Built To Spill, Born to Rock
Henry Hauser, Rock Crit, City By The Bay
Obscured by a hanging projector screen decorated with protean psychedelic shapes, a pair of disembodied royal purple slacks glided across the Slim’s stage. A wall of fog hung over the Golden Gate, as the jasmine bombarded the olfactory system and a nippy gust foreshadowed the crisp San Francisco summer’s eve.
Since forming Built to Spill almost two decades ago, the indie crusader Doug Martsh, an undisputed master of those magnificent floating trousers, has astonished guitar aficionados with intricate, meandering melodies and inconceivably precise riffs. Though he’s already treated us to seven LPs, a blues solo record, and three live albums, Martsch attests that he is still “amazed by the possibilities of making music.”
Before that high arching July sun retreated into the Pacific, the openers Fauxbois wet our whistles with shoegaze tunes and crafty Fender solos. The band tapped a refreshing female backup vocal to complement their finely tuned falsettos, as the packed crowd shuffled from side to side, absentmindedly scanning the venue’s exposed brick walls and buzzing neon PBR logo.
The Idaho stalwarts Built to Spill broke the linearity of time as they took the stage by storm, hurling their disciples into a nostalgic fit of euphoria with “Reasons,” from their classic 1994 album, There’s Nothing Wrong With Love. Martsh’s nimble digits blurred the frets with spectral virtuosity, as his right leg pulsed in spastic jolts.
Despite being in the midst of an arduous national tour consisting of 60+ shows, the band showed no signs of slowing. Pools of sweat sprung from Martsh’s grey sprinkled beard, as harsh stage lights reflected blindingly off his glistening dome. True to his introspective reputation, the frontman uttered few words. At his most loquacious: “it’s a little bit warm, but otherwise, really fun.” Right on both counts, Doug! Though you forgot to mention that even the usually overpowering aroma of concert pot failed to mask the acrid B.O. wafting from numerous arm(pit)s waving in the front row.
A whopping bass supplemented the cascading guitar on “Hindsight,” a gem off Built to Spill’s latest LP, There Is No Enemy. Martsh’s baldhead vibrated vigorously, in a concurrent showing of remorse and recognition: “hindsight’s given me / too much memory,” he queried, “is the grass just greener ‘cause its fake?”
The escalating guitar chord progression served as an accompanying middle finger to the ruthless taunts in their performance of the cathartic “Carry the Zero”: “you have become what you thought was dumb / a fraction of the sum.” The putdown would eventually be extended universally: “yeah you’ve all become a fraction of the sum,” shouted Martsch, amidst a melodic guitar and that distinctively serene, seductive whisper of a vocal.
After splashing some water on their sweat-drenched faces, Built To Spill reemerged for a twenty-minute jam rendition of “Conventional Wisdom.” Martsh howled over the blistering guitar in an enlightened wisdom, telling us that “some things you can’t explain, / like why we’re all embracing conventional wisdom in a world that is so un-con-ven-tion-al,” drawing out his final word before blasting into that unmistakably anthemic hook of the song. The wah-wah pedal dangled loosely, enveloping the crowd in his lofty solo, as the veteran mourned in an ineffable agony: “they don’t know they’re wrong / but you know that they never can see that / that’s what makes them strong.”
Martsh, one of the premier artists of our era, overflows the visible with that magical energy which we call the rock n’ roll spirit.
