jeff(鼓)及Joe(结他)两位Hobson兄弟及Albert Birney(结他/和唱)组成双主音七人乐团。   在家乡，他们得不到太多的表演机会。在成立八年以来，他们得以专心致志去录制歌曲。一队没有公司支持的乐队可以录到超过七张唱片，其产量实在不少。推出过The Analog Chronicles、Digital Summer (New Wave Techno Pop)、Roosevelt、Mersey & Reno(一张拥有七十六曲般的夸张专辑)几张专辑后，他们没有延续「一年一张专辑」的习惯。2004年的好评EP GoodAnswer后，他们反而静心、认真地制作2005年新专辑Nice And Nicely Done。七名男生，既然有心去组乐队，又花了四年光阴去处理一批曲目，可想而知，Nice And Nicely Done会与之前几张唱片的质素可能大有不同。其实，直至Nice And Nicely Done的出现前，七位美国男生没有得到传媒很大的注意。甚至乎，他们也不太愿意提起从前的作品。乐迷们视Nice为他们首张大碟也不为过(连amazon.com也没有供应他们的旧作，足可想象现在签下他们的Bar-None Records也不愿使这些作品大肆发售)。   懒隋的流行音乐 虽然，在Nice And Nicely Done推出前，Birney因发展他的电影事业而宣报离队。但The Spinto Band的努力是没有白费的。首先，接受纽约纽约CMJ音乐节的邀请，于祖国发威。及后立即得到英国方面的注意，BBC的两位DJ Steve Lamacq及Jo Whiley则在电台节目中对The Spinto Band的先行单曲Oh Mandy赞赏有嘉，使得他们在乐迷中名传遐迩。后来，他们自称所玩的音乐类型为"Lolli-pop"，意即懒隋的流行音乐，我们且看看The Spinto Band如何演绎这种崭新类型。   2006年，热爱桌球活动的The Spinto Band就以「奥苏利云第二次在世界桌球锦标赛中一Q清袋」来形容推出「首张大碟」的心情。耹听Nice And Nicely Done这张专辑时，我们不难发现他们的确受到The Beach Boys、The Flaming Lips及更重要的，Pavement所影响。由首支歌曲Did I Tell You开始感受美国西岸的Indie-Pop延续，一来便是古怪多变的Synth选取，主唱Krill以高音方式唱出。另一位作曲者Thomas就想来一种「轻声唱出」的效果，并在Trust Vs. Mistrust中展现出来，又来一次彰显美式独立的气息，用上各种不同乐器，今次是钟琴。Crack The Whip则无论如何也要「现代」一次，用上一种舞曲曲式的基调，令人想起一众现在很吃香的年轻乐队。述说心中理想的另一张单曲作品Direct To Helmet，则布上一阵悠闲氛围。So King,Stacy则以数重变化的速度及语调来唱出歌词。 专辑中，笔者就最爱Oh Mandy及Bonus曲目Japan Is An Island两曲。前者在曼陀林拨弦乐器，在响亮干脆的伴奏下，电子仪器特雷门发挥其独特作用。主音歌手更特别用上「扮声」的唱腔来展示其北欧气息。而后者在欢乐感觉下发放一种摇摇板式的大和唱。 相对于现在一片死寂、没有新意的欧美乐坛，The Spinto Band的出现，可能会为乐迷们送上一个较为清新爽朗的下午。   Biography While some kids were busy building tree forts or designing the neighborhood sandlot, a few friends from Wilmington, Delaware were hanging out in the family basement figuring out how to make and record music. While some dreamt that wiffle ball bats might someday turn into Louisville sluggers under the big league lights, none of the future members of the Spinto Band thought that music would someday lead to touring the world, performing to crowds of thousands and making records with their recording heroes, let alone the idea of being in a band that would become a source of sustaining themselves. The seeds of the dream that would ensue came from the band’s many music savvy parents. Steve Hobson, father of Spinto members Jeff and Joe Hobson, one of two sets of brothers in the band’s line-up, played in Sin City Band, a prominent Delaware-area honky-tonk ensemble, along with Spinto members Tom and Sam Hughes's step father, Scott Birney, and Jon Eaton’s uncle, Andy. As the guys were hitting their teen years, they started getting hand-me-down gifts of musical instruments and gear for birthday and Christmas gifts. First Jeff Hobson got a drumkit that used to belong to Sin City member Jimmy Ficca, brother of original Television drummer Billy Ficca. Around the same time they got a 4-track recorder that Scott Birney, father of original Spinto member Albert Birney, taught the band how to use. The guys soon started amassing a small arsenal of music making toys and began plugging their guitars and microphones directly into the recorder, learning how to record.“We just filled up tape after tape, says Jon Eaton, "The studio with that four track is really where the band came alive.” At these early sessions, fellow Wilmingtonian, Nick Krill was coming home from school with Thomas and Sam and filling up some of those tapes too. This group of guys, at the time under the moniker “Free Beer”, would form what became the Spinto Band. Nick remembers thinking, “Free Beer was a funny name when we were 11, but when we were 13 it dawned on us that it was dumb.” The band’s current line-up is the same group of childhood buddies, sans Albert Birney. Albert has been set free unto the world of visual arts though he remains the bands’ primary video director and a creative force behind much of their visual imagery. In their studio, named “Jamonkey Stiudios”, they had a quote hanging on the wall that read, “if you start in a basement studio, you only have one place to go and that’s up.” In hopes of being able to try some of their songs somewhere other than the school talent show and basement circuit, Jon had been sending some of the 4-track recordings to his Uncle Robin Eaton, who owned a studio in Nashville, TN along with producer/engineer Eli "Lij" Shaw. Robin fell in love with the band's cassette recordings and invited them to come to Nashville to try their luck in a “real studio.” “We got in a plane and recorded the songs we were working on. That’s when we felt like this is the real deal,” Thomas recalls. Over a series of many trips to and from Nashville, during high school and college breaks, they would accumulate enough songs to widdle down to their debut album, Nice and Nicely Done. Soon after finishing the recordings they began to “mail out a bunch of demos because it seems like the next step for a rock band,” as Jon tells it. Around the same time, the wildest part of the ride began to take shape, as the band’s breakout song, “Oh Mandy” became what many refer to as “an internet sensation.” As momentum began to build, the band was spending time getting music out and participating in early internet-based music communities like MP3.com and songfight.org, the latter of which was the home to weekly songwriter contests that birthed “Brown Boxes”, “Direct To Helmet”, and “So Kind, Stacy”, songs later included on their debut record. Embracing this new virtual world that brought their songs to people worldwide, they even “utilized the internet, myspace specifically, to get haircuts and find houses to sleep on tour.” They were living the D.I.Y. dream. At this time, after sending out that batch of demos, they’d caught the attention of indie record label Bar-none, where they would release the record in North America. As “Oh Mandy” continued to spread virally, they were capturing the attention of more unlikely suitors and ended up licensing the song for a Sears ad campaign. At the time, “we got to see the album in record shops, were holding a real album, toured for pretty much 3 months straight in the US,” as Jon tells it. “It was becoming legitimized... A step up from our fun little basement studio.” The buzz had also spread to Europe, and the band inked a deal with Virgin imprint, Radiate records, for rights outside of North America. Nice and Nicely Done would go on to be a bona fide hit record with singles climbing the UK charts, major festival gigs, tours all over Europe with bands such as The Mystery Jets, Maxïmo Park, Fields, The Strokes, and The Kooks. Returning from the whirlwind in Europe, they would trek across the U.S. once again, this time supporting what many were calling the biggest band in the UK at the time, the Arctic Monkeys. Suddenly, they were quite a ways into the record’s cycle. Deciding to take matters into their own hands, without a manager or any other outside supervision, a process the members take great pride in, they contacted a list of the people they dreamt of making a record with. To their own wonderment, two of their recording heroes would agree to sign on to the project. Dave Trumfio (Wilco, Built To Spill) would produce the record in Los Angeles, and Tchad Blake (Tom Waits, Paul Simon, Los Lobos) would mix the record in London. In their typical dreamy-eyed humble way Nick describes his amazement, “You can just send a letter and a CD to Tchad Blake and he’ll check it out and call you back? His insight really added to the songs, in more than just mixing. He helped take it to the next level sonically.” Preparing to make an album in a different circumstance than the debut, “Moonwink” was a more carefully calculated process. Nick describes, “this time it was about going in to record 12-13 songs and that’s going to be an album we’ll release. We’ll book studio time, and we’ll have a focused effort on completing a record.” They spent about 6 months rehearsing and working on arrangements, and then went into recording for 5 weeks. The songs on Moonwink, heavy in many different instruments and unique structures, are a source of great pride for the band in terms of their artistic growth as Nick says, “We take a lot of pride in carving out space for all sounds in the arrangements. And we got some nice compliments from Tchad Blake in that respect.” In 2006 The Spinto Band was the first band who did a session for The Take-Away Shows by Vincent Moon. Moonwink sees a Fall 2008 release worldwide on Park the Van Records in North America and Fierce Panda in the UK. Connecting with Park the Van was a natural progression, as it was home to some of their closest friends in music and life. “We met Chris (Watson, PTV label founder) a while back and we’ve just sort of been aware of PTV being this cool Philly label getting these cool Philly bands behind them. Most notably when the Teeth signed up with them, we were friends for a long time and really admired their music. And then we read a record review of Dr. Dog’s Easy Beat in Rolling Stone and thought ‘wow we’ve never been in Rolling Stone. These guys really know what they’re doing,’” Thomas gushes. Nick, who also mixed the Teeth’s “You’re My Lover Now” with the band, is thrilled to be officially linked up with so many of the bands he considers kin, “I hope it’s considered a scene.” With a focus on Philly and the surrounding cities, he quips, “there’s gotta be something in the water.” Armed with “Jenkins the Van”, a 15-passenger home on the road with a trailer in tow, The Spinto Band embarks on a U.S. tour headlining clubs nationwide this Fall. Moonwink sees its official North American release on October 7, on the heels of another European tour.