Mac McCaughan has hit a few bum notes in his day, and he’s usually the first one to point them out in his albums’ self-deprecating liner notes.
Bum notes, however, are minor. They’d hardly be worth a mention if they weren’t the only noticeable imperfections in McCaughan’s 16-year career, which has seen him front the indie-rock titans Superchunk, record more experimental works with solo project Portastatic and co-found Merge Records, home to an increasingly impressive — and successful — roster of artists.
“Bright Ideas,” which came out in August, is Portastatic’s fifth album, one that will bring McCaughan to the Empty Bottle Friday.
“It’s not quite as erratic as other Portastatic albums,” McCaughan, 38, says during a phone call from his desk at Merge headquarters in Chapel Hill, N.C. “There are no instrumentals on this album. There isn’t any electronic stuff going on. Even though these songs are rock songs in the way that Superchunk songs are, they have a different vibe to them even though people hear the loud guitars and think, `Whoa, that’s Superchunk.'”
Superchunk, with its frenetic fuzzed-out guitars, is the band with which McCaughan is most associated. Since 1989, the quartet has released eight full-length albums, three compilations and an endless supply of singles and EPs. It has also sold the most records of McCaughan’s two groups, in part due to Superchunk’s relentless touring schedule. “Foolish” is the group’s most popular disc to date, having sold roughly 40,000 copies since its 1994 release, according to Soundscan.
By comparison, Portastatic’s best seller, the 1994 debut “I Hope Your Heart Is Not Brittle,” has sold approximately 10,000 copies, according to Soundscan. This can be partially traced to Portastatic’s unpredictable genre hopping. After all, Portastatic is an outlet for anything and everything that McCaughan thinks won’t fit with Superchunk.
With Portastatic, McCaughan has covered works by Brazilian artists (sung partially in Portuguese) on the five-song EP “Del Mel, De Melao”; he has recorded with Chicago avant-garde jazz saxophonist Ken Vandermark; and he wrote one of the most personal and beautiful albums influenced by the 9/11 tragedies, 2003’s “Summer of the Shark.”
“Mac is really an amazing person,” says Britt Daniel, whose band Spoon has released several albums on Merge Records, the label McCaughan founded with Superchunk bassist Laura Balance. “He’s got a lot going around in that brain of his. I’m always impressed at the things he’s familiar with in terms of music and culture and politics.”
Spoon is one of about 50 bands that have released albums on Merge, which independent musicians are drawn to for its sterling reputation as an artist-friendly haven run by music fans.
Bad experience
“When we were working with Elektra, outside of the college music department and the art department, I don’t think there was a single fan at the label,” Daniel says of the band’s experience with its 1998 album, “A Series of Sneaks,” which sold roughly 3,000 copies before Elektra unceremoniously dropped the band. “I can tell [Spoon records] are a priority for Merge. Everybody at the label seems to like the records and seems very excited about letting other people know about them, even if it was just in conversations on the phone or over e-mail.”
Since signing with Merge in 2001, Spoon has given the label a few hits, with 2002’s “Kill the Moonlight” (91,000 copies) and 2005’s “Gimme Fiction” (77,000 copies) clocking in as the label’s fourth and fifth best sellers, according to Soundscan.
Critical darlings the Arcade Fire, an unknown band from Montreal when it released its debut album on Merge Records last September, is Merge’s best-selling band to date, selling 191,000 copies of “Funeral.” The band will end its year-long tour in November opening three sold-out concerts for U2, which has been using the band’s song “Wake Up” as lead-in music during recent concerts.
But for every Arcade Fire and Spoon on Merge Records, there are five bands you’re less likely to have heard of, like Rock*A*Teens frontman Chris Lopez’s solo project, Tenement Halls, whose debut came out in August and which will spend the next two months on the road opening for Portastatic.
No time to rest
“Over the past few years, our release schedule has gotten a lot busier than it used to be, which is a good thing, but you don’t want anything [to] fall by the wayside in that situation,” McCaughan says. “You want to make sure that the records that aren’t as high-profile are still getting the attention they deserve.”
Working to promote those records and keep up with Merge’s day-to-day operations — “talking on the phone, answering e-mails and stuff” — will force McCaughan to pack a cell phone and laptop computer when his band heads out to support “Bright Ideas” (the name of the recording as published has been corrected here and in a subsequent reference in this text).
Stylistically, “Bright Ideas” is McCaughan’s most consistent to date, and also the first Portastatic album to be recorded with a full band. (Superchunk’s Jim Wilbur trades his guitar for a bass and Mac’s brother Matt McCaughan pitches in on drums.)
“I couldn’t record another record at home. I have a daughter that is sleeping next to the room where I normally record,” McCaughan says, referring to his 2-year-old, Oona. “There’s no more working in the studio until 4 in the morning making noise. So I thought, let’s take this opportunity to record as a band and try to capture some of the live thing.”
The recording process isn’t the only aspect of the new album that Oona influenced.
“It’s an odd result of having a kid, but there’s a thread of depression and frustration about the state of the world that runs through the new album,” McCaughan says. “It’s stuff you can blow off when you’re younger. When you’re 25 you think things will change, things will get better. The older you get you really start to realize how powerless people are, whose hands the power is consolidated in and what that does to the world. When it’s just yourself, you can think, OK, I can deal. But then you starting thinking: `What kind of world is my daughter going to grow up in?’ That’s the thing that makes you much angrier.”
With Superchunk on temporary hiatus — bassist and Merge co-founder Laura Ballance had a child last fall; the band plans to record a new album in 2006 — Portastatic has embarked on a 30-date affair that will take the band through the end of October.
“I’m already not too anxious to do it,” McCaughan says days before departing. “This is the first real extended Portastatic touring. At this point, for me and Jim both, the fun part is playing the shows. All the other stuff we’ve done a ton of times. There’s isn’t a lot of romance left in that. But there certainly is romance left in playing in sweaty clubs and having a good time.”
Portastatic performs at 10 p.m. Friday at the Empty Bottle, 1035 N. Western Ave. Tickets are $10. For more information, call 773-276-3600.
———-
ctc-arts@tribune.com
