It’s probably been noted before, but
Philadelphia-by-way-of-Allentown four-piece Pissed Jeans could not have
a more perfect name for what they do (even if it means that the fussy
old New York Times will refer to them as “****** Jeans”).
Onstage and on record, frontman Matt Korvette happily humiliates
himself, exposing and wallowing in his own shortcomings, anxieties, and
miseries for your benefit—a lyrical equivalent of that scene in
Billy Madison where Adam Sandler purposely pisses himself so
that his legitimately loose-bladdered young buddy doesn’t look like a
total loser. We’re all bed wetters; Korvette is just trying to make us
feel better.
Over three albums, including the recently released King of
Jeans on Sub Pop, Korvette has honed a self-deprecating stance
that’s as vicious as it is blackly comic: He has diarrhea. He’s
“ashamed of [his] cum.” He loathes “people persons.” He’s an emotional
eater (ice cream). He shrinks into his bed and “laughs at [his] own
jokes in [his] fantasy world.” He brags about his insignificance and
how easily he can make himself disappear. He, in general, doesn’t
bother. He works a drab desk job (claims adjusting, in fact). He’s
tired and spent. He’s losing his hair.
“I try to be entertaining, but everything I write about is pretty
real to me, one way or another,” says Korvette via e-mail. “I’m not a
storyteller, but really the point of writing lyrics and singing them in
front of other people is to entertain, and I don’t forget that. I think
the more depressing, dopey, and sad aspects of my personality can be
kind of fascinating, so that’s what I like to write about. Besides, no
one wants to hear a song that’s like ‘I Found $5 on the Street’ or
‘Alright, There’s a New Episode of The Office Tonight.’
[Actually, I would love to hear those as Pissed Jeans songs.
—ed.] As far as my hair is concerned, it looks all right now, but
I was born with a widow’s peak and my days are numbered. I’ll give you
my barber’s number if you really need the truth.”
The threat of baldness is a telling worry, as Pissed Jeans’ problems
tend to be of a specifically male bent, sometimes bordering on wounded
macho misanthropy. On “Request for Masseuse,” one of two songs on
King of Jeans in which women are even alluded to, Korvette
rattles off orders; on the other, “Lip Ring,” he sings, “I’ve got a
thing for your lip ring/And I’ve been entranced by your bondage
pants/Don’t try to tell me anything/You’re not like me, so you don’t
understand.” “What a freak, men are so complex,” he concludes on “Human
Upskirt.” (The album’s inner sleeve is a picture of a punk girl
slamming a sweaty, shirtless Korvette to the ground during a live show;
the shot is double exposed so that a giant ghost-image of the girl’s
face looms over the whole stage.)
Other songs are more generally dissatisfied,
such as the
day-job lament “Dream Smotherer”: “I don’t mind stacking papers up in a
pile/And I don’t care if it takes half an hour to get there/Yeah it’s
all right, I lose my days and keep my nights.”
“I am just talking to my job,” Korvette says of the song. “Agreeing
to the deal where I work 9-to-5 or whatever, and they leave me alone
otherwise. If I start dreaming about my job, I’d be pretty
annoyed.”
In song (but not in e-mail), Korvette delivers his self-loathing
bons mots in guttural growls, injured moans, and sharp barks, while the
band—Bradley Fry on guitar, Randy Huth on bass, Sean McGuinness
on drums—dish out sonics every bit as self-flagellating as his
lyrics: droning, clangorous guitar; harsh feedback and reverb;
subfrequency, gut-rumbling bass sludge; heavily abused drums.
Live, Korvette stalks around the stage, alternately sneering, leering,
cringing, shuddering, hunching, thrusting, and writhing, while the band
tear through their alternately thrashy and slurring songs; his moves
are as much a mockery of the rock-star motions as they are a convincing
performance of them—part Iggy Pop, part David Yow, part Will
Ferrell.
“Performing and writing songs is definitely some sort of therapy,”
says Korvette. “Just by putting things out there, they are almost
neutralized.”
And what’s bumming him out lately, on occasion of the band’s
no-more-sunny-than-usual new record?
“Oh, not too much really,” says Korvette. “Monotony, gaining weight,
feeling like I either have way too much free time on my hands or not
enough free time. Nothing major. I am actually quite content and
pleased with my station in life.” 