BEAM ME UP: Jeff Beam.
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Ah, college. Who of us in their thirties doesn’t pine for those four years when everything was so important, when you could be fucked up all the time and wear it as a badge of honor? Loyal readers of this column know that when it comes to the local music scene, college is the best of times and the worst of times. How many bands have formed from dorm-room allegiances? How many promising young Reindeer Rock-Off veterans found their bands torn asunder by matriculation? Too many, surely.
In this week’s edition of what I learned between classes, we feature Jeff Beam, frontman for Specter (Reindeer Rock-Off veterans), who’s gone off to college (in this case, USM — clearly other Specterites went farther afield) and written himself 13 tracks that just demanded a solo album, Mind the Gap. As you might expect, they’re a little rough around the edges, somewhat self-indulgent, and feature lots of pining for the girlfriend left behind, but Beam has an ear for melody, plays a mean guitar, and pays a decent tribute to the progenitors of pop and psychedelic rock.
First, I’ll address the self-indulgent bits: I’m not really that down with the Brechtian practice of including clips of studio banter on CDs. Sure, once in a while you get a cool count-off or an “I’ve got blisters on my fingers” bit of insight, but in general the clips — like, say, Beam finishing “The Fly” and announcing “I think that’s an okay tune” — are just reminders of the process music fans would mostly rather not think about. Like not wanting to wonder about what goes into a Fenway Frank.
Do we want to know how much Britney’s vocals are bent in the studio? No. Do we want, following an eight-minute, Doors-riffing, Robert Johnson-referencing tune, to be alerted to the fact that even the guy that wrote it isn’t all that impressed? Also no. Mixing and mastering engineers out there: Take it upon yourselves to advise clients against this tactic.
Secondly, the rough around the edges: The Bluepen Studios recording by Naythen Wilson — also the only other musician who lends his talents to the disc, Beam playing everything else — employs a lot of playing around with the right and left channels and experimentation with vocal effects and guitar tones. Sometimes, this produces a really nice moment, as with the bridge that features dueling guitar solos in the left and right channels, close to each other, but significantly different in tone, in the opening “That’s No Ordinary Kaleidoscope.” Other times, it just feels clumsy, as with the distorted and low-mixed vocals of “Kaleidoscope,” which make it nearly impossible to make out any lyrics. These experiments gone awry are relatively few, but they leave an impression.
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Mind the Gap | Released by Jeff Beam | at the Big Easy, in Portland | with the Hot Tarts + Sputnik Monroe | Sept 26
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Then there’s the girl left behind, inspiration for many of the lyrical themes here. Thank God for her, really, as she’s the focus for all of Beam’s best tunes. “Annabelle” may not be her real name, but as a two-minute ditty it sure does work nice. Reminiscent of the Beatles’ “Michelle,” the song features quick guitar runs backing innocent ’60s pop. “Elevator Machine Room,” like Minus the Bear sung by Elvis Costello, tells us “it’s not the same/I can only guess what caused this mess is the fact that we’re apart.” And “Holy Shit” may not live up to its winning title, but does have a solitary well strummed acoustic guitar and a demo feel that manages to be more Bright Eyes than simply amateur.
Riffing on the local likes of Pete Kilpatrick and Dominic and the Lucid, Beam borrows liberally from the rock, pop, and blues traditions without seeming old-fashioned or simply pirating. “You Don’t Know My Mind” references Lennon’s “Yer Blues” without ripping it off; “It’s Hard to Wreck a Nice Beach” swaths the Fabulous Thunderbirds in feedback.
Much of the material could be refined a bit, and a song or two could be trimmed, but as a moment in time it largely succeeds in conveying the urgency of college life, the inclination that everything is happening now and the past and tomorrow are both murky concepts best borrowed from than deeply contemplated. It is, to borrow a phrase from the absurdist finisher, “Tobacco Kiss,” a way of “keeping time so I don’t choke.”
On the Web
Jeff Beam
www.myspace.com/jeffbeamrocks
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Sam Pfeifle:
sam_pfeifle@yahoo.com