Spottiswoode & His Enemies
Spouse
D.W. Box & One Long Song
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Tuesday, Dec. 11
Pour Haus
1481 S. Shelby St.
9 p.m.
myspace.com/pourhaus
Jonathan Spottiswoode has issues. Not drugs or drink, caffeine addiction or gambling.
“I can’t listen to very much music,” the British turned New Yorker says by phone. “If I listen to something that I like, I’m gonna write another 12 songs, and that’s not necessarily very good for me.”
The namesake of New York impresarios Spottiswoode & His Enemies isn’t kidding. For the band’s album, Salvation, Spottiswoode estimates they recorded 33 songs in six days, and 29 made the cut. That’s a healthy dose of music for a market dominated by iTunes and iPods.
“It really is a problem actually, and I’m thinking about getting counseling for it,” he says, his dry British wit searing through the conversation. “There are so many songs out there in the universe, and now with MySpace, everybody’s got at least four or five songs. It certainly doesn’t make a whole hell of a lot of sense.”
Once an intern for Foreign Policy Magazine, Spottiswoode lived in D.C. and spent six years in a band called The Zimmermans before relocating to New York and starting up his own project. Ten years into their career, the group is embarking on a tour with Massachusetts band Spouse, whom Spottiswoode met when the two shared a bill at the now-defunct New York club Brownie’s eight years ago.
Spottiswoode’s collective has been characterized as a quasi-jazz group, but he says whether they tap into that vibe depends on how they feel on a given night. “There are several jazz players in the band — the two horn players; the drummer went to Berklee School of Music (in Boston). There are definitely some jazz influences on some songs; probably right now, there are slightly less. I’d say it’s still there …”
D.W. Box & One Long Song joins Tuesday’s bill at Pour Haus in Germantown. Look up myspace.com/pourhaus for more information.
Contact the writer at mherron@leoweekly.com
This article appears in December 4, 2007.