PROFILE
The Science of The Standard
by BJORN VANDERVOO
243-2122

www.barbaric-records.com

Who are these shadow-cloaked miscreants? The Standard gets like, complex.The men of the Standard have been sizing their options and keeping their secrets.

The Portland band is ready to make The Album, the dream album. Like the houses yuppies dream about, or the killer software geeky programmers crave, the Standard has a vision to snare.

Last month, a small flare-up of indie-label bidding between what vocalist/guitarist Tim Putnam describes as "two and a half" labels ended up in a decent wad of studio money, promised from Seattle label Barbaric Records, toward the creation of the band's second album.

"Now we'll be free to do the kind of record we want to do. This is really the stuff that's our band," Putnam says in the wake of the briefly hush-hush parley with Barbaric. "If nothing else, we'll make a record we're all happy with."

Forging itself just over a year ago from the steam of American Standard, the Standard dropped its descriptive adjective--another band got there first--and played a mere two shows before recording its first album, the precociously titled World's Greatest, a layered blend of guitars, bass, keyboards, vocals and drums, instruments dropping out and joining in at a lush pace. A moody tint sometimes hovers over the songs.

This band--composed of Putnam on guitar/bass/vocals, bassist/guitarist Rob Oberdorfer, keyboardist Jay Clarke and drummer Rob Duncan (also of the Pinehurst Kids)--took years to find itself, the members a bunch of latter-day Diogeneses wandering the country looking for A Good Band. Putnam, for example, drifted between groups in places like Lake Oswego, Portland, New York and San Diego--all dead-end bands that did nothing except fuel Putnam's quest for a decent...fucking... band.

"I think every band I've been in before this one has been a crappy band," he says. "I'd even hesitate to use the word 'band.'"

Meanwhile, Duncan played with Spectator Pump, and Oberdorfer with a band called Motorist. Clarke spent time playing with Ragas in Cleveland. Roommates Oberdorfer and Duncan then joined up with Putnam, and Clarke joined to form the current Standard soon after.

Hesitant to talk to anyone resembling a rock journalist, the members of the Standard share a democratic vision of music that fuels their songwriting. Putnam handles the lyrical chores and, with a signature quavering wail, bangs out emotive, vaguely scientific tales of poverty, machines in love, chemistry and medical situations.

"I don't have much of a scientific bent," Putnam admits. "I did really badly in science in school. That's probably why I sing about it. I write about things that don't work in my life."

To create its style--reminiscent of everything from the Pixies to surf rock to piano-driven Elton John--the Standard cites a toxic stew of ingredients that both push and pull its sound.

"The Flaming Lips are an influence," Putnam says. "For songwriters, I like Leonard Cohen. I'm actually a huge fan of Sade. Man, her songs are...I won't be ashamed of my love for Sade."

"I'm a huge closet Rush fan," Clarke says.

As a bonus of their new contract, World's Greatest, originally a self-released job, is being repackaged and redistributed. The Dream Album should get a lot more tender loving in the studio, though, with up to three weeks spent on recording and five weeks reserved for post-production massage, overdubs and experiments in early 2001. Clarke and the band have been working on string arrangements for the album with Jeff Saltzman, who recently worked on the solo album for Pavement commandante Stephen Malkmus.

"He's almost a member of the band," Putnam says of Saltzman. "When we're writing, it's hard to tell if something's good or bad."

"Basically, he's been proofreading the songs," Duncan adds.

Perhaps others could learn from these laboratory methods?