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Portastatic showcases frenetic, idiosyncratic pop
When: 8 p.m. Friday
Admission: $12
Where: The Andy Warhol Museum, 117 Sandusky St., North Shore
Details: 412-237-8300 or www.warhol.org
Rege Behe can be reached via e-mail or at 412-320-7990.
But McCaughan is not merely a businessman or a music fan lucky to have a pretty cool job. McCaughan's own bands, Superchunk and Portastatic -- the latter plays Friday at the The Andy Warhol Museum on the North Shore -- are more than worthy of inclusion with their label mates.
"I'm definitely influenced by the bands on Merge because I listen to them so much," McCaughan says. "But I think it's more the idea of making the best record you can make. I've always felt that kind of pressure, especially when Superchunk achieved a little bit of popularity; then you know that people are paying attention. And especially as someone running a label, you want to make the records good because you don't want people to go, 'Oh, it's his hobby; he has a label just to make records.'"
That hardly is the case. Superchunk -- which is on a hiatus at present -- makes frenetic, idiosyncratic pop music with a touch of the punk aesthetic. Portastatic, which just has released a new album, "Be Still Please," is a variation on the Superchunk theme: More spaces between the notes, lighter in tone, more experimentaion. The new release includes "Sweetness and Light," a sweetly hued tune with a Bossa Nova flavor, the sweeping, cinematic scope of "Sour Shores" and "You Blanks," a fairly straightforward pop tune augmented by oboe and chimes.
"The majority of Portastatic is mellower than the majority of Superchunk," McCaughan says. "But the live band for Portastatic right now is a pretty loud rock 'n' roll band. It's definitely as loud and fast as a Superchunk show. There's just a greater dynamic range."
The difference in "Be Still Live" and other projects with Portastatic is McCaughan recorded the songs with live performances in mind. That meant he wanted to make sure that one element was present: Fun.
"The first few Portastatic records," McCaughan says, "we did a few shows here and there, but that stuff was largely recorded at home and written in a way that was not never meant to be played live, but that wasn't the focus. So a lot of the songs I can't play live. The tunings are really weird; I may have had a guitar tuned one way for a day and never did it again. There was just a lot of weird stuff going on, and I think that playing live makes you want to record songs that way. ... If you're going to be doing shows, it's great to have a record that will be fun to play with this band."
"Be Still Please" also has one of the better packaging ideas of the year. The inside sleeve unfolds to reveal McCaughan, dressed in a suit, photographed in nine environments that slyly correspond to each of the album's nine songs.
Again, the idea is not a function of being a record executive but of being an artist.
"I think if you talk to most people in bands, one of the things you are most excited about is getting to design your record cover," McCaughan says. "If you grew up a music fan, that's one of the things you're into, the cool packaging. I spend a lot of time on the music, so if you put out a record that looks crappy, no one will want to listen to it."
On both counts -- sound and vision -- "Be Still Here" succeeds.
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