The Shins “Port of Morrow”
It’s hard to be a good boss. Heavy is the crown and all that. Bosses are expected to have the answers. They’re also expected to take care of their people. They are the stewards of the institution. Unfortunately, sometimes the people come into conflict with what the institution actually needs. And that’s when the boss's job really sucks. That’s when people get fired. And often the boss does that firing.
Being a good teammate is not much easier. Sometimes you have to lead and be strong. Sometimes you have to just sit quietly and listen. Most of the time, though, you have to operate somewhere in the uncertain middle. There’s a lot of “Yes...and” involved. When people collaborate, there is an implication of democracy — that all people and ideas are received equally. But, the truth is, most institutions are not democracies. They are, at best, meritocracies. And, more often, they are hierarchies. We may be teammates. But, we’re never really equal.
So, if you’re not a boss and you’re not a teammate, per se, then you are an individual contributor. You do your job. You punch the clock. Expectations are clear. You stay in your lane. You know who your boss is. And, if you don’t miss the social aspects of work and you don’t crave increased status or benefit, then this is the role for you. On the other hand, most people want precisely those things.
By 2009, James Mercer had become a reluctant boss and a grudging teammate. He was on the cusp of forty, ages away from that indie rock kid who wrote songs in his bedroom between temp shifts at Michaels. He was no longer the wide faced singer with the reedy tenor who thought that Sub Pop was the height of success. He’d gotten married and started a family. He had his own record label that was distributed by a giant record label. He’d grown a respectable beard and added some lines around his eyes. Honestly, he looked not unlike a gentler, kinder Kevin Spacey. And that year, Mercer did what most Kevin Spacey characters would have done. He fired Dave Hernandez, Marty Crandall and Jesse Sandoval from The Shins. At the time, the phrase “parted ways” was frequently employed. But, we all knew better.
Fans were generally surprised and possibly disappointed. Most thought of The Shins as a band, cut from the egalitarian Indie Rock mold. Yes, James Mercer was the singer, writer and, increasingly, producer. But, surely, this was a band of equals. Right? When The Shins formed, Mercer was a shy, boyish singer who dreamed simply of performing his songs and maybe, one day, impressing the ladies in The Aislers Set. That was the ceiling in the late 1990s: impress The Aislers Set. He sounded delighted to just have a band. His bandmates, meanwhile, shared an admiration for his songs and appreciated those same Indie ideals. It was the latter that proved to be the rub. They didn’t expect to be the boss. But they didn’t want to be individual contributors, either. They wanted to collaborate. Like an Indie Rock band did. They expected to have a say. They expected to hear “yes...and.”
The origin story of The Shins has been told many times, in part, because it’s a familiar and gratifying one. But, also, in part, because it occurred during the coming of age of both Indie Rock and the internet. The Shins started as a side project to Mercer’s other band, Flake Music. Outside of odd jobs and hoping to meet girls, playing music was really the only other thing they could imagine doing. Filling a small club in Albuquerque was a far off goal. Maybe one day they would release a 7” single or press their own CDs. Beyond that was an impossible abyss.
Through friends, James Mercer had met Isaac Brock whose band, Modest Mouse, was already kind of a thing. In the late 90s, being “a thing” in Indie Rock meant you sold twenty or thirty thousand albums and could fill a large room in major cities. It also meant that you probably had a second job when you weren’t touring or recording. Modest Mouse had taken Flake Music out on the road for some gigs and a relationship soon developed. Eventually, the same offer was extended to The Shins, when they became Mercer and Co’s primary concern. That affiliation got The Shin’s demo into the hands of Sub Pop co-founder, Jonathan Poneman, who went to see them in San Francisco one night. Poneman liked what he heard, and agreed to the most unassuming of deals. Sub Pop would release one 7” from the band. That song, The Shin’s second single, included as part of Sub Pop’s beloved “Single-of-the-Month” series, was “New Slang.”
Over the next two years, The Shins would sign a proper deal with Sub Pop and record and release “Oh, Inverted World” in 2001. What is lost in the myth of the feel good story, is that, upon release, The Shins’ debut was not that big of a deal. It was a huge deal for Mercer and his bandmates. They quit their day jobs and embarked on a career as touring musicians. But indie superstardom did not exist yet in 2001. It was, at best, a very working class gig. The Shins were not even considered all that exceptional at the time. Pitchfork liked them enough to give them an 8.0 -- loving but not ecstatic. It was the same score they gave that year to the American Analog Set’s “Know by Heart,” an album that shared a similar hushed, sweet, bedroom-made quality. Those who heard “Oh, Inverted World,” generally loved the album. But The Shins, at the time, were still new. They were probably not yet the equal of AmAnSet, who had been giving it a go for more than five years. Or of The New Pornographers, who had just dazzled critics a year earlier with “Mass Romantic.” The Shins were not yet in the league of Death Cab for Cutie. And, obviously, they hadn’t earned the status of bigger and louder bands like Modest Mouse or Sleater Kinney or Yo La Tengo. The Shins were obviously endearing, but, in 2001, they were still really a medium-small band.
It wasn’t really until 2004, with the release of “Garden State,” when diarists-turned-bloggers and bedroom songwriters canonized The Shins. That film, with Natalie Portman and her headphones, was a talisman for a generation of introverts. It inaugurated a season of twee, indie films that were deeply empathetic and inextricably linked to Indie Pop. And that music also served as a collective soundtrack for an angst that was being expressed through LiveJournal, MySpace and countless messageboards.
Compounding the cultural and technological gestalt was the passing of Elliott Smith in 2003. Since its earliest days, Indie Rock had been a guitar-forward form, explored almost exclusively by bands. The idea of an Indie Rock singer-songwriter was rare, to the point of being antithetical. But Elliott Smith was the exception. He had a background in Hardcore Punk but found his calling in elegant Pop. First there was his band, Heatmiser, who were still very electric and very much a group, but got increasingly softer with each successive record. And then, of course, we got Smith’s solo turn. He left his band. He picked up his acoustic guitar. And he made records that sounded like their were written and performed entirely in his low-lit bedroom, on his futon. The vocals were whispered as much as they were sung. It all had the effect of something incredibly private but not so secretly beautiful. By almost any measure, Elliott Smith became the first indie rocker to turn singer-songwriter and broadly succeed. He was the anti-star star. And when he died in 2003, a crater was left in the hearts of the highly heartfelt. “Oh, Inverted World” was the patch for that hole. And millions of us loved The Shins for giving us that kindness.
For James Mercer, however, the unlikely, stratospheric success was obviously not so simple. His band would soldier on, releasing the completely wonderful, “Chutes too Narrow” and the mostly wonderful, “Wincing the Night Away.” They toured the world several times over. And they seemingly sacrificed very little of their ideals and none of their craft. Mercer proved to be nothing short of a generational songwriter. His music sounded easy and lovely. Paired with his voice, The Shins felt like air conditioning, lavender and eucalyptus against the agitation of modern life. Musically, “Oh, Inverted World,” was not a fluke. It was a representative example of Mercer’s talent as a writer, arranger and singer.
Writing the songs, it seems, came rather easily. Sustaining the band, however, was something else. Not long before his unexpected success, James Mercer presumed a musical destiny somewhere between open mics and semi-pro bands. He came off as shy and unassuming — the sort of guy who held his heart and his Indie Rock ideals closely. The son of an Air Force officer, he moved around the world, discovering The Smiths along the way, and landing in places far from the scenes that he read about in fanzines. But all of that moving -- the loneliness and the foreignness -- seemed to stay with him. There is a very arrested affect about him. Some of it is, of course, his high tenor and falsetto. But, also, the thirty one year old we hear on “Oh, Inverted World” looks and sounds younger than his age. Even today, despite the bearded-Spacey look and the Portland sweaters and the wife and the kids, James Mercer can sound like he has one foot in his childhood bedroom and the other in a 1990s Indie Rock club.
It is in this tension -- between the boy in his bedroom with his ideals and the famous man and his family and the professional responsibilities -- where James Mercer would eventually resolve a path forward. There were not many great precedents for him to look to for inspiration. If he skipped back a generation, the examples were not great. Dylan shapeshifted. James Taylor got hooked on dope. Cat Stevens found religion. Jackson Browne had his hair. James Mercer was none of those men. If he considered his ostensible peers, the stories were no better. Elliott Smith was dead. One of his heroes, Jeff Mangum, ended up a recluse. And Neutral Milk Hotel was as much a figment of Mangum’s imagination as it was a band. Same with Sam Beam of Iron and Wine. There really was no “Iron” or “Wine.”
By 2009, Mercer had determined that he did not want to be the boss of a group where his bandmates presumed they were collaborators. And yet, the singer was not prepared to punch the clock as a lone contributor. So, with some conviction about the problem but with no great solution, Mercer fired his band, took one step to the side and kind of punted on The Shins. He half hid as a collaborator in Broken Bells, a super-duo he formed with Brian Burton (Danger Mouse). In Broken Bells, Mercer could be exactly half of the band. There was no boss. They were both bosses. They were equal partners and collaborators. Expectations were clear. They were kind of Pop stars making really interesting, kind of Pop music. Broken Bells was not an Indie Rock band. Broken Bells was an idea. But, compared to The Shins, it was also just a gig.
In 2010 and 2011, Broken Bells released an album and an EP and preoccupied Mercer while The Shins rested on his top shelf back at home. During this period, he also disabused himself of some of the dissonance of being the star in an Indie Rock band. He caught his breath and made some space for himself. He made a home with his new and growing family. And he made enough distance from his former bandmates to allow for some resolution. While Broken Bells was an almost unabashed success, the greater reward from this period was the separation it afforded. Separation from his bandmates. From the original Shins’ narrative. From the Indie Rock ideals. From his family of origin story and the bewilderment of suddenly becoming a celebrity when you barely feel like a competent young adult.
The James Mercer that emerged in 2012 from the other side of this separation looked older, lighter and more resolved. He had made a record wherein he was the unmistakable boss. His primary collaborator was producer Greg Kurstin, who made his name playing with and producing huge songs with Adele, Sia, Paul McCartney and many others. As a producer, Kurstin was very much Mercer’s equal. But he concerned himself little with indie ideals. Steve Albini he was not. With the benefit of time and good faith, former Shins, Dave Hernandez and Marty Crandall, even joined for some tracks. But, from the outset of the album, it was clear: This was James Mercers’ music. These were his songs. He was The Shins. He always was The Shins. For several years, this had been something of an open conversation. With the release of “Port of Morrow,” however, it became settled fact.
Prior to its release in May of 2012, every story about “Port of Morrow” began with details of Mercer’s dalliance with Broken Bells and the he said/he said of The Shins’ separation. Soon thereafter, there were inevitable mentions of Can, Faust, Steely Dan and assorted slightly progressive, slightly experimental Rock bands from the 1970s. Mercer himself leaned into these references, sometimes sourcing the information and sometimes just validating it. Most of this, however, was just misdirection. Those who feared a completely different and more challenging version of The Shins would soon be relieved. “Port of Morrow” is filled with an atmospheric, electronic swirl. There is, best as I can tell, one or two genuinely jazzy sections, including a flugelhorn appearance. And — yes — the synthesizers occasionally resemble those we hear in Broken Bells. However, those ingredients are minor notes. Generally speaking, “Port of Morrow” sounds exactly like The Shins.
The feature of many great James Mercer songs is the distance between the bottom of the guitars and the height of his vocals. In the middle, of course, are sturdy, often powerful hooks that carry the verses and make breathless turns into the bridge, then the chorus and then back into the verse. The melodies themselves are often familiar. They can sound almost too easy, as though he’s simply sanding the edges of someone else’s great hook. But that ease and familiarity is its own tremendous skill. And the economy with which he performs this trick is astounding. Most Shins songs are succinct. Many have distortion or dissonance looming nearby while the sweetness of the melody reveals itself. These tricks are generally unsurprising, but also frequently thrilling. And, somehow, no two Shins’ songs really sound too much alike. I suspect that has a lot to do with how Mercer plays with that distance between the high and low notes of his melody. There’s undoubtedly a technical term for this. But, to me, it sounds like magic.
While the sound of “Port of Morrow” is familiar and the style is only slightly new, the subject is more varied than past Shins’ efforts. Mercer adds new Russian dolls to his set of narrators. Whereas previous albums found the singer looking mostly inward towards himself, the new additions look outward and backward. Across ten songs, he opens up and then closes each piece of the collection. There’s middle-aged and domestic James Mercer. There’s the younger, wounded, boy named James tucked inside. And, on the outside, largest of all, is Mr. Mercer, the objective narrator. Some of the dolls -- especially the lovelorn and sensitive ones -- have been around for a while. The new models -- and especially the politician and the philosopher -- sound novel and well earned. These are not hushed tunes from the bedroom in his parent’s house. They’re not precious songs from torn diary pages aimed to impress the Indie Rock girl with the bangs. These are the songs of a dad and a husband who has ideas as much as he has memories.
“Port of Morrow” opens with “The Rifle’s Spiral,” perhaps the darkest in Mercer’s songbook. Written from the perspective of a man who finances suicide bombers, the track is sonically heavy, filled with unnerving bleeps and a swirling storm. The vocals, however, cut through the atmosphere to locate the melody. Whereas Mercer’s clean tenor normally sounds refreshing, here it sounds icy and biting. Graciously, and in spite of subject and tone, it still largely sounds like The Shins.
While the opener is abstractly political, “No Way Down” is directly so. For barely three minutes of perfect jangle and handclaps, the singer wonders how so few can benefit so greatly from and be so blind to the suffering of so many; the ease with which the one percent breathes is a direct product of the dust in the lungs of the other ninety-nine percent. It’s not a new sentiment or revelation, but the charm of Mercer’s craft effectively betrays the sentiment of the truth. Of the less personal songs, this one most balances form and function.
The album tries a similar trick on “40 Mark Strasse.” Here, Mercer remembers the young prostitutes he would see near military bases in Germany, when he lived there as a boy. The verses are light and evocative and the chorus soars with harmony and sentiment. As a melody, it is well above average. But the poetry lacks a certain grit that separates empathy from patronage. There is no shame in the effort. In 2012, Mercer was still a better songwriter than a writer. That being said, he was a heck of a songwriter.
The title track, which closes the record, features a hard to pin down meter and a sharp falsetto that sounds not unlike D’Angelo or, even, Erikah Badu. Compounding the unexpected rhythm and blues is the singer imagining all of history’s beauty that turned to carnage. He compares Cologne, Germany in 1927 to that same city in rubble in 1945. And simultaneously, he indirectly contrasts Public Image Limited’s “Flowers of Romance” with The Sex Pistols “flowers in the dustbin.” It’s an ambitious and affecting closer.
In between the new guises, we do, of course, get some completely marvelous songs. The Power Pop riff on “Simple Song,” for example, is a stone cold stunner. It’s so immediate that it seems impossible that we’ve not heard it somewhere before. In between the hooks, the singer contrasts his profound anxiety with the relatively simple pleasures of love and youth. At one moment, he reaches deep into the bass of his range, only to then delight us when he reaches the top of his tenor a moment later. It pulls out most every great trick from The Shins’ oeuvre. And they all still amaze.
“It’s Only Life” tries to follow “Simple Song,” and it almost meets the bar. Slower and more modest than its predecessor, the song has a mindfulness about it that befits the title. Just a little bass, some guitar, drums and a sweet, mid-falsetto. It has a bounce that brings to mind Jarvis Cocker’s best songs, but with zero of the pretense. It’s a lovely comedown from the high of album’s first single.
Like every Shins’ record, “Port of Morrow” is full of very good songs. There’s the ode to his wife and their first meeting (“September”) and there are the ones that reveal heartbreak (“For a Fool”) and vulnerability (“Bait and Switch”). These are somewhat familiar, if still wholly pleasurable songs. But they are not the tracks that demonstrate the progress or experimentation teased by their maker. Those innovations are more textual than musical. As promised, however, The Shins return to an earlier, headier time on “Fall of ‘82.” In less than four minutes, the band soundchecks Steely Dan, Chicago and the unsexy romance of that bygone sound. The jazziest of all Shins’ songs features a horn solo, a call and response chorus and the story of how young James Mercer was lonely and depressed until his big sister came back home one day. Formally, it’s the least direct song on the album. Functionally, it sounds the most true.
“Port of Morrow” debuted at number three on the album charts while “Simple Song” charted higher than any single the band had released before. And, following its release, Mercer assembled players and friends to join him on tour in support of the album. Despite missing three quarters of the original band, everyone seemed just fine with the results. Sure, it took a few more years to hatch. But, in the end, we got ten more lovely James Mercer songs. And another four plus star album. Given his track record, all that was kind of exceptionally unexceptional.
What stands out about “Port of Morrow” is much less the break up and more the breakthrough. James Mercer didn’t return as a boss or as a collaborator or as an individual contributor. He wasn’t Mick Jagger or Keith Richards or Charlie Watts. And he wasn’t the helpless kid hopping from town to town or the adolescent singing along to The Smiths or the Gen X twenty-something with ideals but no prospects. He was a little bit of all of those things. And he was also a minor Rock star, a Dad, a husband and an entrepreneur. Unencumbered from his origin story, Mercer had become all of those Russian Dolls. And his band had reemerged as a venerable institution. I bet the ladies in The Aislers Set were, rightfully, impressed.