As far as one-man bands go we all have a certain stereotype in mind. We all have that image of a guy holding an accordion with a bass drum strapped to his back and juggling any number of instruments necessary to flesh out whatever it is his busking license is allowing him to subject us to.
This concept of a one-man band is about as far away as you can get from Andrew Spicer. His album Bi-Polar Bear is probably the last place you’d find a kazoo. Instead we’re treated to what sounds like a victory lap of the ’90s.
Spicer’s solo act was an evolution as natural as any reaction to that perennial request: “ISO drummer.” If you want things done right, you just have to do it yourself.
“I used to be in bands years ago, but I always found that I had more freedom in making music on my own,” says Spicer. “There is no one to consult with and I am able to create a new song and play it how I want it to sound almost instantly. I guess it really comes down to that, the freedom to do what I want and how I want.
I have always worked better by myself. When I write songs I tend to just write the whole thing myself and when working with other people, it would end up in a conflict over the direction of the songs.”
Which still leaves the question of how does Spicer’s performance look when it’s actually on stage. Fortunately we’re not confronted with that aforementioned juggling act, but Spicer and his guitar accompanied by his laptop. It’s what he refers to as a “tight ship” where the satisfaction, at least for Spicer, is derived in engineering a system where he has full control over the instruments with the ability to mix them live.
“I find that people are rather surprised by the whole thing. I have been told by many fans that weren’t expecting it,” says Spicer. “That it was an awesome show/experience. I think the aspect of watching one guy sounding like a full band, the oddity of it goes away quite quickly and it just become a normal band almost, but while only focusing on the frontman. And that the level of complexity to some how make it work seems like magic to most people.
I don’t really know of anyone else that does it the way I do it. I’ve been aware of some other people doing the one man band thing, namely Brad Sucks, but they all seem to incorporate more electronic sounds. I try to keep it so I’m emulating a live band, Bass Drums Guitar Vocals. Kind of a virtual 3 piece. There isn’t any book on the subject of how to even do such a thing (that I’m aware of) so I pretty much had to figure it out on my own.”
Spicer isn’t shy about his influences. There’s an obvious ’90s bent to the album that encapsulates grunge and alternative rock. For Spicer it seems an homage to the music he grew up with.
“Most of it is so deeply ingrained in me that I don’t even notice the sounds until later on.”
The resulting music draws deep from an era where sound easily trumped substance, with almost anything being expressed in deeply cryptic lyrics. So long as you’ve mentioned your own self-loathing, feelings on inadequacy, your prescription medications and general ambivalence towards your relationship and you’ve basically nailed the ’90s. Toss a cardigan on and call it a day.
Where Spicer excels is hitting this so spot on that it can cause a reflexive double-take to confirm that these are, in fact, not covers. The intonation is so consistent with the decade that it’s possibly to immediately forget you’re not listening to an alternate take from a Foo Fighters song, or some mash-up between Green Day and Bush. “Silence” sounds like a lovechild of Matthew Good Band’s “Carmolina” and Smashing Pumpkin’s “Cherub Rock.” “Made Up” sounds like it’s built on the bones of Green Day’s “Brain Stew/Jaded.”
Songs like “Queen Anne’s Lace,” “The Way I See” and the closing “Cyanide” are all harder to put a finger on. They have that magic quality of sounding familiar even if you’re hearing them for the first time.
Is it derivative? Sure. Is it enjoyable? Absolutely. Spicer seems to have tapped directly into the ’90s hit generator. He’s essentially filling in the blanks and giving us more or what we wanted after an absence of 20 years. Perhaps we’re seeing flashes of brilliance in Spicer’s ability to rebuild a genre from the leftover pieces, or simply a unintended commentary on the state of the industry at the time.
Inevitably, Bi-Polar Bear is a lot like sausage. Don’t think about where it came from or how it was made and you’re almost guaranteed to enjoy it.