In the past I’ve voiced my ruthless contempt for Hugh Grant, who is the single-most annoying person in film not named Ben Stiller. However, I’ll have it known that close behind on my Hollywood hit list is John Cusack, who is every bit as sniveling and charmingly/pathetically puppy-like as his British counterpart but who nonetheless has one redeeming achievement: “High Fidelity.”
In one of this opuses’ many nuggets of sage-like analysis, Cusack tells Laura—with eyes in full-on canine effect—that she can’t simultaneously like both Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel, and that doing so would be such an egregious trespass that she might as well claim to support both the Palestinians and the Israelis. I realize it’s funnier when he says it, but that’s not the point.
The point is that I totally understand, because when I was 16, I fell in love with the band STS9 at a time when or in a culture where doing so meant that you almost categorically couldn’t like the Disco Biscuits.
Looking back, the dichotomy was absurd. I can understand siding with one side in some kind of tiff—Van Halen against David Lee Roth or Jay Farrar against Jeff Tweedy—out of personal loyalty to one party. But siding with one congenial band over another band that shares obvious aesthetic and cultural similarities seems not only stupid and pointless, but counterproductive.
Nonetheless, the beef was there, and the handful of times I’ve given the unfortunately nicknamed Bisco a chance to win me over, they’ve failed badly. I may have been slightly predisposed to dislike them, but their music always seemed too repetitive, too indulgent, and too shallow. They seemed to self-servingly mess around on their instruments for way too long, trying to get to a crescendo so it would seem like they were doing something impressive, and occasionally chanting the most god-awful lead vocals this side of Creed.
Maybe it was because I realized the absurdity of the Bisco/STS9 rift. Or maybe it was because STS9 has hit a creative dry spell over the last 12 months and I need something to fill the gap until they get their swagger back. Whatever the reason, I felt oddly impelled to see Bisco in Boston last weekend. Even more baffling than my desire to see this poorly named group of jamming, solo-happy, bad-singing Philadelphians, though, was how much I actually enjoyed it.
To be clear, I wasn’t blown away. But whereas my negativity towards the Disco Biscuits used to center around my philosophical aversion to their noodling, mindless melodies and unrelentingly untz-y rhythms, I left the House of Blues with a much less damning thought: maybe Bisco simply isn’t my kind of thing.
Drummer Allen Aucoin seems to have meshed with the band since I last saw them, and he has elevated his play beyond the endless house/techno untz that I had grown accustomed to. More importantly, though, what I once viewed as unabashed instrumental wankery felt a lot more legitimate and inspired, particularly in the second set.
During sections in songs like “Run Like Hell” and “Shelby Rose,” they didn’t wank as much jam in well-integrated, highly cooperative melodies. Their improvisations actually made sense, and I finally saw why so many of my friends think Jon Gutwillig is an elite guitarist. Dude can shred—no two ways about it. I may not like his style of playing but I can’t deny that he does some incredible things.
I will probably never like the Disco Biscuits—their music is too melodious, too peppy, too carefree in a patchouli-scented kind of way for my personal tastes—but after seeing and enjoying them free of whatever asinine fetters I have accrued over the years, I can at least say that I wish I had found this out earlier.
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