Three Imaginary Girls - The Minus 5

Portrait of an Artist: Scott McCaughey of the Young Fresh Fellows, the Minus 5, R.E.M., the Baseball Project, and more

D. Crane — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 04:19:14 +0000

I was too young/too uncool to listen to the Young Fresh Fellows, but I got way into the Minus Five after seeing them play with the Posies at the Mural Amphitheater, when I was in high school. “The Lonesome Death of Buck McCoy” was my first Minus Five CD purchase, from Tower Records by the Space Needle. Since then I have been a constant fan. Their style of mixing playful lyrics with real emotion behind them, has influenced me to write songs. To that I say….thank you Mr. McCaughey. I moved to Chicago in 2002, to teach middle school on the south side of the city as part of Teach for America. It was a rough go, but “Down With Wilco” was one of the few things (pizza, Wrigley Field, and Thai food….oh did I mention burritos?) got me through. I am on my third copy of that album, now on reissue LP.

D. Crane: Down With Wilco is a special record for me. I remember where I was when I heard “The Days of Wine and Booze” for the first time. I still buy it/recommend it to my friends. It is up there with the White album on my favorite albums of all time list. Do you have any special albums like that? Albums that you give to friends? Albums that you think are severely underrated/are as good as Beatles albums?

Scott McCaughey: Yes, I have albums like that. Whenever I'm asked, I go blank though. I try to turn people on to the Bill Fay CD of his first two albums, which coincidentally, Jeff Tweedy turned me onto the night before we went into the studio to start Down With Wilco. I also pass on copies of the first two McGuinness Flint albums -- I stockpile them (at next to nothing, as no one wants them) and then pass them on to those I think might be susceptible to their charms. (John Wesley Harding took the bait and fell hard.) Nazz Nazz by the Nazz; Armchair Boogie by Michael Hurley; Wish You Were Here by Badfinger. Everyone knows Straight Up but WYWH is also a masterpiece! In The Air by the Handsome Family. It's tricky because you have to find stuff that people haven't heard. And in the end, no matter how great, nothing's as good as the Beatles. But all three Big Star albums come close.

I also really love the Gun album. What was the thought behind the “gun artwork?” I also love the rifle on the spine. It makes me feel uncomfortable to have it in my classroom, but don’t think it isn’t hidden beneath a grammar book! My favorite song is “Out There on the Maroon,” do you actually drink white Russians? Have you been to Russia?

I wanted the "Gun Album" artwork to be simple and stark. I wanted it to express the feeling that went behind the songs. That was my distillation of a couple tough years I went through. I HATE guns, but it was the central image that captured the feeling of the record. It's thematic and whatever a gun represents to me felt right in presenting that album to the public. "Out There On The Maroon" took a strange road to its realization on the album. My friend Bob Spires from the amazing and wonderful band The Possibilities (and lately, Nutria) send me a drunken email with a "song/poem" that started with the line about the White Russians. I took it from there and somehow, over a few years gestation, with a few different attempts, it became a song to my daughter. A guilt-ridden song, but one that I hope evokes a bit of positivity into a rough situation. I'm not sure. I love the song. I haven't had a White Russian for thirsty years, although occasionally people tell me I look like The Dude from The Big Lebowski. I love Jeff Bridges. I've been to Russia once, for about 18 hours. I have the furry hat to prove it.

Also, on that song, the guitar line is a musical highlight for me. Seattle is dying to know….who can shred harder…you or Captain Peter Buck?

The fantastic JOHN RAMBERG (currently fronting Seattle's Tripwires) played the nifty guitar leads on "Maroon". You know, neither Peter nor I would ever claim (or aspire) to "shred". Neither of us considers ourself a lead guitarist. Peter is actually REALLY good, and he could do it, but he doesn't want to, thus one of the defining characteristics of R.E.M. as an original and unique and undated band.

I play in a band called BOAT, and I also teach middle school. I can’t see a point where music would provide for me, my wife, and dog/cats. I also think spending my days working with kids in a creative way, provides me with much more to pull from if I am making songs. I think if I just did music I would be bored…and make boring songs. And conversely if I just did teaching, I would be a bored/boring teacher. Do you work any other jobs when you are not playing music? Does working other jobs help make the music more interesting?

I used to work lots of jobs. Luckily I haven't so much, since booking the Crocodile for a year 1993-1994. I've worked at Thrifty Rent-a-Car, a furniture factory (I got to be a pretty good sander), and of course many years in a record store. All of these jobs inspired songs, no doubt about it. Were they good songs? Hmmm, well, I still haven't recorded "I Don't Want To Live Without A Nose" -- probably for the best.

Where do you write most of your songs? Do you start with chords, words, an image?

It varies but more often then not I start with words, because they come to me when I'm driving or walking (I walk more than drive), and hopefully I'll remember them and jot them down at first opportunity. I've forgotten to jot down many of my best songs, which thusly remain unwritten. My best songs happen when I pick up an acoustic guitar or sit at the piano -- might happen more often if I had a fucking piano -- and start playing and the chords inspire a lyric and it all happens at once. That's the real serendipity of songwriting. Surprising how seldom it happens, mostly because I'm always somehow too busy to take the time to let that situation exist.

What is your favorite REM song to play? What is your favorite REM song to listen to?

Man, that's hard! I like playing "Circus Envy" though it doesn't happen that often. "Horse To Water" is a big fave. "Tongue" and "Kenneth". For listening I like "Beach Ball" and "At My Most Beautiful" and "Summer Turns To High".

If you had to put together a new band for the Minus Five, and could choose from any musicians living or dead….who would you choose? (Yes, you can choose Peter Buck.)

Irma Thomas on vocals. Peter Buck on 12-string guitar. Paul McCartney on bass. Allen Toussaint on piano. Jeff Tweedy on lead guitar and vocals. Steve Berlin on baritone sax and mellotron. I'm not sure my participation would be necessary at all! Except maybe driving the van (daytime only.)

What is the next project or project you are involved with?

Doing this incredibly fun Tired Pony thing. Me and Peter with Gary Lightbody of Snow Patrol, plus Richard Colburn from Belle & Sebastian, and Iain Archer, and Troy Stewart, and Garret "Jacknife" Lee. New album out now, and it's amazing. Also hard at work finishing the next Baseball Project album and the next R.E.M. album!

{Don't miss Scott with the Young Fresh Fellows at the Tractor July 23rd!}

{Art by D. Crane}

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{Art by D. Crane, The Young Fresh Fellows play July 23rd at the Tractor}

Killingsworth

Chris Estey — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 15:55:27 +0000

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002BEXGDQ/?tag=wwwthreeimagi-20

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The Minus 5 are releasing Killingsworth at the same time leader Scott McCaughey is putting out Young Fresh Fellows' I Think This Is, both on Yep Roc. McCaughey's OG band was the YFF, one of the most high profile "college rock" bands of the 80s, their sinuous chicane garnering acclaim from Rolling Stone to scores of local zines at the time. That band included, among others, Kurt Bloch (later Fastbacks), whose guitar is the inspiration for a lot of playing that has come out of this region since then.

But there have been few songwriters Seattle-spawned as misery-guzzling and diarizing as McCaughey, whose drunk village savant rants and rave-ups against relationships, religion, the rent, and himself are close to the hearts of his purlieus peers. Upon moving to Portland, he began amassing collaborators there who have helped his newer band put out some out much of his best music ever, such as The Gun Album from a couple of years back, pulling in Wilco's Jeff Tweedy as well. This album has on board for much of it John Moen of the Decemberists (and "a Maroon and a Dharma Bum and a Jick"), and the vocals of Colin Meloy, but also REM's Peter Buck as usual. Special note should be made of Little Sue and the Shee Bee Gees who do a lot of backing vocals and dueting ("I Would Rather Sacrifice You" in particular for that) here in the way that female accompaniment has made later period Leonard Cohen albums less caustic on the ears.

Actually, musically, there's not much that's too raw or rough about The Minus 5 this time out -- no clenched-balls rockers like "Aw Shit, Man" -- and the fourteen acoustic-based tall tales aren't as accusatory or grim (especially when compared with The Gun Album). Killingsworth is an area of just-about NE Portland where Scott and his motley-cum-celebrated crew created these strummy yummies out of the deep well of wit and woe, and the first four -- "Dark Hand of Contagion", "The Long Hall", "The Disembowelers", "The Lurking Barrister" -- are "up there" (where is that?) with many of M5's greatest songs. "Dark Hand" balances lines like "Your wedding day was so well planned, like a German occupation" with more compassionate images such as "It wasn't the wrath of God, guess he was busy elsewhere."

It's this prevailing sense of mindful doom, and sober radical acceptance that makes Scott McCaughey's work such unusually adult fun.

Getting my face rocked off with KMRIA and The Minus 5

imaginary victoria — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 13:29:49 +0000

13 Mar 2009

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How in the cracker was I the only person I knew at the Tractor on Friday?

Granted, I know there were a ton of good shows going on last weekend. As per usual. Bands everywhere, bands that fellow imaginary staffers were excited about, crazy good bands playing for free -- it seems like we all branched out to our respective corners and geeked our faces off. And we'd all probably tell you that the show we saw was the best, and that you were sorry you missed it, and how we can't believe we got to experience such radness, and how we wished you were there to share it with us.

Such are the perils of life in Seattle.

However, I will throw down to the mat as having been at the best show on Friday's docket, for several reasons. First, it was at the Tractor. I love the Tractor. It's got a super-comfortable atmosphere, is generally a jerk-free zone, and I never have to compromise my personal space. It usually seems as though everyone there is genuinely interested in the actual show. Second, I got to sit and leisurely read the paper before the set. Third, I made some new friends with a few aforementioned show-enthusiasts as the main space started to fill up, and we geeked about bands and about living in the Greatest City On Earth.

And then the show started. Cue reasons four through eight thousand: for the next few hours I stood three feet away from Peter Buck, Jenny Conlee and Chris Funk, Scott McCaughey, and John Ramberg. Along with a gaggle of other notables. For two killer sets from the Minus 5 and KMRIA. On Pogues cover night. Getting my face rocked right the f___ off.

I win.

But I'm sure your show was equally awesome. So you win too. And a quick PS before the photos, on reasons eight-thousand-and-one through infinity of why my night was rad: I spent an hour post-show freaking out in Bop Street. Holy crap. That record store has got to be the sweetest place I've been in quite some time, and thanks to Alex, I've got the pictures to prove it. The next time you find yourself in Ballard, be sure stop by and spend a paycheck. Or two.

{Check out the rest of the show, and your weekend in photos, at the deep end of the imaginary flickr pool!}

This show was eight thousand kinds of awesome. Such are the perils of life in Seattle.

The Minus Five, Band of Annuals at the Tractor

imaginary victoria — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 06:00:23 +0000

18 Oct 2008

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The Best. Gig. Ever. that none of my friends seemed to know about (except for Kristin, who tipped me off to the show). Scott McCaughey, Peter Buck & Co. kicked us around for a big, glorious set; Sean Nelson chimed in for a few tunes, and Band of Annuals provided stellar, perfectly-married support.

The Minus 5 played Seattle and Portland in support of the new album, Sad Hasselhoff, that's on a limited vinyl run - guest starring some of the Decemberists and Norfolk & Western, among others. I'd pick that up if you happen to see it out in the bins.

[Insert witty Knight Rider joke here. Or, you can just go play with this.]

A benefit for the re-launch of NoDepression.com last Saturday blew the roof right off the Tractor.