Portability (Spoon, The White Stripes, and the Case For Rock Minimalism)

Years ago I remember trying to come up with a list of qualities that were intrinsically modern. (You are correct, I did not have a girlfriend.) I was thinking in the broadest sense possible. Like: fat, blue, cold, rubber, etc. My aim at the time was to try and apply it to my music. I was feeling dated and looking for a new direction and wanted to get to the essence of the Perpetual Present Tense by identifying the things which make something always seem both of its time and ahead of its time.

In the end, I only came up with one: portability. I was thinking about what our lives are like now, how nuclear families are scattered all over the country, how people are starting to work from home more, and about the big steps in consumer electronics that have allowed us to take our phones, computers and record collections with us wherever we go–all because of increasingly small microcomputers.

There weren’t very many examples of portability in any of the bands I was listening to then. Radiohead always seemed to be next-level, but they were a five-piece with guitars, drums, amps, pedals, pianos, keyboards, laptops, glockenspiels and more; and their guitarist Jonny Greenwood was always carting around large, first-generation synthesizers (like that Ondes Martenot).







I think U2 were after portability when they made All That You Can't Leave Behind. The title implied that a more stripped-down approach focusing on songs and what The Edge called the "primary colors of rock: bass, drums and guitar," would lead them to the Zeitgeist fountain and free them from the yoke of electronics and barn-sized lemons in the process. (For emphasis, the cover showed them in an airport terminal with only their carry-on luggage.) They ended up making over-produced bombast anyway, bloated from cheese, but their hearts were in the right place I suppose.



I envied the comparitive leanness of solo artists like Bjork or Jamie Lidell, who needed nothing more for public performance than amplification, some beats, and their own voice. This seemed like the right path to be on.





They made rock bands seem relatively cumbersome; to say nothing of the ridiculous amount of interpersonal drama that is always bogging down group efforts. (It's funny because now I can see that it was folk music all along, one man and a guitar, that was the most portable music of all, and in its way the most immediate and lightweight.)

So eventually, after coming to my realization through pure science, it came time to apply it. I was making music at the time with my friend, the mildly whacky and hotly saucy Rodrigo Palma.



Ideas were batted around, such as totally avoiding pre-existing music venues by bringing our own P.A. wherever we wanted, taking it straight to the people. It could be a mall parking lot; a KFC; it didn’t matter. We were going to be the world’s first portable band. (Actually, it wasn’t a totally new idea. We kind of stole it from the Jamaicans, who created the sound system culture years ago where DJs own their own giant stacks of speakers and bring the party wherever they go by setting up on the dirt lot of their choosing. Everybody stole from the Jamiacans, why shouldn't we?)





Ours was a minimalist ensemble: two assholes, two synths, a guitar, and all the damage-tweaked sounds we could fit onto a CDR. It wasn’t going over well in cavernous venues like the Magic Stick, so taking it street-side seemed like the perfect approach. But it never happened. I don’t remember if we chickened out or if… wait, yeah, I think we just chickened out. Anyway, the world probably wasn’t ready for us and our shocking and confrontational portability.

Flash forward a few years and I’m still listening to rock bands. Not many, but the few I can find that justify the genre’s instrumental largesse. And today I would like to single out two bands working in the most portable palette possible: The White Stripes and Spoon.



It took me a while to come around to The White Stripes. The media over-saturation was out of control, especially in Detroit where, for a while, their image was as ubiquitous as Great Leader posters in regime states. Plus, there was a long stretch where there was just no place in my heart for rock’n’roll. I remember thinking about it philosophically: “Of what use is it to be ‘rocked?’ What is served, what end achieved, when one is ‘rocked?’” Maybe I was missing something in my diet, or my roommate was slipping estrogen into my cereal, I don’t know. But I no longer feel this way. I am open to being rocked. But I’m picky about who can rock me.

I like Jack White and his Robert Plant-meets-Shirley Temple singing style. And he’s not just a man of rock, but a man of ideas. There is a concept behind The White Stripes: that three is the strongest number–in this instance, voice, guitar, drums–and that the three strongest colors in the galaxy are red, white and black. These are minimalist concepts: if you stick to only the essential elements, you will not obscure their power. And indeed The White Stripes' sound is extremely dynamic and visceral, as much from what is left out as what is put in, and makes the case for White's theories overwhelmingly. White even named their second album De Stijl after a minimalist Dutch art movement. That might sound pretentious, but I think a little theorizing goes a long way toward warding off the evils of meat-headedness that have plagued rock since its beginning.

I’ve owned or borrowed all of The White Stripes albums over the years and always admired them, especially the singles, but this one really knocks me out. I'm asking myself, has he always been writing this good and I just didn’t notice, or is it simply that I am now, more than ever, ready to be rocked?

From their new album Icky Thump:

Catch Hell Blues

300 M.P.H. Torrential Outpour Blues




With Spoon, it’s always been about the minimalism. The portability of their rock comes from the economy in their arrangements. They start with the song, make sure the melodies have enough of a rhythmic hook, and then add ingredients from there on an as-need basis. If only an acoustic guitar and a hot-shit tambourine part will do, then that's all they put in. There’s usually a heavy backbeat, but not necessarily (which shows an even more unbelievable amount of restraint considering drummer Jim Eno is one of the most creative rock drummers of all time and the only person I can think of doing anything new with the form).

The Ghost of You Lingers [From Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga]

Small Stakes [From Kill The Moonlight]


Now, if I could only learn to write minimalist blogs.