Time Out of Mind
For young guys, the Morning Benders sure like some old music
Critics were quick to point out antecedents—from the Beatles to the Brill Building—when the starry-eyed pop of the Morning BendersN Talking Through Tin Cans hit the national scene last year. They shouldnNt have gone to the trouble; the Bay Area band showed their hand quite readily with the free digital album The Bedroom Covers, paying homage to girl groups and other golden oldies (Roy Orbison, the Ronettes, the Crystals) as well as more indie-familiar flavors (Talking Heads, the Smiths, Velvet Underground).
How, then, do a band hone such decade-spanning influences to just 11 tracks?
“We get asked that a lot,” says front man Chris Chu. “To be honest, there wasnNt much deliberation going into it. It was just songs we took a liking to and played around the house.”
Thus the title. And since doing a cover is like walking around in another songwriterNs shoes, itNs expected that doing a whole record of covers might illuminate some tricks of the trade. But Chu thinks itNs more nebulous than that.
“ItNs really hard to say what those songs did in particular,” he explains, “because everything you ever listen to affects you in some way.”
Like The Bedroom Covers, the all-original Talking Through Tin Cans has a reverent retro quality to it. The swagger and whimsy of prime N60s rock and pop is enmeshed in the immaculate tunefulness and free-flowing wordiness of N70s songwriters, topped with some crunchy American indie and snotty Brit-pop influences. Most of the songs manage to feel both assured and modest, and the best selection, “Waiting for a War,” resembles the Material Issue classic “Valerie Loves Me” before bopping like a twee take on Spoon. No wonder it became their first 7-inch single.
Still very new to the game, the Morning Benders first came to most folkNs attention in 2007, when they self-released a pair of homemade EPs in anticipation of an album. They started young: The bandNs formative shows were booked when the members werenNt yet old enough to be allowed as customers into the bars they were playing. (The four—Chu, guitarist/organist Joe Ferrell, bassist Timothy Or and drummer Julian Harmon—are now between the ages 20 and 23, according to Chu.)
“When youNre playing bars [underage],” he observes, “itNs impossible to not be treated differently, especially when they wonNt even let you in the club. You have to stand outside and go in really fast and play and get out of there.” Not surprisingly, he adds, “We usually like all-ages shows because itNs a better vibe for everyone involved. [Bars are] just not the most conducive atmosphere for getting into the music. Kids are not as self-conscious, and they have fun with it, and I think thatNs contagious.”
The irony behind teenagers rocking out to the Morning Benders—which they wonNt be doing at FridayNs show at the 21-and-over Detroit Bar—is, of course, that the bandNs key influences are rooted 40 years in the past.
“We went into it with a very specific aesthetic in mind,” Chu says of Tin Cans, which was recorded when the front man was 20. “We were listening exclusively to music between the N60s and N70s: the Beatles, Neil Young, Dylan and [the] Stones. It definitely put us in the mindset to make something eligible to be accepted in that realm.”
That wonNt be the case for their freshly recorded follow-up. “The approach was open-minded,” Chu says. “We let varying things just guide the songs. If we had cool instruments available, we put them on and saw what happened. We let [songs] breathe and grow more. For me, itNs much more special and unique record than the last one.”
A hint of their new direction can be heard on their MySpace page, which features “Back and Again” and “I Wanna Be Like You” from the bandNs exclusive iTunes EP. Chu calls it “the missing link” between the two albums, whereas fans might see it as one more piece to add to the collection, alongside Tin Cans, The Bedroom Covers, and sessions for the popular sites Daytrotter and Limewire. As the latter indicates, the Morning Benders have made wise use of the Internet. And their record label, +1, is the offshoot of a well-liked PR company, which points to the young bandNs knack for navigating a fluctuating music industry. For their part, Chu says the band are pleased with +1.
“We have a lot of music we want to put out,” he notes, “and theyNve never said no to us.”
Good thing; that means the wellspring of fresh new Morning Benders tunes isnNt likely to taper off any time soon.
The Morning Benders and the Submarines at Detroit Bar, 843 W. 19th St., Costa Mesa, (949) 642-?0600; www.detroitbar.com. Fri., 8 p.m. $10. 21+.
