Probing Clutchy McGritterson’s Tender Parts: A Discussion and a Playlist
Twitter’s Clutchy McGritterson is my favorite kind of Midwestern Gen Xer: brilliant and irascible, hypergraphic and quite approachable beneath all the barbs. A disarming mix of clear-eyed fatalism and modesty that arises from either fundamental Ohioan decency or towering self-hatred. I think there is an army of McGrittersons — sensitive, bright, insightful, middle-aged Xers, lashed to desks at office parks doing jobs they’re extremely good at, but who are resolutely unsentimental about how those desks connect to the skein of deep economic and cultural rot that is 21st Century America.
Anyway, I reached out to Clutch for an interview when I realized he had a guitar, liked effects pedals, had deep crates in his head and pointed opinions for every inclusion in them.
BREAKUP GAMING SOCIETY: So, I listened to some indie rock in the ‘90s, but I’m still mining the era and coming up with tracks that make me feel less like a mandarin and more like a tourist.
I actually saw Built to Spill on Colfax Ave. in Denver in the ‘90s, but I don’t remember it. I was gobbling pain pills and booze. My little sister and her fiancee were there, but they complained about the sound and left.
But a few weeks ago, the algorithm led me to Built to Spill’s “Goin’ Against Your Mind,” and it’s one of the most tremendous things I’ve ever heard. How was I deaf to this?
CLUTCHY McGRITTERSON: I mentioned the other day I've always operated under the assumption that anyone who likes this band also likes Superchunk. They feel very much the same to me. I like the idea of them having a Piedmont/Snake River Valley feud like the East Coast/West Coast hip-hop rivalry. I wonder what a Superchunk diss track would sound like. I hope it sounds like "Slack Motherfucker" and has a line as good as "relax, sit down, I'll kick that stool right out from under you" in it.
I was never a huge Built to Spill fan back in the day. Part of that is just timing, but I am a little surprised I've never revisited them. I know I heard There's Nothing Wrong With Love whenever it came out (1994? 1995?) because I had friends that liked it, but it must have missed me entirely. I went back and listened to that record again a couple days ago and I can get why. 1994/1995, I was listening to a bunch of industrial stuff. A lot of Joy Division, too. Now, this song actually isn't too far afield from that in some kind of post-punky way, but at the time I think it mattered to me a lot more how the thing actually sounded, whether or not it had the right "vibe" or whatever. For a long time (really, until I started listening to a lot of Ministry and Coil, in particular), I thought the ideal band was a three-piece. I didn't really respect bands that had two guitar players, let alone something crazy like a keyboard or, God forbid, a horn section. That kind of rigidity was still present in my thinking about music even after I branched out a little bit, started to understand that not all bands had to sound like Husker Du, Minutemen and Wipers. And I liked Bowie and Devo well enough, but they weren't the same thing. A band could be fun, and I might even like them, the music might be beautiful or fascinating, but they weren't serious.
And I was very fuckin' serious during that little slice of the mid-90s. Also, pretty unforgiving. If I heard a song I didn't like, I would just write a band off entirely. That kept me from listening to a few bands over the years. Just the bad luck of hearing a song that didn't do anything for me. And a lot of those particular songs still don't. Like, I always thought "Get It On" was a dumb song when I was a kid, so I spent the first 30 years of my life thinking I hated T Rex. I still think it's a dumb song, but any band that can make a record like Electric Warrior is fine with me, even if I don't like a couple of the tracks. You can't tell me "Monolith" isn't badass.
Anyway, now, Built To Spill feels like a less methy Modest Mouse. Had I heard early Modest Mouse first, there's a decent chance I would have liked Built To Spill more at the time. Like I said, it takes me a while to really grasp things sometimes, and the connections aren't always obvious to me. I never understood what Joy Division was up to until I started listening to my neighbor's old Stooges records and really got into Eno-era Bowie. In any case, Modest Mouse really hit for me in 1996 or so in a way Built To Spill didn't. I reckon this probably had to do with the “Interstate 8” EP being incredible, me getting a little older, having my heart torn out a couple times, spending some time couch surfing around the Rust Belt and living in my car off and on for a bit, etc. The world will do interesting things to you, if you'll just let it.
Even though I'm not so familiar with Built To Spill, I've actually heard a lot of Doug Martsch because he got together with Calvin Johnson and made those Halo Benders records. Those I've listened to a lot. If you haven't heard them, check out "Virginia Reel Around The Fountain". Assuming you can handle Calvin Johnson's voice and, uh, interesting lyrics, I think you'll like it. Weird-ass band, all over the place. But they cranked out some real gems. Martsch is a hell of a guitar player, actually. Listening to "Goin' Against Your Mind" again as I'm writing this, and it's getting harder to understand why I never revisited these guys.
I will say this song is too long. I don't mind long songs, but this one does not need to be this long. I think the last minute and a half (the last verse and chorus) are superfluous, musically. Lyrically, maybe not. I'm just saying I would have given this one a hard stop at about 7:35 or so. I think it would've been a better ending. Maybe I should send the band my notes, help them out. I'd lay off the high-pitched bit over the instrumental in the beginning, too. The second lead bit, not the first one, maybe a minute in? Sounds like the keys and vocals in that My Morning Jacket song I can't remember the name of, but that I recall, for some reason, was in an episode of American Dad. Meh.
I've probably typed too much. Bad habit. Do you know what hypergraphia is? If there's an equivalent condition involving mechanical keyboards, I may have it. Why do you think I tweet so much?
BREAKUP GAMING SOCIETY: I have now been on a weird cycle where I only listen to tracks from Thin Lizzy’s Jailbreak and a smattering of late-Classical masters: Liszt, Chopin, Shostokavich.
What are you listening to tonight? Why?
CLUTCHY McGRITTERSON: Thin Lizzy is great. I have been looking for a replacement for Twitter ever since The Boys Are Back In Town bot went down.
I heard a lot of Liszt as a kid. My mom likes Liszt. Out of those three, I prefer Shostakovich. An author I like wrote a (fictional) book where Shostakovich was a main character. William T. Vollmann, Europe Central. I'm not sure if I can recommend it or not, it's not an easy read. Although it might be less surreal than most of his other work. Among other things, it's about some moral choices people might make when living through crisis, and the amorality that sets crises in motion. Set in Germany and the USSR in the mid-20th century. An interesting read, and if nothing else you should read Vollmann because the FBI once thought he might be the Unabomber.
Lately the thing I've been mildly obsessed with, and was listening to earlier this evening, has been this Wipers record.
Earlier today I was thinking about Nirvana's cover of D-7 because I listened to the original version earlier this week. I'm thinking Nirvana probably should have just covered this whole record.
There's some alternate universe where The Cars ended up more punk than new wave, and they would've sounded a bit like Wipers.
It's somehow hard to believe that Greg Sage was already nearly 30 when he made this record. Maybe that's why it seems to be a bit better assembled than some of its late 70s/early 80s punk-ish contemporaries. A little more thought out, a little less predictable.
BREAKUP GAMING SOCIETY:
• ‘Boys are Back in Town,” that little bass fill dude does on the first few bars…*chef’s kiss*
• So…I have only been listening to Shostakovich’s “Waltz No. 2”; the melodic progression is beguiling, it hurts my heart, there are no virtuoso parts, but it’s so gorgeous
• Please listen to “Skyliner” by the Charlie Barnet Orchestra
Its funny you brought up The Cars, because I always think about how they prefigured the durability of The Strokes: the smartest blend of new wave/punk and instinctual pop-rock songwriting. Ocasek standing there, bored, in his mirrored sunglasses; Ben Orr capturing the camera because he was gorgeous; and the best guitarist in the universe, Elliot Easton, never getting any camera time.
I note you post pics of your axes and effects pedals once in a while. What are you playing these days? Why? Have you made a cool new sound you’re proud of? How did you do it?
CLUTCHY McGRITTERSON: I eventually got to the point where I could play that little [Thin Lizzy, “The Boys are Back in Town”] bass fill. Used to annoy my jangle-pop college-rock bandmates by playing it at inappropriate times (our lead guitarist appreciated it, at least. He'd start playing Aerosmith songs when he got tired of the whiny R.E.M.-lite that our other guitarist always insisted on playing).
Hearing that waltz reminds me that most people can't guess what instrument I played in concert band in school... It was, of course, the oboe. Feels like I've heard that waltz in a bunch of things. Some commercial lately, for one.
I don't know as much about big band music as I should. This stuff is good. And speaking of things it feels like I've heard before, this sounds really familiar but I have no idea why. My mom used to listen to a lot of this stuff when I was a little kid, maybe that's why I know it.
Re: Elliot Easton. It's tough being the third-most-popular guy in the band.
I always thought Ocasek did some genius producing for a couple other bands. Do The Collapse was jarring for long-time GBV fans, but they never could have made that version of “Teenage FBI” without Ocasek.
Re: guitars and equipment.
I have never made any sound I am proud of that wasn't entirely accidental. I've actually written a couple things lately that weren't half bad by my standards, but the only one I tried to record a few weeks back met the same fate as the rest of my recorded output: deleted. Not nearly as satisfying as when I used to burn the reel-to-reel tapes when I got sick of them. I don't know, it's not like I'm recording things for anyone else to hear, anyway. I commented recently that, 25 years ago, the things I tried to record sounded like shitty, everyone-on-too-much-drugs-to-sound-good Velvet Underground outtakes. Now, I've progressed to making shitty Television knock-offs. Progress?
Lately, I've been playing a lot of baritone guitar. I don't know, could just be that the slightly longer neck is easier for my giant sausage fingers to handle. The pedal I'm most fond of right now is the Hologram Effects Microcosm.
So, anyway, I end up just sitting around for hours and playing stuff that sounds like background music from No Man's Sky. Big, echoey, bleepy.
I've been trying to get it to play along nice with my other favorite new toy from KinotoneAudio.
Honestly, the interface on that Ribbons pedal is the most confusing fucking thing I've ever dealt with. Anything cool I do with it feels accidental. I need to spend more time with it.
BREAKUP GAMING SOCIETY: OK, this feels like the piece de resistance (or coup de grace) from this conversation because a) I don’t have enough Guided by Voices coming up in my shuffle these days b) I didn’t realize Ocasek produced a whole slab for them.
So I’m pretty monomaniacal with my listening, inured to suggestions with rare exception, but I played this whole MFer tonight and it was Just What I Needed.
Good pull. Thank you, Clutch.
-FINIS-