Written in the midst of a difficult period during the Scenerysessions, Eames' contribution to the disc, "Down Again" is similarly notable as it finds him navigating a darkly hued lost love number that serves as a mid-album break from Corak and Bufano's high-pitched heroics.
Cast against the tug of guest player Jon Rauhouse's pedal steel lines, Eames wistful verses ("I don't have time for anyone/Who don't have time for me/And it was from you that I learned this philosophy") lope toward a tortured chorus bolstered by a halting vocal backing from Slowdown front woman Yolanda Bejarano.
Cody Lee Cloud
Mission Accompliced: Reubens (from top to bottom ) Chris Corak, Jeff Bufano, Jim Knapp and Andy Eames.
Whales of the desert: Reubens in repose.
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Scheduled to perform on Friday, August 24, with Fightshy. Showtime is 9 p.m.
Nita's Hideaway in Tempe
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With Knapp's rock-steady backbeat anchoring the whole affair, the four-man core is clearly responsible for the record's success -- even though the album credits read like a Who's Who of local music. Aside from the contributions of Rauhouse -- who colors the proceedings with tasteful splashes of various stringed instruments -- and Bejarano, the record benefits from appearances by Jimmy Eat World's Jim Adkins (extraneous percussion), Chicano Power Revival's Peter Green (trumpet), Truckers on Speed's Theron Wall (cello), Les Payne's James Karnes (vocals) and world renowned turntablist and former Valley resident DJ Radar, whose trademark scratching flirts alluringly with Bufano's guitar (as sampled from a previous Reubens single) in the mesmerizing intro to "Borders."
Now that the band is poised for a national release, it's likely the rest of the country will begin playing the game that local critics have been at for a long time: trying to come up with some multi-hyphenated hybrid definition for Reubens' signature sound. Being at the center of such semantic debates is something the band has gotten used to over the past few years. Ultimately, what genre the group is lumped in matters little, says Bufano, as long as people respond to the music's originality.
"Half the time if I put on a new record it sounds like something I've heard a million times, I'm already uninterested," says Bufano, "'Cause I've probably already heard the band that does that thing or that style the best. Sometimes I get that feeling when I hear our record -- and then other times I think, 'This is totally our own sound.'"
Bufano is spot on with the last point. The band's sonic elements -- lo-fi aesthetics, twangy guitars, falsetto harmonies -- aren't uncommon in and of themselves, but the way Reubens has cobbled these disparate devices together to create a singular and singularly strange hybrid is unique.
"What people consider traditional 'indie rock' -- bands like Sebadoh and Pavement -- I always thought that we were like a twangy, pop version of that," offers Bufano.
"The problem," he adds, playing devil's advocate, "is that what we're doing will probably be too pop for the indie kids and too indie for the pop kids."
It's a theory the band will be able to test in earnest as it prepares to head out for a month-long national tour in September opening shows for longtime mates and current "It" band Jimmy Eat World.
"We went over well when we played with [Jimmy Eat World] at the Roxy in L.A.," says Bufano. "I'm really not expecting anything, but I'm hopeful. I think we can win a few of those people over."
Hmmm, playing for a couple thousand young, impressionable kids -- the kind of folks, jokes Bufano, who probably catch a lot of MTV, and definitely watch the Real World.
Sure enough, then, Reubens Accomplice will be blowing them up something fierce.
