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January 15, 2006

Bands I Love: The Sugarplastic

The Sugarplastic, 2000: (From left): Ben Eshbach, Kiara Geller, David Cunningham.

If you've been reading The Pulse, or have talked with me about music lately, you'll know that I have constantly been mentioning one band: The Sugarplastic. And while my impassioned hysteria concerning their work seems a recent revelation, it's really not.

In 1996, while I was managing a record store in Connecticut, a promo copy of their DGC (Geffen) Records release, Bang, The Earth Is Round landed on my desk. A "sort of American XTC" I thought to myself at the time, the album earned repeated listens that year -- and every year since, really. It is a sharp, funny, powerful, slick piece of work with nary a bum note played or sung throughout. Ben Eshbach's voice became an instant fave, as did his pop acrobat guitar work. Kiara Geller's bass playing is gorgeously metronomic and melodic at the same time, and Josh Laner's drumming is all-pocket, all the time and fun to play along to through my headphones. Gretchen Parlato -- now a full-fledged jazz diva -- appears on three tracks as a perfect harmonic counterpoint to the joyously cartoon-like proceedings.

While the whole album holds up, the leadoff track -- "Another Myself" -- still amazes me more than any other song by any other band. Ever. It's a simple tune, really, but after over (probably) 10,000 listens, its "Respectable Street"-stomps-The Beatles attack still sounds wonderfully fresh.

The Sugarplastic were signed to Geffen in the midst of a mid-'90s signing frenzy, and would eventually be dropped as the label did a wholesale housecleaning. But they had already released a few vinyl singles prior to DGC (including the playfully catchy "Ottawa Bonesaw") and another album, Radio Jejune, on Sugar Fix Records. The album is a bit more straightforward than Bang, as well as tad harder, and its title track is almost self-fulfilling prophecy, seemingly asking, "Why isn't the really good music (like ours) ever played on the radio?" Copies of this album reguarly appear on eBay.

The band's follow-up to Bang, Resin, takes the eccentricities both