Ode to Pinback

I am squarely a Gen Xer.  I named Sandgarden after a preeminent grunge band.  I’ve watched Singles more times than I can count and OG 90210 is my favorite TV show and I distinctly remember my brother locking himself in his room after Layne Staley died and my father of all people teaching us that AIC’s Rooster was about the Vietnam War (“army green was no safe bet”, anyone?) and how Offspring’s Self Esteem became his favorite anthem.  I both wasn’t allowed to and couldn’t afford going to shows growing up (beyond STP / Local H at the Boston Garden for my 16th birthday and Portishead in the smallest club possible in Worcester MA in 1998) and so spent my 20s and 30s and even now my 40s experiencing the bands that I wish I had seen in their heyday: Bush, Candlebox (both acoustic - horrid - and electric - transcendent), A Perfect Circle, Tool, Puscifer, Nine Inch Nails, Helmet, The Beta Band, Massive Attack, Temple of the Dog, The Dandy Warhols, Alice in Chains (without Layne 🙁), STP (again), Radiohead, The Mighty Mighty Bosstones, Pearl Jam, Days of the New, Garbage, 311, Beck, Deftones, and Queens of the Stone Age.  I’d love to have seen others but alas, they are dead.

In spite of my 90s obsession, though, I ended up missing an entire class of band…West Coast and weird, is how I’d categorize it.  It includes bands like Sleepytime Gorilla Museum (a new, quite welcome, slightly physically uncomfortable show because the music is just so fucking odd) and Pinback, both courtesy of my friend Ben.  I was born the last year of GenX, 1980, and as a result, I was still sprouting pimples while Ben was actually in the SF band scene, playing bass and guitar, while these folks were coming up.  Ben was there beginning 1998, which is exactly the year I started college and was more worried about passing Econ 101 than music.  

In any case, Ben introduced me to Pinback and I was like whoa.  Originally formed in 1998, these assholes sat down and were like, “why can’t I play bass like guitar?”.  They’re like startup founders, actually…“but why can’t it be done?”.  They did it and it produces sounds, melodies, unlike anything I’d heard before.  Listen to Seville.  What is that????  How did they do that???  I asked Ben to play their songs for me once because he’s a bass virtuoso and was once offered to audition for Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, and he scoffed and said “there’s no fucking way I can play this.”

On that note, the last time I saw them was at Webster Hall in NYC in April 2023.  Pinback got onstage (Rob Crow alone), said that Zach was sick, and that Nick Reinhart from the opener (Dishelved Cuss) would be subbing in, that he had just heard about it yesterday and had learned all the songs overnight.  Ben snorted and said, “there’s no fucking way” and then two hours later he’s like “this guy is a genius.”

Pinback also introduced me to other bands. After listening to AFK and hearing, “and I miss you, not in a Slint way, but I miss you,” I discovered Slint and Pinback’s indie band joke of a reference to the climax of their song, Good Morning, Captain, which is also so sludgy and amazing. 

‍

And when my brother called me a few weeks ago and asked me if I knew of Slint, and when I said yes, he asked how, and I was delighted to be able to school him on how much I knew because 1) my brother knows more about music than I do (fact), and 2) it gave me street cred.

I’m ranting about Pinback because I’ve seen them twice now and will be at two back-to-back shows starting tomorrow (one playing Summer of Abaddon for the album’s 20th anniversary and and one a standard show and of course how could I not go to both).  Their songs never take me out of it (something that happens with maybe every other band except Foals, because somehow they have made it such that the choruses put me even more into it - see case study: Neptune).  Their musicianship is insane.  They cannot disappoint.  Some bands disappoint.  I have seen Alt-J three times and one was maybe a Top 3 Of My Life Show and the rest were awful and uncomfortable (poor sound mixing, the other too naked and stripped down for me to do anything but shudder even as I appreciated the effort).  Pinback will not disappoint.

You know how else they don’t disappoint? With their t-shirts.  Ben is also my concert buddy, and at every single show we go to, we complain about how all the songs are played too quickly.  Wayyyyyyyy too quickly.  And if they aren’t played too quickly, as in the case of Tycho, then for sure they are playing to a click track.  Imagine my joy when I saw this t-shirt!

‍

‍

It’s the perfect shirt.  It not only features stick figures (which I’m certain they drew themselves) but it talks about a fact of playing real, live music competently.  Pinback does, in fact, speed up slightly, and I love that they own it.  Everyone should own their mistakes.  I remember one Alt-J show in which they started playing a song, paused, and said, “we just fucked up and we’re going to start it again” and then they did.  It was a beautiful moment.

Last week, I was out to breakfast with a friend and we were ruminating on who he’d want to play his 50th birthday party.  I want Pinback but I don’t want to wait until I turn 50.  I want it this year for 45.  So please, if anyone knows Zach or Rob, tell them to call me.