Joggers
Indie Rock / Alternative
If you get started talking about the Joggers it takes along time. So you either have to keep it short or dig in. So, the following is short bio and a lengthier, more revealing, interview. All questions will be answered in both — depending on your interest. After receiving glowing praise across the board for 2003's "Solid Guild" StarTime debut, including the dominant Rolling Stone, the hipster Filter, the indie Stop Smiling, as well as The Washington Post and touring with the likes of the Hot Hot Heat, Weird War, Ted Leo, and label mates the French Kicks, the Joggers needed a break, not just a breather. Lead singer Ben Whitesides found himself on stage singing, but no words came out — a complete breakdown ensued later that evening. So the band shipped him up to his parents place in New England and returned to Portland feeling tentative about their future. The next few months were spent both with grappling with those issues and casting them away.
Luckily for all of us the Joggers got it together, wrote a whole bunch of new songs, and created their next oddball masterpiece "With a Cape and Cane." One guitarist lighter, but stronger as a band, the group entered the same studio where they recorded "Solid Guild", reuniting with analog studio wiz and editor of Tape Op magazine, Larry Crane. A Cape and a Cane is noticeably free of Pro-Tools effects and mix-down wizardry, and this rawness is exactly how The Joggers like it. "To us the ideas in the song are much more important and exciting than the perfection of its execution," says Whitesides. "As long as the medium can get the ideas and vibe and essence of a song across, that is far more important. Of course you want it to sound good. But a shitty recording can never prevent a great song from being great, and no shitty song can be saved with immaculate studio perfection." This is not too diminish the raw, incredible chops, of "With a Cane and a Cape" or, more importantly, its painstaking precision in songwriting and playing. It also has a big heart, as evidenced on songs like "Night of the Horsepills," which eloquently speaks of an old flame reignited.
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