Salt trucks and snowplows: The PillCrushers amd The Great Pop Music Escape

A couple of things I know about Greg Beshers - besides nothing - are: 1. He fronts a band that he – they…the band - calls the PillCrushers. And 2, he has very nice handwriting - or at least the printing on the envelope that he mailed his bands nifty little ep in was top-notch swell. But, come to think of it, what’s the fat chance that this particular scrawl was even his? Surely a rockroller from the big city like Beshers has some cozy little NYC (where these fellows are from) rockroll girlfriend who excels at this sort of mail-out penmanship? So maybe the only thing I really know about Beshers is what comes jumping off this fancy PillCrushers disc.

So where does that leave me? Right where I started I guess, except that now I have this new music to play and I’ve gained curiosity about what kind of chick’s Beshers dates. I’ll probably never have an answer to the latter, but the former is gonna do me just fine I can tell ya.

But before we jump right into this critical sing-along let me lay some plates out on the table for you – set the stage so to speak, because stages are, after all, where we play out our business.

It’s March 24 here in Ohio (and it’s probably the same date wherever you are) and just three days ago a smiling drunkard in the checkout line at my local beverage store winked at me and slurred something about it being the "first day of spring". And although "spring", as I see it, is merely a concept – just another date on the dragging Ohio winters calendar to remind you how depressing the winter really is - it was fairly mild and damp outside, the air smelled of wet grass, and occasionally the sun peeked out warmly, so I wasn’t gonna be the one to argue such a point with a fellow drunk who was only looking for a reason to smile (and drink). Lord knows I’d been down the same road as my friend at various points in my life, and I didn’t need some sarcastic shit-for-brains punk pissing all over my parade.

"Sure is," I winked back.

The haggard drunk beamed his grey face my way and acknowledged me with a quick raise of the crappy brandy he’d just paid too much for. A part of me wanted to but him something better to drink, but then again, I didn’t want to throw off the weird equilibrium he’d seemed to find for himself at this moment. I raised my six pack in salute and muttered under foul breath, "Just wait a day or two buddy…your spring is gonna turn into just another one of life’s lies." A surly and unnecessary attitude to be sure, but its not a hard-earned one when you’ve lived one too many Ohio March’s.

So there you have it, the frame of reference from which these thoughts on The PillCrushers music sprouts. Which is an important thing to know – because if we’re being honest here I’d venture to say that at least 90 percent of stuff I listen to is either a victim or benefactor of the very moment and mood in which it travels as fancy little waves from the source to my skull. That isn’t to say that my – in this case – surliness would be the final arbiter of the music’s value; in fact things often reverse themselves in these cases: the worst of moods can become infected by an upbeat sunshiny groove and I can wax deep hyperbole about a merely okay piece of music simply because it saved my ass from myself once again (which, in a sense, leaves me indebted to the song and/or moment anyway). Anyway you slice it it’s a pretty lousy way to assess music, but, it’s all I’ve got people. I figure that it’s the only honest way to tell you what I’m thinking because it’s the most truthful representation of how music plays itself out in my feeble life (which, yes, means that if I’m drunk and happy that I’ll probably get off a good initial reaction to your bands music, regardless of it’s real quality – so by me drinks people).

Alas, I’ve learned from experience though, to settle into a record for awhile (at times I still cannot control the urge to do otherwise – and for those records that you, dear reader, may have purchased and been disastrously disappointed in, I know humbly apologize. I probably don’t listen to them anymore either). The settling slows for the songs to suffer at the hands of my ever-changing moods, which I’ve found is a good process for weeding out the novel interests that I’m casually intrigued and amused by but know better than to recommend (i.e. synth Goth music, hip-hop-ska), and those that I think are gonna shift the tides of rockroll culture to a more favorable (to me) stance (i.e the garage rock "revival" that probably disappoints more often than not).

So I took this little PillCrushers EP through my charges – which hardly seems a fair tangle for such a short record. But short records have become my haven in the day and age of too-many songs in too-many minutes CD technology (something that endeared the Crushers to me right away), and this one, well…this one just so happens to lead off with one king-hell of a fine-to-near-perfect easy-going rock-by-way-of-the-Flying Burrito Brothers pop tune. "Is It There" is a straight forward and, gulp (don’t let this scare you away), traditional – if there is any such thing in American music this sure as hell plays it as damn close to fine as you’ll hear. It’s trad in its emphasis on remaining catchy, on being no-frills guitar-bass-drums-organ rockroll, and on being smart as hell. All good things to be sure, but the bottom line is how often it pulls you back – drifting along on its easy vibe, feeling so much like summertime. Which, if you’re as savvy as I think, you’ll notice is the thing going on here – my personal longing for winters misery to be erased, if not literally then through rockroll escapism. Is this a prime example of my mood overriding sensible critical observation? Probably a bit, but I can also honestly tell you that the music has to be pretty damn good to make its mark and to stake its claim as something that – at the least – will be an anthem for the entire summer season.

My faith in "Is It True" is only bolstered by the follow-up of the jaunty pop song "Beautiful Release" (which riffs happily along the lines of 10cc's "The Things We Do For Love" – a good thing) and the romantic down and out-ism of "When I Noticed" (apparently one of these kids in the Crushers is ex-Honeydogs – which is an apt and, I think, flattering comparison).

An organ carries a voice through "Everyday" (which features a smart-as-all-hell horn part in its solo bridge) singing "Everyday that you smile / is another day that I feel fine". He isn’t singing to me, I know that, but he is…because the PillCrushers tiny EP has me smiling, and probably will until the weather turns to shit again next fall.

The world ain't gonna be any different tomorrow…in fact it's snowing like hell outside my window right now...but at least I can listen and pretend it will. What more could you want from pop music?

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