Don Caballero: Like Primus, Minus the Vocals, Playing Lite Jazz
Damon Che's partners in this endeavor are guitarist Ian Williams and bassist Eric Emm. Williams has been there from the beginning?1991?laying down Don Caballero's trademark looped guitar lines. His dissonant, keyboard-type figures can challenge you with repetition, but they sometimes mutate into glorious hooks, as on "Don Caballero 3" from 1998's What Burns Never Returns. Emm, a recent addition, shows himself to be pretty skilled just by keeping up with the other bastards.
American Don, the band's latest effort, nicely displays all the members' talents, with a simple (!) high-hat vamp opening "Fire Back About Your New Baby's Sex" before "Haven't Lived Afro Pop" tosses out muted funk and country licks. I swear there's a part of this song that sounds like Smurf disco; there's also a bassline that the Sugarhill Gang would be proud of. "You Drink a Lot of Coffee for a Teenager" brings the heaviness, with drums that would fit under a Nine Inch Nails tune, and on the whole, the record gathers speed and volume toward its furious conclusion, "Let's Face It Pal, You Didn't Need That Eye Surgery." (Yes: long, silly titles are part of the Don Caballero experience. Damon Che claims that they're the unavoidable by-product of an instrumental band?the words have to come out somehow.)
The guitar tracks on American Don were sampled and looped, a departure from years past, when the band employed two guitarists to play lines organically. This takes away from the vibe?if anything, the members of Don Caballero have to keep from sounding too robotic, and they do just that when they sample.
So: atonal, polyrhythmic instrumentals by college-educated, technically gifted, dorky-looking guys. What would you call it? Someone came up with the term "math rock," and it's stuck to Don Caballero for years. It was the first thing I asked Damon Che about, as he toured in Florida. C'mon, math rock?
"I have a problem with all those labels. We were around before them and we'll be around after they're gone."
Che is pretty serious about everything. Influences?
"Too tedious for me to list and too numerous for you to write down."
Crowds?
"Very, very few fans who liked us from the beginning are still with us."
Stage procedures? (Che is well known for being the only member of Don Caballero to speak at shows.)
"If an audience is totally uninspiring, we might not say anything."
Pop music?
"I hear things and I think, 'This has gotta be a fast-food commercial.'"
Any hope that, as pop descends into uncriticizable levels of badness, the American music underground will produce some new heroes?
"No, now is a particularly bad time for underground music. My friends all think so too."
Is there a best time to listen to Don Caballero?
"Late at night, in the park. Put it on and go biking or jogging."
Right on. I saw the band at Knitting Factory and they sounded like what they are?professionals who've been doing this for a decade. Che raped his kit with monster drumsticks that he must've taken from some marching band; Ian Williams strung his guitar up to his neck and wailed, and Eric Emm was one with the bass drum. Some sort of trickery was used to produce extra guitar parts; whether that was piped-in music or Williams doing live loops with his pedals, I couldn't tell. Che spoke to the audience only once, in a crazed, unintelligible slur. The set was heavy on material from the last two albums and the place was packed.
Don Caballero can sound like techno, Vs.-era Pearl Jam, Nintendo music, funk and Limp Bizkit, plus they're instrumental?you know that's going to get you cred. You'd do well to pick up American Don or What Burns Never Returns (better), listen to it late at night and fill your head with the kind of rhythmic nuttiness modern jazz fails to deliver. Do it at least once. This band is far too good to be saddled with "math rock."
Ned Vizzini