Discover Top Posts Tagged with #del paxton

Del Paxton: Auto Locator

I was originally drawn to this band based on their name. It’s a reference to one of my all time favorite movies: That Thing You Do! This is a pretty good follow up to their first release.

#del paxton #auto locator #records #vinyl #vinyl records #emo #midwest emo #Spotify

Meditations on being young and driving home, in 9/8.

“Time to face this midwestern horizon.”

#del paxton #emo #emo music #math rock #emo revival #time signature

we've permanently reduced our bandcamp subscription down to just $6/mo and are offering a selection of our 2017 releases as bonus albums for a limited time: https://topshelfrecords.bandcamp.com/subscribe

#bandcamp #topshelf records #music #no vacation #del paxton #wild ones #gingerlys #enemies #heat

#4. That Thing You Do!

(PG, 1h 48m, Comedy/Drama/Music, 1996)

Now for a movie I will never run out of praise for. Wholesome and rewarding, a local boy band’s miraculous skyrocket to fame in 1964 finds its perfect tempo while paying cultural homage in the Tom Hanks directed-and-acted one-of-many-ones hit wonder, That Thing You Do!. In a word? Refreshing.

Cool cat Guy Patterson (Tom Everett Scott) just wants to play drums. Long after the glazed ‘n’ dazed customers have left and the books have been cooked at his family’s appliance store in Nowhere, Pennsylvania, Guy retreats to the basement with his idol Del Paxton on vinyl to sit on his throne and deal out rhythm like only a boy desperate to make it big can. Here, there is no housewife wanting to buy a washer, here, the only record needle Guy deals is back to the top of his most prized album, Time to Blow. On his throne, he is king; on his throne, Guy Patterson is Spartacus.

Drummer needs a band, right? (I’m a musician - drummers’ll tell you they don’t.) Guy gets his break when he sits in with local band The Wonders. Chad, the original drummer, broke his arm playing leapfrog over a parking meter. But actually though! I love that scene. It’s half of the band looking all serious, meanwhile Chad and the bass player are jumping over meters like a bunch of no-good scally-wagging top-poppers. The other thing about the bass player was how long it took me to realize that he does not in fact have a name beyond the bass player. When credited, he’s referred to as T. B. Player - the bass player?? The world may never know.

The Wonders start playing locally, cut some records, sign a deal, life is good. Then, the true big break arrives - The Wonders have caught the attention of Mr. White (Tom Hanks), who is looking to sign the boys to the Play-Tone Galaxy of Stars and launch the band into true orbit.

Ambitiously filling the roles of director, writer, and co-star, Tom Hanks crafts a masterpiece of timing and dialogue in That Thing You Do!. He wastes not one iota of script, each line either serving to develop the characters, crack a joke, advance the plot, or do all three at once. Each character is distinct in terms of conversation and affect, from funny Lenny (Steve Zahn) to brooding Jimmy (Jonathon Schaech) to even the purposefully faceless bass player (Ethan Embry). Each Wonder is a boy you know, or a person you have been. In a way, we all spend time being ‘the bass player’ at some point.

The expertly timed dialogue reflects Tom Hanks’ Hollywood tenure and proximity to all the big writers. The script also highlights Hanks’ own wit and experience growing up in Southern California. You could watch this with your parents and see them recognize the show playing in the background at Patterson’s Appliances. Mr. White coaches the boys before each performance with a tagline familiar to any musician that there is no time for idling around and letting the audience grow cold or letting the applause die out: “you unplug and you run!”. Mr. White is always quick to offer the boys compliments on their looks, too; whether in black suits or red suits, they look great no matter what.

Fay’s (Liv Tyler) shining one-liner is her break-up with Jimmy, who has been two years too arrogant to see the true devotion before him which he can only imitate in his songs. Some may snub Tyler’s emotionless delivery, but it’s the flatness of her voice and stillness of her face that shows the exhaustion of loving without return: “shame on me for kissing you with my eyes closed so tight.” You tell ‘im, Fay.

Fictitious jazz legend Del Paxton’s words of wisdom to Guy ring true not only for any musician, but any person looking to hold the present together beyond honest capability. As Guy watches his one-hit wonder band fizzle out as if in a supernova, Paxton reminds Guy how impermanent the glitz before him is: “bands come and go, but you gotta keep playing.”

How relatable is this for you? I was in two bands in college, and each had the right people in the right place at the right time. My rock orchestra saw its fifteen minutes when we had the chance to open for Heart until our set got rained out. Summer ran out, and I had to go back to school. My old time band saw a hint of traction on the contra dance circuit before the day we all had graduated and were slingshot far, far away from each other. The gigs were good and the memories greater. As I know for me and I’m sure for all of them, I’ve just had to keep playing. In no way does the passage of time or accumulation of distance diminish the value of what we had. Like 1964, the year had to end at some point.

Speaking of 1964, while at the College of Wailing and Mayhem, I took a four-credit course in my senior year on the music of The Beatles. I kid you not. Easily the most engaging and knowledgeable professor I had the pleasure to study with. That Thing You Do! did its homework in paralleling The Beatles, not counting obvious references in the script. Like The Beatles, The Wonders lose their original bass player and replace their original drummer. Both go for a name pun: before Mr. White changed their name to something less confusing, it was The Oneders (the oh-NEE-ders??). For both bands, their hit break-through single was a slower song made great by sneakily speeding it up (see “Please Please Me”). Some say Mr. White has a male lover in the extended edition to mirror Brian Epstein, manager of The Beatles, but my copy of the movie leaves all of that to the imagination.

As if this movie isn’t enough fun to watch, you can tell it was a fun time to make. Reading through the list of actors and cameos, Tom Hanks was clearly throwing a block party for his family and friends and just wrote it off as filming. Even Bryan Cranston appears for a moment, and Hank’s wife Rita Wilson plays the waitress at the jazz club.

Possibly the most thrilling scene is when the boys hear their single on the radio for the first time. Wherever each Wonder is in Erie, they’ve got their ear tuned to the local AM waves. The very second when they hear the first bar of Guy’s drum beat, they all flock to the appliance store, tripping over themselves, running to be together, basking in the pure ecstasy of the moment. The dream that each of them had visions of, Jimmy and Lenny and Guy and Fay and the other one, all saw a glimpse of it eclipse with reality when, for maybe two minutes, they ruled local air. There is jumping and crying and screaming. There are moments like these in everyone’s life, like getting into college, or getting engaged, or watching your garden bloom in the full sun of spring for the first time. The Wonders are hitting a milestone, maybe one they thought they would not see. They start something big, and it’s only the first of many. We know how the story ends, but in that moment, they can’t even dream of waking up. Anything could happen.

P.s. -- go see “Baby Driver” before it leaves the theater! It’s a good time.

P.p.s. -- even if you don’t find yourself watching this movie, you’ve at least got to give the single a shot!

#the tom hanks movie blog #tom hanks #that thing you do #liv tyler #the beatles #the oneders #del paxton #boy band #favorite movie ever

"'645 Mae' is more or less about the time and energy we waste both individually and when we’re together..." - The Grievance Club

We put out a new music video yesterday in which we let our close friends ruin our home, check it out over at @newnoisemagazine!

“‘645 Mae’ is more or less about the time and energy we waste both individually and when we’re together; the feeling of wasting the capacity to be more productive or creative at any given time and the resulting guilt.”

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I went on a little bit of a Bandcamp jag with a fancy check from the New York State Department of Taxation and Finance -- sort of appropriate that I use it to survey the output of my cross-state neighbors Del Paxton. There's probably a great local politics joke in here about the notorious uneven distribution of resources between the southern part of the state (my part) and the rest of it, but I'm not the go-to person for that. ("Sorry about your highways and stuff! We'll still buy your records!!") This is a great little LP. It's called "All Day, Every Day, All Night", which I think is supposed to make you think of "Every Night", if I'm understanding analogies correctly. I think of it belonging to a category I just made up just now called Burly Emo, or emo with some heft to it. Like Braid or Texas is the Reason, and not like, say, American Football or Mineral. I feel like you really need to attack a guitar to make it sound like this. It makes me wanna move around. I hope they come downstate soon.

#del paxton #records #topshelf records