Sunday, August 11, 1996
The Sugarplastic, Cake forgo serious style with humor
By Kristin Fiore
Summer Bruin Senior Staff
Fans with a musical sweet tooth got quite a fix last Saturday,
as Cake and The Sugarplastic took the stage at the Whisky a
Go-Go.
The bands are a perfect but ironic match, suiting each other not
through common roots but through common and conspicuous
absences.
Both lack the morbid seriousness that plagues their
contemporaries, flaunting instead a sense of wry humor and a
whimsical approach. How else can you explain a band that sings
backup like a sheep (The Sugarplastic’s "Don’t Sleep") or pens
songs like "Jesus Wrote a Blank Check" (Cake)?
Both bands also steer clear of fuzz boxes, feedback and heavy
electric guitars, opting instead for crisper, more idiosyncratic
pop styles that make their sounds easy to identify and hard to
resist. In the studio and onstage, it is obvious they are having a
great time, a contagion that is quickly spread to the audience.
During many shows, fans hang around, drink, and try to top each
other at looking cool. On Saturday, however, everyone was singing
and dancing, trying to top the bands at having a good time. It was
a tough job.
Los Angeles’ own The Sugarplastic warmed up the crowd with their
brand of tongue-in-cheek quirkiness reminiscent of They Might Be
Giants and XTC. Despite the measly half an hour afforded them, the
band managed to squeeze in favorites "Another Myself," "Polly
Brown" and "Montebello" that more than lived up to the album
versions.
Their laid-back, off-beat performance style coupled with their
"just fired from IBM" quasi-business suits and pseudo-nerd appeal
are paradoxes that are mirrored in their music. Every song is
sharply crafted and executed with singular hooks and playful
surprises, yet the lyrics are deceptively simple and childlike to
the point of mockery. What exactly they’re mocking is unclear
 everyone else’s navel-gazing introspection, the acerbic
lyrics of today’s angry rockers, life in general … then again,
maybe they’re just fucking around.
"Little Teeth" is a prime example of a sheepish music box
lullaby with a snickering wolf somewhere in there: "Don’t cry,
don’t fuss, don’t smoke, don’t cuss  don’t bother now. ‘Cause
the breeze in heaven is a gale in hell; here’s the church, here’s
the steeple, here’s the mob as well."
Cake showed the same irony with more overt humor in their
opening song, "Comanche," advising their unfortunate Native
American buddies who find themselves behind the times, "You need to
find some new feathers and buy some new clothes. Just get rid of
the antlers and lighten your load." It is doubtful such a political
rallying cry would garner much sympathy this November.
Their trumpeter, Vince di Fiore, adds the touch that makes the
song  a mariachi-style influence that’s both kitsch and cool.
His brass and the rock-a-billy guitar and organ of Greg Brown play
a continuous game of tag with the melody lines that define the
unusual sound of Cake. This playful exchange was not unlike that of
singer/ guitarist John McCrea with his adoring audience.
McCrea, complete with Gilligan-style hat and supermarket duds,
is the 7-11 to The Sugarplastic’s IBM. The talkative, easygoing
frontman and his two bandmates could do no wrong. Cake’s following
may not be the size of the Grateful Dead, but it’s almost as
devoted.
It was obvious many fans knew every nook and cranny of their
catalog and had come quite a way to hear it. Even the many songs
Cake premiered from their upcoming album couldn’t slip by
unrecognized. Any audience members unfamiliar with the words or
afraid to dance must have been pretty uncomfortable, as every other
mouth and ass in the place was moving.
For rump-shaking favorites like "You Part the Waters" and "Mr.
Mastadon Farm" sizable chunks of the audience erupted in song,
jumping up and down as though Bob Eubanks had just granted them a
car. They cried knowingly for the infamous cover of the evening,
Gloria Gaynor’s disco classic, "I Will Survive," and they didn’t
even whine when Cake refused to play their most popular tune, "Rock
‘n’ Roll Lifestyle," in favor of the new stuff.
As jaded Los Angeles audiences go, The Sugarplastic and Cake
enjoyed one of the more enthusiastic, loyal ones  their
enthusiasm probably payment for seeing one of the most entertaining
shows Los Angeles has hosted recently.
Concert: Cake and The Sugarplastic played at the Whisky a Go-Go
last Saturday.
The Sugarplastic (pictured) along with Cake energized a Los
Angeles audience last Saturday.