Ben Gibbard? Yeah, he's a really nice guy. And if you pay any attention to this music stuff, you can probably figure out from that nugget of information what kind of music Gibbard makes. Nice guys sure don't have the necessary bravado for hot hip-hop skeelz, nor, usually, the full-bodied mane required for properly pyrotechnical metal. Nope, the domain of nice guy music is largely restricted to the domain of intelligent, reflective, dare I say emotional guitar pop.
Gibbard's usually found trafficking in the full-band variation on this theme with his fellow Nor'westers, Death Cab for Cutie. But nice guys generally tend to be solitary folk as well (possibly a sub-clause of the old finishing-order statement), so it's not all that surprising to find that Gibbard has All-Time Quarterback, a collection of solo bedroom recordings from 1999, up his sleeve. Split evenly between four-track overdub fiestas and one-track, one-take tape recorder ditties, the eleven-song mini-LP allows Benjamin to craft some saccharine introspections with minimum interference from other souls.
Of course, Gibbard's already the lone song supplier for DCFC, and according to my media guide, there was no difference whatsoever between the preparation of these demos and the demos he brings to his fellow Cabbies before recording. So despite attempts to follow in the footsteps of fellow go-it-aloners Pedro the Lion and the Magnetic Fields (whose "Why I Cry" is covered), none of these solo apples fall far from the full-band tree. But at least the arrangements are of the stripped-down variety, closer to the fireplace intimacy of We Have the Facts and We're Voting Yes than the Big Time drums and production of The Photo Album.
These surroundings fit the gentle nature of All-Time Quarterback's faux-full-band songs well, the shimmery likes of "Dinner at Eight in the Suburbs" and "Rules Broken" benefiting from the minimal Casio rhythms and endearingly slipshod drumming. A strident electric piano progression shows Gibbard's hitherto unknown resemblance to Ben Folds on "Untitled," and "Send Packing" explores the tortoise-pace path DCFC would set upon with subsequent albums. In a slightly embarrassing turn of events, though, the highlight of the album is, in fact, the fairly straight run-through of Stephen Merritt's "Why I Cry," with a sunny vibraphone riff and Gibbard's skilled female impersonation vocals highlighting a songcraft superior to that of its neighbors.
Meanwhile, the ultra-minimalist tracks sprinkled throughout tend to suffer from their sketchpad settings, never really becoming more than mere staticky fragments. Part of the problem is the increased focus on the lyrics, few of which feature the light touch that keeps the more recent of Gibbard's literate lamentations from spiraling off into self-pity (for example, "Cleveland," the kind of don't-move-away plea he's done better elsewhere). The rough draft status of these tracks is also pretty apparent ("Underwater" was later fleshed out for a Death Cab seven-inch), marking them as future 25th anniversary bonus track fodder rather than stand-alone album cuts.
Of course, anybody who doesn't already have a DCFC album filed away in their IKEA dïskø tower probably doesn't give a whut-whut about All-Time Quarterback anyhow, and rightfully so, since nothing on this record is exceptional or varied enough to appeal to non-members. Aside from keeping your home Gibbard shrine up-to-date, the disc serves no purpose for Death Cab haters, unless you maybe want to prank somebody into thinking you scored advance demos for the new Shins album. Then again, if you would do that, you wouldn't be a very nice guy, and Nice Guy Gibbard would probably want nothing to do with you anyhow.
