Crystal Stilts Are Deliberately Primitive

12/10/08 2:52pm

by Shawn Despres (CHARTattack)

When asked for his best and worst band-related memories over the last 12 months, Crystal Stilts guitarist JB Townsend needs little time to answer.

"The low point was probably in February when we had our van and gear towed and presumed stolen," he offers. "The high point was finally putting out records."

The van has been the source of several lingering headaches since its acquisition late last year. First, it was sideswiped by a car and the driver's side mirror got knocked off, netting the Brooklyn, N.Y. quintet frequent tickets from the police.

The van and all their music gear inside it later disappeared from outside vocalist Brad Hargett's apartment. After they called the police and several impound lots, the group reported the van stolen and contacted friends to borrow instruments so they could still play scheduled shows.

Lo and behold, though, that wasn't the end of their van — or its troubles.

"Every time I saw a green Astro van, I stared it down," says Townsend. "You begin to notice after a while that there are a million pine green Astro vans in New York.

"About four weeks after the van went missing, Brad's mom got a letter saying that it had in fact been impounded and it was to be up for auction in three days. This was good news on one hand because we got our stuff back, but also bad news because it ended up costing an ungodly amount to recover — not to mention the 13 parking tickets it had received, which were no doubt the reason for it being towed.

"When we finally got it from the impound lot, it wouldn't start. This was one day before we were supposed to play at South By Southwest, so we basically had to cancel the whole thing.

"Since then, the van has had the back side window broken out. We got that fixed and then, believe it or not, a month ago, a dumpster rolled into the same window and broke it again."

Crystal Stilts were started by Townsend and Hargett in 2003. They took their time fine-tuning their lo-fi blend of indie pop and post-punk and released their self-titled EP in February. The act unveiled their infectious full-length debut, the well-crafted Alight Of Night, in October.

Although Townsend admits that Alight Of Night probably should have surfaced sooner, he doesn't understand the motivation behind young bands who rush to get something out shortly after they form.

"It strikes me as crazy when bands come out, play 20 shows, make an LP, get a manager and public relations team, and in six months get signed to a major indie as the next big trend — and boom — they're Vampire Weekend.

"A lot of groups are more in tune to the business side than the actual music side. We had little ambition to be a go-getting band. We just practiced and stayed in our world. We played about five shows a year from 2003 to 2006."

Crystal Stilts are gigging considerably more now. They're in the midst of a North American tour with Love Is All and will spend February entertaining European audiences.

Crystal Stilts' growing popularity has created a lot more media coverage, which has resulted in many scribes drawing comparisons between them and Joy Division, The Jesus And Mary Chain and other seminal acts — and occasionally over-analyzing the group's music.

"Some are accurate and flattering, some are ridiculously off," says Townsend. "I think the emphasis on simplicity on the record is sometimes mistook and easily dissected.

"The music is deliberately primitive. A lot of the songs are meant to be backdrops to Brad's lyrics, and are sort of soundtracks to a poem rather than structured pop songs. There was one review that I read that said it's anti-rock 'n' roll, or killed rock 'n' roll or something."

Crystal Stilts and Love Is All play Montreal's La Sala Rossa on Wednesday and Toronto's Horseshoe Tavern, along with Tropics, the next night.