When I get together with people who were my friends between Bushes in the petty-angst cyber-nineties, we inevitably end up covered in doughnut glaze and gin under a pinball machine, crying about how we miss the Archers of Loaf. "That angular, angular thunder!" one of us moans. "It was porcupine rock, man, porcupine rock," another slurs. In just two years, though, tallest Archer Eric Bachmann has mutated from a staccato-barking, dissonant chord-ninja into a twangy, pulsing, guttural Neil-trouba-Diamond-dour. His latest outfit, Crooked Fingers, has gone from being considered Bachmann's 'post-Loaf project' to releasing material singularly captivating enough to suggest that he won't always be fending off requests for "Harnessed In Slums" by declaring to the crowd, as he did at a recent show, "Uh, that was a different band."
Some months back, I had an itch to burn some of that sexy fossil fuel that makes the world go 'round, so I gathered up a posse to follow Crooked Fingers for a few days. The first show we beheld had a strange vibe: the kids all had that cultivated bedhead, and the scene was inbred; you could tell that everyone had seen at least five people in their periphery naked, so they were all nerves, calculating complications in their one clean sub-ironic slogan t-shirt ("Try New Coke," "Thank You, Come Again"). Crooked Fingers set up on stage and then told the horn-rimmed soundman that they were going to play in the middle of the venue without any PA. The unplugged songs (some of which are included on this EP) rang supreme, but there was initially something stagey about this offstage business, forcing the crowd to encircle them as the needy girls wet-mouthed the lyrics and stared do-me-ly at Bachmann, hoping for a validating glance back. This floor-level banjo jam seemed to be saying: O Brother, Here Pimps Us.
By the fourth show, hoss, we was sold. The original venue was inexplicably closed, so the Fingers resourcefully set up at a bar down the street, but see, that bar didn't have a PA that could handle the band's electric segment, and the 'stage' was outside, and it was nipple-scab cold. You know what's next: they took it inside, to the crowded bar-bar, and did a 'quiet' show like no other. The band was so adept, and Bachmann was so affable, that the crowd became downright protective of Crooked Fingers, moving tables, getting them drinks, verbally assaulting anyone not paying attention, and yanking the video games' cords out of the sockets. By this point, my comrades and I realized that this down-in-the-crowd angle was a populist masterstroke, a way to supercede the absurdity of the pedestal-stage. The band made their way around the room, and eventually ended up on top of the thin bar counter. I'm not one who thinks that 'acoustic' equals 'deep' (one the lamest things I've seen was a drummerless version of Bachmann's Merge-mate Neutral Milk Hotel)-- but damn. The cello got caught in the ceiling fan. Eric was a towering post-folk Charon, scrunching his mouth and twitching like a cartoon wino. People were buying beer between their legs. Ooh, heaven was a place on Earth.
Ayyyyy! Now entering Buzz City, baby, and my teeth can't feel each other. What I've been trying, but failing to say is, I first heard these songs live, and they were triumphant-- so much so that this EP has a hard time holding up, like how Polaroids from fifth-grade Bible Camp don't convey how much ass the counselor-versus-ambassador tug-of-war kicked. Despite this, and despite the fact that the band's live cover of "Long Black Veil" is sorely missing, this EP is hella fulla gold.
The same blippity keyboard-aquarium flatmosphere as the Fingers' other releases provides a foundation for three songs here. The first of them, Kris Kristofferson's "Sunday Morning Coming Down," isn't sublime until its chorus, during which the string instruments transcend the singer/songwriter swelter of the verse lyrics. The story of Springsteen's "The River" is told portentously, with a righteous drum-punch. Bowie/Queen's "Under Pressure" should satisfy anyone who's ever gotten sloshed and pogoed on their own glasses at an Old Wave/80s night: the band scraps the riff that connotes Vanilla (stop, collaborate and listen), and showcases a Bachmann falsetto that rivals Lambchop's Kurt Wagner. The bone-marrow bombs, however, are the sparse rebaptisms of Neil Diamond's "Solitary Man" and Prince's "When U Were Mine." These songs and their authors are oft-covered, but that don't spook our boys. Diamond's ode to stubborn bachelorhood is given an oompah treatment, complete with elderly-sounding "hurmmmm's," while Prince's tune is awarded a past so rich that you'll regret everything you ever gave away (including the Ewok sticker book) as the banjo and cello build to pregnant pauses so's you can gasp.
You go, Merge, landing Crooked Fingers, and my other favorite band, Destroyer! The Fing' is so authentic. Man, Bachmann's tall. I wonder what that's like, being all tall and all. My eyelids are, like, on fire. This EP is the work of true disciples. Who could win in a fight between Bachmann and Malkmus? Who could win in a fight between nuns and sluts? Why are bands who used to be distorted returning to their pop/Appalachian roots? My grandpa doesn't remember my grandma. Let's play football with this rocking chair, and then squat under a bug zapper with these crossbows.
