The Daily Tar Heel
October 10, 1996
Diversions
BY MITCH BENNETT
SENIOR WRITER
Ben Eshbach recently left his job designing engine components for motorcycles in Japanese drag races to record an album for David Geffen.
His band, The Sugarplastic, hit Local 506 last week, playing their breed of unorthodox, poppy, anal rock. No effects, but lots of weird tricks. Boring stage show, but plenty of tight, interesting music. They're just the kind of band that would call itself The Sugarplastic.
Or the Sugarplastic Afro. Or Microscopic Rocket. Or Elbow and the Hogwash -- the band had many a name in the early days when they practiced at The Appliance Doctor repair store in Los Angeles. They practiced for a year before they let anyone see them. Like I said, it's a very anal outfit. But good. Anal is good when it's The Sugarplastic.
Eshbach says the band's influences are the Beatles, the Kinks and Brian Eno. "Put those three together and you get XTC," he said. "We always get that comparison."
They apparently don't get my own comparisons about them very often. Their music reminds me of an accordianless They Might Be Giants.
"That's a band I really -- I really -- I really don't like," said Eshbach, thoroughly insulted.
He sings a lot like "Weird Al" Yankovic at times. "Are you kidding?" he asked. He got pretty pissed.
Actually, Eshbach sings like a cross between Yankovic and a kindergarten teacher. It's very nice and clean and shaky and Talking Heads-ish. Half of his songs seem to be about little kids; the other half deal with asking people to marry him. Excellent lyrics and music, no matter what the topic.
They managed to get signed to Geffen Records, thanks to "good karma." Very good.
Todd Sullivan, the man who discovered Weezer, heard The Sugarplastic's box set of three 7-inches (Sugar Fix Records) and decided to sign them. Eshbach said the label had treated the band well, not asking them to compromise and setting them up on their first tour of the East Coast.
They have a huge following in Los Angeles and throughout most of the West. When they got to Minneapolis, however, Bob Mould was playing next door.
"It was Sugarplastic versus Sugar, and we lost," Eshbach explained.
Still, they have had pretty good turnouts in major cities like Boston and New York. At Local 506 on a Wednesday, the 30-member audience was somewhat of a success.
The show works like this: Eshbach sings and strums his guitar. He looks like a really tired or hung over Mr. Rogers, who has lost the will to move. Bassist Kiara Geller approaches and walks away from the crowd, depending on the importance of the bass part he's playing at the time. The drummer smiles. And while all of this non-excitement is going on, intricate and unlikely music fills the room. No significant motion happens the whole night. But even in Chapel Hill, where no one knows who the group is, The Sugarplastic is called back for an encore.
The band is going to be big. Their album Bang, the Earth is Round is one of the most technically perfect albums to come out this year. You'll probably hear them on the radio one of these days.
You'll know it's The Sugarplastic because it'll be a song either about little boys or marriage.
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