The story of the Parenthetical Girls begins, somewhat
inauspiciously, in Everett, Washington. It’s a place that bandleader Zac Pennington describes as a “failed mill town,” before noting (parenthetically) that it is “considerably less romantic than
that manipulative phrasing is meant to suggest.”
“It’s one of those perfect-storm places,” Pennington goes on to say
in an e-mail from his adopted home of Portland on the eve of a trip to
Bainbridge Island to record. “It’s got that blend of zero ambition and
general hostility that, to people of a certain temperament, can be
extremely motivating—as in, ‘Get out now!'”
Pennington got out as soon as he could, moving to Seattle in 2000.
Here he turned Swastika Girls, his home recording project begun in
Everett with childhood friend
Jeremy Cooper (formerly of Display),
into a workable if still painfully raw live band, eventually
rechristened Parenthetical Girls. He launched Slender Means Society, an
organization that hosted a series of themed shows at the now-defunct
Secluded Alley Works (themes included Love, Children’s Stories, the
Apocalypse, and so on; performers included the Microphones, the Blow,
the Dead Science, and many others), and which eventually developed into
a small record label. He wore a lot of women’s blouses and velveteen
jackets. He left Seattle for Portland in 2003, throwing himself a
going-away party styled as a funeral, where he spent the entire night
lying dead-silent inside a coffin, coming alive to bid the crowd
farewell only via prerecorded video projected between bands.
Pennington also wrote for The Stranger (and later went on to
be the music editor of the Portland Mercury), and
rereading his old works of music criticism, one can see Pennington
shaping himself. As a writer, he was given to a somewhat wordy
preciousness. He made himself the partial subject of his reviews. He
fancied himself a music snob and an acerbic contrarian. He displayed
both an affection for pop and an affectation for the avant-garde (his
paeans to the traditionalist songcraft of Belle and Sebastian or the
Brill Building balanced by his championing of such willfully arty
acts—and friends of his—as Xiu Xiu, Display, Die Monitr
Batss, and so forth). His favorite subjects—ones he returned to
over the years—included the Decemberists and Tracy + the
Plastics, acts that traded heavily in the magical power of
self-invention/transformation (the Decemberists’ Colin Meloy left rural
Montana roots to become Portland’s preeminent Victorian bard; Tracy +
the Plastic’s Wynne Greenwood escaped suburban Redmond to refashion
herself as an entire trio of new personae).
For his part, Pennington has invented himself over the years as an
effete indie-rock fop and a semiandrogynous art snob with eventually
realized pretensions to scene shaking. (Stranger contemporary
Charles Mudede refers to him as “Master Pennington, a dandy, but not
the Oscar Wilde sort, the kind you find in Dickens novels.”) His lyrics
are as wordy and precious as anything his editors ever let into print,
and his band’s music walks a tightrope between retro pop classicism and
experimental outbursts. He’s made himself a musician essentially
through sheer force of will alone (the name Swastika Girls was an
homage to self-proclaimed “nonmusician” Brian Eno), conscripting
musician friends—
the Dead Science, Xiu Xiu’s Jamie
Stewart—to flesh out his ideas.
Parenthetical Girls’ first two albums, 2004’s (((GRRRLS))) and 2006’s Safe as Houses, are to varying, disquieting degrees
as autobiographical as they are imaginative, most excruciatingly so on
the latter’s “The Weight She Fell Under,” a song about a young girl
killed by a train (“Stolen in [her] awkward stage/That [she] would
never escape”). While a lead singer can hardly intrude on his own
songs, Pennington makes himself a particularly demanding center of
attention. Each of these albums features for its cover art a drawing of
Pennington as identical prepubescent boy/girl twins. On the first
album, these twins are in their underwear about to hold hands; on the
second, they’re naked in bed, looking respectively terrified and
titillated, poised on the verge of fucking a mirror’s reflection of
himself.
Asked if he has consciously cultivated an exaggerated version of
himself, Pennington subtly reframes the question: “Do you mean, ‘Are
you trying to seem like an asshole, or are you really that much of an
asshole?'”
And then he answers: “I guess I don’t really know anymore, to be
honest. I don’t really think of Parenthetical Girls as just some
element of a greater scheme of self-aggrandizement.
If it were, the
whole thing would be a lot more depressing than it already is,
considering the farm leagues within which we operate. I think people
tend to approach us with a certain degree of cynicism—to think
that what we do is somehow disingenuous or some kind of put-on. And
that’s valid—no one in the band is particularly concerned with
upkeeping some standard of ‘authenticity’ or whatever. But, I mean,
fuck it: I do like snobby shit. And I do admire a lot of affected,
self-aggrandizing pop musicians. And I do choose to sing like a lady
sometimes. All of these things tend to lend themselves to a certain
level of conscious cultivation.”
Regarding singing like a lady: In his lyrics, as on those album
covers, Pennington likes to inhabit differently and ambiguously
gendered bodies (possibly caught in permanently arrested pubescence).
The exploration of gender “started as a way of trying to undermine the
traditional role of women as romantic ideal/fickle heartbreaker that
populates most pop songs written by men,” he says. “Safe as
Houses was largely about trying to imagine womanhood in a way that
was completely absent my inherently masculine romanticism. It was
somehow a lot easier for me to write songs about the general
grotesquery of the human condition when I allowed myself to walk the
gender line.”
That exploration of the grotesque, though, runs the risk of looking
like a specific revulsion for female physiology—potentially just
as misogynistic and objectifying as the traditional pop roles he means
to topple. Pregnancy, for instance, is a “disaster” that takes “nine
months to destroy my body.”
Whether or not one finds fault in Pennington’s aesthetics or
contrivances, his strategies have paid off most handsomely on
Parenthetical Girls’ latest album, Entanglements. For one thing,
the album’s songwriting marks a significant step forward for
Pennington, trading distorted autobiographical shocks for a loose
album-length narrative arc of a presumably more fictional bent, which
untangles a love affair at least four years on between two actors whose
genders aren’t always clear and whose ages are
21 and 10 at the
affair’s inception. The pedophilic gross-out factor is somewhat
ameliorated by Pennington’s fascination with permanently suspended
adolescence, such that the 14- and 25-year-old lovers could generously
be seen as the same; or perhaps the album’s interest in quantum physics
(e.g., the Jeanette Winterson–referencing “Gut Symmetries”)
allows for some kind of temporal relativism.
His critical appreciation of pop/avant tensions is most succinctly
played out in a line from “A Song for Ellie Greenwich,” in which
Pennington imagines himself a Carpenter but can’t help a little
détournement: “Just like me/They long to see/You on your
knees/All these hes into shes.” Elsewhere, he bends to his own ends
Kate Bush (“I’d sooner die than live with this kick inside”), who is
like the sentry standing at the crossroads between pop and avant, and
Phil Elverum (“I felt his size close to a dozen times”), regional king
of the self-sensationalists.
(That Pennington doesn’t reach the
loftiest peaks of his pop idols is no great fault—this is true of
nearly all artists.) Pennington’s voice, too, is at its most capable
yet—his timorous quaver and cracking, and sometimes histrionic
falsetto applied to his songs’ great advantage (as on opener “Four
Words”).
Most significantly, Entanglements sounds simply gorgeous,
full of grand orchestral gestures and tenacious pop hooks, everything
just right in its proper place. The album is the first recorded with
Parenthetical Girls as a full band, rounded out by Eddy Crichton,
Rachael Jensen, and multi-instrumentalist Matthew Carlson. The band
expertly expand on the orchestral ambitions hinted at on Safe as
Houses, with Carlson scoring the arrangements based on Pennington’s
melodies and Jensen providing biologically female vocals when needed.
Pianos, xylophones, strings, woodwinds, harps, and percussion turn from
jaunty and carefree flights to maudlin and ominous dirges from one song
or verse to the next, from the cartoonishly drunken oom-
pah of
“Unmentionables” to the ascendant bri-
dge of “The Former” (“You
strive for happiness, I guess…”).
The arrangements are brought to life by an ensemble of the band’s
friends from both the classical and experimental music worlds,
including Spectratone International’s Lori Goldston, Blood
Brothers/Past Lives’ Morgan Henderson, and members of the Dead
Science. Indeed, it can be difficult to separate Parenthetical Girls
and Pennington from the Dead Science and its frontman Sam
Mickens—the individuals share a certain flair for style, the Dead
Science were basically Pennington’s backing band for his first two
records, and on each band’s most recent album they make use of the very
same extended coterie of classical and experimental musicians via
overlapping recording sessions, though with slightly different results.
If the Dead Science are an Alan Moore–era Batman comic,
then Parenthetical Girls are an unusually dark Disney
cartoon—say, the part where Bambi’s mother gets shot.
Entanglements is a stunning, complicated album and a
rewarding realization of everything Pennington has been working toward
these years. One only wonders what he’ll make of himself next.
What would the world do without one more pretentious arty ass? Be a much better place i imagine…
I remember Zac from Slender Means. Mediocrity+snobbishness=avoid at all cost.
Zac had the good fortune of organizing all ages shows – the stranger, k records and etc are all trying to reach the kids – so they were all lining up to suck him off.
In general I appreciate the effort that goes into some one attempting to be a pretentious arty ass. I hope that zac has matured into a fully realized pretentious arty ass worthy of snobbishness – or maybe someone who transcends such banalities. (But im not going to bother checking his music if i can avoid it.)
Their new stuff sounds like a very mediocre Antony and the Johnsons. At least he stopped trying to play himself. He was never very good. Which explains the pretentious “nonmusician” role.
Rumor has it he once gave Jeremy Cooper of Display a vial of his blood and hair. Very deep or, just very creepy? Maybe a bit of both?
yep, I agree with the whole arty ass thing. Please be sure to stay in Portland you arty ass.
Also, get over the whole growing up in a “mill town”bull shit. I’m so sorry that you grew up in such a lame place. How ever did you survive? Oh yeah, you worked out all your frustrations by making lame music and doing contrived artsy things.(tears tears tears)
ah, cut em some slack..they just want to be on MTV2 and be adored by the masses. There is a very obvious need to be famous. They’re putting the industry standard group together: aesthetically pleasing musicians + great production quality (which is exactly what $$$ does for any recording). This is why this album sounds completely different than the ones before…the band hasn’t changed, just the production quality.
I have to admit, he’s got a great voice!
However, aside from the industry standard factors I have a feeling that they would still sound like the same old band. Without the over-production and additional musicians to back them up it’s going to be difficult to pull off live. Unless they go RAP and play to a CD in the background?
ick. he is so gross, and always has been. just a wretched, untalented, and snobbish prick. none of his band incarnations were any good and the new album is awful. portland can keep the lame motherfucker.
@jay
I’m surprised you feel that way about his voice. I think the voice and overwrought lyrics are particularly atrocious. Way to affected and self-concious for my tastes at least. I will say it’s at least originally, not never been done before original, but more only a few people have done before original.
It’s cool, Zac, I love ya. If they hate you, you’re doing something right.
What sublime joy to read such expressive thoughts on one of the most nearly indescribably beautiful groups to have ever formed. I was born in Everett, and when I listen to “Entanglements” my eyes roll back into my head as if I am possessed, and I burn with the desire to drink spiced rum mixed with blood from the severed skulls of jock punk narcs I’ve decapitated lovingly in my shack at the edge of town. I would not think to stalk the band; I would stalk their pathetic blind mole rat detractors instead, dashing their sternums with stones in my quivering hand. Long live this illuminating transgression, this moth-wing delicacy called Parenthetical Girls, its rhythms more powerful than any philistine soul music, its spare near-rock more sex and everything against it than any boy band boogie.
Whoa, hey! Don’t take it out on actual musicians that your own “music” is a hopelessly uninspiring failure. Let me know how it goes with any of your yawn inducing Garageband-drum machine-mash-ups ever mattering to anyone but your coke buddies. It’s gonna be alright, hipsters; hug it out.
@ Estey
hee hee…no. they are awful and he is a wannabe asshole.
When I read “too precious for Everett” my first thought was, “Too precious for Everett True? I don’t believe it.”
any four-piece that can outfit itself for under $200 at target has my admiration…parenthetical indeed
wow everyone is jealous of Zac!
I am surprised this article where he buried himself alive a while back hasn’t been mentioned: http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/burie…
I think the responses to Eric’s terrific article is a perfect example how fucking punk this band really is. Punk fucks up the normals, punk flaunts, punk flirts, punk farts, says naughty things about freckled youth and worries about grace and still rebels and kisses the lips of the cold trembling abyss. Parenthetical Girls is audio absinthe. Shake the hands of the band — they are WORKERS. I have never felt such rough, blistery hands of people who know literature and art and music so well.
The hating above would mean absolutely nothing to me if “Entanglements” didn’t put feverish chills up and down my spine every time I listen to it (relentlessly). Thus, the hating gives me joy, that the wad can still be razzled. ; )
Mediocre+annoying = the operative adjective to use when describing both Zac Pennington & Grandy!!
What’s going on at The Stranger? The inmates are running the ship.
brad. BRAD!
I’m not gay but I wouldn’t kick Zac out my rack for eating a hard to get in the states sublime water cracker…he could gondolier my barge anyday…effete lil punker!
Hey, Chris Estey! Pour yourself a spiced rum and jock blood… Then listen to some Smashing Pumpkins and maybe cut your forearms a bit.
Punk is pissing on the stage at CBGB. Punk is not pasty, effete faggots from Everett.
Hey SausageFingers, apparently you’re forgetting or never knew that punk was also Wayne County giving Handsome Dick Manitoba hilarious shit from the CBGB’s stage after he feebly fag-baited him.
(Punk was happening at the Mudd Club too then and Wayne brought that strain over to rub it in their faces.)
For the record, I dig the Dictators’ music way more than Wayne County, but sometimes punk IS and sometimes punk SOUNDS.
And yeah, punk is often EXACTLY pasty fags from Everett. Sorry.
Zac, GET A LIFE!!
Eric, I’m sorry you had to write this.
seriously, Zac Pennington looks like the Gieco Geiko. I hope him and Caralee McElroy have a fine time in their CMJ hobo camp coddling premie noise rock panty wastes.
a lot of homophobic, anti-art vitriol.
you live in Seattle. aren’t you all pussies and fags up there?
pennington is the opposite of punk. he is as calculated and manufactured as any pop singer. it’s all a tired act that no one particularly cares about, but he was a former stranger contributor, so here we are. he talks a lot, but he has no substance, nothing to say. vapid music made by vapid people, too insecure in themselves they must compensate by being elitest snobs.
mr. estey, you have no fucking clue what ‘punk’ is if you think this asshole is it.
and all of the weird homophobes in this thread should eat shit and die.
You know, RJ, this whole thread got derailed by my asserting that PG are “Punk.” That’s just my POV, and it really doesn’t have much to do with whether or not other people see the value in Zac’s work that I do. (Do I own the “copyright” on punk? Or do you?)
I bemusedly regret spawning another “punk is — ” Internet argument, especially when it had nothing to do with whether or not one “gets” the Parenthetical Girls.
Oh: One more thing though — the origin of the word “punk” might have some reason why I think the Parenthetical Girls are that. If you’re old school enough to remember how the phrase was created to express the childish, surly, ambivalent, cast out, misfit, blackly humorous, often too smart, socially flippant, bullied upon and bitching back viciously, obsessed with fashion and hating it, defying authority by taking its blows with a sensual sneer, young thug enduring ass raping in a jail to find his place in the violent pecking order to subvert it sense of the term, maybe you’d agree with me. But you don’t have to, I don’t own that trademark “punk” TM and really, seriously don’t fucking care. Honest.
Wow, one more former/current Stranger/Mercury writer/editor is getting a big fat loveletter! I remember Zac writing up HIS OWN SHOW in the Stranger under the guise of reviewing another band on the bill.
Sheesh, there’s a difference between a person and a persona. I’ve known Zac and various present and past (((grls))) since high school, and they’re fine folks, passionate and positive about art and music. On top of that, the Slender Means series of shows that Zac put together were often incredible, inspiring events. I’ll never foget Phil Elverum performing half of his set while hoisted 10 feet in the air, upside down, using the audience and a rope/pulley system. As for the P Girls’ music, I’d say it’s far better to polarize listeners than bore them, so they must be doing something right.
Remember this http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/i-ano…
? Sound familiar?
I dont know whats worse, Erics attempt at ‘writing’ or that pathetic cockmongling emo fucker on the right.
eat a sandwich and lay off the cock.. i mean coke.
When did Billy Corgan buy a wig and form a new band?
I was briefly scared shitless that Slender Means referred to the actual band, not his silly shit.
Zac’s stepdad looks like Jesus. I used to get stoned drive over there with my friend Adam to see him. Shit was wild.
i grew up playing music in everett with zac and some of the other guys mentioned in the article. like it or not, zac is a good dude who may come across as pretentious to those who don’t know him. even though I find his music unlistenable – I’d say his heart is in the right place. not only that he’s done a lot to create exposure for himself which is more than I can say for many local bands.
after a couple of zimas i could really get down to parenthetical girl…thinking of starting up my own combo…colon boy
I don’t see how Everett is failed…
especially AS a mill town.. ? Living across state now i realize that, Everett is as much a part of Seattle (and the greater area), as Seattle is a part of Seattle. It’s just one big metropolitan area. There are things wrong with every town. I like Everett though it has a sort of classic charm. … come on zac, keeg agrees with me! jim