Five Bands To Help You Geek Out While You Rock Out
You might say that art comes out of our obsessions; that’s what makes it so interesting. This is as true when it comes to Rock ‘n’ Roll as it is in Van Gogh’s sunflowers or Calder’s mobiles. The Beatles wrote about eastern philosophy, Snoop Dogg writes about smoking joints, and, yes, Led Zeppelin had a thing for Hobbits, Vikings, and mythology. So it’s no wonder that in recent years we’ve seen a veritable explosion of bands taking a particularly geeky tack when it comes to Rock.
These bands come from all over the musical spectrum, but they share some common attributes. For one, they all tend to have a “nerdy” look, especially from the traditional glasses-clad lead singer. Maybe that comes from the way musically-inclined geeks tend to worship Rivers Cuomo, lead singer of Weezer. These groups are often open to using slightly different instruments, like accordion, horns, or strings, and many of them often employ harmonic vocals. They have a higher tendency to take an ironic or jokey tone than your average band, and maybe because of this tend to place a high emphasis on stage shows and audience participation.
But what they all have in common in their subject matter. They draw from pop culture, comics, tv, and anywhere else that they can think of. Maybe it’s because of this that I find that I can relate to their songs. These bands don’t feel like they come from an alternate universe where everyone can get the girl and drink champagne.
So today we thought we’d feature five great geek rock bands for you. Let’s start with the granddaddies of ‘em all…
They Might Be Giants
John Flansburgh and John Linnell formed TMBG in Brooklyn way back in 1982. They first became known for publishing small items in local papers advertising “Dial-A-Song”… they were recording a different song on their answering machine every day. Soon, the video for “Don’t Let’s Start” was a hit on MTV. Nobody else is quite like TMBG, who got songs like “Birdhouse In Your Soul”, “The Statue Got Me High”, and “Istanbul (Not Constantinople)” as high as #3 on the U.S. Rock Charts.
The band took different directions after the mid-90s, including some great albums for kids. They’re also known these days for performing the theme songs for The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, Malcolm in the Middle, and several other programs. They tend to take off-the-wall subject matter and make it extremely catchy, which is how I ended up learning all the words to “James K. Polk” and “Why Does the Sun Shine?” when I was eight. Not only TMBG help introduce me to Rock, they taught me about the 1844 Presidential election.
The Decemberists
The Decemberists are a strange success story. They describe themselves as “rock for English majors,” and are named after the participants in an 1825 rebellion in Russia. Their last album was a rock opera called The Hazards of Love, about a love affair between a girl and a shape-shifting boy from the forest torn apart by a jealous fairy queen, debuted at #14 on the Billboard charts. They’ve received fame for their extremely wordy style, with their songs usually telling stories. These include a dark nine-minute shanty about vengeful whalers, a twenty-minute epic taken from Irish mythology, the tale of a heist gone wrong, and a love song addressed to CIA Agent Valerie Plame.
The band was formed in 2000 in Portland, Oregon, and today features Colin Meloy on lead vocals, Chris Funk on guitar, Jenny Conlee on piano, accordion, and a host of other instruments, Nate Query on bass, and John Moen on drums. Perhaps my favorite song is “The Infanta” from Picaresque, in which Meloy rhymes “parapets” with “coronets” and “folderol” with “chapparal”. The band is spectacular to watch live, too. The Decemberists seem to still be on their way up.
Jonathan Coulton
While the internet has forced major changes in the music industry, it has allowed for additional routes to success. It’s hard to imagine Jonathan Coulton, who rose to success on the back of song titles like “RE: Your Brains” and “It’s Loud With the ShopVac On” being pushed by a major label, but through success online, he’s managed to make a name for himself. No other musician has been named “Contributing Troubadour” to Popular Science magazine, after all.
Coulton, a former computer programmer, gained additional notoriety through his “Thing a Week” project, in which he tried to release a new song every week for a year. He’s also wrote multiple TV theme songs and “Still Alive,” the closing credits song from the video game Portal. He often takes a wacky spin on already wacky subject matter, such as a mad scientist falling in love with one of his subjects, or a zombie attack played as a business meeting. His live shows tend to have high levels of audience participation and are increasingly hot tickets wherever he tours.
Nerf Herder
It’s hard to argue with the geek credentials of a band named after an insult from The Empire Strikes Back, still famous for performing the theme song for Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and titled one of its bigger hits “Mr. Spock.” They like to describe themselves as “Nerd Rock,” though their style tends further toward “pop punk” than some of the previous bands we’ve talked about. They were formed in 1994 in Santa Barbara, California by Parry Gripp, Charlie Dennis, and Steve Sherlock. In 1997, after the song “Van Halen” received some decent radio airplay, they were signed by Arista Records.
Nerf Herder had a fairly successful career through 2003 or so, when they seemed to break up. They did manage to appear on one of the final episodes of Buffy, performing “Mr. Spock” and “Rock City News” and leading to Kennedy asking “What kind of band plays during an Apocalypse?” Dawn proceeded to reply, “I think this band is one of the signs.” However, in 2005 the band made a surprise comeback, in the past few years they’ve toured around the world and released a new album, Nerf Herder IV.
I Fight Dragons
I’ve spent a lot of time in the back catalogs of music stores and radio stations, but I have never heard a band described the way Wikipedia describes I Fight Dragons, as a “chiptune/NES-rock band from Chicago.” They’re the newest band on this list, having won multiple local polls in 2009 and been named “Best Emerging Chicago Artist of 2009”. They later played the Warped Tour and were described by one tour organizer as “My favorite thing I’ve seen on Warped. Ever.”
The band’s sound combines rock songs with electronic sounds made by Nintendo Game Boys and old NES systems. That’s right, they use Nintendo as a musical instrument. For example, band member Laura Green is listed as being responsible for “vocals, NES, SNES, NES Advantage, Power Pad, and Power Glove.” Their songs tend to be about video games, too, with crowdpleasers about Legend of Zelda and Mario Brothers standard fair during their stage shows. Check it out:
And so today we’ve learned that geeking out and rocking out are hardly mutually exclusive.
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pedro
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Mallie
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