Word: mccaughan
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Portastatic’s new album is a pleasant ballad collection for the seasonal warmth, with upbeat rhythms and alternately rousing and wistful lyrics by vocalist and drummer Mac McCaughan. Portastatic are a relaxed and unpretentious change from McCaughan’s well known indie band Superchunk...
Many of the songs, including “Paratrooper” and the opening “Oh Come Down,” are quiet ballads featuring acoustic guitar and occasionally drums. Typical McCaughan, the lyrics are infused with a poet’s sense for words and at the same time exquisite and emotional. In “Don’t Disappear,” McCaughan sings softly and longingly: “And in this dream we were terribly tall, wobbly and weak / And I was afraid we would fall / Impaled on dull silver mass of antennae...
...Same Music, they displayed little awareness of how little difference down-tempo songs and complicated arrangements made to the record's sound. It wasn't bad (wasn't terrible, anyway) but people who bought the album, bought the hype and subsequently bought the back-catalogue noticed that Mac McCaughan's ragtag quarter sounded like a Superchunk cover band...
Without making a clear departure from Strings, they've juggled the parts of the formula just right. They've still trying to slow it down a little, but the slow songs mostly eschew gimmickry outside the emotional punch of McCaughan's three-note voice going from "sing" to "scream." Maybe his solo records as Portastatic sharpened his song writing. "Marquee" and "Under Our Feet" are touching, and the closing joke ("Martinis On The Roof") is unusually dignified, as if Mac doesn't need indignance as badly as he once...
Captain Richard G. Ames '34, who has never been beaten in a dual meet, will meet a worthy opponent in James McCaughan of the Engineers in the light-heavyweight division. Gridley Barrows '34, three letter man, will represent the Crimson in the heavyweight class, while Richard W. Emory '35 will tackle Frank Poole, husky 165-pound Tech athlete. Harold Frankel '34, diminutive wrestler who was a sensation in the bantamweight division last year, will meet Ovedis Maderosian of Tech in the 126-pound class...