The Pants Sell Out

Jason Cooley unzips the Pants. Matthew Thorson photographs in one leg at a time.

Okay, here is the story of someone who makes too many promises. He drinks too much on a Saturday night and finally passes out at around 3 am., luckily on his bed. He wakes up at 8:30 the next morning to a loud droning telephone. He opens his crusty eyes and wanders to answer the call. 

"Hello?"

"Cooley, man, this is Hutch. DidIwakeyouupmansortyaboutthat."

"S'okay."

"Hey, we got to finish that article, man."

'I know. I'm sorry."

The Pants article. Screaming in the back of my mind for a few months now. Ideas passing in and out of my head, time going by... the article still not happening. Promises made and then turned sketchy at best. Bruised eagles, approaching deadlines, people freaking out...this is the Pants article."

So, this is it: the Pants are a band. They play rock music. There are two guitar players, a bass-plunkin' beanstalk, and a really nice drummer. All four are in their twenties, although that shouldn't mean anything. They are the Pants and when the duty calls they rock. They got a couple of self-released CDs out and they seem to be perpetually playing out at every club in their hometown of Burlington, occasionally stretching out the shows in New York City and Montreal. Soon they'll be stretching all the way out to England, where their first offering is now being printed and distributed via a deal with a small label there called Hipster. 

The history of the band goes back to the early to mid-eighties, when Pants guitarist/singer dude Tom Lawson was a scrawny little kid that got picked on a lot by the bigger boys (and maybe girls, too). After High School he picked up a guitar and learned to play it. And, of course, if you play guitar you meet other guys who play guitar and then you start a band. Or maybe a few bands. The best of these few were the mighty Chainsaws of Babylon, a twisted array of whacked out folkie stuff played by guys in skirts. It was in this band that Tom hooked up with Paul Jaffe, a somewhat burly guy who, even though he was a guitarist, played bass while Tom switched to drums. By this time the Chainsaws were now in a small room in a cruddy part of San Francisco. They busted up in early ‘93.

Both Tom and Paul had relocated to Vermont by the fall of the same year. The no-longer-fledgling (I love that word) guitarists got some rock names and formed the humble duo Pistol and Sandwich (Paul is Pistol, Tom is Sandwich). They played some shows at local clubs and began to work on an album. Here they became the Pants. Getting a hold of bass player Eric Hutchins and then Famous Potato drummer Neil Cleary for a single gig proved to be something too good to abandon, so from then on the Pants had what is known in the rock world as a "lineup".

Their first CD, eponymously titled, hit the local stores in the fall of '94. It featured quiet love songs and psycho ramblings about being a "pussy". The recording is experimentalist-sounding and has much character. Every song sounds different from the last, but they all somehow stay connected as a whole.

Having a CD sounds like the perfect way to legitimize your band and in the Pants' case it was a total success. Many gigs follow the local Buzz about their striking first release and, the next thing you know, the pants are the new deal. They now hold a reputation for being a great live Act, making their music seem like some effortless thing that happens to work incredibly well. They also look extremely happy to be playing. Show after show the smiles never leave their faces.

Their full band debut, Fred Sex, was recorded in Tom's apartment in early '95 and was released the following spring. The album is a long, wrenching document of pop noise caused by personal problems and mental pain  (at least that's what it sounds like). Tom's voice stands out particularly, as if John Fogerty and Ric Ocasek had sex and Ric somehow got pregnant. It sounds whiny and heartbroken and conjures up images of an autistic singing in the shower. You put the CD in the machine, push the play button and get smacked in the face of the wall before guys hitting their instruments at the same time, over and over. Unlike many local releases, it sounds more like an album than a collection of scattered recordings.

So this all leads to now-- this article about the Pants. The first attempt in starting this piece consisted of me and the four Pants sitting in the back room of a local club, trying to get the interview ball rolling. It kind of went like this...

Tom: Okay, ask us "How is life after Fred Sex?"

Me: How is life after Fred Sex?

Paul: Everything's gone downhill.

Eric: It's like post-orgasm----you just, like, blew your load on this project, and like, you 

You really can't get it up again right away, but you're going to, and it's going to be even better the second time.

Tom: Okay, now I think Jason should ask us our plans for the near future.

Me: What are your plans for the near future? 

Eric: To conquer Europe.

Tom: The object is to quit our day jobs. The near future involves finishing up the summer, hopefully, with some out of town gigs, some gigs here in town, and then we'll be taking a break in September. Then, afterwards, we'll be in preliminary plans of a tour with some other bands. We don't know how long a tour.

Paul: In the near future I hope to live, learn and love.

Eric: (getting restless) okay, if you were reading an interview with a band, not that I read banned interviews, cuz I usually wean them--I think they're f**kin' boring-- but if you were reading this one, what would you want to hear?

Tom: I wanna read about the FACTS, about WHAT'S GOING ON WITH THIS BAND, about them, about WHAT'S THEIR PLAN, you know...

Eric: Unfortunately, that's not what people want to read about...

Tom: That's what I wanna read about. I wanna read about WHAT MAKES THIS BAND WORK... WHAT'S GOIN' ON WITH THESE GUYS...

Eric: (getting violent) Let me tell you what you wanna read about, pal....

Neil: This is what it's like at practices.

THE FACTS: PISTOL DISHES THE DIRT ABOUT THE PANTS OVER LUNCH AT MR. MIKES...

Tom: "The illegitimate son of Jerry Garcia's first wife Mountain Girl, Tom rebelled early, spending most of his adolescent years and reform schools. After leading the band The outfield, he ended up in a mental institution until he came to Vermont in 1993."

Eric: " Was in the KGB during the Cold War. Known as 'The Sexecutioner.' Now is in the US Government Protection Program after revealing KGB secrets. They changed his identity to "Hutch" and moved him to Vermont.

Neil: "Neil has no recollection of anything before he was 22. He was found wandering through Memphis in 1992 with total amnesia. He has never found out about his past. 'Neil' is an identity created for him by the state of Vermont."

Paul: "As a child, Paul did Oscar Meyer Weiner commercials, which were extremely popular and netted him some serious cash and fame. He left third grade and headed for NYC, hangin' out at the Bowery and getting wasted. He soon turned 12 and knew it was time to clean up. With the last of his Weiner cash he went to an unnamed island in the Pacific where he sat in a trance until returning to Vermont in 1990."

But really, on their non-Pants days, the band members have their respective non-Pants lives. Tom lives with a cool sculptor and softball player named Clark. He is really skinny and gets sad sometimes, as most people do. He plays drums in a country band headed by Chris Burns called Steve. His room is dark and spare. I saw a Megadeth CD there once. He sometimes can be found sleeping in the late afternoon. Paul Works in a local record shop. In his spare time he's been helping local bands such as the Fags, Muffin, and Steve complete Studio recordings. He lives in a small, brown room and has a Hendrix poster on his door. He just started wearing glasses and tucks in his shirt. In September he'll begin recording an album with Fags bassist School Bus. 

Hutch is a pretty arrogant kind of guy. He's fairly tall and has a really grimy looking beard. There were legends about how messy his last apartment was. Now he lives across the hall from Neil. He makes tons of music on his four track recorder, none of which has seen the light of day.

Neil is a normal guy with a normal job who plays drums, guitar, banjo, and God knows what else. The other night we split a six-pack of beer that I bought and he offered to write me a check to cover his share of the cost. He has also published a small book of his work, which sort of employ@ the Burroughsian method of cut-up. He digs Tom Waits and is quite the romantic.

So, now we're back to that back room in the club. Hutch is spewing about a flickering fluorescent light and how the song "Mexican Radio" is real music. Tom is saying the most thought-up sounding stuff I've ever heard, which is cool 'cuz it shows he's interested at least. Neil is comparing the metamorphosis of the Pants' short recording career to that of Tom Waits. Paul is being abnormally quiet. We talk awkwardly about band fights, relationships, The staying power of the band, the negotiations of their British deal, and Neil's smelly socks.

"Those aren't mine?", Hutch asks. 

" No, they're mine. I guess I should stop wearing 'em."

When it appears the interview is going nowhere, Hutch gets a little pissed.

" I just don't know what to ask", I explain. "I mean, I know you guys."

Hutch: You should be more prepared, man.

Tom: Yeah, what the hell kind of interview is this?

Hutch: Yeah, I see you all the time on the street asking people all sorts of dumb questions, now you don't have anything for us?

Me: Huh? What dumb questions?

Hutch: Like, 'do you want a bomb pop?'

Me: Alright, do you guys want bomb pops?

Tom: Naw, I just had a fruit bar; bomb pops and fruit bars don't mix.

Paul: Your hands are still blue from your bomb pop.

Me: (I look at my fingers) Yup. So what else do you want me to ask? 

Hutch: What else do we want you to ask?! You better write articles better than you interviews or else I'm gonna be really pissed.

Hutch is serious. 

Me: I don't know, man. Get off my case. I haven't even written it yet. 

He's too busy talking to Dennis and he doesn't hear me. I look at my sticky fingers and I feel irritated. The 'interview' is over. I haven't had a bomb pop since. 

Jason Cooley is too busy to talk to the likes of you.