On Rock

Back in the early '80s, well before Mudhoney or even Nirvana, the Young Fresh Fellows put Seattle on the map. Prior to the band's relentless and often unrewarding tour schedule, pop music rarely made the trip up to our little town; but when college radio stations across the country latched on to the Fellows' The Fabulous Sounds of the Pacific Northwest, and the Replacements' Paul Westerberg championed the group's hook-heavy melodic sound, eventually, Seattle became a destination and not just three syllables synonymous with rain. But it's not just nostalgia that keeps Fellows frontman Scott McCaughey on the shortlist of Seattle's most favored musicians. He continues to charm the socks off of everyone within shouting distance with his weirdly wry pop-rock send-ups. Aside from the irregular YFF "reunion," occasional collaborations with Wilco, and a regular touring and recording gig with R.E.M., the Minus 5 are McCaughey's main M.O., and the band's adroitly titled In Rock (Yep Roc), their sixth release, is out this week. By turns (and often all at the same time) hard-edged, surf-inspired, harmonic, twangy, modest, and bold, In Rock seeks not to reinvent the wheel but to keep the cogs nicely greased. McCaughey, drummer Bill Rieflin, and guitarist John Ramberg—the Minus 3, if you will—sat for the Jukebox on a chilly recent Tuesday night in McCaughey's backyard studio.

Hubble Bubble: "New Promotion" (1977) MP3

Bill Rieflin: It's not [from] The Bridge on the River Kwai, is it?

Scott McCaughey: Bridge on the River Kwai—I wish. I've got the DVD.

Seattle Weekly: You probably shouldn't know this.

McCaughey: It's Schoolhouse Rock, right?

SW: It's a fairly obscure Belgian band called Hubble Bubble. It's really hard to find any of their records. I have a friend who's incredibly gifted at finding amazing stuff on the Internet; he turned me on to them, but I've never actually seen an LP or anything.

Rieflin: It was probably recorded in the late '70s or early '80s . . .

McCaughey: For sure . . .

SW: Yep, late '70s. You know the local band the Spits?

McCaughey: Yeah.

SW: It's always seemed to me that they borrow heavily from these guys.

John Ramberg: I'm still trying to think who they remind me of . . .

McCaughey: I'm still thinking of the Marines, you know, when they march across the beach and the bridge.

Ramberg: Alec Guinness?

Rieflin: I actually dreamt of Alec Guinness the other night. He was singing a song very similar to this one.

Ramberg: It's really good.

McCaughey: Did they tour with Plastic Bertrand?

SW: Actually, Plastic Bertrand, aka Roger Jouret, was the drummer for Hubble Bubble.

McCaughey: I bet Kurt Bloch must have a couple 7-inches of theirs.

Rieflin: And a book written by one of them.

SW: I think they only had one proper album, and they were on a Killed by Death comp.

Rieflin: Well, the problem with this band is that they decided to be born and raised in Belgium.

SW: Right.

The Nerves: "Hanging on the Telephone" (1976) from Nerves EP (Nerves)

McCaughey: Ah, the Nerves. They had a four-song 7-inch or something. That's the only thing they ever released in their time.

Rieflin: So, which one of these guys started Blondie?

SW: Yeah, Blondie covered this song a few years later.

McCaughey: They probably opened for Blondie, 'cause they really didn't have a record out and they just packed in a station wagon and started driving around the country . . .

Rieflin: Like Forever Friends?

SW: You mean Friends Forever. This, along with the Undertones, is what I imagine imprinting Scott McCaughey.

McCaughey: Oh, I'm a huge Undertones fan. [Nerves guitarist] Peter Case went on to form the Plimsouls and [Nerves drummer] Paul Collins had the Beat. I got into the Nerves when I started listening to the Beat and found out there was this band the Nerves, and I went back and found their single.

FM Knives: "Cassevettes vs. the Moneygoround" (2002) from Estrogen EP (Smart Guy)

SW: When I played their full-length for my friend Steve, he insisted they were covering a Young Fresh Fellows song.

Rieflin: They didn't actually do a cover though?

SW: No.

Rieflin: It was on a Fellows' tribute though, so they get all the money.

McCaughey: Yeah. All that money.

Rieflin: Well, that kind of chord progression, you know, E minor, A minor—

McCaughey: It's not far from many songs I've penned, I'm sure.

SW: They get a lot of comparisons to the Buzzcocks.

McCaughey: I was gonna say, he's almost singing with a little bit of an English accent—Pete Shelley for sure. What a great name, the FM Knives. They're around now?

SW: Yeah, in Sacramento. I think they fight all the time and break up on a regular basis.

McCaughey: On the last Fellows tour, we had a show in Sacramento; our roadie thought we had the night off and he was like, "Where are we going?" and we said, "To that show in Sacramento." And he was like, "What?" He was so bummed out. He was our roadie, but, well, he was our entire crew. He walked into the place and had, like, five shots of tequila, and I was like, "Just take the night off." I don't remember what the point was.