How I Got Here: Dan Elliott, Pointed Man Band (Graceland, the Library and Midnight Vultures)

Dan Elliott playing the accordion

Sometimes I see the submissions for the "How I Got Here" series by kids musicians talking about albums important in their musical and career development, and their essays are episodes of discovery to me, albums I'm knowledge of in name only.  But other times I'm much more familiar with the albums, and reading is an experience of seeing an old favorite through someone else's eyes (or, rather, hearing it through their ears).

That's the case this around, as Portland's Dan Elliott, AKA Pointed Man Band, shares a few words about Paul Simon's Graceland and Beck's Midnite Vultures, two albums I've still got sitting on my actual shelf.  And while those albums might not be the first albums that come to mind when you hear Between the Waves and the Cardoons, Elliott's latest lushly orchestral-pop opus, reading the essay, you can see where he's coming from.  So step inside his Hyundai and find out how those albums influence him.

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Although the name Pointed Man Band is a direct homage to Harry Nilsson’s The Point!, well before I knew that album, I spent my most formative years with Paul Simon’s Graceland. Growing up, our household consisted of plenty of Greatest Hits records but the full album cassette of Graceland was always close at hand. I’m pretty sure we wore it through. This is an album that I know from beginning to end probably better than any other and it’s also the album that I owe much of my musical curiosity.

Graceland album cover

From the accordion opening of “Boy in the Bubble,” you know you are in for an adventure. And the songs themselves help to sing you across the vast landscapes, combining the familiar with the unknown. There is always a story being told to capture your attention and the South African band presents a new take on what you thought you were going to hear. Paul Simon changed my world with this album and he taught me to always be thirsty for ways to cross cultures, have a sense of humor, and push boundaries when creating music.

Throughout high school I was continually seeking out music from different parts of the globe. Starting with a helping hand of Ladysmith Black Mambazo being an integral part of this album, it became easier to draw paths and connections to other artists. During my late teens and well into my twenties, I was always going to the library to find the the world section which eventually lead to my love of Samba, Tango, Reggae, Indian Ragas, Jazz, Classical and the list grew on and on.

As Graceland opened my eyes and ears to the music of the world, Beck’s Midnite Vultures opened my mind to how to get over teenage angst and have a ridiculously good time while making, more often than not, no sense at all.

Midnite Vultures album cover

One night as a freshman at university, I saw the music video for the first track off of Midnite Vultures and I was hooked.  The video was as completely and perfectly nonsensical as the song it accompanies.  The album is absolutely incredible, elusive of any one genre, hysterical and a studio and headphone masterpiece.  For me this was an amazing example of a person not taking themselves too seriously, on so many levels, but making sure to pay the utmost attention to quality and challenging themselves to advance. I found and still find much comfort in that.

This album is so lush and so well produced that I can’t help but want to revisit it again and again. Lyrics would work their way into personal jokes with good friends and there’s nothing quite like turning some of these tunes up and singing along with your best raucous falsetto. Not to mention, if I can ever find the song “Debra” in a karaoke book, it’s on!

They are two vastly different artists and albums, but together they continue to inspire me to always pursue new and different paths. And above all, not to lose that desire to produce my own personal headphone masterpiece.

Review: Between the Waves and the Cardoons - Pointed Man Band

Between the Waves and the Cardoons cover

The first time Dan Elliott's Pointed Man Band made its way on this site, it was in a heads up nearly four years for a Kickstarter project I stumbled upon randomly.  The resulting album, Swordfish Tango, echoed Tom Waits not only in that album title, but in sonic construction.  The result was a weird amalgam of pots and pans and strings and a song that led me to include a tag for "fart songs about invisible ducks" in the post.  (Sadly, it's the only post on this site for that tag.)

The second PMB album Flight of the Blue Whale hung the jazz and Parisian pop tendencies of the debut onto a story of a red fox who works as a clock repairer and his adventures, which eventually involve a flying blue whale.  More focused thematically, perhaps, but no less weird sonically.

Now it's time for the release of Elliott's third album, titled Between the Waves and the Cardoons, and it's a straight-up dance-pop album with songs about how to brush your teeth!

Of course it's not.  It's every bit as oblique as the first two albums.  Conceptually, it's a story cycle with loosely-related songs about nature, moving roughly from Oregon's west coast ("The Waves," "Anchor's Aweigh"), up the Columbia River with the salmon ("Upstream"), and, after other songs about (actual) birds and the bees, eventually winding up with "The Cardoons," a celebration of family and community.  (Cardoons, incidentally, are a lesser-known relative of the artichoke.)  Sonically, this album is far less Waits and far more Decemberists, with Elliott emphasizing the orchestral chamber pop that his fellow Portland musicians sometimes use, though with far less death and betrayal than Colin Meloy et al often sing about.  String quartets, brass, even a harp, and a mellotron and Steinway grand piano thrown in for good measure, there's a lot of orchestration going on.

Between the Waves and the Cardoons is a picture book in multiple meanings of that phrase, but not a simple one with clear pen lines and punchlines.  I like those sorts of picture books, too, but like to have more complex, more challenging picture books thrown into the mix.  (This 30-minute picture book is probably best for kids ages 5-9.)  The album might not be everyone's cup of nettle tea, but if you've read this far thinking, I think my family might be interested in that, then I think your family will definitely be interested in that.  Recommended.

Note: I received a copy of this album for possible review.

Listen To This: "The Cardoons" - Pointed Man Band (World Premiere!)

As the drabness of winter hangs on, the thoughts of kids (and their parents) turn to sunshine and outdoor explorations.  As an unofficial theme song to this run-up to spring, might I suggest "The Cardoons"?  It's the first single from Portland's Pointed Man Band forthcoming album Between the Waves and the Cardoons, and the track is a particularly joyful celebration of enjoying youth, not only from the perspective of the young ones themselves, but also their parents.  For this, the album's closing track, PMB mastermind Dan Elliott also brought along Jack Forman (Recess Monkey) and Josh Shriber (Josh and the Jamtones) to sing along on the chorus.

"From the firewood / To the neighborhood."  Indeed.

I'm pleased as punch to offer up the world premiere of "The Cardoons" today (along with that sweet GIF).  Between the Waves and the Cardoons is released on March 3, and you can pre-order the album here.  Enjoy the song!

Review: Flight of the Blue Whale - Pointed Man Band

Flight of the Blue Whale album cover

When you look at the Amazon page for Flight of the Blue Whale, the second album from Portland, Oregon's Pointed Man Band, here are the three genres in which Dan Elliott (who in the great indie rock tradition has taken on a band nom de plume for his music) has slotted the album:

- Children's Music

- Avant Garde & Free Jazz

- Miscellaneous

That, readers, is a review -- and an accurate one -- in seven words.  Oh, were we all able to be so concise!  But citations of Amazon genre categorizations are not why you visit this site, so onward I press.

In my review of the debut Pointed Man Band album Swordfish Tango from 2013, I wrote that the album was a "combination of Tom Waits and Shel Silverstein, the Beatles and Parisian cafes, the music [smelling] of hardwood floors and flannel and wood construction blocks."  The follow-up is both slightly more mainstream and weirder, if that's possible.

Flight of the Blue Whale tells a story in song of a red fox who operates a small clock and watch repair shop, comes home to find moles invading his garden and the town, and goes off on an adventure to... well, it ends with a flight of a blue whale.  What happens in that ellipsis is, frankly, a little confusing and I don't even really think that's the point.  Bottom line, the more conventional narrative drive of the story -- whose moral is about taking time to dream and not just work -- is just a structure on which to hang these songs.

And the songs are just as odd as their predecessors.  The album kicks off with perhaps the most straightforward track, "Red Fox," an indie-pop tune featuring an infectiously catching organ motif, but from that track, we move on to the stomping sound of "Moles on Parade" and the accordion-drenched near-instrumental "Valse de Taupier," one of a couple waltzes on the album.  Sometimes Elliott sounds like Tom Waits (as on "Moles" and "Baleen Curse"), but more often his voice will remind listeners of a certain age and sensibility of David Byrne, as on careening "The Plan" and the modern big band sound of "Tunneling to Paradise."  The title track (another instrumental) sounds like a Parisian cafe dragged begrudingly out to the seaside.

The 33-minute album will be most appreciated by kids ages 5 through 9.  You can listen to the album here.  (I also think the album artwork from Brooke Weeber is lovely and complements the album and story itself.)

Flight of the Blue Whale is most definitely not an album that will please all listeners.  It is, as I've noted, a little confusing in places, esoteric in its musical choices -- it's not eager to please.  It is, however, joyful and all those things I just mentioned are also its strengths.  Some kids and families will adore this album -- they are the families who probably really liked Wes Anderson's take on The Fantastic Mr. Fox.  (Note: We were one of those families.  This album is in some sense a spiritual sequel to it.)  So, not for everyone, but maybe for you.  Definitely recommended.

Note: I received a copy of the album for possible review.

Pointed Man Band Kickstarts Itself

Let's see... a new Portland band attempting to Kickstart a brand new album that features guitars, middle school choirs, and pots and pans.​  Whose first song, I would add, celebrates the Krampus.  And whose album titles echoes -- intentionally or not -- Tom Waits.

This could be hipster overload.​

But I think after you listen to "Grandmother's Invisible Duck," a demo track from the album, I think you might just be interested in pledging to Dan Elliott's Kickstarter for the Pointed Man Band.  I think most of the readers here would think there's already no distinction between children's music and real music, but I also think those same families will warm to the handmade sound.

A little bit Telephone Company, a little bit Dog on Fleas, with a touch of Sufjan Stevens (and not just song-title-wise) -- I'm eager to hear the final result.​

​Also: If the criterion was solely new kindie bands, Portland has probably taken over the title of Kindiest City in America.