Love as Laughter
w/Dutch Dub, Bouillon Brothers
Wed June 22, Neumo's, 9 pm, $8, 21+.
When Sub Pop first floated me an advance copy of Love as Laughter's latest, Laughter's Fifth, I took a frustrating rollercoaster ride of elation and disappointment. The record was a long-overdue, gracefully executed treasure highlighting frontman (and former Seattle resident) Sam Jayne's exceptional knack for fusing crafty lyrical innuendo onto grimy-but-gorgeous pop-rock hooks. It didn't leave my CD player for weeks (hell, it's still there), so I was crestfallen when a Sub Pop rep told me that there were no tour plans in the works.
Thankfully, all that changed a few weeks ago when Jayne confirmed this Wednesday's show at Neumo's, one in a series of West Coast dates featuring his rotating cast of talented friends. Chatting via phone from his Brooklyn home, he discusses his eagerness to hit the road again. "Playing in New York is basically just playing for our friends-it's better for us to get out of New York. It seems like people enjoy us more on the West Coast anyway," he says, laughing and fumbling with a Misfits CD he's grabbing in preparation for a DJ shift.
Geography and scheduling realities mean that the band's lineup will shift throughout the tour. "Love as Laughter is just like that; it's a rotating cast," says Jayne, explaining that current and former Pretty Girls Make Graves members Nick Dewitt and Nate Thelen will join him onstage in Seattle.
Jayne's return to Seattle will undoubtedly feel a bit like a family reunion, given his history, fan base, and friendships within this community. He initially made his mark in 1994 with the K Records debut (and swan song) of Lync, an Olympia-based punk trio. The short-lived band is still fetishized by underground-music aficionados, as well as Built to Spill frontman Doug Marsch, who consistently praises Jayne in public and has been known to cover Love as Laughter songs live. An appearance on Beck's One Foot in the Grave that same year may have somewhat increased Jayne's profile, but it was really the subsequent formation of Love as Laughter that established him as a gifted (if slightly unfocused) songwriter whose adolescent influences of the Dead Milkmen, the Descendents, and Melvins induced a fondness for wry, intelligent lyrics and chaotic, distorted guitar.
Love as Laughter's first four releases reflected those traits, occasionally to a fault. Despite Jayne's impressive writing skills, he often seemed to overthink his arrangements in the studio, overdubbing himself into oblivion (1999's Destination 2000) or going bananas with odd tunings and distortion (1996's The Greks Bring Gifts). Those tendencies carried over to Jayne's live performances, which he admits were, well, uneven. "Love as Laughter didn't start out as a band; it started out as a recording project and I just made tapes for my friends. My first attempts at playing out were horrible-or wonderful, I suppose, depending on your perspective," he says with a laugh.
There's nothing wrong with making a creative racket, but when you write songs as strong as Jayne does, they're often better served by letting them exist in their natural, unadorned state-a simplification Jayne wisely employed with Laughter's Fifth, a relaxed, dry-witted, and infectious collection that sounds like early Crazy Horse with a better sense of humor. Recorded over the course of five months in a Delaware basement studio, the album succeeds largely due to producer Ben Vehorn's uncluttered approach. "He really was not trying to do anything crazy or screw around," says Jayne. "He had never seriously recorded someone else's band before, but he had a really great idea about what sounded good without going overboard."
Along with releasing his best work to date and a rather hilarious placement of the single "Dirty Lives" on an episode of The O.C., Jayne had the honor of playing both All Tomorrow's Parties festivals this year. "It was a blast," he recalls. "We kind of lucked out-we were invited by Modest Mouse for the L.A. one and then Slint invited us to do the UK festival. I was pretty honored to be a repeat offender."
As for the glowing reception his latest work has earned, Jayne is humble and surprised. "It's been ridiculous; I had a friend call me the other day and tell me, 'Dude, I've listened to your record five times today!' and I was like, 'You are insane!' But that's good, it's like good drugs!" ■
