Concert Review: The Presidents of the United States of America, Feb. 15-16, 2014, Seattle

Most people probably remember the Presidents of the United States of America as that punky little Seattle band that injected some needed humor into a dark and gloomy music scene when grunge ruled the airwaves. They had a couple of hits with "Lump" and "Peaches" back in the '90s, and then they faded away, never to be heard from again.

Part of that assessment of our intrepid two-hit wonders is true. PUSA enjoyed a brief moment in the spotlight, with their self-titled debut eventually going triple platinum. The follow-up album, II, failed to capture the public's imagination in spite of some great music, and following a compilation album of odds and ends, Pure Frosting, the Presidents' term appeared to be over.

I didn't catch up with them again until I heard that Chris Ballew, PUSA's singer and primary songwriter, was trying his hand at children's music, under the name Caspar Babypants. My daughter was a 1-year-old at the time, and I picked up a Caspar CD to see if she'd like it. She did, but Dad enjoyed it just as much! Chris' light-hearted, catchy melodies and his offbeat lyrics about bugs and other animals -- but especially bugs -- reminded me immediately of what always made me smile about PUSA's music.

So I decided to see what the Presidents had been up to since Pure Frosting, if anything. Turns out they'd done three more albums out of the spotlight, and they had a new guitarist on board, with Andrew McKeag stepping in for original member Dave Dederer.

And best of all, they were still active! Well, semi-active, anyway. For the past several years, the band has organized an annual "PUSAfest" in Seattle, with the Presidents headlining a performance on -- when else? -- Presidents Day weekend.

I caught my first PUSAfest in 2013, and it brought back fond memories to hear the songs I knew from the first three records. As a bonus, the new material I heard assured me that Chris and his bandmates hadn't lost any of their charm, wit, or chops. So I got myself caught up on their catalog -- with Freaked Out and Small, Love Everybody, and These Are the Good Times People -- and before I knew it, Chris Ballew had become a huge part of the soundtrack in our home. Caspar Babypants was playing almost constantly for several months, all while I was absorbing these "new" PUSA albums into my system. 

Well, what a treat to find out that for this year's PUSAfest, the band would be rolling out a new album (it was crowdfunded, and I contributed!), and they'd be doing a special "unplugged" set in addition to their usual performance at Showbox at the Market. (That's Pike Place Market, for those of you not familiar with the area. Showbox is right across the street.)

The Saturday performance at Showbox was actually the second of the weekend -- the guys took a trip down to Portland, Oregon, to play for the fans down there the night before. But as we all know, there's no place like home, and Seattle's Silliest didn't disappoint an enthusiastic crowd.

I got to the venue a little late, having worked a long shift that day, and not too interested in hearing the opening acts. I did get there in time to catch about half of the second band's show, and by that point, the place was packed. Showbox has a seating area, but as far as I could see, all the seats were full, so I half-heartedly wandered down to the floor. I was tired from my long day, and I didn't know how much I'd enjoy the show if I had to stand the whole time, being packed in like a sardine among a bunch of people bumping into me all night. (Don't laugh. I'm almost 43. I'm getting too old for this stuff.)

Well, I needn't have worried. When the Presidents took the stage and the hoots rose up from the crowd, I was no longer in any pain. Music cures all ills.

Things did get off to a bit of a rough start for the band, when, during the opening song -- a cover of MC5's "Kick Out the Jams," Chris and Andrew got their cords tangled. "If only we had roadies," Andrew quipped with a smile, as he worked feverishly to undo the snag while Chris and drummer Jason Finn kept playing. (Jason was rock-solid all night, and I love watching him play in his open-hand style -- left hand on the hi-hat and right hand on the snare, rather than crossing over the left on the snare to play the hi-hat with the right. Open-hand playing is something you don't come across very often, and as someone who's spent some time behind a drum kit, I really enjoy seeing it -- all the more so when it's done as well as Jason does it.)

That energetic song set the tone for the evening, and it was Chris who did more than anyone else on stage to keep the energy level cranked up high. Anyone who's seen him perform knows what to expect, but it's still so much fun to watch: He makes exaggerated cartoonish gestures with his tall, gangly, rubbery frame while he's playing; he chatters and jokes with the audience and his bandmates; he runs across the stage like a kid on a sugar high; he hops around as if he's riding an imaginary pogo stick; he climbs on stools, drum risers, even the drums themselves. And he'll improvise the craziest stories about the songs he's singing. He told us all about how his relationship in the song "More Bad Times" was doomed from the start, because the object of his affection was a 9-foot-tall Amazonian nudist supermodel and he was a hapless little gnome who tried everything, even stepladders. During "Back Porch," he spun a yarn about how his own porch was falling apart and it cost him a fortune for all the materials at Home Depot -- to which Andrew offered that he should have gone to McLendon's, a local chain, and saved himself some money. With a local band, you get local jokes. I love that!

Anyway, the night flew by, and the material from the new album, Kudos to You!, mixed in seamlessly with the older material. Every album was represented except for Freaked Out and Small -- which was not that big of a surprise to me, as I think it's the weakest in their catalog. They also used conventional six-string guitars and four-string basses on that record, and perhaps that makes adapting the songs to PUSA's traditional two-string "basitars" and three-string "guitbasses" a bit of a challenge. In any event, we got a little bit of jacked-up rockabilly in "Poor Little Me" and "Back Porch," infectious poppy melodies in "Some Postman" and "Good Morning Tycoon," and high-octane punk-pop in "Mach 5" and "She's a Nurse." And of course, there were all the cuts from the debut album that everyone expected to hear: "Lump," "Peaches," "Kitty," "Boll Weevil," and "Dune Buggy." As he's done for a long time now, Chris changed the last line in "Lump" to what "Weird Al" Yankovic sang in his spoof song, "Gump." I always find that to be a nice tip of the hat, from one funny guy to another.

A big treat for me was hearing what just might be my favorite PUSA song -- "Volcano," from the second album. It was intended to be the single from that album, but I don't think it went anywhere in the charts. It's Chris Ballew's ode to Mount St. Helens, and how all the "happy campers poop in their Pampers when the mountain becomes a fountain." How can you not love a line like that?

This show marked the first time I heard any of the material from Kudos to You!, which was on sale at the show but also en route to the mailboxes of those who funded the recording. And boy, was I satisfied with what I heard. The hooks and melodies were astoundingly good. I know, from having followed Caspar Babypants, that Chris Ballew hasn't lot a bit of his songwriting talents over the years -- in fact, he may be getting even better. It's a pity there isn't a larger market for such well-written, enjoyable music that consistently makes you smile and forget about your real-life worries. I consider those of us who are still around and count ourselves as fans to be pretty lucky indeed.

One track from the new album, "Crown Victoria," featured a guest vocal from John Roderick, singer of Seattle band The Long Winters. He also sings backing vocals on the studio version of the song. I didn't know the first thing about his band going into the show, but the Long Winters song the Presidents played next, called "New Girl," seemed nice enough. John Roderick handled the lead vocals on that one and then left the stage.

I heard everything I could have hoped for at the Showbox performance, and then some. PUSA's cover of the Buggles' "Video Killed the Radio Star" -- which they originally recorded for the movie The Wedding Singer -- was the unexpected icing on the cake. How do you connect Yes to the Presidents of the United States of America in six degrees or fewer? There you have it. The band also paid brief tribute to the Super Bowl champion Seattle Seahawks by playing, deliberately badly, a few bars of Queen's "We Are the Champions." Chris tried to make up some lyrics on the spot for a revamped "We Will Rock You," including something about the safety on the Broncos' opening play, though the whole thing kind of fizzled out before it got going. But it got us all laughing, and we applauded the effort.

The next night, PUSA set up camp a few blocks away at the Triple Door, a nice little dinner club where I saw Jon Anderson (speaking of Yes) do his solo show a few years back. This was an unplugged performance, and demand was strong enough that the guys added a second show later that night. On the day of the show, I decided on a whim to see if there were any tickets left for the late show, and I managed to grab one of the last ones remaining. I had to sit way at the back of the theater for the late show -- but for the early show, I was seated directly in front of the stage! Wow, what a view!

The first thing I noticed was that Jason Finn's drum set looked like a tiny little kid's kit. Then I saw Andrew McKeag's acoustic guitars: They had six strings each! Now that was an interesting twist. This requires some explanation for those unfamiliar with the Presidents: Chris Ballew long ago got the idea to think outside the box, musically speaking, by taking strings off his guitar. I read once in an interview that he said he found himself doing things on a six-string that were too predictable, and after working with the late Mark Sandman -- well known for his two-string slide bass in Morphine -- Chris landed on the idea of creating a two-string "basitar," which is essentially a six-string guitar body equipped with two heavier-gauge strings. When he and Dave Dederer started the Presidents, Dave played a "guitbass" based on the same concept, only adding a third string. When Andrew joined PUSA, he carried on with the three-string style. So seeing a couple of fully stringed acoustics on stage was completely unexpected!

The other thing I didn't expect was that Andrew's guitars were directly in front of me. Now, I love all three guys in this band, but I bought my ticket deliberately hoping to sit directly in front of Chris Ballew, who always stands stage-right with PUSA. Well, sure enough, when the guys came out, Chris took his seat stage-left, and Andrew sat down in front of me! I had to laugh when Chris commented about how the band was going to mix things up for this show, including their stage placement, and Andrew told him some people are probably upset if they bought their tickets expecting to sit in front of either him or Chris!

Well, it would take a lot to get me upset with these guys, and getting to watch Andrew playing up close instead of Chris wasn't going to do it. This seat was too good, and the night held too much promise.

As Chris took his place onstage, I noticed that he pulled out a familiar-looking three-string electric guitar. That was his Caspar Babypants guitar! I've been to enough of his Caspar shows to recognize it on sight. Those shows are solo performances, with just Chris, his guitar, and a stool to sit on. Considering Chris was now sitting and playing that very guitar, and also wearing the same outfit he seems to wear for every PUSA and Caspar show -- yellow T-shirt, black knee-length shorts, and black sneakers -- I half-expected him to pull out a Caspar song or two for this show. After all, Chris himself has said Caspar Babypants music is really just Presidents music stripped of the amplification and innuendo.

Well, that was not to be, but we did get some treats. "Kitty" got a new, slightly funky treatment that kept a steady drumbeat pulsing throughout the piece, as opposed to the sparse instrumentation during the verses on the original recording. "Lump," which Chris jokingly called "Clump," became a slow shuffle (think of how Clapton revamped "Layla" for his unplugged album). And "Tiki God" from the second album became "Tiki Lounge God," which sounded pretty much as you'd expect from the revised title. That song had actually appeared in the same arrangement, with that title, on their Pure Frosting compilation. Also performed from Pure Frosting was a light, touching little piece called "Sunshine," which I'd almost forgotten about. Chris said he wrote it for his young son many years ago. That made listening to the tender delivery all the more sweet and special.

Once the encore was done, Chris reached down from the stage and high-fived all of us in the front row. Andrew followed right after him, shaking all our hands and thanking us for coming to the show. These guys are class acts!

For the late show, I got the feeling that the guys had expended all their energy on the first performance. Chris made several mentions from the stage that he was tired, and the banter among the band members between songs started to go comically off the rails. "Here's a song we do with our guitars," Chris said at one point, either forgetting what he was going to talk about or having run out of anything else to say. His vamp during "More Bad Times" still involved the 9-foot-tall nudist supermodel, but this time he was "just a tiny little ... Mormon." Not missing a beat, Andrew looked over at him with a laugh and said, "You don't really need to add anything else." There was a lot of talk about taxidermy and cocaine, too. They were punchy. It was hilarious to watch. But the music sounded as good as ever. They even good-naturedly took an audience request for "Jennifer's Jacket," after which Andrew, ever astute, looked out from where the request came and said, "So which one of you is Jennifer?"

There were also bizarre brief segues into "Black Hole Sun" and the theme from The Jeffersons at both Triple Door shows. I have no explanation. It's the Presidents. Crazy is what they do.

The band is currently wrapping up a short European tour. Last year they played Australia. It's great to see that, two decades on, there's still enough interest in these guys that they can play to audiences outside the Seattle area. The interviews I've read reveal a trio of guys who know how lucky they've been to be able to get so much mileage out of just a few hit songs back in the '90s, and they're enjoying it while they still can. How refreshing, in the rock business, to come across three musicians who have realistic expectations and seemingly no ego trips, and who appear to genuinely enjoy playing for people and making their fans smile. We don't have enough of that in the world today.

A Frank Zappa album title once posed a pointed question: Does Humor Belong in Music? Chris Ballew and the Presidents would say, unequivocally, yes. And I would enthusiastically agree.

Showbox setlist:

Kick Out the Jams

Kitty

Poor Little Me

Volcano

Some Postman

Slow Slow Fly

Boll Weevil

Ghosts Are Everywhere

Good Morning Tycoon

Lump

More Bad Times

Tiki God

Crown Victoria [guest vocals by John Roderick]

New Girl [Long Winters song; lead vocals by John Roderick]

Back Porch

Dune Buggy

Finger Monster

Munky River

Ladybug

She's a Nurse

Candy

Mach 5

Peaches

Encore:
Innocent Bird

Video Killed the Radio Star

Kick Out the Jams

Triple Door setlist:

Love Everybody

Slow Slow Fly

Sharpen Up Those Fangs

Kitty

More Bad Times

Crown Victoria

Lump

Highway Forever

Tiki Lounge God

Innocent Bird

Sunshine

Dune Buggy

Poor Little Me

Munky River

Jennifer's Jacket [audience request; 10:00 show only]

Deleter

Candy

Bath of Fire

Naked and Famous

Back Porch

Peaches

Encore:

Body [10:00 show only]

Kick Out the Jams