John Clark
Audio By Carbonatix
There’s something so efficient about checking a box. It’s quick and fulfilling, and you can say a lot in a tiny square. We all have them, too, those tiny checkboxes in our brains we’re looking to fill.
Portland, Oregon’s Quasi checks a lot of boxes.
First of all, they write the most killer, tightly wound, punk-ish indie pop around these days. With the release of their first record in a decade, Breaking the Balls of History (released on February 10 by SubPop), the two-piece band furthers their stellar reputation with 12 tracks of fuzzy fun. If you missed the jubilant band’s epic opening set last spring when they supported Jon Spencer and the HITmakers at Valley Bar, you missed out on an evening when the opener clearly attempted to steal the show.
Show-stealing box checked.
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“Yeah, it feels special, you know. It’s been 30 years; we don’t have to do it. If we didn’t love it, we wouldn’t be doing it. We put ourselves in a position to have a good time on stage and to do the things that we enjoy doing. Which feels great. I mean, I didn’t know if I would play the drums again,” drummer Janet Weiss says over the phone.
Weiss and her bandmate, Sam Coomes, have been through the rock ‘n’ roll wars in Quasi and as members both individually and together of a who’s-who of indie rock hero bands including Sleater-Kinney, Heatmiser, Wild Flag, and The Jicks. When Weiss refers to the 2019 car accident that left her with a badly broken leg, she wasn’t joking about not knowing if she would ever play again.
“I wanted to prove to myself that I could still do it. I worked really hard at my rehab and practiced a lot. So, it feels great,” she adds.
Comeback story box checked.
While she won’t have to pull double duty on this current Quasi tour (which brings the band to the Rebel Lounge on Wednesday, February 22) like she did last year as a member of HITmakers, Weiss is excited about the band’s new record, their first since 2013’s Mole City. Breaking the Balls of History is something of a stripped-down record in terms of sound for Quasi, who in the past have used a wide array of often-overlooked instruments like the vibraphone, accordion, and harp.
“Sam said, when we started writing, ‘I want this to just be keyboards and drums.’ He designed a keyboard rig to bring on tour that can go on a plane, and it just has the sounds that he needs for the certain type of songs [on the record]. We just focused in and things got really streamlined and the songs he was writing were, like, concise, short blasts, and raw,” Weiss says.
As a two-piece, Coomes and Weiss, who were also married at one time, rely on their over-30-year relationship to sort out any potential songwriting disagreements, since that aspect of making rock music is often much easier when there is a third (or fourth member) of a group to serve as a tiebreaker.
“I think, for us, we pick our battles. There are things that Sam feels really strongly about and things that I feel strongly about. Usually, we can let the other person have their thing that they feel strongly about because in most cases, we agree. That’s why we’ve been a band for 30 years, because on the really important stuff, we mostly agree, you know? There are disagreements about certain things that cause, I think, probably a good kind of tension, and that make us a little more interesting than if we just were into the same things all the time,” Weiss says.
Teamwork box checked.
Luckily for all of us, the band cranked out one heck of an album over the last year. The hilarious, yet timely name, Breaking the Balls of History, is not only the title of a fun little song where Coomes shout-sings the title at different intervals, but also sports a fantastic cover by Portland artist Daria Tessler.
“We both just really love her work and I have a bunch of her silkscreens that are incredible. We just agreed like, ‘Hey, let’s use some of her art.’ She was down for it. She has a website with a lot of her silkscreens, and she has a few books of her silkscreens and they’re just gorgeous,” Weiss says.
Another great album title box checked.
Both new and longtime Quasi fans will enjoy the layers of punk, fuzz, and pop on Breaking the Balls of History. “Doomscrollers” is a really fun pop song, and both Coomes and Weiss sparkle on the track.
“I love [Coomes’] pop songs. That’s why I’m always like, pleading, you know, like, write a pop song. We brought in ‘Doomscrollers’ and he was like, ‘Okay. I wrote you a chorus and it’s so good.’ We influence each other in good ways like that. He pushes me. If I ask him which beat I should play, he always picks the rowdy beat and he’s always encouraging me to express myself and I really appreciate that,” Weiss says.
Killer chorus and happy drummer boxes checked.
One thing for sure is that Weiss is clearly ready to play drums as much as possible.
“I feel like drummers are less monogamous musically than the rest of the music world,” she says. “I do think it helps us as drummers, not only to play more, [but] there’s so much timing involved that if you don’t play enough, you just are gonna suck. But also, I personally enjoy learning from different types of musicians. I try to get sort of into the head of the people I’m playing with and it’s intriguing and interesting when those people are musicians that I really admire.”
(Writer fanboy box checked.)
Quasi. With Yuvees. 7 p.m. doors, 8 p.m. show, Wednesday, February 22. The Rebel Lounge, 2303 East Indian School Road. Cost is $18 in advance and $20 at the door. Tickets are available here.
