It's a bold new age of information. YouTube represents an archive of millions of hidden or long-forgotten documentations of some of the greatest performers in music, free and at the tips of our fingers. This week check out Death Cab's Ben Gibbard's side-side project.
If you ever thought a musician could have too many side projects, Death Cab for Cutie's Ben Gibbard is out to prove you wrong. In addition to The Postal Service, he offers a wonderful solo enterprise with All-Time Quarterback. Gibbard started the project in 1999 when he began imagining rudimentary songs and sounds that his cleanly polished Death Cab could not accommodate. He set out to try something totally new with a bunch of out-of-tune and half-broken instruments he had lying around.
Using a Walkman with a built-in microphone to record, All-Time Quarterback made two EPs and an 11-song LP in 2002 - a testament to Gibbard's experimental ingenuity.
The homemade video for "Plans Get Complex," like its sound, is a true diamond in the rough. And as All-Time's only music video, it's quite hilarious too. Shot on a Handycam in London, it charts an umbrella-toting Gibbard on an odyssey to find a transsexual call-girl.
The light-heartedness of both the music and the video will make it hard to resist. And come on, it's Gibbard at his puppy-eyed indie cutest! If you are a fan of Death Cab, the album he released as All-Time Quarterback is definitely worth your while. In the meantime, give this video a watch, have a laugh and get a taste of the awesome music that is All-Time Quarterback.
